Complications

Ch 4 The amazingly bad brownies?

"Mom, I need you to not freak out," I told her.

She looked confused and waited for me to go on. After all, what could I, the goody –two -shoes, have to say that would freak out my mom?

"Well I got home economics as one of my classes," I explained and looked at her face to see how she would take it. A slight look of shock comes across her face.

"Oh no," she said voicing my thoughts.

"And I have to make something to bring into class," I sighed.

"A classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you cannot go simpler than that," she said.

"Won't it be too plain?" I questioned unsurely. I didn't want to burn the kitchen down once again, but I still wanted to make something nice. I didn’t want to get my first bad grade in a class just because I was the only person who brought a simplistic food.

"It'll be safe," Mom concluded.

We talked about my options for ten minutes. Finally we decided on brownies. Mom insisted on helping, but I told her she wasn’t allowed to since the teacher wanted to see our own skill. She said our fire alarm was functioning properly and the fire extinguisher was in the kitchen next to the oven.

After that was settled, Mom printed a recipe for brownies for me. It was the simplest one she could find. They were called One Bowl Brownies. I thanked her with a hug and walked into the kitchen. As soon as I stepped inside, a wonderful aroma hit my nostrils. I inhaled deeply taking in more of the sweet smell.

Where was that coming from? I looked around the kitchen. I went from shelf to cabinet to shelf until I finally found the culprit.

Chocolate chips cookies.

They looked about as good as they smelled. What were these doing here? Well, it couldn't hurt if I took just one. I reached for the cookie and right as my hand made contact with it, a voice made me jump.

"Those are for Home Ec," Logan said. I pulled my hand back to my side with a guilty look on my face. Wait a second. Logan made these cookies? He can bake?

"You made these all by yourself?" I asked admiring his baking skills. I smiled at the cookies which were placed in a blue plastic container.

"Yeah, I took a Home Ec class at my old school," he explained. I nodded and eyed the cookies hungrily. Darn sweets and their ability to distract me.

"Well, have fun," he said in a bored tone and left.

I got to work immediately. I looked at the first step, and I was supposed to melt butter. I took some butter and put it on high heat, so it could melt faster. Then I turned my attention to other things, like the sugar. 1 cup of sugar? A cup. One cup. I grabbed a regular drinking cup from the cabinet and filled it with sugar. I then poured it into the big, red bowl that sat in the center of the counter.

I turned around to check on the butter, and it was burning. I didn’t even know that butter could burn. I took it off the heat quickly and poured it in with the sugar. I smiled to myself. This wasn't that hard.

By ten minutes the glop I had assembled looked exactly like brownie batter, it tasted like brownie batter too. I followed the recipe almost perfectly except I thought it needed more baking soda, so I added in another tablespoon full. Then I added more salt to balance out the one cup of sugar.

I set the oven to 350 and popped the brownies in. Now I just had to wait for them to bake.

I had done it! No fire! No explosion! I don't know what came over me. A surge of happiness coursed through my blood stream. I started happy dancing as Joni often does. I moved my whole body around the kitchen while singing, "I did it! I did it!" Joni was really rubbing off on me. I was doing that for a solid two minutes when someone cleared their throat. My face started burning as the realization that someone had been watching me set in.