How to make a Christmas dinner fail

"It's no good. No good!" she screamed down the hall. Peppermint butler ran towards the lab, and thrust open the door.

"What's wrong, Princess?" he said, unable to keep the note of anxiety out of his voice.

"Huh?"

Princess Bubblegum sat up from the floor, rubbing her head. She was surrounded by pieces of bread, chocolate, flour, eggs and various other ingredients. Peppermint made as if to go in, then stopped as he nearly slipped over on a packet of butter.

"Um, Princess? What's going on? Shall I call Finn and Jake? Was there a raid?"

"No, no, nothing like that." the Princess said, standing up and brushing food off her lab. coat. "I was simply attempting to make the best meal to celebrate winter possible. Marceline told me some recipes from when people before the war celebrated winter, and I thought that I could make something from it, so I could bring it to the annual celebration…as you can see it didn't work…"

Princess Bubblegum looks down at the messy laboratory in embarrassment. Peppermint Butler felt awkward – despite being a multi-summoner of demons from the fifth dimension and beyond, he still felt sorry for the immortal 18 year old.

"Here, Princess, let me clean up in here. Maybe if you call Marceline she can give you some pointers on how to make these dishes?"

Princes Bubblegum hesitated. She hated to admit she was in trouble – she much preferred to think through the problem on her own without aid – especially not from Marceline. Sure, they were on good enough terms now, but the vampire queen would definitely take this opportunity to mock the scientist princess. There was no way she would pass it up. But…she did need help with the cooking. There was ONE person she could call who could cook though…

"Ok Peppermint. If you clean up in here, I'll call for help."

Peppermint Butler grinned. That was the princess he knew.

A few minutes later, Princess Bubblegum was in the kitchens with Lady Rainicorn.

"So, you've read these recipes before?"

Lady nodded her head and smiled. She had asked the vampire queen for these recipes long before Princess Bubblegum had even got her hands on them, and had long since mastered them.

She asked Princess Bubblegum if this was even possible, and princess Bubblegum shrugged.

"I don't know. But surely it's worth a shot, huh? I mean, think of how much everyone will enjoy it if it works! Everyone loved Jake's ice-cream cake, after all!"

Lady sighed. They only liked the cake because it had been chilled by the snow, and the recipe had been adapted from one of Lady's anyway.

"Anyway, I have some preliminaries, but I need my chemicals to make it work. Be back in a minute Lady!"

With that, Princess Bubblegum left the room. Lady looked through the recipes that Bubblegum had, and with a shock she realised that the vampire queen had played a rather tasteless prank on her friend. For instance, the recipe for stuffing a turkey was:

Take one turkey

Fill it with candy

Put it in the oven (include feathers for extra taste

Lady grabbed the turkey from the side, and looked inside it. Luckily, it had not been, er, filled with candy yet. Lady instead filled it with a series of spices and herbs, before putting it in the oven, and beginning to cook it. She then cooked the other ingredients – potatoes, etc. By the time Princess Bubblegum got back, a sweet smell of cooking had filled the kitchen.

"Lady?"

Lady turned to the Bubblegum Princess, and smiled.

"Did you…cook the food?"

Lady nodded.

"Ok good, now we need to add the chemicals to merge the food together."

Lady shook her head, but Princess Bubblegum had already taken the turkey out and poured a blue chemical all over it. The skin of the turkey shrivelled, and before anything further could happen, Princess poured a green chemical all over the sides. Turning back, Princess Bubblegum found that the Turkey had shrunk to a quarter of its normal size, and appeared to be melting. The sides were doing much the same.

"What? This…wasn't supposed to happen!" Princess Bubblegum shrieked, and Lady picked up the turkey with and exclamation of horror. For now the turkey was bright red and liquefied. Lady dropped the plate and the china smashed, sending the red juice everywhere. It soaked through the floor and a bad smell seeped through the tiles. Princess Bubblegum and Lady ran out and coughed in the hall, slamming the door shut behind them. At this point, Peppermint Butler had finished cleaning the lab and ran to see what had happened now.

"Princess! Princess! OH! What is that terrible smell, Princess?"

Lady couldn't speak for coughing, and princess Bubblegum managed to say

"The experiment…went…a little wrong…"

The two women looked at each other and burst out laughing. Peppermint Butler sighed and shook his head. Sometimes he wished that his princess wasn't so…eccentric, but it was moments like this that made him smile about his job.

"So, er…about the meal…"

Lady stopped laughing enough to tell him that she would be cooking the winter celebration meal that year, and to peppermint Butler it seemed that the whole of Ooo breathed a sigh of relief. No matter how good a scientist his Princess was, she would never be a good cook.

A/N: So, this is the chapter for the 17th December. Again, sorry for forgetting to upload yesterday's chapter - it's up now, and I'm back on track. Check back tomorrow for the fifth day of Christmas!

NEWS: The one-shot for the twelfth day of Christmas is the best one of the lot, and is on a very special topic. A slice of Jake's Ice Cream Cake for anyone who can guess what it is about! Hint: It is similar to an episode of Adventure Time that is seasonal at the moment :)