Episode 5: Let them eat cupcakes!
July 7 2024
10:15 pm
"Suck it up Emma," MK said carelessly as she propped her feet up on her bed triumphantly, ignoring Emma's hiccoughs. "We had to vote out Bowie. Now Raj is all alone. We can finish him off and get to the merge!"
Emma was sobbing under her sheets uncontrollably.
MK gave Caleb a glance which told him he needed to say something.
"Y – yeah… I don't see why you're so sad. Bowie is a master manipulator. He chose you for his team as cannon fodder. He didn't really value you as a friend," Caleb mumbled, his heart sinking slightly. Unlike MK, he did not enjoy seeing Emma breaking down.
"Is that t – t – t – true? I t – t – thought he liked me," Emma wailed into her pillow. She had been crying nonstop for the past two nights. She missed Bowie so much!
MK leaned in. "He didn't, but we do. We'll never vote for you Emma. And I can promise you a little revenge on Chase in the merge maybe! Assuming he gets there of course…"
Emma confessional: *teary-eyed* What have I done? Bowie gave me a chance even after the horrible stuff I did last season and I couldn't even save him?! Everyday I'm liking this alliance less and less. I think I really messed up by hanging around Caleb and MK. I'm so scared!
Emma threw her pillow down.
"STOP!" she said shaking uncontrollably. Emma decided she was no longer going to participate in this alliance and hang out with them during leisure hours. If this was what they were going to have to do… well, she didn't like it one bit.
MK narrowed her eyes. "What did you just say?" she hissed.
"Stop talking to me! All this revenge talk is ruining everything," she blubbered. "C – Caleb wanted revenge on Bowie and now he's gone so Raj is miserable. MK, you wanted revenge on Julia so bad you stained her clothes with the smell of fish. You almost killed her! What are you going to do next? To Chase? Whatever it is, I don't want to take part in it."
MK stomped her foot down. She couldn't believe Emma was concerned of what was going to happen to Chase considering she had been singing a different tune only a few days ago.
"Emma! Is this seriously about Chase?" MK asked, exasperated. "Remember, we promised you a better time here without him. We promised you could be something more than just Chase's ex. And to do that we need to eliminate everyone else. Understand? How could you start having doubts after everything has been going so well so far?"
MK glanced again at Caleb, expecting him to say something but Caleb who had silently been having the same thoughts as Emma, just gave an awkward cough. Caleb never wanted to go this far; he only wanted small revenge on Bowie but for some reason it was not feeling satisfying. Perhaps because he knew MK had cheated to split Bowie and Raj up during the horror challenge. After all, how did she get the tablet for killers?
Emma gave an insane laugh. "WELL!?" she shrieked, piles of tears forming in her eyes now. "THINGS ARE AWFUL! I know what I'm dealing with. I'm in cahoots with VILLAINS! VULTURES! I'm done!"
MK grabbed Emma's wrist and squeezed it hard.
"You keep talking like that and you'll be the next to leave," she threatened in a low voice. "We can easily get Priya and Damien on our side. We're your only two friends. Do you like being alone and friendless?"
Another glance at Caleb who jerked his head.
"Erm – yeah… what she said… " he added lamely.
Emma ripped MK's grip off of her. "You guys aren't my friends! YOU NEVER WERE! A – a – and you won't win if I tell Raj what you two did! YOU CAN'T THREATEN ME!"
"Go ahead and do that," MK sneered. "He's just going to end up mad at you for not saying anything sooner and then you'll have nobody again!" Emma was so naïve if she seriously thought Raj would forgive her.
"FINE!" Emma yelled as she got up and stormed out of the cabin. She took great care to ensure the door slammed loudly on her way out. This left MK and Caleb alone.
MK confessional: *crosses arms and sneers* Whatever. We don't need her! Actually kind of glad she's gone.
MK soaked in Caleb's face which was showing great signs of uncertainty. "You having doubts big guy?"
Caleb, who had been staring at the hardwood floors of the cabin, looked at MK. Truthfully, there was one thing bothering him that he had never thought to ask until now.
"How'd you get that GPS?" he raised a suspicious eyebrow at her.
MK blinked, though she knew exactly what he meant.
MK confessional: Now that Emma's left us, I have to make sure Caleb realizes my worth. What could make him want to stick around me?...
MK slowly put a hand into her pocket. She did not have many options. Emma had now officially left their alliance so MK had to make sure Caleb would not do the same. "Well…. I figured it was time…" she drawled.
Caleb noticed a little piece of paper was being pulled out. MK passed him this paper and he brought it up to his face. MK could see Caleb's lips reading the contents of the paper out loud to himself. She also caught the moment his face fell dramatically.
Caleb looked at her stunned. Of all things, he never could have imagined MK had a weapon like this: a sheet listing all challenges for the season.
"You had this the whole time?!" Caleb said, flabbergasted.
"Oh yeah! Wanna know what we're doing today?" MK chortled. She did not feel like telling Caleb about Sally's text she had received a few nights ago detailing the order the challenges were going to occur. MK felt that that was information only she deserved to have.
To her great surprise –
"I'm good," Caleb shrugged.
MK stared at him, confused.
"You sure you don't got a screw loose, Dorito Nojito?" she sneered.
Caleb chuckled at this clever play of words. Was MK calling him weak? He shook his head and looked directly at her, so that she would get the message.
"I'm just unsure about a paper as powerful as that… could be dangerous later if we get caught. So I don't want a part of it. I still want to vote together though," Caleb said. And with that, he too got up and left the cabin to go back to the boys' side. Though he did not admit this to MK, he was feeling very uneasy.
Caleb confessional: I didn't know we were cheating at a magnitude like this! I don't like it one bit!
July 8 2024
10:15 am
The challenge horn signalled.
"Attention campers!" Chris' voice boomed. "Challenge time! Meet me at the kitchens!"
The campers made their walk to the kitchens. The entrance outside the kitchens was decorated with streamers and numerous lights hanging over the windows. It was clear a celebratory event was taking place. But what?
Ribbons and pink confetti littered the ground. There was also a large golden balloon with the numbers 1, 3, and 6 as well as a larger balloon with the words TD on it. Perhaps the largest balloon of all which towered above the campers was a giant, life-sized balloon of Chris Mclean with the biggest grin on his face.
They all gagged as they passed by this abomination.
Priya confessional: *snorts* A giant balloon of himself? What a narcissist…
Upon entering the kitchens, they all gasped in amazement. It was clear that some work had been done overnight because the kitchen had had a complete make-over and looked almost unrecognizable from the night before. In the very center of the room were two large sheets concealing something from view.
"Talk about a kitchen glow-up," Julia said through shallow breathing. The aesthetics matched her style – vanilla white and royal purple hung everywhere.
"And for once the place actually looks cleaned!" Damien added happily, rubbing his hand smoothly over the wooden surface.
"Tables so shiny we can probably glide on them RAJIE!" Wayne said mesmerized, nudging his best friend enthusiastically. Raj gave a weak smile. He was grateful his best friend was still trying to make him feel better, despite being on opposite teams.
Once everyone had taken a seat at their teams' table, Chris, Chef and Emily stepped out from the back, Chris wearing a big orange party-hat and a shiny olive-green suit. He looked like a partial rainbow in human form. His hair was slicked back and he had put so much hair gel in it, his hair looked shiny.
Chef was wearing a very silly and large grin, larger than usual. He had also changed out of his purple suit and tie and now wore his casual cook clothes. Everyone except Priya stared at Chef quizzically, having never seen this look on him before.
"Alright campers," Chris smiled. "As you can see, two of last season's finalists have just been eliminated back to back!" Instinctively, everyone looked around. Many eyes shifted towards Priya.
"Millie and Bowie are now both gone. We just want to remind you, no one is safe! Last season's placements typically have little to no effect on how one performs in the next season! With that being said, Priya I'd be nervous if I were you… first Millie, now Bowie? I mean… you could be next!" Chris cackled.
Priya gulped.
Julia confessional: *laughs coldly, indicating she takes great pleasure hearing about Bowie's elimination* As satisfying as it was finding out about Bowie's elimination, I should've been the one to send him packing.
Chris continued. "Today's challenge is going to be a very special one. Emily came up with it herself so let's see if her challenges are – er - challenge-worthy. I'll let her explain." He bowed and took a seat.
"Chris is acting oddly cordial," Caleb whispered to Priya's ear. "Kinda weird don't you think?"
Priya giggled. "It means something bad is about to happen!" She tried to shake off her nervous feeling with humour.
"Alright!" Emily barked as she stood in front of them all with her hands on her hips. "Today is a very special episode. A few days ago, we hit a BIG, IMPORTANT milestone."
The room stared blankly at her.
She sighed. Of course nobody knew.
"We just passed 136 episodes of Total Drama. You guys didn't get that as you walked here? Anyways… That's 26 episodes of Island, Action, World Tour, 13 episodes of Revenge, All-Stars, Pakhitew, Reboot , 4 episodes of Rematch and 2 specials. So what better way to celebrate than with cupcakes?"
A few people exchanged glances. What was so special about the number 136 anyways? And why was it worth a big celebration?
Ripper decided to test the waters after 50+ hours of Emily constantly ignoring him and boldly said out loud, "Cupcakes? Who celebrates with puny little cupcakes? The only way to celebrate something is with a big, giant cake!"
Emily ignored him and carried on as if Ripper simply didn't exist in her world.
"That's why you're – ", she whipped out a rolling pin out of nowhere and pointed it at them so that they all jumped back slightly – "going to be baking 136 cupcakes for us."
While most stared stunned as they let this news sink in, Emma clapped her hands enthusiastically. "Sweet! That's just another Sunday for me back home! I loooveee sweets!" she said.
Emily smirked at Emma's comment. "Wait, I'm not finished. Baking is one thing, presentation is another. How we want our cupcakes presented is going to be different. We're not asking for 136 cupcakes lined up in a row or served on cute little plates. Oh nooo. We want them placed in – HERE!" The drapes fell off the two large objects and revealed what was being hidden.
Now there stood two giant pyramid structures with white and gold baskets hanging everywhere. Upon closer inspection, they could see the baskets were really cupcake-shaped place holders. The whole structure had an odd mixture of looking firm as it stood upright and fragile due to the thin material of the holders.
"That's right. Your cupcakes should fit snugly in each placeholder," Emily nodded, voicing what everyone was trying to piece together in their heads. "There's 136 of them. 16 on the bottom, 15 on top of that, 14 on top of that, yada-yada. You're going to put each cupcake into a placeholder and continue all the way to the final cupcake which has to be placed at the top. That's why we waited until this episode to do it, because the numbers finally allow us to arrange them in a satisfying triangular shape…We want this whole structure filled with cupcakes."
Everyone gaped, open-mouthed. The structures were so tall they were almost scraping the roofs of the building. Damien voiced what everyone else was thinking and immediately spoke up.
"Wait, but that thing is giant as heck! How we gonna get to the top?" he spluttered.
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Emily shrugged nonchalantly. "Get creative. By the way, these are pretty fragile." She tapped on the structure with her knuckle. "You break it, we don't taste. Got it?"
"So this challenge is testing our baking skills and our ability to be suuuper careful," Priya whispered to her team. "No knocking down the pyramid!"
"Yup," Emily nodded. "And by the way, we have four judges today who'll be taste-testing. Dad, Chef, me and a special guest. He loves sweets so you'd better make it good… or else." She pointed the rolling pin threateningly at them once again as if to say she would smack them over the head if they served bad cupcakes. Ripper jumped back.
"Any questions?" Emily enquired.
Caleb raised his hand.
"Wait, will you be tasting all of our cupcakes because it would be pretty hard to make them all consistently taste good. What if we have some cupcakes that are better than others and you don't even get to try them?" he asked curiously.
MK face-palmed.
"What? I'm just checking!" Caleb protested, hurt at MK's blunt reaction.
MK confessional: *snorts* Did he seriously get into MIT? Did he really think they were going to eat 272 cupcakes?
Emily stifled a laugh. "Aww that's a good question Caleb. You have nothing to worry about. We won't be tasting all of your cupcakes. There's 136 of them on both teams either way and I'm on a diet."
The room let out a collective sigh of relief. But was it really good news?
"We'll be tasting just four – one for each of us," Emily flashed her eyes with an evil spark. "Which is why it's even more important to make sure every single cupcake is up to par because we'll be randomly picking four out of 136 to taste. No more, no less."
Emma's brain was grinding gears as she slowly realized the daunting task which lay ahead. "Wait… but only four cupcakes out of 136? Then… isn't that worse for us because we won't have any idea which cupcakes you'll be choosing right? What if we made like a bunch of good cupcakes and you only choose the bad ones…?" Emma asked quietly.
"Good girl, now you get it," Emily smiled. "So the question is can you afford bad cupcakes? That's up to you to decide. If I were you, I'd make them as perfect as possible because you never know if that one specific cupcake on the 9th row is the one I choose. And if that particular one tastes bad, I give a bad score overall."
The air had become still and nobody was speaking. The pressure was definitely on.
"Up next, we can't forget about the flavours! We want specific flavours, four to be exact. Each judge submitted their favourite cupcake. So we want," – she pulled out a list and began to read through the order – "Chocolate fudge, vanilla dulce, Neapolitan and banana caramel. All cupcakes must be garnished with a cherry on top. And finally, we have two buttons, one for each team" – she gestured to two remotes next to her – "You can use these whenever you want. They're full of surprises. That's all I'll say for now." She smiled.
Chris clapped. "Great job Em!" he beamed at his daughter. "I'd say that's a pretty hard challenge! I'm PROUD!" He hugged her affectionately and blew his party horn.
"Yeah, he's in too much of a good mood…" Priya said suspiciously. Perhaps it was because of this 'special guest' that they had alluded to? There were only a few people in the world who could make Chris this happy… and judging by the theme of today's challenge she had a feeling she would be seeing a very familiar face…
"10 bucks says Emily's favourite flavour is vanilla dulce," Ripper whispered to Wayne's ear.
"10 bucks says it's not," Wayne whispered back feeling confident of his ¾ chance as they shook on it.
Suddenly Zee blurted out.
"Chris my man. You still haven't told us who the special guest is… is it Betty Crocker? I would love to meet her man… love her cake mixes… truly an inspiring woman…" He stared glassy-eyed at the pyramid structure, imagining Betty Crocker's iconic face in each placeholder.
"Thank you for reminding us Zee," Chris said happily. He gave a small cough and adjusted his voice to make this special announcement sound as dramatic as it should. After all, he wanted to give a very special introduction to the very, very very, very important guest.
"Today's special guest knows a thing or two about sugar and sweets. He's a former Total Drama champion so we thought it would be fitting to invite him for this very exciting milestone. Come on out…
OWEN!"
BOOM!
The back door opened once more and out came running a large man with sandy hair, a white T-shirt with the Canadian leaf logo and cargo shorts.
"WOOOOOO!" Owen cheered, pumping his fist into the air. He blew a party horn and was wearing an orange party hat just like Chris.
Chris, Chef, Emily and Priya clapped happily. Though Wayne did not know who this was, he too whooped as he was vibing with Owen's energy.
Priya confessional: *clutches face in excitement* WOW… Owen! The first Total Drama champion ever, I've studied all his moves!
Owen made his way next to his fellow judges and plopped himself into a chair which squeaked noisily.
"Soo Owen.. what have you been up to?" Chris asked curiously at his favourite rotund friend.
Owen scratched his head and twiddled his thumbs. He had only come to eat cupcakes, he didn't expect to get such a tough question so early in the morning.
"Let's see… I – I took a nap," he smiled nervously. "I think I returned a library book in there somewhere," he finished lamely.
Blank stares from everyone.
Priya confessional: *stares unsurely at camera* Still don't know how he won…
"When I buzz the horn, you will all run outside to the trucks which contain all the necessary ingredients for today. Take whatever you need, come back and start baking." Emily stood before them, hands behind her back, looking at them all as if they were cadets at her baking boot camp.
"Ready?" she asked loudly to the group. "136 cupcakes in two hours. Starting… now!" She blew the horn and a big clock in the center of the room began ticking down.
At once, everyone got up and started sprinting to the trucks outside.
"GO! GO! GO!" Priya commanded to her team. The race was on but nobody was sprinting faster than Ripper who was whizzing by like a freight train, determined to win this challenge so he would not go home before making amends with Emily.
"Go Ripper!" Julia cheered.
Julia confessional: OK I am SO excited. I have lots of experience baking. My parents actually own a sweet shop called 'Sweet Little Julias.' They made me work there since I was 5. You want cupcakes? I'll give you cupcakes. I'm taking charge! *stands up and points at herself proudly*
"Head chef!" Julia called back to her team from the front and pointing at herself.
Everyone nodded in agreement. It was not like there were any other options. Julia was the natural person to take charge and she would not take no for an answer.
"Hey Rajie, wouldn't it be pretty funny if we made poop-flavoured cupcakes and pretended it was chocolate?" Wayne asked goofily running alongside his best friend. Wayne laughed at his own joke.
Raj however was running with a very droopy appearance, half-trying, shoulders sagging. He weakly smiled but did not laugh. This made Wayne himself unhappy.
Wayne confessional: *sighs* Aw man. Rajie is feeling totally bummed. He didn't even laugh at my poop joke! Gotta find a way to make him happy again.
Ripper reached the trucks first and started taking random items with him back to the cabins.
"Why are you bringing back spinach?" Axel asked accusingly as she stared at the items in his hands.
"Whatever, I also have flour and some sugar," Ripper shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe this spinach will end up being a secret ingredient or something."
"Wow, you're not smart," Axel called over her shoulder as she headed towards the truck. Axel quickly retrieved some strawberries and butter and started heading back.
Ripper confessional: *crosses arms and snorts* Axel can say whatever she wants about me. But I've seen spinach used to give you a real power boost! Just ask that dude with the massive forearms, whatever his name was… Poopeye the sailor man? *thinks deeply*
Emma was next to reach the truck. She looked around for everything they would need. She was making a mental checklist of all the ingredients when Wayne and Raj appeared behind her.
"Raj, stay here," she ordered. Would she tell him now? No, things were moving too fast in this environment. Too many people would be coming into this truck and they would hear her…
"Well I guess this is where we split up Rajie!" Wayne clapped his friend on the back. "HOOT! HOOT!" Wayne gave Emma a cheery thumbs-up, picked up some butter and flour and started heading back.
"Hoot," Raj echoed quietly.
Just then, Priya, Caleb and Damien appeared.
"Wait!" Emma ordered as the three started looking around for items to take back.
"What's up?" Damien asked startled. He thought he had done something wrong already when he had moved to reach for some eggs. Emma urged them all to move over to the side by nudging her head. They all crouched as they leaned closer to her.
"I just saw Ripper, Axel and Wayne get a bunch of repeat ingredients," Emma whispered to her team. "So let's all wait here and decide what to each get. That way, we won't have to keep running back to the truck because we got duplicate ingredients and missed others."
They all looked at Emma in amazement.
Caleb confessional: *wide-eyed* OK I'm kind of spooked. I didn't realize Emma was so perceptive. Maybe MK and I are underestimating her…
Julia entered the truck and stared at the Orangutans like they were a joke. What were they doing just standing there? And why were they not getting ingredients? She laughed coldly at them as she ran out carrying butter, flour and dark chocolate.
"Um you guys do realize this is a baking challenge? As in you need to actually bake? Not just stand around a truck all day and stare at ingredients!" she laughed maliciously.
"Oh believe me, we're not the ones wasting time," Emma smirked, hands on her hips as she gave a sassy sway.
What is she talking about? Julia wondered as she ran back. No, it's nothing. Emma has a loud mouth anyways. She was just trying to make me feel nervous for no reason, that's all.
Zee and Chase popped up next. Chase took a bag of flour with him while Zee took some cherries.
"Hey Chase, are you guys making cupcakes or flour-cakes?" Emma giggled. The Orangutans giggled as they realized how the other team was messing up.
"What…?" Chase asked genuinely confused as he ran out, huffing slightly at the heavy flour bag heaved over his shoulder.
Zee shrugged. "I don't get it either," he said, as he casually popped a cherry into his mouth.
Emma confessional: OK so it's just hilarious watching their team take flour, flour, flour out of the trucks. And it was even more hilarious how I hinted it at Chase and it just fleeeew over his head. *rolls eyes dreamily*
"Emma, you're a genius!" Priya high-fived her. "Waiting for all of us so we can decide what ingredients we should all get."
"No seriously, how many bags of flour did they take?" Damien chortled, holding his sides.
Right on cue, Nichelle came striding in and walked out carrying a bag of flour over her shoulder.
Despite his mood, Raj couldn't help but laugh a little as well. "OK now this is free comedy," he chuckled.
Finally, MK came wheezing and clutching her chest.
"There you are!" Emma clapped her hands as MK's knees gave way and she collapsed to the ground.
"OK everyone, let's all decide what to carry," Emma said as she looked around the truck, thinking of everything they would need. "Try to carry as much as you can so we can avoid going back to the truck. Caleb, you're the biggest. Can you carry two bags of flour on your shoulders?"
Caleb flexed his bicep. "Is that even a question?" he asked slightly hurt. "Of course I can!"
Emma gave him a thumbs-up. "Great! Then… Raj, hold as many cartons of eggs as you can. Priya, white and brown sugar, and vanilla extract please. MK, bring the bananas. Damien, take as many blocks of butter as you can and also try to carry a good amount of this dark chocolate. I'm going for the strawberries, cherries and milk."
Raj was impressed. "Wow Emma, Bowie would've been really impressed with your baking IQ," he said. Emma blushed. She felt so horrible about Bowie's absence. MK rolled her eyes and Caleb shifted uncomfortably. Priya had noticed Caleb's reaction and gave him a curious look.
"Aight, all in favour for making Emma head chef?" Damien asked. The team agreed.
"Let's get this Chef!" Raj roared. He was hyped now, determined to get a win for his team and avenge Bowie starting with this baking challenge.
"LET'S MOVE!" Emma raised a fist. The Orangutans all got their assigned ingredients and began running back to the kitchens.
Julia pushed the door open. Ripper, Axel and Wayne had already laid out their ingredients on the table: a bag of flour, sugar, butter, strawberries, another bag of flour, more butter… spinach?
Julia dropped her bag of flour, dark chocolate and slabs of butter on the table. "OK so we have a lot of flour…," she said slowly, tallying all the bags up. "Certainly a lot more than we needed…"
BANG!
Chase and Zee opened the doors.
"PLEASE for the love of everything sprinkled and glazed, tell me you did NOT bring another bag of – " Julia stopped as Chase dropped his bag of flour onto the table.
"OHHH!" he groaned, stretching. "That was kinda heavy!" he rubbed his sore shoulder.
"Zee please tell me you have something DIFFERENT!" Julia pleaded.
Zee pulled out his pack of cherries. Cherries, she thought incredulously. CHERRIES? Of all items, he had brought the garnish?
"Well, it's better than nothing," she sighed.
"Oh man… was I supposed to bring flour too?" Zee said slowly. "Sorry…" He felt he had not done his part as everyone else seemed to have brought a bag of flour with them.
Zee confessional: *shrugs his shoulders* I had to get the topping. Although… I feel like bringing another bag of flour would've been the cherry on top for this whole fiasco.
BANG!
Nichelle burst in.
"Nichelle, please tell me you did NOT bring another bag of… flour," Julia finished weakly.
Nichelle tossed her bag down, looking immensely proud of herself.
"That's right! I carried that all the way here," she said happily, propping her foot on her bag of flour while flexing her bicep.
"Yeah… so did the rest of us," Julia said unimpressed.
"What do you mea – OMG, why do we have so many bags of flour?!" Nichelle yelped.
"And we have nothing else…" Axel said miserably, kicking a bag of flour in frustration.
"UGH! Nobody brought milk, bananas, eggs…?" Julia said, disgusted.
Chase gave a dramatic gasp. A thought had just hit him like a brick.
"So that's what Emma meant!" Chase said amazed as he slowly pieced together what had just happened. He had been punked!
"What do you mean?" Julia snapped.
"She was like, 'It's cupcakes not FLOURcakes' " Chase imitated in a high-pitched voice. "This is what she must've meant, she saw us all taking bags of flour!"
Julia's heart dropped. Is that why Emma had looked so confident back at the truck? Had she really been outsmarted by Emma? Julia scowled, imagining Emma's victorious smirk when she came back.
Ripper threw his hands up in the air.
"WHY WERE YOU GUYS NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT THE OTHER PERSON WAS CARRYING?!" he blew up on his team. "YOU WOULD'VE SEEN WHAT THEY HAD AS THEY WERE RUNNING BACK!"
"Shut up!" Julia retorted, offended because she had made such a stupid mistake.
"HEY! I GET A PASS BECAUSE I WAS THE FIRST ONE HERE!" Ripper shouted. "IF YOU SEE ME CARRYING THIS MUCH BUTTER, MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T GET ANY MORE!"
"UGH!" Nichelle pulled her hair. "WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!"
Wayne stood up. "I'LL MAKE A RUN FOR THE TRUCK! Just tell me what to get!"
Julia stood up as well and gave a frustrated sigh. "Ugh, we'd all better go…"
"Hang on, first let me just – " Wayne lifted two bags of flour onto his shoulder.
"Wayne… what are you doing?" Julia stared at him, perplexed.
"We gotta return these right?" Wayne asked, pointing to their five bags of flour.
Julia's jaw dropped. "RETUR – NO! JUST LEAVE THEM HERE! KEEP THEM TO THE SIDE, WE NEED TO GET NEW INGREIDENTS!" she yelled in his face.
Wayne cowered in fear. "Y-y-yes h-head chef," he stammered.
BANG!
All of a sudden, the door burst open and the Orangutans came in, each person holding a different ingredient.
"SUCKERS!" Emma taunted, laughing as the Panthers glared.
"Better go back and get some new ingredients!" Damien added, sticking his tongue out.
"Time's running out!" Raj chuckled, flicking his eyes towards the clock.
"UGH, LET'S GO!" Julia motioned to her team to move out. "MOVE!" The Panthers all hurried out of the kitchens and ran back to the trucks once more.
Meanwhile, the Orangutans gathered around a table to talk. They all looked at their newly appointed head chef.
"OK…" Emma said, taking a deep breath. "That was a fun little victory but forget about it for now. We need to concentrate on these cupcakes. Priya and Caleb can you guys make the batter with me and Raj? Damien and MK you're on ovens. Raj, we'll work on the buttercream frosting later. And… we'll all stack together at the end? That sound good?"
Everyone nodded.
Emma confessional: Glad I can take over for once! I bake for fun! And I have to show MK and Caleb I'm not afraid to take a leadership role. And hopefully I get more time with Raj…
A few minutes later and the Panthers came barging in, their arms loaded with ingredients. No one had brought a bag of flour this time. They quickly dumped everything down on their work stations and looked at their head chef for instructions.
Julia quickly tied her hair into a bun (the iconic bun) and began directing everyone. "Axel, Nichelle you're going to help me make the batter. Ripper, Chase ovens. Zee and Wayne, I want you guys to work on the frosting but wait until the cupcakes are out of the oven and on the cooling racks before you start. We want the cupcakes to cool before putting the frosting on. MOVE!"
Everyone hurried to work on their designated tasks. To make up for lost time, they would have to work doubly hard.
Julia began dumping the dry ingredients to her mixer bowl and turned the speed to medium. Julia was really comfortable. She had been doing this for as long as she could remember. It was just another day in the sweet shop for her…
"Sooo… Sweet Little Julias…" Nichelle mused. "I never tried that place. How is it?"
Julia looked up while she dusted her apron.
"Objectively speaking, it's the best sweet shop in Canada. We average a 4.98 star rating because we've only ever had one bad review from an absolute KAREN who I cussed out when I was 15." She gave a little laugh and put her hands on her hips, staring at the ceiling reminiscently as if she was watching the scene play out all over again. "Serves her right. She was giving me lip and attitude for no reason and thought she could get away with it so I had to put her in her place," Julia said venomously. It seemed this story was rather personal to her…
"Oooo. You think you can send us some stuff?" Nichelle asked eagerly, clearly ignoring Julia's story.
Julia pursed her lips. "Mmmm… You can come and try it out. I'll tell my parents who you are I guess… No discounts guaranteed though. Unless you buy a membership."
"How long have you been working there Julia?" Zee asked curiously. He was definitely going to check this place out as it was now on his bucket list along with Pig Beach and Bali, Indonesia.
"Since I was 5," Julia replied proudly.
"Sounds like child labor to me," Axel snorted.
"It's a family business," Julia hissed. "There's a difference."
"What days should I go for a discount? I'm a little cheap… sorry," Wayne butted in.
"July 1 and Aug 22 every year have the best deals. 80% off every purchase, but those are also the busiest days because the prices are so good," Julia frowned as she worked on her batter. Apparently everyone was interested in her parents' shop all of a sudden and they were asking a million questions.
"Those are really random days. I know July 1 is Canada Day but what's so special about Aug 22? Is that when the shop opened?" Nichelle said.
Julia rolled her eyes as she poured butter into her mixer.
"Nooo…. July 1 is my birthday, Aug 22 is my sister Megan's. That's why those days have the best deals because let's be honest, I really was the best deal for my parents."
"WHOA. You're a Canada Day baby? That makes you like 110% Canadian!" Zee marvelled, hands on his face in awe.
Wayne roared with laughter. Even Julia had to give a little laugh at this remark.
10:37 am
"How do you preheat an oven?" Ripper squinted at the oven as if it would magically turn on by itself. Chase bent over next to Ripper.
"I'm not sure…" Chase said slowly, poking his head around. "I remember Emma and I used to do 24 hour cake challenges where we livestreamed us making cakes for the whole day for our subs but she was always the one doing the baking. I was answering questions. Kinda wished I paid more attention to what she was doing…Maybe this?" He turned the fan on. "Whoops that's not it." He hastily turned it off and pondered which buttons he should press next.
Feeling sorry for them, Julia came over and turned the oven on easily.
"There, now set it to 350," she ordered.
"Wait… how do we do that too?" Ripper asked cheekily.
Julia's eyes narrowed. He was entering seriously dangerous territory now. "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!" she snapped, refusing to believe they were this incompetent in the kitchen. "UGH MOVE!" She elbowed Ripper out of the way. Being head chef was going to be a long day.
Chase confessional: *raises hands in the air* OK before you say I'm an idiot for not knowing how an oven works… in my defence, Emma was doing all the baking.
Emma turned on her stand mixer and began beating eggs. Now was her opportunity to talk with Raj openly while there was a good amount of noise in the kitchens.
"Bowie's absence hurts right?" she mumbled, staring at Raj with pity.
Raj wiped his hands on his apron and snivelled. "Yeah… I just miss him so much… I'm sure he'd have a lot of fun with this challenge… even though his favourite dessert was tiramisu, he still would have enjoyed cupcakes…" Raj gave a heavy sigh and stared hard into his mixer, trying to concentrate on the spinning contents to ease the pain of Bowie's early departure.
Emma looked at Raj in sorrow and took a deep breath before saying her next words. She knew Raj was emotionally vulnerable right now and wanted to be gentle with her words so as not to offend him. "Raj, Damien told me you were glaring at him all over breakfast. I – I know you're mad at Damien. But don't you think you're being a little too mean to him?"
Raj gave a little sigh.
"Emma… He voted for Bowie, I'm sure of it. There's no one else. Bowie and me voted for MK, I'm not sure who you or Priya voted for but since neither of you seem like the type to vote Bowie off, that means MK, Caleb and Damien voted for Bowie. AGH! We were even talking about it a few nights ago, I knew I had a bad feeling when Caleb went to see me and Bowie after the tower challenge. MK and Caleb are up to no good!" He shook his fist in the air.
Emma bit her lip and stared lost at the batter she was making, not saying a word. She still did not know how Bowie had gone home instead of Caleb when she had deliberately switched her vote to Caleb, thinking other people would target him for only racking up two points for their team. Now she just found out that Bowie and Raj had voted for MK. If only she had chosen to target MK instead, she would've been gone and off Emma's back. Emma was infuriated.
She had seriously considered voting off the mastermind behind the cheating but had been too afraid to go up to Bowie and Raj to discuss this in case they got mad at her for not speaking up sooner. Alas, the votes did not line up. Why didn't she just talk to Bowie about it first?...
Meanwhile Damien stood by the ovens sulkily. Caleb, Priya, Emma and Raj were almost done the first batch of batter. MK took note of Damien's foot which was shaking up and down in an irritated fashion.
"You jealous?" MK asked Damien, nudging her head in the direction of Priya and Caleb. They seemed to be enjoying their time together. They were licking their fingers to taste-test the batter and were giggling often.
"What?!" Damien glanced at MK. "Hell no…" He stared back once again at Priya and Caleb.
"You're a horrible liar Damien," MK snorted.
Damien sighed.
Damien confessional: *throws hands up* Great. So Priya's falling for Caleb and Raj hates me now. I am not in a good position on my team. So who do I talk to now? Spooky MK!
"I wonder why Raj keeps glaring at me," Damien said unsurely taking a peek at Raj whenever Raj wasn't looking in his direction. "He's been doing it all day!"
MK was eager to stir the pot of drama unfolding before her eyes. "Oh… I don't know… maybe because he thinks you voted his boyfriend off," she said with a twisted smile.
"But I didn't!" Damien spluttered. "You know, I thought it would be something like that…"
"Of course you didn't," MK said reassuringly. "But he doesn't know that…" She nudged her head in Raj's direction.
Raj was tossing in the sugar a little more aggressively than usual.
Damien sighed. "Yeah… either way it was Priya who voted for Bowie, not me. But I don't want him to be mad at her either…so until then I guess I'll take the blame…"
Unlike Raj, Damien was rather indifferent to Bowie's exit only because he had been an extremely strong competitor last season. And the less competition Damien had, the better. Unfortunately, it had come at the cost of Raj now hating him.
Damien confessional: I wonder if I should tell Raj it was Priya who voted for his boyfriend to get the weight off my back or if I should just take the punches for her…
"Interesting… you like her?" MK raised her eyebrows in a flirtatious joking manner.
"Yeah… NO! NO! I DON'T," Damien said dreamily before hastily shaking his head. MK chuckled.
While Axel handed Ripper their first batch of cupcakes to be put into the oven, Wayne and Zee leaned back on their chairs and made small talk while they waited for the cupcakes to be done.
"Fun fact. You know how Timbits are just like the center of a donut hole cut out? Well that's basically what cupcakes are like for cakes," Wayne winked as he formed a small hole gesture with his fingers.
"Wow…" Zee said, extremely impressed. This was a very big revelation for him and he wanted to make a mental note of it but unfortunately for him he did not have a pen.
Just then, Julia came over and snapped her fingers impatiently. "Uhhh that makes zero sense. Anyways, Wayne we need more flour. Now." She put down a bowl for Wayne to pour the flour into. Wayne, however, seemed to ignore the bowl.
"YOU GOT IT JULES. TIME TO DUST THE PLACE!" Using his bare hands, Wayne reached into the flour bag and started throwing flour directly onto the table as if he were making pizza dough. Julia's eyes bulged out of their sockets. What is he doing? she breathed heavily.
Julia grabbed Wayne's chaotic hand which was spraying flour all over the table.
"STOP!" she said fiercely. "I meant put the flour in the bowl, not on the table."
Wayne smacked his head.
"Silly me!" He laughed. "Sorry Julia, I just saw a chef do it at an Italian restaurant one day so I thought –"
Julia was seething. She didn't have time for his idiocy. Julia didn't know why Wayne was acting so out of character when he had demonstrated competency in the previous challenges. Perhaps some boys really were useless in the kitchen or… was he sabotaging her for eliminating Millie? Had cross-checking her not been enough? Either way, Julia did not appreciate Wayne's performance today so naturally she had to send him a warning.
Julia gripped Wayne's wrist tightly and locked eyes with him.
"Are you trying to sabotage our team?" she hissed scathingly. "You'd better not, because let me tell you what I do with traitors. I send them packing!" To make this statement sink in, she brought a spatula to his face threateningly.
Wayne confessional: Whoa! Didn't know Sterling could get so SPICY HOT! She's FIERCE! *chuckles*
Wayne stepped back startled. "I'm not… I swear…." He swallowed nervously. Perhaps he had to take this more seriously.
Julia squinted at him suspiciously and was about to open her mouth to yell at him some more. However, Wayne was spared the luxury of Julia's tirade because at that moment, a loud beeping sound had distracted her and everybody else.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Julia whipped her head around stunned and sniffed her nose. She smelled smoke from their ovens!
"OH SNAP!" Chase coughed, as he tried to swat the smoke away from his nose.
"Did you not SET A TIMER?!?" Julia blew up on Chase and Ripper who were coughing up smoke.
"Aw no! Knew I was forgetting something…" Chase muttered as Ripper gave another hiccough, banging his fist on the table.
Julia stomped her foot in anger. "Great… this batch is garbage…." she said grumpily, discarding their burnt batch of cupcakes into the trash.
10:46 am
"These cupcakes are donezo!" Damien cheered as he pulled out their first flawless batch and put them on the cooling racks. "Emma, Raj, you guys are killing it!"
"Awesome! Thanks!" Emma clapped her hands. It was time to start work on the frosting. Raj glared at Damien once again, causing Damien to slightly falter. Even with this compliment, Raj was still hating on him?
Emma scowled and stomped her foot on the ground in frustration.
"OK that's enough Raj!" she shrieked. She couldn't tolerate his treatment of Damien any longer.
Emma confessional: I can't have Raj mean-mugging Damien all day or else we're going to lose again!
Raj turned to Emma confused.
"Look, I know you're a really good person who's a little upset because Bowie left but right now you're acting too harshly on Damien. You don't even know for sure if he voted for Bowie!" Emma said, pointing to Damien who blinked.
Raj bit his lip as he thought twice about Emma's words.
Raj confessional: *blinks unsurely* That's true. I've sort of just been assuming this whole time that Damien was the one who voted for Bowie but… what if he didn't?... how can I be so sure it was him?
Damien took a deep breath. Maybe now they could finally clear the air and resolve this huge misunderstanding. "Raj my man, I didn't vote for Bowie. I voted for Caleb," he said pleadingly.
Raj's mouth fell to the floor and he dropped his rolling pin. All this time, he had been mad at Damien for no reason? But, it would have taken at least three votes to send Bowie home… If Damien voted for Caleb… Bowie and him had voted for MK…
"Same," Emma piped up.
Raj jumped. "What?!" he said incredulously.
"Whoa, what?!" Damien repeated. Both of them now looked bewildered at Emma who gave a cheeky little grin and blushed. It had felt so good to finally reveal her vote. By process of elimination, Raj now knew who had voted for Bowie.
Damien seemed to have known what Raj was thinking because he urgently shook his head. "Raj, I know it looks bad but please don't be mad at Priya. She was just – "
All of a sudden, MK whistled and motioned for him to come over. Damien had just spent an unusually long time with Emma and Raj. This was not good. Damien obediently made his way over to MK.
MK confessional: *looks to the side suspiciously* What are they talking about?...
Julia walked around, inspecting. Now that their new first batch of cupcakes were in the oven, they needed to start working on the frosting. She gripped Wayne's shoulder.
"Wayne, start the frosting," she instructed.
Wayne looked like he had just been told he could never play hockey again. "Uhhh, Julia… I don't know how to make frosting…" he said nervously ruffling the back of his hair because something told him Julia would not be too pleased. But to his surprise –
"That's fine. Just ask Zee" she casually shrugged and turned to head back to Nichelle and Axel when Wayne said again, even more nervously this time, "He doesn't know either… "
Julia blew steam from her nose. She was really losing her patience with everyone's lackluster performances. "Do you know anything that isn't hockey?" she snapped. She didn't mean to attack Wayne like this but she was losing her cool.
"Yeah!" Wayne replied, in a slightly offended tone. "Don't think I'm an idiot, I just don't have much baking experience that's all.. I like to eat desserts, not bake them…"
"I mean, Julia can we take a Masterclass from you? For free? That way we'll know how to actually do stuff," Zee added, popping his head and joining the conversation.
Julia's brain exploded. She despised the f word. FREE? She was so used to charging her clients for services at her parents' bakeshop that Zee's request came as a great surprise to her.
"It's literally not even complicated. Here – " She dumped some powdered sugar and lots of slabs of butter into a bowl. She tossed Wayne the electric hand mixer.
"Mix," she said, snapping her fingers impatiently and pointing into the bowl.
"Clockwise or counter clockwise?" Wayne asked confusedly.
"Doesn't matter. Stop asking stupid questions," Julia snapped.
Wayne put his hands up innocently. "OK, OK sheesh Sterling! You don't have to be so mean you know!"
"Mean? I am NOT mean. I'm just passionate. Try to keep up," Julia scoffed as she nudged his ribs playfully with her elbow. "We're going to need vanilla extract next."
Wayne proceeded to mix extremely slowly to avoid making any errors. He also seemed to be more concerned about Julia watching him like a hawk than the frosting. Julia thought he was going ridiculously slow and decided to help. She grabbed Wayne's hand and started mixing for him very quickly and professionally.
"Like THIS!" she snapped, turning his hand for him. Wayne looked down at their interlocked hands, completely distracted from the frosting he was supposed to make. Why did he enjoy it so much? It felt nice! Julia's hands were really soft. As soft as cookie dough. He put on a goofy grin which Julia did not fail to notice.
"What?" she said aggressively. Her cheeks had turned slightly scarlet and she tried to play it off by fanning herself. The only reason she was blushing right now was because it was so hot… the temperature… not the tall, good-looking, muscular hockey player in front of her… yes, that was it… the ovens...
"Nothing!" Wayne chortled. "Let's keep it up coach!"
Wayne confessional: Wow… I like this challenge! I like it a lot!
"Wow…" Zee said amazed, as he followed the spinning mixture with his eyes. He had never seen anything go so fast.
"HAHA THIS IS FAST! VROOOM!" Wayne guffawed, pretending to make a car noise.
"VROOOM!" Zee added, laughing hysterically.
Julia sighed and shook her head.
Although Caleb was ideally supposed to be keeping a closer eye on Emma who had positioned herself to be closet to Raj, he was too distracted by Priya. The way her long dark hair curved around her ears, her little smile and her pretty hands working the dough. He was in a trance. At a whim of the moment, he decided he needed to go for a stronger and more direct approach. But not too direct. A little flirting wouldn't hurt perhaps.
"You look pretty good when you're baking," he teased, leaning in closer to her.
Priya giggled and wiped her hands on her apron. "Thanks! You too!... I mean. Not you too. But… OK fine maybe I do mean you too. Uh…" She broke off and stared hardly into her stand mixer.
Caleb chuckled at Priya's behaviour.
"You think you can pump some frosting for me while I go and stack some more cupcakes?" he cooed. Priya touched her hair nervously. She did not want this conversation to end now. Not when she had suddenly started talking a bit more with Caleb. She was going to make up any excuse her teenage-girl brain could come up with to get him to stay for just a few more minutes.
"Uh… I TIRE EASILY…" she blushed.
"With arms like those? NO way, you got this Priya. Just put some muscle into it," Caleb winked.
"Hehe, my arms? Look at yours," Priya pointed the piping bag at him and accidentally squeezed a little too passionately. Frosting squirted from the end of the tip and stained Caleb's salmon-pink shirt.
"Oh NO!" she cried, putting her hand to his chest, desperate to undo her mistake. She made circular motions with her hand but only seemed to be making the mess worse. Caleb put up a hand.
"It's fine," he said calmly. "I think my arms are more suited for carrying heavy flour bags from the truck back to here anyways."
Priya nodded.
Behind Priya, Caleb stared at MK and Damien who were in the middle of stacking their first batch of cupcakes. I wonder what he's looking at Priya thought turning around and seeing only MK and Damien. MK gave Caleb an urgent look.
"I'll be back," Caleb promised Priya. "I just need to go help them stack a couple more cupcakes, you keep frosting." He rushed off.
"O – OK?" Priya said raising an eyebrow. Was he now trying to avoid her after her frosting blunder?
Priya confessional: *groans* How did I mess that up?
"What's up?" Caleb asked MK in a hushed tone as they stepped over to the side away from everyone else. "I think we have a little traitor," MK whispered, pointing at Emma who was making yet another batch of cupcakes with Raj and Priya.
"What?" Caleb blinked. "If you're talking about Emma quitting our alliance this morning, I don't think there's anything we can do abou – "
"No, no, no I'm not talking about that. I mean, it looks like Emma voted for you. Damien just told me," MK said.
Caleb raised an eyebrow and put his hands to his hips. Well this news could certainly change his views on Emma. She had voted for HIM?!
"How do you know Damien wasn't lying?" he asked slowly.
MK snorted. "It's Damien we're talking about. He doesn't have that lying gene in him."
"SO," MK clapped her hands. "I want you to confront her. Tell her you know that she voted for you and that we're considering voting her off next with Priya and Damien unless she joins us again."
Caleb shifted awkwardly.
"Is that going to be a problem?" MK raised her voice slightly.
"No, no, not at all," Caleb muttered shakily.
Caleb confessional: Ain't gonna lie, I kind of want out of this alliance too. I think I'd be better off with Priya anyways… I just can't bring myself to threaten Emma… but if I don't… I'll have to worry about MK… I mean, I'm sure she can get Damien's vote…
Since Zee and Wayne had nothing to do until the next batch of cupcakes went to the cooling racks, Wayne decided to help the girls with the batter while Zee grabbed some spinach and began munching on it.
While Ripper was eyeing the ovens, Chase signalled Zee to come on over.
"So Zee you wanted to meet Betty Crocker?" Chase said slowly. Zee continued to nibble on his spinach silently and waited to swallow before answering.
"Yeah man. I've been trying to see her for ages. It's a real dream of mine. Every time I call corporate headquarters, they keep saying Betty isn't available. I wonder why…" He stared off into space and fed himself another piece of spinach.
Chase confessional: *face-palms* How do I tell Zee Betty Crocker wasn't a real person?
"Pssst Ripper," Chase whispered to Ripper's back.
Ripper turned away from the ovens. "What?" he barked.
"Zee thinks Betty Crocker was a real woman. What do we do?"
Ripper stared incredulously at Zee. Was his friend really this stupid? "Seriously? Just tell him she wasn't. She's like that Aunt Gemini syrup, just plastered on to boxes and everyone assumes they're real." He scoffed. "They. Are. Not."
Chase looked apprehensively at Zee. How could he tell one of his best friends his dream would never come true? Suddenly –
Ripper shoved Chase forwards into Zee. Chase took a deep breath.
"OK… Zee," Chase said slowly, carefully thinking over his words. "I – I… just wanted to tell you that – "
Zee stared at Chase intrigued. "Yeah? Whaizit?" he asked through another mouthful of spinach. Wasting no time –
"Betty Crocker isn't an actual person. She's not real!" Chase said bluntly.
Zee dropped his spinach and took a step back. His prosthetic leg was shaking.
"NO! YOU'RE LYING TO ME CHASE!" Zee yelled. The whole room turned around. Everyone had stopped what they were doing and stared at the commotion. Julia was especially intrigued. She licked her lips hungrily at any source of drama and shouting. What was going on?...
"BETTY CROCKER WAS REAL. NEXT THING, YOU'LL BE TELLING ME SANTA CLAUS ISN'T REAL!" Zee raged on, hands over his ears trying to filter Chase's words out from his head. Unfortunately, they could not block out Chase's next words.
"Uh… he isn't," Chase said bluntly once more.
Zee's heart dropped. He shook his head vigorously in disbelief. "HE ISN'T?" Zee cried.
Suddenly, behind Chase came another "HE ISN'T?"
Chase turned around. Ripper was wearing a face of utter shock.
"Wh – you too?!" Chase couldn't believe it. He was going to have to break the news to both of his buddies today that their fairy tales were just make believe. "Sorry kids, Santa isn't real. There I said it." Chase shrugged nonchalantly.
"Just because you've only gotten farts for presents doesn't mean Santa isn't real!" Ripper retorted red-faced. His blood was boiling.
Axel interfered and put a hand on Ripper's shoulder. "I'd say that's a pretty good reason to vote him off don't you?" She pointed her head towards Chase.
"Axel, what are you doing?" Chase hissed.
Axel put a finger to her lips. "Shhhh, Santa's real for today. Don't crush their dreams. C'mere." She motioned to her side a couple of feet away. Chase followed her over.
Axel lowered her voice to barely a whisper. She looked at Chase sternly. "Listen. We need everybody focused and if that means lying to Ripper and Zee about Santa Claus, then just do it. Stop being such a party pooper!"
"But – "
"Are you trying to be unlikeable on purpose?" Axel hissed.
Chase blinked. "No. That's just who I am and – "
"Oh so you're just unlikable naturally, I SEE. Well, today Santa exists GOT IT? WE need to keep those two buffoons focused."
"Alright FINE!" Chase muttered, annoyed. For once in his life, he seemed to be the smartest one in the room and it was infuriating how he had to shut his mouth.
"That's the spirit," Axel smiled. "NOW GET BACK TO WORK!"
11:27 am
Julia took a step back and whistled cheerfully. So far, so good. Half of their pyramid structure had been filled with cupcakes. Julia's arm was starting to feel sore so she figured she would delegate the stacking task to other members of her team. Nichelle was currently on a bathroom break and Wayne was currently outside enjoying his own break.
"Alright you three. You can redeem yourselves and your pathetic performances today by stacking the rest of these cupcakes," Julia adjusted her bun, fake-smiled at the Trout Trio and gestured to the cupcakes next to her.
Julia confessional: Pfft. Surely they can't mess up stacking cupcakes… right? *points to herself* Your girl needs to treat herself with a little break.
Ripper, Zee and Chase nodded.
Julia and Axel went to join Wayne outside for some fresh air. They had been baking all morning and Julia felt sweaty and gross. A little breather was what they needed after working so hard…
Ripper began placing cupcakes on the left side of the structure. "Looking good you guys. Real good…" he whispered to the cupcakes as he bent over and placed each one delicately into their holder.
Ripper squinted at the vanilla dulce cupcake which seemed to be staring back at him. The orange-glazed vanilla seemed to be making a face at him. In fact, it was whispering to him! "What's that Mr. Vanilla? You feel a little lonely?" he said as he put his ear next to the cupcake.
And then –
Ripper popped the cupcake into his mouth, chewing savagely and finishing it rather quickly. He licked the orange frosting slobbered all over the side of his mouth. His mouth dropped. He had just tasted dessert heaven!
"Aw man that's good! OK, now time for some chocolate fudge!" He wiggled a greedy finger at the chocolate cupcake sitting in front of him. Chase, sensing danger, appeared beside Ripper.
"Dude what are you doing?" he asked concerned. He knew Julia was going to blow up on them if she found out they were eating cupcakes. Ripper waved Chef off with a hand and brought a chocolate fudge cupcake to Chase's nose. "You gotta try these man, they're awesome!"
Chase hesitated. He was certainly scared of Julia but at the same time, the ooey gooey chocolate was looking too tempting. It looked extremely moist, and soft, and most importantly tasty.
Chase confessional: OK real talk. Why is that chocolate cupcake speaking to me? I can hear it whispering my name, begging me to chomp on it with my perfectly shiny white teeth! *stares at a cupcake he smuggled into the confessional with teary eyes* You're so beautiful…
"Ehhh its only one cupcake. Shouldn't hurt…" Chase shrugged. He took a tiny bite. As soon as his lips touched it –
"Holy moly macaroni! THAT'S AWESOME!" And now he wanted more. But not just one more. Five more probably wouldn't hurt. Maybe even ten. Or twenty… These cupcakes were rather small and could easily be one-bited.
Just then, Zee pulled up and stood between Chase and Ripper. He had to knock some sense into these two before they ate any more cupcakes and ruined all of their hard work! "Whoa dudes! NO eating cupcakes until the judges are done taste-testing!"
Chase forcefully picked up a chocolate cupcake and shoved it straight into Zee's mouth.
Zee swallowed and blinked. "OH MAN THAT'S GOOD! OK, just one more, just one more!"
Chase, Zee and Ripper looked greedily at their cupcakes, grinning mischievously.
Five minutes later, Julia, Axel and Wayne re-entered the cabins ready to get back to work. Julia looked around.
"Alright you three, how are the cupcakes lookin – OH MY GOSH!"
Julia put her hands over her mouth. Chase, Ripper and Zee had eaten half of their cupcakes. They had been absolutely demolished.
Julia took an angry step forwards. "That was half our batch, 68 cupcakes YOU CLUELESS, MUSH-HEADED, BIRDBRAINS," Julia raged. She could not believe it. She had been out for only five minutes. How could they have devoured half their project? Pigs they were.
"Which idiot thought EATING OUR FOOD was a good idea?!" Julia demanded. The trio jumped back. Ripper, Zee and Chase pointed at each other accusingly, pink frosting slobbered over all of their guilty mouths. It seemed they had taken a great liking to the Neapolitan ones in particular. Wayne did his best to hold back a laugh for he knew Julia was very angry at the moment.
"You do realize we just spent all that time for NOTHING?" Axel threw a piping bag at Ripper. "If you're going to eat someone's cupcakes, eat the OTHER TEAM's!"
"ON IT!" Chase saluted. He could not wait to eat more cupcakes. He stood up but Julia quickly pushed him back down.
"NO! Sit down, you should've done that before. We need all hands on deck now to remake these cupcakes!" Time was running out – 30 minutes left to make 68 cupcakes. Julia eyed the clock nervously. They were probably not going to make it. She'd had tight deadlines back at her parents' sweetshop with demanding customers but nothing quite like this.
Chase, however seemed calm. Speedrunning a bunch of cupcakes was exactly his channel's style – vivacious, quick and intense. "Relax!" he said carelessly, licking the last bit of frosting off of his mouth. "You guys can do it all over again I'm sure. And you'll have us to help this time! Just make em like you did last time and we're guaranteed to win because they tasted BOMB!"
"YOU THINK THIS IS A JOKE?" Axel raised a rolling pin threateningly. "WE'LL MAKE CUPCAKES OUT OF YOU!"
"OHO! BRING IT ON!" Ripper added, grabbing a rolling pin himself and beating it in his hands.
"FOOD FIGHT!" Zee and Wayne announced happily. Before they knew it, frosting and leftover cupcake batter whizzed through the room. It was Axel, Wayne and Julia against Ripper, Chase, and Zee.
Chase was using a kitchen scraper as a shield. Unfortunately, he could not block the big block of batter which collided with his coconuts. Chase keeled over in pain wheezing.
Nichelle came back from her bathroom break and opened the doors. She gasped upon seeing what was going on in front of her. Their work station looked like it had exploded and everyone was throwing things at each other. It was absolute pandemonium. She had never seen such barbaric behaviour, even from Hollywood!
Nichelle confessional: *throws hands up and sighs* I can't believe they're just throwing our food around like that. It's time to take over.
Nichelle got up on a table.
"CUT" Nichelle's voice sliced through the air, echoing a director on set. The brief food fight died out instantly with Ripper receiving the last hit of chocolate sauce into his hair.
"What are y'all doing?!" Nichelle demanded. "Why are we having a food fight before the challenge is over? And WHY IS HALF OF OUR PYRAMID GONE?!" Only now that she had moved closer had she noticed that half of their beautiful cupcake tower had vanished.
"These three morons" – Axel pointed to Ripper, Zee and Chase – "all thought it was a good idea to eat our cupcakes. We told them they were being idiots, their sensitive butts couldn't handle the thought of them being responsible for this mess so we started a food fight with them."
Chase immediately fired back and he scrunched his face enraged. "WHAT?! That's like a half-truth. Yeah, we ate them. But she threatened us first, said she'd make us into cupcakes! So we had no choice but to defend ourselves!"
"OK I did say that," Axel nodded. "But it doesn't change the fact that you were an idiot who ate our cupcakes!"
"And… now we have to play catch-up. It's so over," Julia said quietly. She crossed her arms and sat on her stool looking defeated. She had no desire to continue. Not when they couldn't make it anyways.
Nichelle stared at her teammates and couldn't believe they were giving up! Fine then, if they were going to go down without putting up a fight, she would let them pout. But she was not going to sit idly and lose the challenge. She tilted her head slightly higher and faced her teammates.
"Hang on, it's not over yet until the pleasantly plump lady sings. WE CAN STILL DO THIS!" Nichelle pounded her fist into her palm.
They all looked up at her.
Nichelle confessional: That's the thing about acting. If it doesn't work the first time, you go for a take two. Then you realize your camera wasn't even on. So you do another take two with FLASH. If that doesn't work, you just do 500 more takes and then BOOM! Before you know it, you've made a masterpiece!
"Look… We still have flour, salt, sugar and butter," Nichelle counted. "And Axel's still got a lot of icing left in those piping bags. We just need… eggs."
"I'll go back to the truck," Axel volunteered. Nichelle's attitude was infectious and it clearly seemed to be having an effect on Axel who was also determined to start baking again.
"Nuh-uh," Nichelle shook her head in disapproval. "Let one of them" – she pointed to the troublemaker trio – "go instead. They ate our project so they have to do it."
Julia stared back and forth between the three frosting-stained mouths and made her decision. Chase would probably be the best choice, being athletic and all and could probably be back in a flash with cartons of eggs. But Julia didn't want the journey to be too quick just so she could have an even more valid reason to send somebody home should they lose (and honestly, at this point Julia was expecting a loss). Zee would be too slow as he probably didn't even remember where the trucks were located…
"Ripper, go get eggs NOW!" Julia yelled.
Ripper, terrified of Julia's wrath and rage immediately zoomed out of the kitchen and made his way to the trucks outside.
"Now that that's settled," Nichelle dusted her hands on her apron. "Axel, Julia work on the frosting. Chase, Zee when they're finished be ready to put these cupcakes into the oven straight away! Wayne, you're going to help me with the batter. We can come back from this guys!"
Nichelle started to rework the cupcake batter aggressively, dumping everything into their stand mixers and working twice as fast as she had half an hour ago. She was going to do as much work as she possibly could until she had to add in the eggs one at a time.
"Whoa! OK Nichelle!" Wayne nodded appreciatively. "I'm going to dump everything into my mixer too!" And he did.
Axel rushed to start a new batch of strawberry buttercream frosting. Chase and Zee cheered their team on as they set the temperature of the ovens to 375. Indeed, the mood seemed hopeful and cheerful now that Nichelle Ladonna had set them back on track.
Only one Panther was not happy. Julia stared jealously at Nichelle. Her cold, hooded violet eyes narrowed like a hawk's and her lips thinned. Julia did not appreciate Nichelle leading the comeback. But she couldn't tell Nichelle to step off, not when she had the support of the whole team behind her.
Julia's heart was beating slightly faster than normal. Why did she feel so threatened by Nichelle taking over? Would the others look to Nichelle as their new team leader? For the first time this season, Julia felt she was… losing her power? This was not acceptable and she had to deal with this urgent matter sooner rather than later –
"Julia, you gonna help us or what hun?" Nichelle cooed into her mixer.
Julia squeezed her fist and shook it with suppressed rage beneath the table.
WHAT DID SHE JUST SAY?! SHE'S GONNA PAY FOR THAT! Julia shrieked in her head as blood pounded against her brain.
"Uh... O – O – OK!" Julia called back. "Yeah! Let's do this!" And she rushed to Axel to work the frosting. For now she would have to pretend to be okay with handing leadership over to Nichelle in crunch time.
Axel confessional: Nice to see Nichelle take the reins. Julia must be going crazyyy. *rolls eyes sassily*
Julia confessional: I'm not gonna lie. Nichelle is kind of… becoming a threat… and that needs to stop… otherwise, the others will just gravitate towards her and want her to be the new leader… I can't let that happen *punches fist into hand determined*
The Panthers were working doubly-speed. Every face was focused on coming back as quickly as possible. The Orangutans could not help but sulk.
"Damn… they really going to come back?" Damien glowered. He had been celebrating a little victory in his head.
"No!" MK said fiercely. "We won't let them. Let's use these!" She pointed to the red button on her team which Emily had said would offer a surprise. "What do you think Chef?" MK smirked at Emma.
Emma glared at MK but was immediately put on the spot with everyone else looking towards her.
"I… guess we have no choice," Emma conceded, dusting her hands on her apron. "We haven't used it yet so we might as well. Caleb, press it."
Caleb pressed his team's red button, the Orangutans watching apprehensively over his shoulder. What was going to happen? For a brief moment, it seemed nothing exciting was going to occur. The Orangutans stared skeptically at Caleb, wondering if he had really pressed it. And then –
"KITCHEN QUAKE!" Chris and Chef cheered, perhaps a little too happily while holding on to their table tightly for at that moment, the Panthers' table began to shake violently.
"THE PYRAMID!" Wayne yelled in a panicky voice. "DON'T LET THE PYRAMID FALL!"
Ignoring their rattling spoons, spatulas and stand mixers, the Panthers rushed to keep their pyramid of cupcakes from falling over and crashing. After all, it was the most important structure of all here since Emily had said they would not be tasting anything if it was broken. Wayne, Nichelle, Chase grunted grabbing one side, Axel, Julia and Zee grabbing the other.
After about a minute, the shaking stopped and the Panthers let out a sigh of relief. Their structure was safe and while lots of their ingredients had been displaced, with some on the other side of the table, others flipped over and crashed to the ground, no major damage had been done.
Wayne turned angrily to the Orangutans. "Oh not cool!" he pointed accusingly at Caleb.
"Guess it's time to unleash our own sabotage," Julia said coldly, grabbing her team's red button and looking at Nichelle. Nichelle did not think twice and nodded. Julia pressed the button and smiled maliciously at the Orangutans.
The Orangutans, who had been anticipating another kitchen quake quickly responded by grabbing their pyramid… but the shake did not come.
Instead –
"You've released the O-dawg!" Chris rubbed his hands together. This one was probably just as bad, if not worse, than the kitchen quake.
"Say what now?" Damien blinked.
"The…O-dog?" Emma asked, frightened. No sooner had she finished her question did Owen leap out of his seat and sprint towards the Orangutans' cupcake tower. Owen's eyes could only see the delicious icing, sugar, copious amounts of butter and cream waiting to be consumed by him.
He waggled his tongue hungrily and reached out his hands as if he were in a trance, only thinking with his mouth. Sensing danger, the Orangutans tried to make a wall between their cupcake tower and the rampaging Owen.
Caleb, Priya, Raj and MK bent their knees ready to collide with this large man speeding towards them like a Bullet Bill, and Emma grabbed a rolling pin, beating it in her hands, ready to give Owen's head a gentle smack if she needed to. She would rather not have to hit Owen but if he was going to destroy all of their hard work, she would have no choice.
Damien's face however lit up. He had a plan.
Damien confessional: The O-dawg wants cupcakes? Well I'd say it's better to sacrifice one or two than risk having all of our progress ruined!
While the rest of his team were bending their knees in anticipation ready to engage in battle with Owen, Damien quickly grabbed a single cupcake from their tower and stood up on the table.
"AYO OWEN!" he shouted.
Owen, acting in a very doglike manner, turned around and faced Damien, his tongue still panting greedily. Owen locked eyes with Damien. Was that… a tasty cupcake in his hands? Waiting to be eaten? Owen quickly changed courses and started rushing towards Damien.
"Here big boy, c'mon. That's a good boy!" Damien cheered, waving the cupcake in his hands in the air and egging Owen on like a dog being tempted by treats.
"Brilliant!" Priya and Emma cheered. The Orangutans relaxed now that Damien had gotten Owen's attention.
"Think he can survive the O-dawg?" Caleb asked Priya.
She nodded energetically. "Oh yeah, Damien's smart, he'll take Owen outside."
Which is exactly what he was in the middle of doing.
Damien was sprinting across the cabin as hard as he could, slightly panicky because Owen was running a lot faster than usual. It seemed sugary sweets was Owen's ultimate motivator to running.
Damien confessional: *panting* If the Olympics had cupcakes as a prize, Owen would win for sure!
Damien crashed through the door and bolted all the way down to the dock.
"Come on, come on…" he muttered, sweat dripping down his cheeks. He was almost there. Just one throw into the ocean and then their problem would be over. He looked back but that was a big mistake. Owen was right on his heels.
Damien yelped, still holding the cupcake above his head to sustain Owen's attention. Just a few more steps. Finally Damien skidded to a stop, turned around to face Owen and waved the cupcake high above his head one last time.
"Here doggie, you want the cupcake? Come and get it! FETCH BOY"
Owen was almost about to collide with Damien. Damien turned around and chucked the cupcake as hard as he could into the ocean. He felt a strong breeze of wind as Owen rushed past him and leaped into the ocean, sending splashes of water all over Damien.
Damien chuckled as Owen vigorously swam for the cupcake. He had taken care of Owen, all without hitting him on the head or risking their tower.
Damien headed back into the cabins to tumultuous applause. As he took off his hat to squeeze out the last remnants of water, it was Raj who surprised him most by taking a step forwards and making the first move.
Raj confessional: I've been really selfish today. It's time to make things right with Damien. I mean… he just saved our team!
"Nice work Damien…" Raj mumbled as the two of them fist-bumped.
"Thanks … you feeling better?" Damien chuckled, glad to see that he was on good terms with Raj once more.
Raj sighed and ruffled his hair.
"A bit… well, not really… I'm actually feeling worse now for how I've been treating you the whole day… just wanted to say I'm sorry…" He lowered his eyes to Damien's shoes and bit his lip. Raj felt so humiliated for treating Damien like garbage all day. Would Damien forgive him? Luckily –
"Brotha, I ain't holding any grudges! Bring it in!" Damien whooped as he exchanged a hug with Raj. Raj blinked. He was very lucky that Damien was so forgiving. He almost couldn't believe it!
Raj confessional: *sighs* Glad he forgave me…
The Orangutans, Panthers and hosts all clapped at the Damien-Raj reconciliation. Only Julia, MK and Chris looked unhappy as all three pretended to vomit.
Julia confessional: Bromance… ugh…. *gags*
MK confessional: Bromance… ew…. *pretends to vomit*
11:47 am
Ripper sprinted to the truck faster than he had the first time. He didn't even care that his shoelaces were untied. As he got closer to the beach, the truck came into view and he could see the familiar crates inside of it getting bigger and bigger. There was also –
"EMILY!" Ripper yelled out. "Wait, wait, wait! Don't tell me the truck's leaving, we need more eggs!" He waved his hands desperately since the truck looked like it was about to depart.
The dolphin driver stuck its' head out confusedly. Emily looked up from her list which consisted of last-minute orders to the dolphin crew of what to bring tomorrow. She was handing this list over to a dolphin as Ripper came breathing heavily and ended up tripping over his shoelace, face-planting into the dirt. Ripper frustratingly looked up, removing the dirt from his eyes.
"Please," Ripper pleaded, panting heavily. "Need – more – eggs. Don't – leave – yet."
Emily raised one eyebrow and spoke to the driver. "Wait," she said.
The dolphin driver nodded its head and Emily turned to face Ripper, hands on her hips. "The challenge is almost over… you should be stacking right now. Why do you need more eggs?" she barked.
Ripper was grateful he was getting the opportunity to speak to her again. "I kind of… messed up an entire batch of cupcakes by accident…" he answered truthfully as he brought a hand to his heart.
"Yeah, well you're used to messing things up aren't you?" she said coldly.
OK, maybe he deserved that. Instead of opening his mouth to argue like he normally would, he decided to stay focused on the imminent task. It was an emergency.
"The truck doesn't have any more eggs does it?" He craned his neck to get a better look.
"Nope, we're all out for the day," Emily answered without even looking at the truck.
"Wait… but isn't that a whole truckload of cartons right there? I can see it behind you! And… AREN'T YOU HOLDING A PACK OF EGGS RIGHT NOW?" He had just noticed the carton-shaped box in Emily's hands.
Emily looked down briefly and said slowly, "Yeah… I am. But, like I said, we're all out. Sorry." She turned away from him and went back to her list, prepared to sort them out as usual business. Did they need corn or pumpkin? Maybe both…
Ripper took a deep breath. He understood why Emily was acting so cruelly towards him and part of him definitely felt he deserved it and that what she was doing was nothing compared to what he did to her. But another part of him was furious at her for being so stubborn. He needed eggs and he was going to try his damndest to convince Emily. She probably thought he was going to give up and turn away, but that was not the alpha way. And finally, he realized what she wanted most of all was an apology. Ripper had never been good at apologies because he was usually never wrong. But time was running out so he had to go for it.
"Wait, Emily! Look, I'm sorry about what I did the other day but… please… for FART'S SAKE I NEED EGGS," Ripper pleaded. "Or – Or else I'm going home!" He cried to her back but he knew it was no use. She wouldn't budge.
Emily was not even looking at her list anymore. She stood still as Ripper gave his apology but his last sentence made her eyes widen and she stood frozen, worrying. Going home? she thought. Why did she care about that?
Emily took a deep breath and turned around. She had made up her mind.
"You want eggs?" she said squarely as she got up in Ripper's face. "Well then, you're just going to have to get them like a farmer! There's a chicken coop not too far from here. Five minutes up the hill, you'll see a pen flooded with chickens. Just get some eggs directly from the source and voila." She handed Ripper a basket.
"OK…" Ripper took the basket hesitantly. "But what do you mean 'like a farmer' ?"
"Oh, you know chickens lay eggs so you can just take them!" Emily smiled sweetly.
Ripper hesitated. Easier said than done. "But how am I supposed to get an egg if they haven't laid any yet? Just, like… choke the chicken and squeeze it out?" Ripper made ferocious motions with his hands.
Emily scoffed. "Yeah… now you see why I'm slowly advocating for VEGANISM. Let's move, I'll show you the way." She fake smiled and headed over to a small beach buggy parked nearby. Ripper did not even bother to ask to be the driver and sat quietly in the passenger seat. Emily put the key in the ignition and they were off to the large barn up on the hill ahead.
Five minutes later, Ripper found himself crouched behind a barn door with Emily, peering over at sleeping chickens. Beside them, a few feet away, lay a large metallic garbage can.
"Shhh, don't make any sound. Startled chickens are unpredictable chickens. You make so much as a crunch and they'll come sweeping and biting your calves," she whispered to Ripper.
"OK… thanks for the tip," Ripper whispered back. He liked being in a stuffy barn with Emily. If the situation wasn't so serious, he would roll around in hay with her all day.
Emily stood up. "You got this," she said kindly, touching his shoulder affectionately.
Ripper grinned. All of a sudden, he had just gained a few extra confidence points. These chickens were no match for him!
Ripper tip-toed to the centre of the barn where a group of brown Cornish hens lay sleeping. Though Ripper was being as silent as a mouse, he couldn't help but whisper to the sleeping animals.
"Come here chicky, chicky, chicky. Uncle Ripper wants to take your eggs, nice and slowly now…"
CLANG!
Ripper's heart dropped.
A trash can hit the ground and Ripper barely had time to register what had happened before he heard a bunch of clucks in unison, banging against his eardrums. The chickens had woken up.
"AHHH! NO! NO! NO! WHAT THE – ? GET OFF OF ME!" Ripper cried as he tried to swat the angry hens off of him but it was no use. They were swarming on top of him like a flock of angry seagulls and he was soon covered head to toe with chickens pecking at him from all angles.
They pecked him everywhere. His calves, his chin, his hands, his testic –
Ripper rolled around, roaring in pain as he flailed his legs everywhere.
"AHHHHHHH!" he yelled. "OWW! EMI! HELPPPPPP!"
VRIP!
Ripper's pants had just been torn off, revealing his oiled-up posterior.
Emily stifled a laugh and hid behind the barn door. Oh sweet revenge. Now she felt ready to completely forgive Ripper. They were even now. He had pushed her to a dangerous situation and she had created one for him when she chucked the trash can to the ground with great force.
After two minutes of senseless beating and lots of feathers shaking, the chickens seemed to think Ripper had had enough. Suddenly, as if nothing had happened at all, they went back to their peaceful sleep.
Emily re-entered the barn and stood over Ripper who now lay on the barn floor beaten and scratched. She squatted down next to him and rubbed her hand through his messy hair.
"Here you go," she cooed as she handed him six cartons of eggs. Yes, she had it this entire time.
"Thanks," Ripper grunted with a weak thumbs-up. Now that he knew Emily was capable of serious revenge, he did not want to get on her bad side ever again. Ripper clenched his teeth as he rolled around for a few more minutes before getting up and heading back to the buggy with Emily, many cartons of eggs now in his hands.
"Ugh, Where is Ripper?" Nichelle complained. Without eggs, many of them were standing around not doing anything, waiting as time passed. According to the clock, they had 15 minutes left. The only people working were Axel and Julia and they were making the frosting.
Right on cue, the front door opened and Ripper barged in, carrying six cartons of eggs, all balancing in his hands and wobbling slightly.
"CHASE HEADS UP!" Ripper roared, preparing himself to chuck the eggs at Chase but Axel stopped him with a sharp hand. "Don't even think about throwing those eggs!" she yelled.
Ripper faltered. Of course. What was he thinking? He couldn't afford to waste any more ingredients! Otherwise, his trip would have been for nothing! "Right… sorry… just wanted to move faster, that's all," he mumbled as he slowly made his way over.
The entire team rushed to Ripper to retrieve a carton each but Julia stayed back. Her heart was thumping because she was unsure if she wanted to commit to the plan she had hatched ever since Nichelle took over. Julia had been waiting for an opportunity to come where her plan could come to fruition and it seemed it had arrived through the front door just now.
Julia's brow furrowed. At this moment, the rest of her team were distracted by Ripper's return so she knew she would have no better chance than now. She needed to act.
Julia whistled, keeping her eyes fixated on her team members' backs but behind her own back, she picked up the bowl of salt on the side and swapped it with the bowl of sugar near the batter station. Where the bowl of sugar had been before, there now sat a bowl of salt. Julia smirked at her handiwork. All of this had been done in a matter of five seconds at most. It had been that quick and Julia was certain nobody had seen her as they were all focused on Ripper and his eggs.
Julia confessional: *sighs happily* It's a classic. Who's going to be able to tell the difference between sugar and salt anyways?
Julia was relying on their diminishing time to cause her teammates to rush and hopefully not taste anything until the judges did. The clock above cited just under 20 minutes left.
When her team returned with the eggs, Julia pretended to be doing some last-minute work on the frosting with her back hunched over. Everybody returned to their designated work station. They had to rush to make the last few batches.
While Nichelle cracked eggs into the stand mixer to work on her batter, Ripper started making a couple of new batches on his own, dumping everything into the mixer as quickly as he could. Butter, eggs, flour, a pinch of salt. Julia narrowed her eyes and kept them focused on Ripper's hands. Any second now…
Finally Ripper took the bowl of what he thought was sugar next to him and dumped a large amount. Julia's eyes glinted triumphantly as the salt went in, Ripper completely unaware of what he had just done.
AUTHOR'S NOTES
When MK calls Caleb "Dorito Nojito" , it is supposed to sound like Dorito No-heat-o. She says this because Caleb's V-taper physique looks like an upside-down triangle (a Dorito) and a Nojito is the non-alcoholic version of a Mojito. She is saying he has "no heat"/"no ambition" and is basically calling him a scared, buff guy.
I gave the Trout Trio the Owen edit in "If you can't take the heat" when he ate the food. That's because when these three fools are together, they always do dumb stuff.
Part 2 will contain a flashback scene. It was already hinted at in this chapter! See if you can spot it...