Chapter 18: Original recipe
"I heard that you grew those gummi berry bushes from a seeds. How did you even do that?" I asked with surprise and wonder. "Believe it or not, these bushes are sixteen years old. I wandered out here during an assignment and came across your gummi berry bushes and that little house near the glen tree. I then decided to take a couple of berries and taste them. When I found out how wild they were, I wondered how they tasted in the olden days. So I collected as many seeds as I could and grew them out here where Igthorn couldn't see. I continuously snuck out each night and cared for them until they sprouted and grew into these strong healthy bushes you see. The berries are the sweetest I've ever tasted and I often use them in delicious pies that the entire village simply devours each time I bake them." Selina answered. "You may try some if you wish." I walked over to a bush with blue gummi berries on it and plucked one off. I braced myself for a sour and wild taste, but soon found myself enjoying the sweet succulent flavor of the gummi berries from back home. "I haven't had a gummi berry like this in so long." I swooned and then had a brilliant idea. "Would you mind if I made a batch of gummi berry juice?" I asked. She looked at me in shock like she never thought that a gummi bear like me could possibly know how to make gummi berry juice. "Uh... well... sure, I guess." She stuttered with surprise as she spoke. "Thank you mam. I'll need a ten gallon cauldron, and a lot of gummi berries."
Throughout the next hour or so, Ella and I continued on picking as many berries as we could and brought them into the house. It was nice because the side of the house that had the gummi berry bushes, had an overhang on the roof, as if it was a awning with shingles. "So why exactly did you want to make gummi berry juice and how do you make gummi berry juice?" Selina asked still confused and curious. "Gummi berry juice could be vital in helping defeat Igthorn, and it is created through boiling the berries until the skins dissolve. I'm pretty sure you've noticed that in your pies. Once a gummi berry reaches a certain temperature, the skin begins to dissolve and blend with the juice, making it a touch thicker." I answered. "Oh, I always wondered how that came to be. No matter how many berries I would put in the pies, they would be always rich with filling and with no berries inside." Selina said with revelation.
Remembering the recipe Grammi taught me in my preteen years, I started to boil the water and carefully selected the berries by color. However, I hadn't done the special stir in a long time and began to get nervous hoping that I didn't blow up the batch. I dropped the handfuls of berries in and watched as the berry skins dissolved and left behind a cloud of crimson-purple mixture within the water. Another handful did the same thing and eventually the dark purple cloud had spread throughout the entire batch. "You guys tapped into the gummi glen water system, didn't you?" I noticed as the batch was coming out well as I dropped another handful in. "It was the cleanest water we could find. Igthorn polluted most of the water sources around here to try to flush out the village last year." Ella answered for Selina. I dropped the last handful of berries in and in a few seconds it was the moment of truth. I took the spoon and placed it into the cauldron's contents and spun it around according to what I remember Grammi instructing me to do. The contents mixing evenly in both directions, I pulled the large spoon out of the pot and crossed my fingers as I struck the spoon against the side of the cauldron. A good mass of bubbles rose to the surface and expelled their gasses. The juice was now ready for use. "I did it!" I rejoiced lightly to myself.
"So, why did you need to strike the side of the pot?" Ella asked. It seemed that Selina was curious about that as well. "Well, when the skin dissolves it produces a gas. The gas gets trapped in bubbles that stick to the cauldron's sidewalls, and need to be released from the cauldron's sides. That is why you strike the side of the cauldron. You shouldn't hit it too hard though. If the bubbles burst inside of the juice, the whole thing explodes and gets thrown everywhere." I explained to them. "I wonder why that doesn't happen to my pies." Selina asked mostly to herself. "You don't use enough gummi berries to worry about that too much." Was my theory. "Besides, the pie is probably shallow enough to expel the gasses of the berries individually and it most likely just burns up in the oven." Selina placed the tip of the first finger of her right hand near the corner of her mouth and slightly looked up and away from me to think about the logic behind my theories. "That actually sort of makes sense." She then said. "I'll bet you could be quite the little cook." I was flattered until I remembered that Ella promised that she would bring Selina to meet Eric. "Ella, you said that you were going to let Eric talk to Selina." I reminded her when we heard a voice pipe in from the front door, "So it's true! One still exists! A gummi bear!" His voice was aged slightly and even a little gruff. Our gaze shot to the door to see who owned the voice that sounded so in shock. It was a middle aged man with a brown moustache and goatee. His face was slightly wrinkled, showing his age, and he looked a mere five foot tall, give or take two inches. His grayish green eyes were wide with surprise the expression also clearly written on his face and using his graying eyebrows to show it. He wore a red and black plaid button up shirt, proper fitting jeans and light brown work boots. He was also surprisingly well fit for his age and didn't look like he would break down any time soon. One by one, people appeared at the front door to look at me and confirm the rumors for themselves. I had no idea that a simple stroll through town would wind up granting me so much publicity. First people struggled to believe in us at all, and now I'm like a prodical daughter coming back to her family farm, humbled and wise. They continued to talk amongst themselves about their surprise and I even over heard the price for me alive in the market. Suddenly a thought came to me and I asked Ella, "What about Rose and Luna?" "Rose got out of surgery yesterday and is in one of the rooms close to Eric's. Luna has been sedated because she was throwing tantrums large enough to have injured herself and three nurses." Ella answered.