"Snow cones? There's practically a blizzard outside!" Taffyta threw her hands in the air.
The snow cone machine in question, a plastic one covered in cartoon characters, sat mockingly on the table.
"It's only a couple inches of snow, and the weatherman said that it would stop snowing soon. Weren't you listening to the radio?" Vanellope skipped over to the freezer. "I'm excited."
Taffyta's eyes wondered the kitchen, looking around for anything. Vanellope was a notorious sweet tooth, usually having chocolate bars and Wonka candy in her locker. Every day, she brought some sort of treat in her lunch. Whenever there was a class party, she was the first over to the tray of store bought cookies. There had to be something else that they could eat.
"Don't you have any cookie mix or something?" Warm, fresh baked cookies sounded wonderful at the moment.
"No."
"No?" Taffyta eyed one of the cabinets. Was she lying? Would Vanellope lie to her? "Are you kidding me?"
"I know that I had some last week, but Ralph and I already made it. Besides, we couldn't bake cookies anyway."
"Why?" She was the president of the school's baking club; if anyone at school could bake, it was her.
"You know how Ralph can be. He's a great guy, but he's scared that I might accidentally burn the house down." Vanellope rolled her eyes. "Besides, you didn't want any adults around, did you? If we wanted to use the oven then we would need someone else around. The snow cone machine? The worst we could do with that is spill some syrup."
"I see your point." Taffyta pulled a stool up to some nearby cabinets, then hopped up and looked inside. "But you don't have anything else? Nothing at all?" Inside of the cabinets, she found shelves and shelves of pasta, canned vegetables, box macaroni, and jars of peanut butter. There were no sweets in sight.
"Ralph said that he would get some more stuff at the grocery later today. He's been kind of busy with work this week, so he hasn't had time to get stuff until today."
"Fine," Taffyta said. It made enough sense; Vanellope's dad usually had to take time off of work to see her.
"So you want a snow cone?" Vanellope grinned from ear to ear.
"Yeah," Taffyta said. Well, at least she wouldn't risk getting dough on her shirt.
Vanellope groaned. She could hear her father's motto in her head about never giving up; he had all but sang it to her as a lullaby as a kid. Still, she couldn't get the ice crushed like it needed to.
"Are you okay, Vanellope?"
"Yeah, Taffyta," she responded. "I just need a little help with this."
"No problem," Taffyta responded. "Just show me what to do."
Five minutes later, they had a snow cone.
"Wow," Taffyta said, "that was way harder than it should have been. But we did it!"
Vanellope took a bite of her snow cone. "Ralph always did that for me."
"Well no wonder it looked easy," Vanellope said. "Your dad is practically a bodybuilder." She grabbed a plastic spoon and scooped a small amount of ice in it. She never knew why Vanellope ate like that; Taffyta had tried to bite into a popsicle once and her teeth had nearly frozen.
"What do you think?" Vanellope took another large bite.
"Gross," Taffyta responded. "Do you want the rest of this? This peppermint tastes awful."
"Sure." Vanellope turned back to the machine. "We still have some leftover ice if you want some. There's some strawberry syrup, your favorite flavor."
"That sounds good."
"Hold these," Vanellope said, handing the girl her ice. "Let me make this for you."
"No, you don't need-"
"I don't mind." Vanellope began to work again. "I'm totally fine with this. This is supposed to be for you, you know." She grabbed a bottle of syrup. "If I get to eat two then you at least deserve one. I invited you over to have some fun with me, and I want to be fair."
Taffyta felt her face go red. "Thank you."
She grinned. "No problem. You deserve it." She finished it up, and the two exchanged snow cones. "Tell me what you think."
"This is great." This was definitely better than the peppermint from earlier. "I love it." Strawberry may have been way out of season, but she could care less. "Want to make some more after this? I'm willing to put in the extra effort."
