Post by Camila Reyes on Dec 3, 2014 19:30:58 GMT -5
Camila glanced at Carter one more time, making sure the young woman was asleep before pulling her hair into a ponytail, grabbing her key, and quietly leaving her dorm. She prayed that the night patrol prefects were taking a nap, or, at the very least, slacking off. She was hoping to sneak into the kitchen undetected. She had become skilled at sneaking around in the dark, thanks in part to the awful dreams that kept her from sleeping. Living with them was hard and annoying at times, but she managed to channel the energy into learning to hide in the right places so as not to be caught by the night patrol. This did not mean Calista would put her in a stealth mission anytime soon, but, if she was being honest with herself, she was too clumsy to do such a thing. She would probably mess up in some way and someone would have to save her a**, as usual.
She managed to get to the kitchen with almost no trouble at all. There were a few times when she thought she heard the ‘clink’ of a sword and darted behind a wall to avoid detection. The last thing she wanted was a duel with the island’s resident swordsman. Thankfully, she had just been paranoid and was able to keep her wits long enough to get to the kitchen. She walked into the room, which was under the cover of darkness, thanks to the lack or moonlight streaming in the only window. She flicked on the lights, which illuminated the room enough for her to see the messy counter. Her eyes widened and she sighed, grabbing some supplies she would be needing before cleaning off the horrendous-looking counter. I swear, I must have used at least ten disinfecting wipes to clean off that filthy thing, she thought, turning the oven on and preheating it to the normal 350 degrees. She hoped that the oven was not too old or too dirty, because if it was, things were likely to be set on fire, which was not good. Just to be safe, she filled a bowl with water and placed it beside the oven. Having a friend with fire powers had taught her a valuable lesson about keeping a bucket of water nearby in case of emergency.
After making sure everything was safe, she started to snoop around the kitchen for ingredients. She needed flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, butter, and chocolate chips. She chuckled to herself; it sounded more like a mental shopping list than it did a list of ingredients. She quietly hummed a Christmas song as she meandered around the kitchen, opening every drawer and cabinet to find what she needed. She absently wondered if she should attempt to make her own frosting. The cookies needed to look festive, after all. Who wanted just plain sugar cookies for the holidays? She did not, that was for sure. So, she grabbed the bag of powdered sugar before walking over to the refrigerator and standing on her toes to get the butter. She pouted a little, hating that she was so short. Despite the slight setback, she was able to fetch the butter and start mixing the dough for the cookies in the bowls she had set aside earlier. As she did so, she hummed more holiday songs to herself, but not too loudly. Despite the fact that she was trying to make delicious treats for everyone, including the person or people who could have potentially caught her, she was trying to be secretive about the effort she was making.
Her intent was to spread general holiday cheer. A school full of students from different cultures and backgrounds was bound to have a few students who did not celebrate Christmas. In the spirit of inclusion, when she wrote on the tags of the bags that the cookies were going into, she wrote ‘Happy Holidays’ in the neatest version of her sometimes illegible scrawl that she could manage. Of course, she had already finished labeling by the time she had started baking the cookies. As she mixed the batter, she wondered to herself if she should also include peanut butter cookies, but she decided against it. She was not sure if students had peanut allergies and if they did, how bad the allergies were. It was better to be safe than sorry. Besides, everyone likes chocolate chip and sugar, she thought as she began to rolls the dough into spheres and place them on a baking sheet, which she then put in the oven.
She repeated this process for a few nights in a row, staying up for hours on end to make sure every last bag was filled and every bland-looking cookie has some kind of design on it. Sure, her attempts at snowflakes were sloppy, and the reindeer looked more like dogs than reindeer, but it was not about accuracy; it was about bringing happiness to a place that was typically devoid of the emotion. Once the baking and decorating was done, she started to sneak around the dorm halls, tying bags of cookies to peoples’ doors. She was not sure how many people lived in each room, so she always tied two bags of cookies onto the door handle, just to be safe. She did not want anyone to feel left out of the holiday spirit. She was sure that even the scrooges of the school would smile at the sight of cookies tied to the doors.
She started with the girls’ dorms first, since she lived in that hallway. Then, she went to the female prefect dorms, noting that there was a lesser amount of rooms on the floor, which confused her a little. She then went over to the male prefect dorms, making sure every door got two bags of cookies, just like everyone else. The last night she was passing out cookies, she had to sneak into the boys’ dorms. She was glad that she had not been caught in the prefect hallways in the preceding nights of the week. If she managed to avoid detection in the hallway of those who patrolled the school, there was a very little possibility that she was going to get caught.
Unfortunately, Murphy’s law had to have its way with her that night. Footsteps echoed down the hall behind her and she froze for a moment. Her eyes shifted around, but there was nowhere to hide. She closed her eyes, wishing that she would turn invisible, or at least, intangible. Of course, she knew that was impossible, but it was worth trying, even if it was not possible. She shuffled toward the door on her right, tying the bag to the handle. She then turned to face the person or people the sound was coming from. She scratched the back of her head nervously. Her voice took on a higher pitch and a shaky tone as she spoke.
“Heh… Listen, I don’t mean any harm. There’s nothing wrong with spreading holiday cheer, right? H-hey, you want some cookies?”
