Easy Bake Happiness
A/N: Easy Bake Oven is a registered trademark of some company...I'll research that later.
Binky and Molly met up outside the Barnes house to do some bike riding in the park. Their ultimate goal for the day was to get some free ice cream from some innocent preschoolers, but they would need to pick up Rattles before they did this. He would not like missing a Saturday like this.
As they turned onto Rattles' street, they saw him in the family garage fumbling with something. When they got closer, they noticed it was a distinct shade of pink. And when they entered the driveway silently on their perfectly-tuned bikes, they saw exactly what Rattles was fumbling with: An Easy-Bake Oven.
"Neat! I haven't seen one of these in years!" Molly gasped.
"No, it's not what you think!" Rattles screamed, his face flushing red from embarrassment. It was too late; his fellow Tough Customers knew he had a little pink secret, complete with the sweet, sensational smell of a tiny baking sugar cookie. A tube of pink icing, the only color available for his favorite flavor, sat on top of a nearby milk crate, along with a small saucer. Rattles wanted to enjoy his sugar cookie in peace, but that moment was long past.
"Mom got Mei-Lin one of these for when she's older," Binky smiled. "She wanted me to get to use it first so I could teach her, and they're really neat. Mei-Lin's is purple though, not pink."
Rattles muttered under his breath, pulling out his finished sugar cookie and setting it aside so it could cool.
"I used to beg my mom to get me the refill packs. Oh, it made James so jealous! He isn't old enough to use it yet, according to Mom, so it's all mine. Do you have the brownies? I really like those!" Molly gasped.
"No, I only have cookies. What are you two doing here? I thought you were going to the park and-"
"Like we could leave you out," Molly scoffed. "Seriously, where's something I can make? I'd love a nice snack."
"No, it's mine! Please, would you just leave? I don't want to go to the park, and I'm not wasting these things on you two. I spent the last of my allowance on these mix packets, and I want them to last until the next one. Please, GO!" he begged, sighing as Binky and Molly pulled out the small shoebox filled with mix packets. "Come on, those are expensive! Please, stop!" Rattles begged.
"We'll pay you back, Rattles. I get my allowance tomorrow if I do dishes tonight and take out the trash tomorrow," Molly bargained, holding up a chocolate cookie mix. "Please, I'll pay you back double what it's worth and I'll buy my own for next time."
"Next time? No, no, no, no, NO. There won't be a next time," Rattles said quickly with an irritated tone, standing and trying to push the two out of his garage. "Get your own oven. Use Binky's. Mine is mine and that's final."
"Look, maybe we can make this worth something for you as well. We could pay you double, we could sell the extras to people. Come on, Rattles, think of the possibilities that oven can give us," Molly pleaded.
"I don't like this, profit or not. I want you two to leave and to never think of this again. Please, there's the door," Rattles gestured. "Go."
"I like that bake sale idea. The oven Mei-Lin got had ten free mix packets inside, and I've only used a few because half have peanuts in them. We can sell those after school every Monday, before the kickball game at the park," Binky smiled. "Come on, Rattles, it'd be nice not to need our own lunch money for a few days, and we could buy more mix packets for the next week."
"A lunch money fund, so we could have pizza every day?"
"Seconds if we wanted," Molly nodded. "I didn't think of that before. Binky has a good point."
"He does," Rattles sighed. "We can't start today. I don't have any money, and-"
"The samples?" Binky reminded him.
"Yeah, the samples," Rattle muttered, kicking at his milk crate gently. "I'll do this, but no one has to know what they are, and no one needs to know. This is our secret. We sell to the middle schoolers at Grebe. They have more money than the Lakewood crowd anyway."
"And they'd be too old to remember that Easy Bake taste," Binky smiled. "You're a genius, Rattles."
"Okay then, beat it so I can eat in peace! And put those back!" he groaned, putting a ring of pink icing around his sugar cookie before giving Molly and Binky a dirty look. They fled, heading back to the Barnes house to make their goods. They would make ten dollars from them that following Monday, enough to have pizza all week at school. No one noticed how they'd acquired the goods, and no one ever would.