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A loud clatter grabs my attention.
‘You idiot, Tobias,’ Leila shouts. A surge of red flushes through her usually pale complexion. ‘Look what you did.’
It appears as though Tobias has managed to drop their tray – with theiroven readyscones,what? – on the floor, scone side down.
‘It’s all good,’ Margarita reassures them, springing up from nowhere. ‘We allow lots of extra time, for accidents like these. In this kitchen, we don’t call them accidents, we call them first drafts. Your second batch will be even better.’
‘I would suggest we throw ours on the floor, if they might be better the second time, but looking around the room, it seems like we’re miles behind everyone else,’ I whisper to Rocco.
‘Then I guess we had better just make these ones extra special,’ he replies. ‘The first time’s a charm, as they say. What’s next?’
‘Next is twenty-five grams of sugar,’ I reply. ‘It needs measuring.’
‘I’m on it,’ Rocco replies.
I take a moment to watch Leila and Tobias, working together at double speed, to get their second attempt at scones ready in time. It’s funny, we’ve made one batch in the time they’ve made two. It levels the playing field slightly, giving us both just enough time left on the clock to cook our attempts. I can’t believe how competitive Leila is. I occasionally notice her looking up, glaring at us, before throwing herself back into her work.
I turn my attention back to Rocco.
‘Oh, and 150 millilitres of milk,’ I tell him. ‘Imagine if we forgot the milk.’
‘We wouldn’t be winning anything with those,’ he replies.
‘Is it bad that I really want to win, just because I can see how hard they’re trying to beat us?’ I ask.
‘I want to win too,’ he says. ‘So get that milk measured, quick.’
For a few moments, we concentrate. We divide our mixture onto the baking tray, we wash the tops with a little milk, and then we head for the oven – carefully, of course.
Two ovens sit side by side at the end of our table. As bad luck would have it, Leila goes to put theirs in at the same time as I bend down to put ours in.
‘You can wait your turn,’ she ticks me off. I hang back for a second. ‘And may the best scone win.’
I mock her voice in my head. May the best scone win. God, I want to win even more now. Competitiveness is contagious.
After placing our scones in our oven I head back around our side of the table where Rocco is straightening up.
‘You know what, I only got a quick peep, but ours actually look much better than theirs,’ I tell him excitedly.
‘And that, my friend…’ Rocco lightly sucks his index finger before dipping it in the bowl of leftover sugar, ‘… is how it’s done.’
I smile as Rocco pops his finger in his mouth but then I see his expression change and my smug grin drops. His face goes on a real journey, scrunching and stretching every facial muscle he has, practically in slow motion. He looks like he’s going to be sick.
He does well to keep a lid on it, while I quickly grab one of the glasses we were given, and refill it with fresh water. Rocco must drink for a solid two minutes before he regains his composure.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask him. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, we fucked up,’ he says immediately, in a very matter of fact way, despite his voice still sounding a bit funny from… well, whatever it was.
‘Oh, God,’ I blurt softly.
Rocco inspects the ingredients on the table. As he turns the small red bowl around, it slowly reveals the label on the other side: salt.
‘We used salt instead of sugar,’ he says.
‘What?’ I reply. ‘How?’
‘I guessIused salt?’ he says.
