Disclaimer: Ever After High and its characters belong to Mattel Inc. All other characters belong to me.

Author's Note (9/18/13): To anonymous reviewer "rilfbrk": Yes, I am aware that Apple claims that Cooking Class-ics is her worst class. However, the reason she gives for that is "I swear someone keeps trying to slip poison in my food." I took this as meaning either someone was deliberately trying to poison her (doubtful), or that she was imagining that someone was, not that she was actually bad at cooking. (To me, Apple seems like the kind of person who would make a mountain out of a molehill if the conclusion she came to suited her.) It didn't cross my mind at the time that that could mean that her skills are so bad that she thinks someone tried to do that, but it is what it is. Oh well... But thank you for pointing that out.

Students:

Your teacher, Professor Sweetbread, is out sick today. This classroom will also be off limits until further notice due to structural damage from molten sugar. For your assigned period, please report to the following classroom:

[...]

Raven Queen - Cooking Class-ics, Room 201...

The notice awaited Raven when she arrived to her Home Evilnomics class. It surprised her, of course, but not because one of her teachers (who also happened to be the crone from Hansel and Gretel) had apparently been seriously injured. She was surprised because of the class assignment. While most of the other, evil students in her class were assigned to other evil classes, she had not been. Cooking Class-ics was for royal, good, and neutral students only. Had there been some mistake? Had someone realized that she was not evil like her mother and decided to give her a shot at being in a non-evil class other than Muse-ic?

Someone probably messed up the list, she thought as she turned and headed toward her new temporary class. At the very least it would be a change of pace, and no one would be trying to poison her with whatever they made.

The Cooking Class-ics classroom looked roughly the same as the Home Evilnomics one, except that it wasn't in the dungeons and a lot more airy. The class was scattered around the room and seated at several wooden kitchen islands, each of which contained a sink, a stove, and a cauldron. Most of the students sat chatting with their friends or browsing their MirrorPhone. Some, however, noticed her walk in and elbowed whoever was next to them to point her out.

"Raven! What are you doing here?" The sweet lilting voice made her cringe a little. The voice's owner and her roommate, Apple White, was sitting by the door at a small table next to the teacher's podium. Her best friend forever after, Briar Beauty, sat next to her, one hand propping her head up while the other held her MirrorPhone. Though she had looked away from it after Apple had called to the supposed future evil queen. "This isn't your class, silly."

"Yeah, about that-"

"Oh, there you are, Raven dear." Raven nearly jumped when she saw the teacher come up behind Apple and Briar. "Charmed to meet you. My name is Farina Sweet. You can call me 'Professor Sweet'." Professor Sweet was a giant old crone (though nowhere near as giant as Tiny) with curly gray hair, a small nose, a bent back, and a warm smile. Covering her simple gray peasant dress was a long chef's apron; once white, now stained from various foodstuffs and years of use.

"Hi..." Raven said, giving a small wave. "Uhh, I think there was a mistake..."

"There was no mistake, dear," Professor Sweet replied. "Your adviser told me that you have been having problems and that you wouldn't cause trouble in my class. Also, the other classes for your section were full. Just grab an apron from the wardrobe and take a seat anywhere at a work station. We'll start when the bell rings."

"Okay..." Raven grabbed an apron and took a seat at a vacant work station near the back of the room. As she walked over to it and sat, the other students, some of which looked frightened, cleared a path and edged away from her. She sighed sadly as she sat down.

Moments later, the bell rang and Professor Sweet called the class to order.

"Okay class," she began. "Since it's Friday and you all seemed to enjoy the last one so much, we are going to be having another cook-off today." The class murmured in approval. "Now, since they won the last cook-off, Apple and Briar will be the judges," She waved her hand at the two, "and will pick today's theme. The group who makes the best dish, as chosen by them, will receive extra credit." She turned to the two. Apple sat smiling out at the rest of class looking like a contestant in a beauty pageant while Briar had gone back to playing with her MirrorPhone. "Have you girls decided on a theme?"

"Yes, we have," Apple said, flashing a wide, perfect grin. "Today's theme will be 'Apples'. Every dish must have apples in it."

"There you have it," Professor Sweet turned back to the class. "Groups of two, judging will take place during the last 15 minutes of class. Off you go."

"Great," Raven thought. "Group work..." Maddie had Cooking Class-ics, but not during that period. So while everyone else had already found their bestie and started working, Raven was stuck sitting in the back of the classroom looking like a friendless loser. She looked around the room forlornly, looking for someone who hadn't found a partner yet.

"Uhh, hey Raven!" A voice called from across the room. "You can pair with me!"

Raven turned. The voice belonged to Gemma Cobbler, one of the Cobbler triplets and a daughter of the eldest of the twelve dancing princesses. Or so Raven heard; she didn't really know the triplets that well. They were princesses and had different classes than her. Gemma was a slender girl with long platinum blonde hair that had been topped with a leaf patterned diamond tiara hat and green eyes like her sisters'. The only difference between her and the other two was that she wore white rimmed glasses and her hair was put into two untied pigtails that sat against her shoulders. Gemma didn't look like she was quite sure about her offer, but she was offering, and beggars couldn't be choosers.

"You're not worried that I'll cast an evil spell on you or something?" Raven asked sarcastically as she walked up to Gemma's work station, waving her fingers as if she were planning to do just that.

"Well, to be honest, it's either you or Kitty-" Gemma pointed to Kitty Cheshire, who was standing in the middle of the classroom and still looking around for a partner. "- and the last time I paired with Kitty I let her read off the instructions and ended up making something that was half rommegrot and half a... shrinking potion."

"Oh..."

"Oh, but I don't mind! You seem royally cool! I don't believe all of that stuff about you being evil! Umm..." Gemma bit her lip nervously, obviously searching frantically for something nice to say. "Oh, I like your outfit. You look hexcellent today."

"Uhh thanks," Raven said, raising an eyebrow. "Yours looks nice too." Gemma had a thing for sparkles. Her outfit, a very light bluish-white tube top with detached sleeves and a layered bluish-white skirt that went down to her knees and had a silver diamond shaped leaf pattern on it, was covered in silver glitter and one of the chef's aprons. Rounding off the whole ensemble was a pair of white sparkly stockings and white glittery sandals. Based on what Raven knew from seeing them in the halls, her sisters were probably wearing something vaguely similar. "Wait, don't your sisters have this class too?"

"Yeah, but Oriana is out sick today; she spent all of last night writing an essay for Kingdom Management and was too tired to get out of bed, and Ariana is skipping again. She said she had to go buy new shoes or something for Briar's party tonight." Gemma huffed and crossed her arms. "I swear if it weren't for me, Ariana would still be back in elementary school failing basic Math-ology. I've tried to tell her that she needs to get serious about school but no! I'm the youngest! Nobody listens to the youngest sister in our story so obviously she's supposed to always ignore me! Please, she's only older than me by three minutes!"

"Right..."

"Gemma dear, please stop chit-chating and get to work," Professor Sweet called from the front of the classroom. "I expect good things from you and Raven. Your dishes are always a delight."

"Just a fair warning," Raven said as she took her spot next to her partner. "I'm not a great cook."

"That's okay. This class is an easy A for me. Just follow my instructions and you should get a good grade." As Gemma spoke, a basket full of various types of apples and a very thick cookbook appeared in front of them in a puff of sparkles. "I'm so glad we're not doing a regular assignment today. I love Professor Sweet, but she has a really odd fixation for porridge dishes. I have like, enough porridge recipes in my head to open up my own porridge restaurant or something. Now, I was thinking that we could make some apple turnovers with a cinnamon and vanilla glaze. They're easy and they fit the theme perfectly."

"Okay. So... what do we have to do?"

"Well first," Gemma opened the cookbook and turned to the page on apple turnovers. "We need to peel, core, and slice 2 Granny Smith apples. Those are the green ones."

"Okay." Raven washed her hands and placed the apples onto a nearby cutting board. "This will go faster if I use magic..." she thought. She lifted her hand, causing a black and purple aura to appear around one of the apples and a nearby peeler. Both lifted up into the air, and the peeler went to work taking the bright green skin off of the apple. Unfortunately, the second the peeler's blade made contact, a black rot appeared and spread all over the apple. Raven cringed and gently set both of them back down. "Curses..."

"Yeah... you're gonna have to do that by hand," Gemma said with a frown. "That's okay. It's real easy to do. Just make sure your fingers aren't in the way so you don't cut yourself."

Raven and Gemma spent the next hour peeling, mixing, and folding the ingredients that would become the apple turnovers. Raven did most of the work, however. Gemma seemed a little reluctant to touch some of the ingredients. Besides that, it was a fairly painless process, assuming you didn't consider listening to Gemma talk painful...

"So she said, 'Why do I need to worry about school? I don't need to know Kingdom Management or Che-myth-stry to go dancing with a fairy prince, and it's not like we're poor and need to work. We'll still be able to fulfill our destiny without being on the Honor Roll.' That's the problem with Ari: she doesn't think about the future. I mean, we have to go to some parties, we ruin a bunch of shoes, some poor guys die because of us, and that's it. What happens after that? She's not getting married straight after or becoming queen. That's Ori's destiny because she's the oldest. What I'm trying to say is, I think it's a good idea to have a solid backup plan if your destiny doesn't... allow for much or people will get hurt because of you. Like me; I want to open my own restaurant or cafe... or a winery, I haven't decided yet. Heck, if I could open it right out of school, I would so do it. I told Mrs. Her Majesty The White Queen that, she really does make us call her that by the way, and she called Headmaster Grimm and my sisters in for a conference. He kept going on about how I needed to think about my sisters and how disappointed Ori would be if she didn't meet her prince. Ori just smiled and agreed weakly, and Ari told them that that was normal for me and kept asking if she could leave. So you know what they did? They called our parents! Ugh! They were acting like I wanted to become an evil ruler or some- Oh... Sorry! Sorry! I didn't mean to-!"

"What? No no, it's okay!" Raven had only been half listening to what Gemma was saying, preferring to focus more on spooning filling onto the dough for the turnovers. It was a tactic she sometimes used with Maddie when she was having a particularly non-lucid day and babbling about narrators and fans and other things that only made sense to her. "I'm not offended. In fact, I think it's a good idea."

"Yeah, that's what every-Wait, what?"

"Hex yeah! I hate all of this stuff about us being forced to follow in our parents' footsteps. If you want to start your own restaurant, you should be able to. If I don't want to be an evil queen, I shouldn't have to be one. We should all have a happily ever after that we're happy with."

"I agree, but Headmaster Grimm said that I had to go along with it. Apparently, if you don't pledge to follow your destiny on Legacy Day, you and everyone involved in your story dies."

"There's no proof of that," Raven insisted. "No one has ever refused to do it. Who knows what happens if they do."

"I guess so, but why would you want to take the chance? I don't want to die or have my sisters die. Sure they can be a royal pain sometimes, but I don't want them to get hurt just because I didn't take the pledge. I don't like going to parties, but if it a choice between that and death, I'll do it."

"But that's just a rumor!"

"Well, what else could Headmaster Grimm being talking about when he says that people and their stories will 'cease to exist'?"

"Maybe he's lying."

Gemma pulled a blender out from the cabinet under the work station, but the notion that the headmaster of their school might have been lying to the entire student body almost made her drop it. "Why would he do that? What would he have to lose from someone not following their story? It's not like he's involved in any of them."

"Tell me about it."

Gemma put down the blender, let out a loud groan, and laid her head against a clean part of the table. "Why does life have to be so difficult?" After a second of silence, she lifted herself up again and went back to messing with the blender. "Let's... stop talking about this and just finish the turnovers."

"What's the blender for? I don't think we need it for the glaze."

"It's an experiment. You'll see."

About 10 minutes later, though the help of the magic ovens that only took a second to bake something, Raven had finished making four delicious looking turnovers. Meanwhile, Gemma kept busy combining milk, vanilla ice cream, a couple of apples, cinnamon, and other things in the blender for what Raven assumed was some sort of milkshake. "I thought we only had to make one dish," she said.

"Like I said, this is an experiment. I want to check something." After a few more pulses, Gemma dipped a spoon into the mixture and tasted it. "Excellent. It just needs one more thing..." She left and returned a short time later with what looked to be a small cup of steaming...

"Espresso? In a milkshake?"

"Experiment," Gemma said yet again as she dumped the brown liquid into the mixture and gave it another few pulses. She took the spoon and tasted it again. "It's not enough for it to affect the taste too much, but if I'm right, it should keep them from-"

"Time's up, everyone!" Professor Sweet called from the front of the room. "Please plate your dishes and bring them up to the front table for judging."

There was a last minute scramble among all of the groups. With Gemma's help, Raven managed to arrange two of the turnovers onto a plate along with two tall glasses of the concoction Gemma had made. A minute later, they deposited the plate and glasses on Professor Sweet's desk. "So why did you make me do most of the work?" Raven asked as she and Gemma walked back to their station, slightly annoyed.

"Umm, I wanted to see something."

"What did you want to see?"

"Well..." Gemma fidgeted nervously, glancing at the front table piled high with food. Briar was pointing their dishes out to Apple, who excitedly grabbed for them. "You see, I have this problem with all of the food that I make. I don't know what causes it, but-"

A loud thump from the front of the room and a couple of gasps cut her off. When they turned to look again, they found Apple and Briar lying head first on their table. Sitting in front of them was Raven and Gemma's plate of apple turnovers and Gemma's milkshakes; both of which were partly drunk, and the turnovers each had a bite taken out of them. Raven felt her face grow hot with embarrassment. Had she caused this accidentally?

Professor Sweet walked over and picked up the plate of half eaten turnovers. She turned it over in her hands, sniffed them, and held it out to the murmuring class. "Which one of you made this?"

Gemma raised her hand sheepishly. Raven felt so hot that she swore steam could start pouring out of her ears at any second. Especially since the murmuring grew louder once everyone realized that she had had a hand in making the food.

"Raven poisoned them!" A girl cried. "She had to have!"

"Someone get them to the healer!" Another cried.

"Professor Sweet, why did you let that witch in here?!" Yet another called out.

"Now now, everyone calm down..." Professor Sweet said. But by that point, the entire class was nearly in hysterics. Many of the students glared angrily at Raven, but were obviously too afraid to do anything to her because of her reputation. Gemma appeared to be trying to do some damage control as she kept trying to say something over the din, only to trail off in frustration.

"Gemma made someone sleepy again."

The sudden sing-songy voice almost made Raven jump out of her skin. Kitty had silently popped up behind her. "What?"

"Whenever someone eats Gemma's food-" Kitty explained, grinning from ear to ear, "-they become as sleepy as a dormouse. It's happened before."

"Yeah..." Gemma cringed as Raven turned back to her. Behind her, Raven to could hear Kitty dissolve from sight. "That was why I used the espresso. I thought if you made the turnovers and I gave the milkshake a shot of caffeine they would be able to stay awake." She glanced over at the two sleeping beauties. "I've never seen anyone just go out like a candle before though." Thankfully, Apple stirred and opened her eyes. "Oh good! Hopefully I won't be known as the person who poisoned the most popular girls in school now."

"I don't think they're going to think you-"

"Raven!" The din of panicked students had died down enough for Raven to hear Apple calling her from the front of the room. Briar was still fast asleep next to her while Professor Sweet gently shook her shoulders in an attempt to rouse her.

"Apple," Gemma rushed over to the table with a reluctant Raven in tow. "I'm sorry. I didn't know you woul-"

"You're... Ariana's sister, right? Oh, it's okay. You're a princess. I know you didn't do it. I'm sure Raven cast a spell on the food when you weren't looking."

"What? No! I didn't do anything to it!"

"You don't have to deny it, Raven," Apple said cheerfully. "You're evil. You're supposed to do things like this. I totally understand if you were just trying to get some practice in before the real thing. I would do the same too if I were evil. Besides, I feel perfectly fine." She let out a dainty little yawn.

"What about Briar?" Gemma asked, pointing to the sleeping girl. "She's still out. Professor Sweet, do you want me to go get the healer?"

"Oh, you know how Briar is; always falling asleep at the drop of a hat," Apple said nonchalantly. Just as she said that, Briar groaned and shifted in her seat. "She'll probably wake up when the bell rings. If I woke up from Raven's spell-"

"I didn't cast a spell on the food!" Raven interjected.

"-really quickly, then she'll come around eventually."

"I would feel better if we got her to the healer's office, just in case," Professor Sweet said. "Gemma, can you help carry her? Ahh, Hunter dear! Could you please come and help Gemma take Briar to the healer's office?" She turned toward the rest of class. "Because we could not get to judging today, I will give all of you 5 points of extra credit on top of your daily grade. You all did a good job today. Make sure you clean up your work station before you leave. If you're taking your food with you, put it in a container."

"Sorry," Gemma sighed to Raven as she and Hunter lifted the sleeping Briar and her things over their shoulders and carried her out the door. "I think you're cool though!" she called back.

"I don't know why she's sorry..." Apple said, watching the three go.

"I didn't- Ugh!" Raven growled, throwing her hands up in frustration.

"There's no need to get upset, Raven," Apple flashed a perfect grin at her. "You tried. No hard feelings."

Raven sighed and went back to her work station. Sometimes Apple could be as thick as a pumpkin. She could tell that there would be no convincing her otherwise in this case. The best she could hope for was that Apple wouldn't spread the story of how she was almost "poisoned" to the rest of the school and make things worse.

The rest of the remaining students milled around and began cleaning up their areas. Raven sighed again and began to do the same. By hand, of course.