“Listen up, bakers! Today’s bake will be a familiar one.” Chef Coco turns around dramatically, a devious smile upon his face as he looks over them all not unlike a vulture upon a herd of wildebeests. “With half the semester gone, I’d like to see how much you’ve all learned so far. Fun, right?”

Grim simply exchanges a glance with Tanner and Angela before sinking further into his seat. “This does not bode well.” If the collective groan that rises from his classmates is any indication, it isn’t a lone sentiment.

“Where’s your sense of enthusiasm?”, Angela asks with a scoff. “We’re here to learn and grow and test ourselves. I, for one, think it’ll be fun.”

Sauntering happily down the aisle, Chef Coco digs into his hat and passes them each a slip of paper before he proclaims, “It’s Cookie Week 2.0, and I challenge all you sad sacks to get out of your comfort zone. I’ve assigned you recipes based on your strengths and weaknesses”.

“Come on, Ange. Where’s your sense of enthusiasm?” Tanner raises his eyebrows teasingly at her before nodding at the slip of paper he gets from Chef Coco. “I got breakfast cookies. Whatever the hell that means.”

Doughboy waddles over with their slip, raising it high above his doughy head for Grim to read. “I got vanilla macaroons.”

“...I got oatmeal raisin cookies”, Angela mutters, her lips pressed tightly together as she scowls at her slip. “And I’ve been strictly forbidden from straying from the recipe. Again. You know, I’m starting to really hate cookies.”

Tanner just lets out a huff. When he returns from the front table with an armful of flour, syrup, and bacon, there’s a glint to his eyes as he remarks, “Well, I’m starting to love ‘em. Not to toot my own horn but I got an A last time we made ‘em”. He’s just finished running his hands under the water, washing away the last of the suds when he notices that they’re staring at him. He blinks. “What? What’d y’all get?”

“Nothing worth…tooting our own horn about.” With that in mind, Grim lifts a hand to scratch at his skull, pondering the recipe on his slip of paper. He’s made macaroons on more than a few occasions. Of course, the filling had been made of ectoplasm and the biscuit blessed under the light of a full moon. But it’s fine. He adds some egg whites to a stand mixer, cracking his metacarpals before he searches for his cream of tartar and vanilla extract. “But this is good. As Chef Coco said, it is a chance to prove how much we’ve learned in our time here.”

Angela just grits her teeth, glaring once she’s returned with her own armful of ingredients. She weighs her bag of rolled oats within her hand as if it were a slug, a borderline murderous glint to her eyes as she does so. “That’s one way of looking at it. I just don’t get the point of this. I know what I’m good at, and it’s caramel. Do we really need a whole bake to show that?”

“Come on, you might like it”, Tanner remarks once he’s finished creaming together his butter and sugar. He’s just reached for his egg, his gait easy and assured when Angela cuts a glare his way. He lifts his hands and egg in self-defense. “Easy, tiger, I’m just thinking out loud here. I mean, if you wanted to keep doing the same thing you’ve been doing, you wouldn’t have come to cooking school, would you?”

Sensing the need for a change in subject, Grim hums lightly to himself before asking, “Are you not the same man that enrolled in cooking school for a bet?”

“I did. But I mean, I’m actually having fun here.” He adds maple syrup and buttermilk to the mix. Before long, he’s divided his cookie dough and shyly ducks his head when The Edge walls by and winks at him. A small smile climbs to his lips. “And I mean, well, not for nothing, but it counts for a lot more when you’ve got something on the line.”

Angela lets out a quiet sigh. “Yeah, no kidding.” Her eyes then soften somewhat as she reaches for the jar of cinnamon, her stare curious. “I guess it couldn’t…hurt. To try something different.”

“Why is it that when I say that, it is a bad thing?”, Grim asks then, pouting as he begins to fill his piping bag with batter.

Tanner just snorts as he places his cookie dough into the freezer before he says, “Well, it’s different with you. You being here is stepping out of your comfort zone, and you’re always trying new stuff”. He slams the door shut and shakes his head. “When you try to cook like a mortal, it’s like asking a god to stand amongst mortals.”

“Don’t butter him up too much, pun very much intended.” All the while, she’s smiling as she begins to add eggs and vanilla to her sugary butter. “Seriously, though. I mean, maybe I will start branching out from caramel sometime, but I think it’ll always mean something special to me, you know? It’s the same with you and your cookbook, right?”

Grim’s silent for a long while. He starts to pipe macaroon batter onto his baking sheets, his skeletal hands steady. “It is. But I…I suppose I simply enjoy cooking, mortal and otherwise. And I enjoy a good challenge.”

“Now, that’s the spirit! Pun intended!”, Chef interjects, pausing to clap him lightly on the back before he skips happily down the aisle. “Keep an eye on that time, people, it’s gonna go quicker than you think!”

In the end, when he garners an A for his efforts, Grim can’t help the pride that swells within him. It’s a considerable step-up from the C+ he earned last time he made cookies. Tanner and The Edge stop by after Chef Coco for a sample of his macaroons. Tanner nods to himself, chewing for a moment before he says, “I can’t tell a lie. That’s a pretty good cookie”.

“It is. I take back what I said earlier about hating cookies.” Angela smiles playfully, and Grim returns it with one of his own before the sound of Chef Coco knocking at his desk demands their attention once more. 

Once the chatter of the class dies down, Chef Coco nods to himself, taking a moment to clear his throat before he finally speaks. “You’ve all been hard at work, so I figured you all could use a reward of sorts. My friend Chef Sucrose will be in the area for business, and he’s promised to stop in for our next class.”

“...Chef Sucrose?”, Grim says as an excited murmur passes through the class. If he had eyes, they might’ve bulged out of their sockets. He lets out an incredulous breath, confusion and excitement alike brimming within him when he lowers his voice and turns back to his friends. “How do you think they know each other?”

Tanner just shrugs, his own eyes bright with glee when he asks, “Does that matter? The biggest chef in the world is gonna be here”. He sobers up somewhat then, the gears practically spinning behind his eyes. “I’m gonna have to really put my foot in this one.”

There’s a lively chatter to the class as they all gather their things and prepare to leave, everyone pondering the syllabus and wondering just what they should bake to impress Chef Sucrose. Well, almost everyone. Whilst he and Tanner trade ideas on the way to the cafeteria, Grim can’t help but notice that Angela is as silent as a grave.