BLACK ROSE

Unicorns everywhere

Alex. 

 I think there's a very specific reason why boys, or men in general, usually don't bake. Perhaps it's only me who's incapable of understanding the basic principle of baking my little sister is demanding from me now. I'm struggling a lot more than I expected.

When your six-year-old little sister comes to your room begging you to make unicorn muffins, you say yes. And that my dear friends, is how I, the worst cook and baker in the whole wide world, ended up in the kitchen making unicorn muffins while being covered in flour. I don't even understand half of these instructions and I feel intimidated by my own sister. She seems to know exactly what to do, even though she claims she's never made muffins alone before. This must be a female thing – to know how to do things automatically, without having done them before.

"So," I look at the pink, purple and white frosting in my hands. "You are telling me; I am supposed to mix exactly that shade of.... purple? Out of this?" I wave the frostings in front of her face. She just smiles and nods. I blink a few times and stare at her with raised eyebrows. "Don't you want your own shade of purple? A different, unique one?" I can say my offer surprised her.

"Yes and no."

What? I've been dealing drugs for years, managed to stay alive for this long. But then my little sister wants me to mix a special shade of purple for her and I freak out?

With a sigh I take the bowls she prepared for me and sit down. The pink and purple itself are neon, so I understand why she wants them lighter. Since everyone in this family is stubborn there's no point in trying to convince her otherwise.

I press a little bit of the purple out and a bit more white into it. Then I slowly and carefully mix it. After a few seconds I start to notice a change in the shade. It's becoming lighter, but still not enough, so I press more white into it. This time too much. To save it, I press purple into it. With zero practice and previous experience, I'm struggling hard. After what feels like hours I manage to mix it to quite the shade she wants.

I sigh again when I look at the pink. The pink is neon, and no one can argue with me on that. It's screaming, and so vibrant. I try to put a lot of white in it, hoping it will become the exact shade right away, but it turns to baby pink instead. I continue playing like this for a while, adding pink then white, then pink again, and so on and on. I never thought mixing pink frosting would be so hard. I eventually give up, because I know I will get mad if I continue.

My sister's reading her little book, paying no attention to the world around her. I knock on the back of her book and her eyes immediately find the bowls with the frostings. She smiles when she sees the purple on. At least one turned out. When she sees the pink one, her smile doesn't disappear, nor does it grow bigger or smaller. And then she smirks instead. I don't think I've ever seen her smirk before.

"I love it, thank you." She hugs me.

I can say I'm proud of myself. This is the first, and also probably last, time I 've been mixing frostings. I take the muffins out of the oven, including the few extra ones. Our mum has a simple baking rule – always make a few extra pieces.

I help my sister on the counter, and she positions herself with her legs crossed. Her tongue sticking out of her mouth, eyes narrowed and focused on the muffins in front of her, she reaches for the frosting and starts to decorate them. I let her do it herself and start to clean up the mess we created.

When she's done we walk to the living room, exactly four muffins placed on a tray.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" Our dad asks when he sees us.