> Gilda goes back to basic
>  by Miner
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Going back to school
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I don't know about this." Gilda looks wary at the yellow building before her. 

Her friend Gabby smiles at her, "It will be fine Gilda. After all, this is the next best thing to learning how to bake since you didn't want to learn from Pinkie Pie." They both walk inside to be greeted by a blue Mare receptionist with white glasses.

"Welcome, how can I help you two?"

Gilda looks at the pictures around the room as Gabby moves to talk with the receptionist, "We are here for the cooking classes."

Gilda jumps at this, "Baking," Gidla interrupts her friend, before moving her away from the receptionist, "We are here for the baking classes."

The receptionist nods that this," Let me check," she adjusts her glasses and looks at her clipboard. "We don't have any baking classes at the moment, Miss." 

"Drat!" She slams her claw onto the counter, starting the mare, "This is the fifth one."

Gabby tries to lighten the mood, "Maybe this is a sign to go learn from Pikie pie?"

Gilda huffs at this and turns to face her friend, "No. We will find somepony to teach us baking if its the last thing I do." They move to leave the building when the receptionist spoked up,

"Well, if that the case, then I can recommend somepony then."

Gilda is back at the receptionist's desk in a blink of an eye, blowing some of her papers off the counter, "We will take it!" Gabby walks next to her friend as the receptionist steads down her papers,

"That is good to hear. Although I must warn you-"

Gilda interrupts the mare, "What that he is a strict hard pony."

Startled the mare compose herself and tries to explain, "No, he is a very kind stallion. What I mean is-" 

Gilda gets what is going on here. The mare didn't recommend this pony because he must be a newbie at this, and frowns, "What? That he is new at teaching and has no idea what he is dong?"

The mare only blinks in confusion at this, "No. He will a very well known teacher and is known for his baking skills, but-"

Okay, now Gilda understands why she didn't spoked about him this time, and smiles at the challenge, "That only the best of the best can be accepted into his class?"

The mare tilts her head at this, "No, it is not that," Gilda deflates at this, "He is willing to take on anypony for a student."

Gilda scathes her head at this, "Then what is the problem I do not see here?"

Feed up with the interruptions, the mare huffs and opens a draw next to her, "You know what, never mind. He will be back from his lunch break in ten minutes," She brings up a sheet of paper and gives it to them, "Fill this out, and you will pay the class fee after the class is over."

As Gilda fills out the forms for them, Gabby is a little concerned about the warning that the mare was trying to tell them, "Wait, what was it that you were trying to tell us?"

The mare was about to say something when Gilda interrupts again, "Who cares so long as this guy is will to teach us. I don't see the problem." Gilda gives back the forms.

The receptionist files them away and pulls out two hall passes and gives them to the griffons, "The room number is 212. Down the hall, to the right, you can't miss it."

"Come on, Gabby, we are going to be late." Gilda  puts the necklace on and goes down the hallway,

Gabby stays behind with a second of not saying anything before she smiles apologetically at the mare, "Sorry about that. She has a bit of a temper on her." Gabby puts on the hall pass, as the mare frowns at her,

"I can see that."

"So, what was it that you were trying to tell us?"

"Gabby, come on!" Gilda calls from down the hall,

The receptionist only smiles at Gabby, "Don't worry about it. You girls will be just fine. Have a good day."

"Okay, then have a good day."

Gabby walks down the hall not noticing the receptionist chuckling to herself, "Oh you two will be just fine." she laughs to herself,





Gilda and Gabby are in the classroom. It had everything anypony needed to learn about baking. There were two shelves filled with cookbooks. There were five stove ovens across the back of the room. Three large doors to the right side of the room, one is leading to the refrigerator, another to the freezer, and the last one for storage. A wall lined with shelves of dried ingredients with a clock above it. Five different stations in the center of the room for a pony to add anything to their bake goods or to use the cutting board. The last wall, which was the front of the room, had a chalkboard because every classroom needed a chalkboard. It also had a display of a variety of baked goods from simple pastries to cakes. And finally, there was a small desk to the front corner of the room, which must be the teacher's desk with a clipboard on it.

Gilda is sitting calmly in one of the seats next to a station waiting for their teacher to arrive. She stares aimlessly across the room. Gabby, on the other claw, is looking and touching everything. And the most annoying part was that whenever Gabby found something "amazing," she had to tell her about it.

"Hay Gilda!"

"What?"

"They have fresh zap-apple jam in here!"

"Okay." Gilda looks at her left claws as she hears Gabby rummaging in the storage closet.

"Hay Gilda!"

"What?"

"They have an apple slicer in here."

"Neat." Gilda then looks at the knife stand at her station before Gabby spoked up again,

"Hay Gilda?"

"WHAT!"

"They have some nuts in here."

"You have no idea," Gilda grumbles to herself, "Gabble stop looking at everything and take you seat before the teacher comes in and sees you touching everything,"

Gabby smiles sheepishly at her friend and takes her seat, "Sorry, excited,"

"Whatever, now, where is this guy anyway?" Gilda looks at the clock on the wall, "He is late, and we are the only ones here,"

Just then, they hear the sound of a cabinet close coming from the freezer. They look at each other silent, asking if they both heard to that. Before long, a brown stallion comes out of the freezer with a tray of ice cream cake on his back. But believe it or not, that was not was getting the attention of the girls. For you see, this stallion was moving at a snail pace shuffling his hooves across the floor as he walks. His mane was white as snow. Gilda wasn't sure if it was because of the freezer, or that was its natural color. He mumbles to himself as if he sings some song that they have never heard of before. He sets the cake on the table before them and then moves to grab a knife. By Gilda's estimate, he must be older than Grampa Gruff.

Gilda and Gabby both stare in silence as they watch him slowly trying to cut the cake only for nothing to happen. He then lifts the knife before bring it down to the cake, when the strangest thing to happen. The knife, for some reason, bounces off the cake as if it was rubber and sends the stallion backward while still holding onto the blade. Gilda watches in disbelief as the stallion, and the knife continues to go back before the knife goes over the stallions head and gets stuck in the wall behind him. This spooks the stallion, and he lets go of the knife. He turns around to grab the knife with his hooves and tries to pull it out of the wall only to fail. He shrugs at this and leaves the knife in the wall. He moves back to the table was about to take a bite out of the cake when Gilda cough to get his attention.

"Excuse me?"

This started him before he slowly talks to them, "Yes?"

"Are you the teacher of the baking class?"

"Yes... And you two are?"

"We are your student for the day."

"Oh," He looks at the clock before he looks back at the girls, "You are late."

"What? Nevermind, can we get started?"

"First, I got to take attendance..." He slowly moves to his desk before he turns to them, "You two stay there." he continues to walk to his desk and grabs a clipboard and moves to the front of the class. He then lifts it to his face before lowering it to call out the first name on the list. "Trixie?" He looks around the room for Trixie, "Trixie Lunamoon?" He waits a bit before trying again, "Last call for Trixie." Not getting a reply he looks back at the girls and simply says, "Not here," He makes a mark on his clipboard and looks at the girls again not noticing Gilda's irritated face, "You two don't move," He then flips the page on the board before calling out, "Starlight?"

"THEY ARE NOT HERE!' Gilda shouts from her seat, "Nopony is here beside us at the moment." 

"Younge ponies..." He starts walking back to his desk, "in such a hurry..." He puts the clipboard down on his desk before moving back to the front of the room behind the display, "have no time for smelling the..." He then looks back at them, "roses."

Gabby gives Gilda a scolding look to which she huffs while lower her head. She then moves in front of their teacher and tries again nicely, "Can you please just get along with the class already?" 

He looks at her and the plate of sweets in front of her before he turns them to the side, "Don't talk into the twinkies."

Gilda's eyes widen as she just notices the pastries before her. She has no idea why he said that, but she ignores it and moves back to her seat.

"Now then what was it... that you girls wanted again?"

"We wanted you to teach us baking," Gilda said with irritation still in her voice,

"Right... well, what do you want to learn from it?"

"Well, I know the basic, but I was hoping that you would show us the more complicated baking methods."

"Oh..." He nods at this, "you want the... advance class."

"Yes."

"Well, that is tomorrow's class."

"What NO!" Gilda jumps out of her seat, "We came all this way, and you can't teach us Anything?!"

"Well I can... but it will be the basic course."

Gabby moves next to her friend, tries to calm her down, "Come on, Gilda. It wouldn't hurt to go back to basic. Who knows, you may learn something that you didn't know before, and if you don't, then you can always come back tomorrow for the advance course."

"Fine, you win Gabby," They both take their seats, "We will take the basic class."

"That's good to hear."
> Class is now in secession
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gilda has just finished cleaning her claws before grabbing an apron. Gabby came from the storage area with some large mixing bowl on her back. Their teacher is now at the chalkboard where he is trying to draw on it, but nothing is happening. Gilda just looks at him while she works on her apron with an annoyed look. He moves to the pencil sharpener, which makes her speak up.

"What are you doing?"

"The darn chalk... not working." He then sticks his piece of chalk into the sharpener, "Just needs a new point to it."

"Uh, I don't think that goin-" He then turns the handle to make a loud chunking sound echoing throughout the room. This causes the Griffins to cringe at the noise. He pulls out his chalk to look at it. Gilda rubs her ear before trying to speak up but failed when he decided that his chalk wasn't sharpened enough. Once satisfied, he blows at the tip before moving back to the board. As he does, Gilda finally speaks up.

"Hey, you do know that you don't need to sharpen chalks, right?"

He stops writing to look at her, "Sure you do... if you don't...  you won't get your point across."

"Look genius," Gilda moves toward him with a pencil in her claw. "You sharpen pencils in the pencil sharpener." Then shoves the pencil in his face, "Not chalk!" The sharp end of the pencil shines for a second.

"Well then..."He then grabs the pencil, "why didn't you say so." He then raises the pencil to the chalkboard.

"No! Wait!"

Now, this teacher is an elder stallion, so his ears don't work as well as they used to. However, Gilda's and Gabby's work just fine. So he is unable to hear their cries of pain as he continues to write with his sharp pencil on his chalkboard. It was no better than nails on a chalkboard. After he was done, it reads Baking 101, by Mr. Loaf. He turns around to notice his students are on the floor, clutching their claws over their heads on the other side of the room. He shakes his head at them as they slowly move a claw off their head.

"What are you two doing?..." Mr. Loaf moves away from the chalkboard, "This is no time to play..." he stops at the dried food shelf, "dunk and cover."

Gilda growls to herself, "I will show you duck and cover." she mumbles as Gabby picks up the mixing bowls. 

"Now then... we will start today's lesson... baking cupcakes... Let me get the indigents."  Mr. Loaf moves to grab a rather large bag of flour on the third shelf. He starts to climb the rake, which started causing everything to shake and cause the bag of flour to tilt towards him. Along with boxes of heavy ingredients to moves to the edge of the shelf. Now, usually, Gilda doesn't care much for any pony else safety. However, she doesn't want to be a suspect in the murder of a hundred-year-old stallion. 

"STOP!" Gilda shouted, causing Gabby to see what is going on, as she flies to the stallion.

"Don't worry... I will get it." Mr. Loaf said as boxes of dried raisins drop off the shelf to the side. Gilda grabs the stallion, pulling him off the shelf before the larger box fell off the shelf and crashing into the ground. 

Gilda lets out a sigh of relief. She puts the stallion away from the shelf and interrupts him before he could say anything. "Are you trying to get yourself KILLED!"

Mr. Loaf blinks at her, outburst, "No more than... you are." 

She huffs at him and moves back to the shelf, not noticing the bag of flour still tilting off the edge, "Look, if you needed something from up high, you could have just as-" Just then the bag of flour fell off the shelve crashing into Gilda. There was a cloud of white smoke before a white Griffen appear where Gilda was earlier with a brown bag over its head. 

Mr. Loaf notices the newcomer, "Oh hello there... are you here for the basic... class as well?"

Gilda's left eye twitch before she shook herself like a dog returning to her original colors.

"Oh, it just you... Nevermind."





After cleaning up the mess, they manage to get the rest of the ingredients onto the prep station without any more incidents. Mr. Loaf moves to one side of a station in front of the girls, "We will now... be making the batter... for our cupcakes. First, crake some eggs... into a large bowl." The girls did so, "next, add your flour, baking powder, baking soda, and oil." They did, "Okay, next we are..” A fly suddenly enters the room.

Every pony looks at the fly as it got closer to the food. Gabby moves her claws to cover the food as Mr. Loaf grabs a fly swatter on the side of the station. Armed, he lifts the weapon above his head as the fly land on the corner of the station. As quickly he could, he attacks the fly. It was a direct hit; however, the fly still flew away. He lifts his weapon to see no fly he simply says, “Miss,”

“Give me that!” Gilda grabs the fly swatter and looks for the fly. She can see it moving to the nearby station. Slowly she moves in close, ready to strike when Gabby sneezed. This caused the fly to fly away, as Gilda glares at her friend, who smiles back sheepishly. 

The fly moves to the dried ingredients shelf as Gilda goes after it. However, she came to a screaking stop before getting too close. Looking at the shelf, she can see the flour has tilted towards the front again. She moves the flour bag further back into the rack to prevent another Albino Griffin to appear. Backing up, she can see the fly in front of her and attacks it in mid-air. She misses and instead hits a bag off the shelf. Quickly she manages to catch the bag before anything could happen. She puts it back on the shelf and looks for the fly. It was now heading to the dessert display when she spotted it. Not wanting to ruin food, she moves quickly to the display and swings the fly swatter above the food, scaring it away. She chases it to the back of the room to the front, multiple times until halfway through going back to the front; it landed on her beak. Now Gilda is not dumb; she is not going to swat herself trying to get the fly. She is just going to-

*SWAT* 

Gilda squawks as Mr. Loaf got another flyswatter and did what she wasn't going to do. She rubs her face as Mr. loaf looks around. "Did I get it?"

The fly buzzes away from the floor, "No,"

They watch as the fly moves closer to their food station before Gabby claps her claw together, trapping it between them. She smiles at them, "I got it." 

"Good now, get rid of it." as Gabby was leaving the room, Gilda moved back to the display shelf to see if anything happened to them when she was swinging earlier. Mr. Loaf followed and walked on the other side of the display. "Well, everything seems to be alright."

"What?"

She lends towards him, "I said that everything looks alright."

He looks at her and then to a plate of Twinkies in front of her. Without missing a beat, he turns them to the side, facing away from her, "Don't talk into the Twinkies." As he moves back to the station, they were using. 

Gilda just looks at the plate of Twinkies, trying to figure out why he keeps doing that. Gabby came back into the room to see Gilda lifting the plate of Twinkies for a closer inspection. 

"Ah, Gilda?"

This startles her, almost causing her to drop the plate, "I wasn't doing anything!" She quickly puts the plate down. Gabby shrugs at this before they join Mr. Loaf back at the station. After cleaning their claws, of course. 

Mr. Loaf was going to continue the lesson when Gabby got his attention that he still had the fly swatter in his hoof. Notice this, Mr. Loaf puts the weapon back hanging on the side of the station, "Now, where were we?"

"We just added the baking soda."

"Right, now mix it," They did. once the batter was well mixed, Mr. loaf spoked up, "Now the batter is done."

"Question," Gilda asked,

"Yes, miss?"

"What about the rest of the ingredients?" She gestured to the small pile of flavor additives and ingredients on the other side of the table, "Or are those just there for show and tell?"

"No, you are going to use them."

"Okay, which one?"

"All of them,"

"WHAT!" Gilda looks back at all the ingredients and is trying to figure out what kind of flavor cupcake they are going to make.

Mr. Loaf notices this clear this up, "Well, not in the same bowl." Mr. Loaf reaches under the prep station and pulls out many smaller bowls, "Each cupcake is going to be a little different from the next."

"Oh,"





They followed his directions and did their best not to cut themselves with a knife, or burn themselves with a hot stove, or make a mess. The Griffins had two cupcake trays worth of cupcakes with twelve different flavors: Vanilla, Chocolate, Red Velvet, Pineapple, Lemon, Coconut, Peanut butter, Rasberry, Snickerdoodle, Carrot, Pumpkin, and Strawberry. Gilda wipes her forehead as she looks at what they have created. "That is a lot of cupcakes."

"Not really... but for you, yes." Gilda gave him a playful glare,

"We did it!" Gabby jumps in her spot, 

As her friend celebrates, Gilda is left bewildered as she looks back at what they have made and takes a bit out of the pumpkin. It was good; she never knew you could make vegetals taste like this. She knew that they came here to learn about baking, but isn't this a bit much for a basic class? She swallows and turns to face Mr. Loaf, "Are you sure this isn't the advance class?"

"I am sure. We haven't even... mix and match... the flavors yet."

"Wait! You can do that!"

"Of course you can... how else do you think you get... Strawberry cheesecake flavor?"

"And this is basic?"

"Correct."

She then puts a claw to her chin thinking, "If this is what I can learn from a basic just what does an advance class going to have?"  "You know-" She talks out loud, "Even those you are the dumbest pony I know."

"Gilda!"

"You seemed like a pony who still can do something new every now and then." Gabby just shakes her head softly at her friend with a small smile on her face.