Paca Prompt: Spooky Cooking

Crumb was very excited.  It was the month of October, which meant it was time for Halloween treats!  She had chattered endlessly about it to Lemon, who found it hard not to share her enthuseasm as she described the snacks they were planning to make... cookies and fluffy meringues and pumpkin pie!  

Everything sounded so delicious that Lemon was drooling.  He'd never had pumpkin or meringue before, and while cookies were a popular snack at the bakery, it was exciting to be cutting them into special shapes to decorate!  What had Crumb said?  Black cats and haunted houses, ghosts and pumpkins and witches?  He didn't even know what a witch looked like... but it sure sounded fun!!  

He was practically tripping over his own nubs when Crumb called him into the kitchen for baking the next morning!  But when he opened the door and climbed onto the counter he became very confused.  The room was pitch black!  He could barely see a thing!  And was that spooky mist spilling across the floor?

"Oooh Lemon!  There you are!"  Crumb's face suddenly popped out from the darkness, eyes wide and smile bright and beaming.  But where was the rest of her?  He let out a squeak of fear and scuttled backwards for the open door... but the door was gone!

"Crumb?!"  He felt panic creeping into his throat.  "I thought we were baking, what's happening?"

"This is baking!"  The other paca's head began to drift in lazy circles around him.  Really, where was her body???  Though Lemon looked this way and that, he couldn't see it anywhere.  "Spoooooooky baking!"

"This isn't funny!"  He squeaked tearfully.  "Its too dark to see, where's the table? And the ingredients?  And the rest of you?!"

The other pacapillar cackled in a very witchy manner, her head swooping up, up and away from him to become a big round Crumb-faced moon in the sky!  The air was suddenly bright with freckles of stars, illuminating their normal kitchen setup... surrounded by tombs and graves and pumpkins with twisted, scary faces.

A low whine left the back of Lemon's throat.  Standing in the middle of the kitchen, setting bowls and measuring cups out on the counter was the rest of Crumb's body, clearly missing its head.  She was wearing a blood splattered apron with the words 'CHOP THE COOK' scribbled on it in crude, scratchy lettering.  

"Well don't just stand there!"  Crumb's moon-head called from up on high.  "I was just about to start making cookies, come and help!"

Lemon was too petrified to move at the sight, his brain working very hard to comprehend everything that was happening.  Crumb's body seemed to pay no mind to his fear, flipping open a recipe book while the moon above peeked down at the contents.

"Preheat oven to 200 degrees, mix flour, baking soda and baking powder, got it!"  Her body shuffled over to Lemon and grabbed him by the nubs, pulling him into the middle of the spooky kitchen setup.  "Lemon!  Could you start the oven for me?"  She clapped her hands and a pantry door in a large tombstone flew open, paca-sized boxes of baking powder and soda floating out, accompanied by a heavily bobbing bag of flour.  

One of them bumped gently into the back of Lemon's head, startling the other pacapillar into movement with a surprised squeak.  He timidly approached the wicked looking oven, reaching out to turn the dial as requested.  The front panel was lined with a pattern of sharp teeth, which seemed to grin hungrily at him as he backed carefully away.  Looking over at Crumb, he watched as the other pacapillar counted out exact measurements, the ingredients filling the bowl by themselves like they were guided by invisible hands.

"Cream the butter and suuuugar."  Crumb-moon was putting on a silly voice like a comical ghost, making Lemon look anxiously up into the sky at her again.  "Add an eeeeegg.  Lemooooon!  Get me the vanilla!"

Her body nudged him towards the tombstone pantry and he panic-scuttled to obey.  Vanilla was right there on the shelf, but as he reached for it the pantry door slammed shut, nearly trapping his hand in it!  He yelped in fear as the door swung open again, banging menacingly like it was caught in a strong wind.  Crumb snickered from above.

"Stop it!  If you're doing this its scary Crumb!!"  He squeaked.  The pantry opened again and this time remained still.  With tears budding in the corners of his eyes, Lemon darted forward to grab the vanilla, turning heel and dashing back to the kitchen as the pantry slammed behind him agian, making him jump.  He held the bottle out to Crumb's body, only to have it float gently out of his hands and squirt the necessary drops into the self-mixing ingredients hovering above them.

"Now we roll the dough into baaaallls"  Crumb's head tittered gleefully as the bowl dropped onto the counter suddenly with a clatter.  "Come help, Lemon!"  Her body thrust a big armful of cookie dough at him, and he nervously stood beside her, taking pinches of dough to roll into little spheres.  Despite the scary strangeness in the kitchen, the work was familiar and he found himself beginning to enjoy it - or rather enjoy it as much as you could enjoy baking next to the headless body of your friend.  At least the cookies seemed normal.

It wasn't long before they were done, and Crumb popped the oven open to slid the duo of full trays into it.  She closed the door and wiped her nubs off on her apron, the moon in the sky leaning down close to make sure everything looked ok.

"Now that the cookies are baking, did you wanna make the frosting?"  She asked innocently, taking Lemon's hand and dragging him out into the spooky world beyond the kitchen.  "We gotta get the big mixer for that!"

"The big mixer?"  Lemon stumbled over a pumpkin, feeling anxious to be moving away from their only source of light.  The graves and the mist were creepy enough already, let alone having to walk into them.

"The big mixer!"  Crumb repeated, leading him up a flight of rickety stairs braced against a large dark machine.  "Here it is!"

Crumb pointed to the tines of an enormous electric mixer - it had to have been people sized, big enough to fit multiple pacapillars into easily.  He peered down into the stainless steel bowl, wondering how much frosting they were planning to make.

"Where's the ingredients?"  He asked nervously, looking over his shoulder at Crumb's body.  "We need water and icing sugar right?"

"Mmhmm!"  Crumb's moon head nodded as her body emptied a big sack of icing sugar into the bowl.  "Water and icing sugar and food coloring!  I think we'll start with a nice yellow, don't you?"

"Yellow?"  Lemon looked around.  He could see sacks of sugar and a hose for a lot of water but no food coloring.  "Did you want me to go back to the kitchen and get it?"

Crumb snickered as her body shuffled over to him.  "Silly Lemon!  YOU'RE the food coloring obviously!"

Lemon felt his blood run cold.  He was about to stammer out a question, wondering if he'd heard correctly, but in a flash, Crumb's body gave him a hard shove, sending him over the edge of the platform and into the giant mixing bowl!

He squeaked out a scream as he felt himself falling, hearing the whirr of those mechanical whisks starting up mingled with the cackling of Crumb-moon's witchy laughter.  She'd been planning to eat him this whole time?!  He just wanted to bake!!  He was gonna die all mixed up in frosting...!!

And suddenly he hit the ground with a hard thump!

With a squeak of terror he curled himself up into a tight ball, waiting for the blades to catch him and turn him into mulch.  But one second passed... and then another and another... nothing was happening?

Shivering with fear he opened one eye.  This was the floor of his room?  The tightness tangled around his body wasn't a whisk cutting him to pieces, it was.... his blanket?

Lemon sat up looking wildly around.  Why, this was his room, lit up brightly in the afternoon sun!  There was no scary kitchen, no headless Crumb.... he was right here at home and had fallen out of his bed.

It had all been a dream!  A spooky scary dream!  He felt like he wanted to cry with relief.

Somewhere in the kitchen he could hear Crumb singing as she bumped about setting ingredients on the kitchen counter.  The smell of pumpkin and cinnamon tickled his nostrils and made his tummy grumble.

He headed for the door, hungry for a snack.  The Spooky Cooking nightmare was over, and now he could spend the afternoon baking with his best friend.

Much to his relief, the world beyond his bedroom door was just as normal as he remembered.