Seven Days Set in Stone

Chapter 4: Day 4

The next day, they got up and James wanted to ask Anthony something.

"Hey, Anthony, can I help make breakfast this morning?" James asked, walking over to where Anthony had gotten all of the stuff for pancake batter out.

"Uh, yeah, sure. I'll just have to teach you." Anthony answered, grabbing a bowl from the cupboard.

James' eyes lit up as he walked around the kitchen counter.

"Oh, man this is going to be so fun!" James exclaimed, waving his hands a little.

Anthony grabbed the measuring cup and pointed to the flour.

"Get a spoon and get the flour to go to the 1 ½ mark on the measuring cup." Anthony said, opening the drawer that has the utensils in it.

James grabbed one and began scooping the flour into the measuring cup, a little fell off the spoon but other than that it went fine.

"I did it." James said, passing the measuring cup to Anthony.

"Nice, now pass me the baking powder, salt, and sugar." It took him a second but once he read the ingredients, he grabbed them and passed them to Anthony.

"Now grab the strainer." Anthony said,

"Wait, the strainer? Why?" James asked, grabbing it anyway.

"Because..." Anthony grabbed James' hands so that he could help with this step and not spill.

"You need to sift the dry ingredients so that they don't have clumps when you add the wet ingredients." James got his hold on the strainer again and then said,

"Oh, okay." Anthony was standing to the side of him with one arm around him holding his hand.

He took James' left wrist with his hand and his right wrist as well, his left hand was holding the strainer over the big bowl and Anthony adjusted James' right hand to be completely flat. Anthony took the hand with the strainer and had him gently tap the strainer against his right hand until there were only tiny balls of the dry ingredients left.

"And there you go, that's how to sift your dry ingredients." Anthony said, letting go of James' wrists.

James took a second to process what just happened and then walked over to Anthony.

"What now?" He asked, waiting for an answer as he looked at the ingredients.

Anthony thought for a moment, trying to remember the recipe, and it was as if a lightbulb showed up above his head.

"Grab..." Anthony looked up dramatically, "the chocolate chips."

James thought it was something serious so when he realized that it wasn't that serious, he started laughing as he walked to the pantry.

"Jeez, you didn't have to worry me like that! I thought it was something serious!" James cackled, grabbing the chocolate chips.

"Oh, I'm dead serious, this will make or break this recipe. And I'll prove it." Anthony walked over to the counter with the bowl, grabbed the eggs and milk, James' hand, and had him mix everything.

"I'll add stuff, you just whisk it together." Anthony said, passing him the whisk. As he mixed Anthony added the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, everything. Everything except for,

"What about the chocolate chips? Didn't you say that would make or break the recipe." James teased.

"This is when I prove it, give me a second." Anthony grabbed another bowl, took the bowl they were already using, and added half of the batter to the new bowl.