CHEESE

Aoyama set a pot of milk boiling as he hunted for the other ingredients. His poor rennet tablets were squashed behind a tub of ice cream, and someone had clearly used his silken smooth 90-thread cheesecloth as a dish rag, and the less said about where his thermometer had been, the better.

As the milk lightly simmered, Aoyama checked the pantry. His bottle of apple cider vinegar was empty.

"Merci, must've forgotten to throw that away. No matter. Lemon juice will do."

In the fridge, a post-it note said, "IOU one plastic lemon."

"Kirishima!" he shouted. "Why'd you use my lemon juice?"

"For that lemon juice challenge!" Kirishima flexed a bicep. "You squeeze it straight into your mouth. I heard it was super manly."

"Was it?"

"It was! Until I breathed some in. Then it was even manlier!"

Shaking his head, Aoyama sought out other acids. Red wine, white wine, rice wine, no matter the type, no vinegar remained. Grumbling under his breath and telling himself he could at least make some pepper jack, he sought out the lime juice. Another post-it note sat in its place.

"You use the lime juice too?" he screeched.

"I tried to wash out the lemon juice," Kirishima said. "It didn't work."

Aoyama's eye twitched. He put in an order on Amazon. Seconds later, the school's anti-air guns spat a thousand bullets, and the smoldering wreckage of a delivery drone crashed through the kitchen. Aoyama opened the package and found a box of baking soda.

"Oh hey, that's mine!"

"Whatever for?"

"To neutralize the lemon and lime juice, of course!"

Aoyama heaved a sigh and stared at his bubbling milk in despair. Mina walked up and said, "What'cha making?"

"Failure. Disappointment. A disgrace to the Aoyama name. How am I supposed to make cheese without any-"

Aoyama looked up at her like a guardian angel. "You're perfect!"

"Uh… thanks? But I'm not really looking for someone-"

Aoyama picked her up, held her over the pot, and wrung her like a towel. A trickle of acid splashed into the simmering milk.

"Perfect! The curds should form any second now."

"Uh, Aoyama? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Of course! Acid's acid. What could go wrong?"

Chunks floated to the milk's surface. Aoyama grinned. "See? It's working!"

The surface roiled. More and more curds swelled up, overflowing the pot. Aoyama backed away. "Mon dieu, what's happening?"

An arm reached out of the curds. Two hollow sockets blinked, and a dribbly curd mouth groaned as the creature pried itself out of the pot. It shoved its own arms into its mouth, formed a sphere, and cracked like an egg. A thousand curd mouths fluttered out, made a cloud overhead, and rained down cheesy curds. A flat sheet on the floor folded itself into a paper airplane, did a loop, and plopped back into the pot.

Inside the pot was a perfect cube of cheese. Aoyama took one bite and grimaced. "La vache. I forgot the rennet."

500

Meanwhile, Kirishima's winning first prize at the local science fair for turning himself into a baking soda volcano. Also, funnily enough, La vache is a french swear that literally means 'oh the cow'. The more you know.