CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

COOKING, BAKING, AND DECORATING

"Where are we going," Sasuke asked from the backseat of the truck. He had gotten in an argument with Naruto about who would get to sit in the front with Kim. Kim had gotten frustrated and ended up pulling Hinata from the backseat to sit in the front. Sakura had to sit between the two boys. Whenever they tried to hit each other she would threaten them, and they would stop.

"I want a smoothie, so we're going to this juice bar I like," she responded. "You guys want one? Hinata can you text my dad or Kakashi to ask if they want one?" Hinata texted Ren, and the others took time to think about what they wanted. They soon arrived at the drive-through window. After asking what they all wanted, Kim ordered their drinks.

"You know, I can't believe that you and Naruto both fell down the stairs," Sakura told Kim as they were walking up the stairs to the loft.

"She tripped me, 'ttebayo," Naruto shouted pointing an accusing finger at the ebony haired girl.

"What the hell! You tripped me." Kim was glaring at the blond.

"And I can't believe the Dobe understood something without someone having to explain it to him ten times," Sasuke added.

"Who are you calling a Dobe, Teme?!"

"Tch, Dobe."

"Teme!"

"Dobe!"

"Well I think they're home," Kakashi said to Ren when he heard the heated argument at the door.

"Whatever you say Pretty Boy," Ren said nonchalantly as he placed another pan of cupcakes into the oven, and took one out. Kakashi glared at the back of the man's head. A little bit after Kim had left, Kakashi decided he to eat the sticky treat from his fingers when the other man turned his back. When Ren had seen his face, and ever since then Ren had been making not so subtle comments on his appearance.

"Hey guys! We're back," Kim announced as she walked through the front door. She held out the cup holder for her father and Kakashi to take their drinks.

"Why are my cute little students back," Kakashi asked, eyeing the three and the Hyuga.

"They're not the only thing that's cute," Ren muttered with glee. Kim gave the white haired man a look, to which he just shook his head.

"The school ran into a few maintenance problems." She waved it off like it was nothing. "I thought you would be done with those by now," she said gesturing to the rice crispy treats. He made a face. She held her hands up in surrender, backing off.

"Hey you four, don't just stand there come over here and help," Ren ordered. "Start making the mini pizzas. As many as you can make. You guys can use the second oven." He instructed them to take the chilled pizza dough out of the refrigerator, how to make the sauce, prep the toppings, and to grate the cheese. The four had just gathered the things that they needed when they were interrupted by Kim as she walked back into the kitchen.

"Wait change out of your costumes before you start. That way you won't get them dirty," she explained. She pointed to herself, Kakashi and Ren as an example. She was back to wearing her orange t-shirt and black shorts. Kakashi was only in his tight black sleeveless shirt with the mask and a pair of army green sweats. Ren was in a blue t-shirt and jeans.

The four did as told and changed into their gym clothes. Naruto wore a pair of black basketball shorts and an orange t-shirt. Sasuke too wore black basketball shorts and a purple t-shirt. Hinata wore a pair of gray yoga pants and a blue tank. Sakura had on a pair of black shorts and a red camisole. After they had changed they all got to work.

Naruto took the premade dough, separated it into workable pieces, and started to roll them out. Sasuke got to work on making the sauce, looking back to the recipe card every so often. Hinata grated the cheese into a bowl and got to work on prepping the toppings; onions, green peppers, mushrooms, pepperoni, and so on. Once the dough had been rolled out Sakura took the large ghost, pumpkin, witch hat, and cat cookie cutters, and cut the dough.

"What is that supposed to be," Kim asked, staring at the cupcake in Kakashi's hand.

"It's a monster," he replied.

"No it's not. It looks like a fuzz ball... With eyes... Like a furry green animal. That is not scary. Who would it even scare?"

"It's pretty scary."

"No it's not."

"Just imagine seeing this under your bed every night. It would scare you."

"It was under your bed, wasn't it?"

"... No." Kakashi would forever try to suppress the memory of the time he found Maito Gai hidden underneath his bed. The man, then boy, had jumped out at him after a particularly grueling mission. After that, he had found it wise to move out of his old family home and into the ANBU barracks for a short period of time.

"Right," Kim said dragging out the word. "Are you sure it wasn't just a fuzzy toy you forgot about?"

"Don't worry Hot Stuff, I'll protect you," Ren whispered into Kakashi's ear while rubbing his cheek over his mask. He grabbed his butt and winked before walking over to check on the cupcakes.

"Ha ha Kakashi-Sensei! I think I'm jealous, dattebayo," Naruto shouted laughing.

"Wait, I thought Naruto and Sasuke were in love," Kim asked. "Didn't you guys kiss twice already?"

"What!" They all turned to see Nagato, Itachi, Hana, and Konan walking through the door. Nagato and Itachi were the ones that shouted. Hana had heard about them kissing one time, thanks to her little brother. Konan just watched on wide-eyed in disbelief.

"That's right! The first time was in front of everyone at the Academy, and then the second time was when we were on a mission. They got conjoined by the hands, and had to do everything together for three days straight. Although they did have amazing teamwork for those three days," Sakura explained, her mind wandering back to those days.

"They were both accidents, dattebayo! The first time someone pushed me, and the second was because we tried to get rid of that sticky stuff! That stuff was like a bungee cord, 'ttebayo!"

"Why is it always you," Sasuke grumbled in Naruto's direction.

"It's a love triangle," Hinata stated, a look of realization etched onto her face. "Naruto-kun was jealous when Sasuke spent so much time with Kakashi-sensei. When Sasuke left, and Naruto-kun returned to the village, he started to spend a lot of time with Kakashi-sensei... But Kakashi and Naruto-kun tried everything they could to bring him back... so maybe it was a threesome."

"Exactly," Sakura exclaimed wearing a bright smile of understanding. "Because of all the fighting Sasuke thought that Naruto and Sensei were turning against him, so he left. Then they started to feel bad about what they did, so they wanted to bring him back home to apologize. I get it know! Thanks Kakashi-sensei! We just have to look underneath the underneath."

"That's not what I meant," Kakashi shouted indigently at the same time Naruto and Sasuke started shouting at the girls. Itachi was glaring a hole in Kakashi's head. Soon they were all arguing with each other. Hana and Kim were cracking up. Konan just stood back and watch the scene before her, and Nagato was lecturing Naruto.

"Get back to work," Ren ordered with the stern voice of a commander. "Konan! Stop eating the frosting! The ones, who aren't doing anything, get to work on something! Itachi start carving pumpkins, and when you finish that wash the seeds, soak and salt them, put them on a cookie sheet, and then into the oven. Konan make chocolate covered strawberries and make them look like ghosts. Nagato make chocolate and caramel covered apples. Use the hot plates to melt the candy, and make them look pretty. Hana you get to make spiders out of Oreos. Use the red or black licorice for the legs, and M&Ms for the eyes," he ordered them all.

"Why does Hana get to make cute spiders," Nagato asked indignantly, a pout on his face.

"Because she's my favorite right now," was Ren's answer.

"My cats," Kim shouted when she heard the oven timer beep. They all gave her strange looks. "They're chocolate cookies. What the hell did you guys think? That I put cats in the oven?"

Itachi, Hana, Nagato, and Konan, who were on their lunch breaks, called in to work saying there had been a family emergency.

In a few hours, everything was finished and ready to go.

Kakashi made about five dozen of his green fuzzy monster cupcakes along with five dozen of the monsters in pink, blue and purple, five dozen skeletons, and five dozen mummy heads. Kim had used orange frosting for her cupcakes. She had put a decorated black cat cookie on top of half her ten dozen, and the other half she put a, as she liked to call it, bitch hat. In total there were forty dozen, four hundred and eighty, cupcakes packed away.

When they had finished making the mini pizzas, Naruto and Hinata got to work making brownies, using white chocolate to draw spiderweb designs. Sasuke was instructed to make guacamole to go with the blue corn tortilla chips and once done with that, he worked to prepare a vegetable tray to help balance out the sweetness. Sakura started on mixing the ingredients need for the cheese ball, he ended up molding into the shape of a brain, and sliced and toasted the baguette to go with it. Ren had made deviled eggs to look like monster eyes. Itachi was lucky that he had changed out of his costume since he was covered in pumpkin guts, though he did manage to make quite a bit of pumpkin seeds. Konan finished and packed away her strawberry ghosts. Nagato's apples looked to pretty to eat and Hana's spiders were too cute for words. All that was left was the drinks and the birthday cake, which was still in the process of cooling.

When the three round cakes were finally cooled, Kim got to decorating. She trimmed the edges and the tops, and the she sliced them into three layers each. Placing one layer of the yellow cake onto the rotating cake stand, she started to add a layer of chocolate ganache filling. She did that until she had all three layers of the first tier frosted. She covered the cake in light purple colored fondant. Removing that cake from the stand she repeated the process with the other two cakes. When they were all covered in fondant with the sides smoothed out, she stated to layer them on top of each other. When she put the first cake down she put three cake dowels down around. the center, to help support and hold the cakes in place, and then she placed second cake over it, repeating the process and ending when she put the final cake on top.

She mixed a batch of black icing, and put it in a piping bag. Taking the piping bag, she made little beads around the creases of the cake. After that she started to make spider webs all over. When she was done with that she got another piping bag filled with purple frosting. She added a few dark purple spiders, some edible glitter and she was done.

They all took a moment while they admired her work.

"What are we going to do about the drinks," Kakashi asked, remembering the only thing they hadn't gotten done.

"Leave that to me," Kim said as she got out four small sized bowls. She set them on the counter, and went in search of the things she needed. In one bowl she mixed up pineapple juice, limeade, and ginger ale. The second, she mixed water, sugar, lime flavored Jell-O mix, pineapple juice, orange juice, lemon juice, and Sprite. In the third, she mixed blue Jell-O and sparkling lemonade. Then in the fourth, she mixed cherry Jell-O and Sprite. "Now taste and tell me which one you like best," she commanded.

They all tried Kim's concoctions a bit warily. After they all had a taste they couldn't decide between the first, third, and fourth.

"So I guess we'll just have three different types of punch," Ren stated. They all agreed on that.

"Brew Ha-ha Punch, Blue Slime, and Transylvania Punch it is!" Kim got to work on making her creations on a much larger scale. She filled up three large jugs with spouts and placed them in the fridge. Then she grabbed something out of a cabinet.

"We are not spiking the punch, daughter," Ren stated. "You invited a bunch of High School kids, and I do not want to be held responsible for their actions."

"This," she said holding up the bottle vodka, "... is not for them. It's for me." Then she took a drink. Ren tried to get the bottle away from her before she became drunk.

"I miss Baa-chan, dattebayo," Naruto cried. Sakura had to agree with him there.

"Now we need to go and decorate the mansion," Hana stated.

A ways away from the city, the old mansion stood tall and proud behind a wrought iron gate, with the initials S.M. on them. The initials stood for Stonewall Manor. Leading up to the mansion was a long driveway that rounded off at the front of the mansion, with a large water fountain in the center. There was a single flight of stairs that led up to the building.

The mansion had an overall dark and creepy aura surrounding it, even in broad daylight. The building was styled after the Elizibithian Era. It was a two story building with an attic and cellar rooms and a flat roof. The entire manor was made of taupe stone that was darkened due to the past fires. The rose bushes lining the front of the mansion were dried up and thorny, the grass was high and brown, and the trees littered the grounds were bare. Behind the manor was a pathway that lead to the woods, adding to the whole haunting aura.

The group got out of the truck, some having had to sit in the tailgate because there had been no more room inside the cab. They got a good look at the mansion. The sunshine haired boy and the ebony haired girl were shaking in fear. There was something about the place that didn't sit well with them. They swore they had seen something in one of the attic windows. The others told them to stop being scared, and that it was all in their heads.

They got all of the boxes filled with the party decorations down from the truck. Soon they were all at work decorating the outside out the mansion. Since they had only two more hours of sunlight, they had chosen to decorate the outside first because they wouldn't be able to see very much when it got darker, and they did not want anyone to get lost in the dark.

The inside of the mansion was spacious and dusty. In the center above them was crystal chandelier. There were two grand marble staircases on either side of the room leading up to the second floor. Between the staircases was a set of enormous white wood doors, that led to the grand ballroom.

The ballroom was huge. It was about the same size as a High School auditorium minus all the seats and stage. The white marble floors were covered in a thick layer of dust, and there were cobwebs all along the ceiling. In the center of the ceiling was another crystal chandelier. The back wall was made of floor to ceiling windows. There were French doors that led to the back yard.

The back yard area was vast. Like the loft, it was lined by the woods. There was another fountain, and a large in ground swimming pool, a recent addition. They were both dried out and covered in weeds among other things.

"I guess we should just jump in and start cleaning," Hana suggested.

They all got rakes, brooms, buckets, and mops. Kim saw some of the ninja walking on the walls, and gave Kakashi a pleading look. When he told her no, she made her eyes grow large and watery. After she explained to him that her father could do it, he finally relented. After a few tries on the trees outside she got the hang of it, though when she lost her concentration for even a second, she would fall. She had yet to learn to multitask.

Soon the marble floors were sparkling, the pool was cleaned and filled, the fountain gushing water, and the stone deck was cleaned. They had lined up the food tables to the left of the entrance along the wall parallel to the wall of windows, and put on the black tablecloths. There were also tables around the ballroom closer to the grand entrance, and some outside as well.

Naruto and Kim had a competition to see who could blow up the most balloons though they had to stop when they almost passed out. The black, silver, and hot pink balloons littered the ballroom floor.

The guys had set up the stage on the far side of the ballroom, and speakers around the room and a couple outside. Hana had a bit too much fun with the twinkling lights. They wrapped around the trees, the stage, and around the dance floor. The was also some toilet paper in the trees to give it the spooky effect. Sakura and Hinata had bought black and white roses, which Kim cut the stems off of a few and threw them in the pool with a few floating candles.

Kim had tried to walk on the water, but because her control wasn't that great and the skill too advanced, she fell in. Itachi ended up having to help her out. When he walked out onto the water with ease, she glared at him and called him a showoff.

They finished everything five minutes before the sun was to go down at six.