Melody's Melodies

Chapter-3

PASTRIES RUIN MY DAY AND ALSO MAKE IT

I am sitting in a pool filled with dread(you can add some synonyms of dread too).

Five hours ago, I was taking a print out of the registration form for participating in the cooking show, "Pinch of Yum". Anyways, I filled up the form with all my details. I safely put it in a brown cover for posting it to Pinch of Yum's head office later. After that, Sita, my friend and I went to the nearby grocery store to quickly grab some baking ingredients. I was practicing, in case I got selected. We had to wear masks. I'm kinda popular too, as my dad is. Hey and our parents didn't know that we were going out, Alone, without a bodyguard. Ah too much publicity.

We got into the store and started searching for the baking items and put it in our basket. We finished everything, except one item in the list. It was flour. Obviously, we had flour in our kitchen. But that annoying cook who works for us has a legendary rivalry with me. So, I wasn't allowed in the kitchen and neither does my mom allow me into the kitchen(she stands beside Mrs. Annoying). Well, coming back to flour. It was on the top rack, which was like 4 feet away. We were too short to reach it and there weren't many helpers around. Sita decided to take the matter into her own hands. Not fixing the nearby stool properly on the floor, she climbed and climbed. I didn't pay much attention to the stool or her and was looking at the free sample counter nearby. With a loud thud, Sita fell. And the worst part- she had the flour box, which sat right on top of my head and split open. Man, I must have looked like a ghost. I couldn't see anything and I stumbled over the free pastry sample counter and it all fell down and the pastries squashed. So much happened in a second. I was taking time to wipe the flour off my eyes and to progress what was going on. Thankfully, Sita didn't get hurt badly. Just a tiny cut on her hand.

Hearing the chaos, the manager of the store came into the scene. He was clearly horrified. I could see that from his face. He was like "Another spill. Do you kids come here to play? Seriously. I don't have anything more to say. I hope you have money to pay for the flour." Then, his face turned to the squashed pastry mountain. "OK, now this. You kids are going to pay for all of these free pastries. Or make another batch of them, exactly like these. I bet you can't do that, so better pay."

Sita and I were completely silent. We didn't know what to do. We didn't have money right then to pay for an entire batch of pastries. But we had money for the flour. We had no choice, but to try and bake pastries exactly like the squashed ones. Calling our parents would make things worse than they already were. We told our plan to the manager. He was shocked and didn't trust us to make the pastries(we didn't trust ourselves, but we didn't have a choice). But somehow we convinced him and we set to make the pastries in the shop's spare room. The manager gave us the ingredients. Apparently, the shop had ordered only one batch for giving it free with every Big purchase above 500 dollars. And we had it ruined.

I handled the cake and Sita handled the cream part. We assumed it was a strawberry pastry from the colour. I realized that I was actually practicing cooking! We finished baking and decorating the pastries in an hour and a half. They looked really good, but I had no idea how the taste was. We showed it to the manager. "I must say, they do exactly look like the previous ones. Good job girls! But let us wait for the look on the faces of the customers".

A tall man in a rich red suit came by. He took a pastry(he must have purchased above 500). He bit into it. His expression was too extreme we couldn't figure out if it was good or bad. And then he said-" Who made these pastries? Oh they taste hell Amazing!! Yum!! Definitely made by a professional chef. Oh wow! wish I could have more of these.. " We told him that it was us. " You girls did it?! I cant believe it! They are so delicious! And he talked and talked about how delicious the pastry was. The manager looked impressed. We left the shop, paying the fine for the flour. I had some confidence that I was worthy enough to enter Pinch of Yum. I was going to post the form immediately. But the brown cover with the form was missing.

Still sitting in a pool filled with dread,

Mel Mington.