The Charming School Baker

 

The Charming School Baker

Made by:

Sofia Cherise Q. Villamon

G7

The leaves on the trees rustle as the gentle breeze goes by.  The sun shines in the clear skies.  The streets bustle with people as they rush to get to their destinations.  This story is about an ordinary school girl.  She’s a charming student currently in the cooking club.

There is a particular tradition in this school called the “Tokubetsunahi Festival”.  This festival only happens once a year and requires the cooperation of all the clubs in the school to create special stalls to celebrate. During the few weeks before this festival, all the students in their respective clubs come up with different ways to promote their club in festival.

Each year, the cooking club assigns a student to pick a type of cuisine.  Once they picked a type of dish, the members of the club would brainstorm on how to compete against each other.   The club member that sold off the most food to onlookers would win a special prize in tradition to the cooking club.  It’s similar in other clubs as well but this charming student liked cooking the most.

Though this girl is as average it gets, you can always count on her to cheer you up in the saddest of moments.  Her name is Temaki Hasigo. 

Temaki was about to leave her house until she saw a close friend of hers. 

“Good morning, Zenchiko-Sama!” Temaki shouted happily to her dear friend.

Zenchiko Hariyama, one of the members of the cooking club and a good friend of Temaki.  She’s often the taste tester of all of Temaki’s dishes to come.

“Morning, Temaki.” Zenchiko replied as she waves her hand.

“Are you going to join in festival too?” Temaki asks as she gets her bike ready.

“I think I’ll just watch this year.” Zenchiko sadly replies.

Temaki notices her friend’s sad expression.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to join this year.” Temaki says with a smile.

Zenchiko nods after Temaki’s statement.

“Also hurry up. We don’t want to be late for school do we?” Zenchiko says jokingly.

They had a chat the rest of the way, riding their bikes.

After a long chat, they arrived in front of the school.

“Looks like this is where we part ways for now.” Zenchiko sighed as she locks up her bike on a nearby fence.

“See you later then, yeah?” Temaki asks as she does the same with her bike.

“Yeah, I’ll meet you later in the club room.” Zenchiko replies.

Temaki nods as Zenchiko walks in the school waving goodbye. 

Other than trying to pay attention to class, she also thought of what kind snack they were going to assign.  Before Temaki can realize, the school bell rang.

Temaki jumped in shock as she heard the bell ring.  She took a glance at her phone to find out that it was already 1PM. 

“Oh good, I still have thirty minutes.” Temaki sighs to herself.

The official time for the club meeting was 1:30PM.  The fun part was finding out what challenging dish they were going to announce.  Once the dish is chosen, the participants of the club will have twenty-four hours to come up with something. 

Sure, making up a custom version of that initial dish may be trick, but there’s always time to experiment until then.

 

Temaki stood up from her seat, getting ready to leave the classroom.  She began to put everything she needed into her bag and head for the door.  As Temaki was about to grab the door handle, she bumps into Hariko Ashima, a classmate of hers. 

Hariko Ashima is usually the most cunning in the class.  Although he seems bad, all he wants is to taste Temaki’s dishes.

“Good day am I right Aki-Chan?” He smirks, looking at Temaki.

“Haha, very funny Hariko-Kun.” Temaki replies sarcastically.

“Let me guess.  You want to be my taste tester this year. Don’t you?” Temaki asks suspiciously.

“Haha... You know everything don’t you?” Hariko smiled.

“Well, maybe if you play nice I’ll consider it.” Temaki replied.

Hariko looked Temaki straight in the eyes and nodded while also giving her puppy dog eyes.  Temaki rolled her eyes and sighed.

They both open the door and go their separate ways.

Temaki headed straight for the club room and bump into Zenchiko on the way.  After a few minutes, they arrive in the club room and took a seat.

 

They waited for a while until the meeting started. 

 The club leader started with a speech whilst hoping that everyone would have fun during the event.  After the speech was finished, they brought out lottery wheel and proceeded to write down every student’s name from the club onto balls. Once everything was finished, they rolled the wheel and a ball with a name popped out.

Sadly Temaki wasn’t picked.  But what was more important was the dish they had to make.

 

“This year’s dish is…..” they said in deep thought.

 The suspense rose as all the club members anticipated what dish the student would choose.

The student thought deeply about their decision and said “Let’s make tarts this year!”

The rest of the club members got excited as they thought of what kind of twist they would add to a tart.

The club leader said a few more words about the rules and how to get a stall.

After thirty minutes, the meeting ended and Temaki was chatting with Zenchiko about what the stall and how they could present the custom made tart.

A few hours has passed since the meeting.  Temaki was headed home riding her bike.  She rides on the bike to admire the scenery around on her way to and from school.  

Temaki arrives in her house as she unpacks her bag and change into more comfy clothes.  After cleaning herself up, she jumps on her bed with a notebook in hand.  She had twenty-four hours to think about a good custom tart.  She decided to call this dish of hers the “Strawberry Zest Cream Tart”.

She thought and thought until she decided to try the recipe herself.  She finished her first batch in about forty-five minutes.  They tasted okay, but she wanted the tart to taste better.

The second batch took a little longer to prep.  She wanted a tart that can be made on the go since there would be a lot of people coming by.

She proceeded to prep and tweak her custom recipe.  Later on in the night, Hariko stopped by after he saw that the light in her house was on.  Zenchiko couldn’t come by due to being busy, so Hariko had to act as taste tester this time.

 

The day had come.  The Tokubetsunahi Festival was today.  Temaki was on her bike hurrying to school to prep up the rest of her ingredients and the stall.

 

Temaki reaches the school and starts preparing for the festival.  A few hours later, all the ingredients are prepped and the stall is as great as ever.  It was only a few minutes later until the civilians from outside school would visit the stalls of all the different clubs. 

The stalls form the cooking club attracted a lot of people.  The pastries were handed out to almost all of the guests.  The fact that so many people tried Temaki’s tarts first out of all the other stalls made feel happy.  Some people left of gifts, others tips.  The end of the day was near and almost all of the members in each club were exhausted.

 

Once all the guests left, all of the club members from each club were instructed to go to their respective club rooms.

It was time for the club leader to tally up who handed out the most tarts.  They took a few minutes counting and announced the top ten in the club.  Surprisingly enough, Temaki managed to make it on second place.

A day has passed by, It’s now the weekends.  She sits by her window, starring outside. Temaki then says to herself with a smile. “That sure was a fun day wasn’t it?”

 

The End~