Re-Arranged

Chapter Twenty

"Heads?! Whose?! Why?!"

Ben stopped short, panting, a cushion shaped like a tennis paddle clutched between both his hands and raised over his own head, ready to attack. He looked from one surprised grown-up to another until his mother brought his attention to the bowl kept on the dining table beside an egg container.

"Eggs, you moron! Beat the eggs, not heads!"

"All your words sound the same when you yell!" Ben accused, dropping the cushion and climbing on a chair to look at the empty bowl.

"Right, because while baking a cake, you do need to hit someone on the head." Evelyn handed him the whisk and cracked an egg while he got ready.

Katherine squinted at the recipe pulled up on Sawyer's computer and looked up at the mother-son battling it out with words while beating the eggs. "How many eggs are you adding?"

"Two."

"Isn't that too less for a bigger cake?"

"Bigger?" Evelyn repeated and turned to her, two eggshells dripping into the bowl while her son diligently whisked.

"Isn't it?" Katherine sounded surprised. "Hey, Amelia! How many cups of flour are you using?"

"Standard one cup," came the answer.

"Won't it be too small? The kids themselves would eat more than us combined!"

Amelia emerged out of the kitchen with a large sieve in her hand, her fingertips whitened as much as the holes on the sieve. She frowned and dribbled her fingers against the metallic surface. "You do have a point," she relented eventually. "I've forgotten about proportions entirely. The recipes on the internet sound unfamiliar, it's very confusing!"

"So which is it? Two eggs or more?"

"I don't – I'm not sure –"

"Someone decide quickly! My arm is killing me!"

"You've been whisking all of two minutes!"

"That's a hundred and eighteen seconds more than my arms can take!"

"Could have just bought a cake instead of doing all this."

"Shut up, Sawyer. This adds a personal touch."

"As in it eases out your guilt for forgetting the date?"

"Nobody's buying a cake anymore while I've worked so hard beating the freaking eggs!"

"That's just three minutes now, dude."

"Oh yeah, why don't you do it then?"

Sawyer raised his arms instantly and pushed back his chair. "I don't know how –"

A cry of despair split through the air and his excuse came to a premature stop. He turned around to find a shocked uncle staring open-mouthed at the floor, his arms stretched outwards as if in the midst of a failed catching attempt. And on the floor was a trail of flour, its jar rolling along on its side until it was halted by the legs of the couch.

Everyone had frozen at the sight, making the final clatters of the jar resound across the walls. A puff of white smoke rose up to a height of about a feet before it dissipated and settled down amongst its peers. And then the whisk began to drip into the bowl. A summons for the wicked –

Without a second wasted, there was a pitter-patter of soft feet followed by a yell of pure joy as Maisley and Paige landed in the flour, giving the white smoke strength to rise higher than before.

"When did they wake up?" Evelyn wondered in a low, defeated voice, watching her daughters fling flour all over the place, themselves caked in it from head to toe.