Only Emptiness Remains

Recipe For Disaster

Brittany sat there in disbelief, as she stared at the now empty muffin tray in front of her on the table. Her heart felt heavy with remorse, as her hands trembled, eyes grew wide, and her breaths became shallow. She felt like a thief and an intruder in her own kitchen. Cautiously eyeing all surrounding areas of the room, which currently felt smaller than ever to the eldest Miller sister. To make matters worse, her stomach was now bloated and in pain from all those blueberry muffins she had just greedily consumed.

She was not sure why this shocked her at all at this point. It was not like this had been the first time she went on an out of control binge like this. This was not even really the first time she had eaten food that was not supposed to be for her. It had been happening far too frequently now and she just could not seem to shake this horrible habit.

She recalled that time she had binged at the Seville house on that day she had finally been approved to go back to performing. And Jeanette and Eleanor had certainly been noticing the way food had been disappearing rapidly at the Miller house, but never seemed to suspect that she was the reason why. Or at least they never told her if they had their suspicions, anyway.

But this time, she knew she was bound to be Eleanor's number one suspect. After all, Jeanette was probably with Eleanor in the bedroom the two of them shared at this moment. So the middle sister was already accounted for. And Brittany was starting to run out of excuses to explain her behavior as of late. Plus, she was now so physically and emotionally exhausted from what she was going through. It was getting to be increasingly difficult to even think up a reasonable explanation for any of it.

The pink-clad Chipette tried to think fast. How could she replace all those missing muffins before Eleanor would even notice they were gone? What could she do right now, before her baby sister made her way back downstairs?

Then an idea crossed her mind. Maybe she could try to figure out the recipe Eleanor had used and attempt to bake brand new muffins herself? Sure, her cooking was nowhere near as good as Eleanor's. However, she had managed to bake all on her own before. In fact, there had been times in the past where she was forced to do so.

This was the case whenever Muffy and Courtney would come over to her house as part of their assessment of her, when they were trying to decide whether or not they would make a Sister that year. They expected Brittany to prepare all the snacks herself and even specified that she was not to have her maid or butler do it for her (not that the Chipettes ever had either of those). She was also never able to get the other chipmunks to help her out due to the fact that they all disliked The Sisters (although Jeanette would occasionally pitch in simply because it was in her nature to do so). This left the oldest Chipette to fend for herself during these preparations.

The teen Chipette's mind continued to race. Was there even enough time for her to bake nine new muffins? She was aware that the bake sale was tomorrow. And sure, maybe her culinary-gifted sister could whip up more in no time. But between Brittany's skills not being up-to-par and not knowing the exact recipe Eleanor used for these baked goods, she was not sure she would be able to get them done without Eleanor noticing anything.

Maybe she could go down to the food store and buy some blueberry muffins to replace the ones she ate? There was still some time before they closed. But then Brittany's thoughts were interrupted by a strong feeling of nausea in the pit of her stomach.

A clear reminder of the high amount of carbs and sugar she had taken in. Before she continued with any course of action, she had to do some major damage control on herself first. She needed to get rid of all the extra calories fast. Brittany would have even more regrets if all those muffins ended up causing the number on the scale to creep up for her. The Chipette took some comfort in knowing that at least being so nauseous would make this round of throwing up easier for her.