Sherry was soundly asleep in her bed. She dreamed of being in a world of candy. It wasn’t an original dream but she enjoyed herself nonetheless. Everywhere she looked a new treat awaited her. Chocolates, gummies, and baked sweets as far as the eye could see. Her mother was even there with her. There was nothing in the world that could ruin this for her.
Sherry
She heard somepony calling her name. She turned to face the sound but there was nothing. She smiled. Must have been the wind. She ran to catch up with Balloon who had just found a chocolate river to drink from.
Sherry
The voice was louder this time. And along with the voice came an earthquake that shook her dreamland. Much as she didn’t want it to, it began to fade away. “No. Don’t leave!” she cried. But it had no effect.
Her dream was ripped away from her.
She woke up with a start in her bed. Looking around she was met with sight powder blue. She screamed and bucked the shape in front of her.
“Ow,” said the shape. “Didn’t have ta kick me like that.”
She recognized that voice. “Pastry!” she said angrily. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean what am Ah doin’? Ah thought you said that you wanted to be woken up gently,” he replied, a confused look on his face.
“Not like that!” she said, exasperated. She rolled her eyes and sighed. “You know what I said yesterday?”
He thought for a second. “No. What?”
She walked over to him on the floor. “I said I was avoiding telling you the truth. That means my ‘your too rough’ comment was fake too.” She glared directly into his eyes, poking him roughly in the chest with her hoof. “Never wake me up like that again.”
“Ah’m sorry.” he said, looking like a kicked puppy. “Ah just thought Ah was being nice, you know.”
She sighed again. He had a point. “Whatever,” she said. She started to walk out the room before turning to him and saying, “Sorry for bucking you.”
That brought a smile back to his face. Seeing that smile on his face brought a small blush to hers. Though that blush only soured her mood. She shouldn’t feel this way about making that annoying colt happy.
**************
Breakfast was as uneventful as it usually was. After finishing up what she was given, Sherry got up to walk outside. She groaned at the thought of setting up more baskets. Before she could get very far though, she was stopped by a blue hoof on her shoulder. “Where you goin’?” its owner asked.
“Outside,” she responded. “Where else?”
“Don’t ya remember? Yer not going outside today.”
That’s right. She recalled. She said she wanted to work with his family today. “Then where am I going?” she questioned.
“Right here,” a different voice answered. She turned and was met with Cherry Pit. She had a warm, motherly smile on her face, one that reminded Sherry of her own. A sadness crept into her at the thought, but she quickly shook it off.
“Why the kitchen?” Sherry asked. “Don’t you harvest the cherries or something?”
“Usually,” Pit answered. “But today I’m makin’ pies. Gotta set up the stand soon. Ain’t gonna get business with nothin’ to sell.”
Sherry nodded. But that still left her with one question. “I thought Pastry made the pies?”
Pit giggled. “Oh, he does. He’s gonna help us today.”
Sherry spun her head towards Pastry. “I thought you said these would be ‘one on one.’”
He laughed nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. His cheeks were dusted with pink.“They were and will be from now on but, aw shucks. Ah just couldn’t resist being yer bakin’ buddy. Ah promised yer ma Ah would too. A-and Ah thought ya might get lonely. All by yerself an’ what-not”
Sherry giggled without thinking. Seeing him flustered like this was an odd sight. And a cute one, her thoughts butted in. She felt her own cheeks pinken at the thought.
“Alrighty then,” Pit said, causing the two to stop looking at the floor and instead at her. “Wash up you two. I’ll go get some cherries from the barn.”
They nodded and headed over to the sink, thoroughly washing each hoof. Sherry started to dry them when she felt something wet hit the back of her head.
“Sorry,” Pastry said behind her. “Just dryin’ off my hooves. Musta flicked ‘em too hard.”
She said nothing in return. “Sherry? You ok?” Pastry asked nervously. Still she said nothing.
“Sherry?” He got closer. She still gave him no reaction. She felt him place a hoof on her which caused her to spin around and splash his face with water.
The pure confusion and dumbfoundedness on his face caused her to laugh. Hard. So hard in fact that she started to snort. Her laughter proved to be infectious as Pastry began to laugh as well.
“You really got me, didn’t you?” he said, still laughing.
Sherry struggled to reply through her laughter. And as loath as she was to admit it, it felt good. “I guess so.”
“Well,” he started, reaching over to the sink. “I won't let you have one over me!” He then splashed her with the soapy water. She shook her head and for the first time, she found herself smirking broadly.
“So that's how you want to play?” she asked deviously. She splashed him again. And again. And he returned again and again until they had a full on splash war, soaking each other. It only stopped when Pit walked into the room.
“What’s going on in here?” she asked, only to receive a splash to the face. She was not amused. “Enough!” she shouted. The pair stopped their duel immediately.
“You two,” Pit started. “Go dry off, properly, then clean up this kitchen.”
“Yes ma’am,” they both said simultaneously and hurried off.
Sherry felt ashamed of herself as she dried off. How could she let the situation get so bad? She was never this way at home. She should have just yelled at him. She shouldn’t have played along. She shouldn’t have had any kind of fun with him. And she certainly shouldn’t have laughed like that.
But it was so nice hearing him laugh, her thoughts told her. And it was even nicer laughing with him for once. She growled at them before finishing up and heading back to the kitchen. There was nothing nice about this place. Certainly not him.
While cleaning up the water, she ended up glancing at Pastry. That glance turned into a stare. Not because she liked him, no definitely not that. It was because of his expression. He was smiling. Smiling happier than she had ever seen. And he had just gotten them both in trouble too! What a weird colt, so happy for me to be unhappy, she thought, continuing her work without looking at him again.
**************
After finishing up, they were each given an apron to wear. Pastry put his on just fine, but Sherry struggled with hers. He offered to help but thought of him so close made her blush. And besides, she was still mad at him for earlier. She had Pit help her instead.
“Are you two ready?” Pit asked.
“Sure thing!” Pastry replied excitedly. Sherry merely nodded, avoiding his gaze.
“Good. Let’s get baking!” Pit said, a warm smile in her face
“Yeah!” Pastry added rushing over to the counter. Sherry followed him. Looking at the counter she saw that it was covered in various cooking utensils. There were two large bowls, two food processors, and two rolling pins. There were also ingredients that included butter, salt, sugar, and water.
“This’ll be so much fun, you’ll see!” He gave her the brightest smile he could muster. She quickly turned her head away. She didn’t want to look at him. He got her in trouble after all.
“Come on, Sherry. Don’t be that way,” She could hear the sadness in his voice. A week ago she would’ve been happy to hear it. But now she wasn’t really sure. It certainly didn’t make her feel good, that’s for sure. She groaned internally. She told herself once again to get back to these thoughts later.
Sighing, she turned her head back towards Pastry. She made it a point to give the most sour face she could. He gave a sad, almost defeated look in return. That face definitely stung a little. She softened her expression a little bit, so little that it was barely noticeable. It made him look less sad at least.
“That’s…better?” He said. He shook his head to clear his expression and gave her a quick smile. “Anyway, let's start on these pies. Now the first thing we ought to do is make the crust. And that step starts with a heapin’ helpin’ of flour. About two and a half cups’ll do”
He heaved a big bag of flour on the countertop along with various measuring cups. She watched him as he perfectly scooped the right amount in his cup and dumped it into one of the bowls. He did this twice more, once with the one cup and once with the half cup.
“Now it's your turn,” he said to her. She lightly pushed him out of the way to get to the flour. Grabbing it, she tried to pour it into her measuring cup. “Wait!” she heard Pastry shout. She scoffed and ignored him, continuing to pour.
She smugly looked to find that her cup was filled. She tried to move the bag but found it too heavy. It continued to pour. And pour. Panicking, she tried to remove the bag again, this time more forcefully. But she lifted too hard and ended up falling backwards, the bag landing on top of her, sending a cloud of white through the air.
She coughed as she rose from the floor. Looking around she noticed that everything around her was coated with flour, including Pastry. His expression was unreadable, but she suspected he was mad. She flinched back, expecting an outburst. What she got instead was laughter, lots and lots of laughter.
She groaned. She really should have seen that coming. But still, it felt nice to know he wasn’t mad and his laugh sounded as good as ever. “You know,” he started. “I think white might be a good look for you.”
She quickly looked over herself to find that he was right. She was completely coated. She blushed slightly, but it was obscured by the flour. “Well, at least I look good. You look like a half baked muffin,” she shot back.
Glancing over himself, he giggled “Yer right,” he said. “Sure looks weird bein’ only half covered”.
“It was supposed to be an insult,” she said while rolling her eyes. That colt sure was dense.
“Ah know. Just feels better to laugh. After all, what's the fun in feelin’ sad.” For what felt like the millionth time, he gave her a smile. And for once she smiled back. She opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by a shriek.
“Pastry!” Pit yelled. “What did you do to the kitchen!” She put a hoof to her forehead to calm down a little. “You just cleaned it too,” she remarked quietly.
“And Ah’ll clean it again too,” he said “Just give us a minute. Come on Sherry.” He grabbed her hoof and dragged her to the closet to get some brooms. Today was going to be a long one, she could just tell.
**************
Sherry sighed. It had taken longer than she thought to clean up all of the flour she spilled. But now that it was done they could get back to baking. Pastry told her that she has to scoop the flour out with the measuring cup to avoid mishaps like they just had. Now he tells her. Although she was still huffy, she managed to get it perfect the second time.
With the flour measuring out they moved on to the salt and sugar, each a teaspoon. The next step was to get eight tablespoons of ice water and the two sticks of butter out of the fridge. With the prep work done, they moved on to making the dough.
“Now,” Pastry started. “The first thing we need to do is mix the dry ingredients. Follow my lead.” He poured the flour, sugar, and salt into one of the food processors and pulsed it several times.
Sherry moved to do the same but was stopped. “Oh. Sherry,” he said.
“What?” she groaned back.
“Be sure to put the lid on. Don’t want another blizzard.” he smiled and chuckled at his own joke. Sherry responded with an eye roll.
“Ha ha. Very funny. I’m not that incompetent,” She then copied what he had done before. “What’s next?”
“The butter. Add half, pulse a few times. Add the other half and the pulse a few more times. Should be done when the butter looks like yellow peas,” As he spoke he did what he was describing.
Sherry also followed what he was doing. And while his butter looked like perfect peas, hers looked like teeny tiny lumps. She looked down at her unfinished dough with disappointment.
Pastry also looked at her dough. He smiled. “Looks good!” he said. “Moving on to step three…”
Sherry cut him off. “Good. It looks nothing like it is supposed to,” she said, completely exacerbated.
He shrugged. “It don’t have ta be perfect, long as it's made with care,” he replied gently.
“But it won't be flakey. It’ll look wrong!’ she exclaimed.
“Then it’ll have personality,” he said simply.
Sherry tried to find the words to prove him wrong but found none. “‘Sides,” he continued, rubbing the back of his neck with a hoof. “Doesn’t really matter what yer butter looks like. It’ll cook just the same”
She rolled her eyes yet again. “Whatever. Let’s just move on, okay?”
“Okie dokie,” he replied. “This part is real important, okay, so watch me carefully. We’re gonna add just a bit of the water. Pulse, then repeat till the water’s gone. Got it?”
She scoffed at him. She can mix water into dough. She’s not totally hopeless. Still, she did the task meticulously. She didn’t need to make a foal of herself any more than she already had.
She looked over to find Pastry staring at her. For what felt like the millionth time that day, Sherry’s cheeks flushed. Ignoring the intrusive blush, she waved a hoof in his face and said, “Hey! Anypony home?”
When that failed to get a response she tapped him on the nose. He blinked rapidly and shook his head, his cheeks becoming redder than the cherries he helped grow. He looked away and rubbed the back of his neck with a hoof.
“Heh,” he nervously started. “Sorry. Ah was just, uh, watchin’ yer technique and was, uh, staring at the dough.”
She knew that she should just accept his lie and move on. But she felt some kind of warmth within her at the thought that he was actually staring at her. Maybe, just maybe, she wanted to hear him say it. That she was pretty.
She shook her head rapidly. No, no, no. That couldn’t be right … could it? She froze as her thoughts jumbled together, simultaneously telling her that the bubbly feeling in her belly was her annoyance boiling over. It also told her that he looked oh so cute when he was flustered.
Before she could try to detangle her thoughts, a cough took her back to the present. “Anyway,” Pastry said. “Let’s get back to bakin’, alright?”
Sherry lamely nodded at him.
**************
It took all day, but they had managed to bake more than enough pies to sell in town. Most of the ones that Sherry made turned out to be more than a little misshapen, but anytime she tried to be upset about it, Pastry would tell her that they were made with feeling, and that’s all that matters.
Eventually though she got the hang of it and she thought that, maybe, against all probability, she would get her cutie mark.
She wasn’t the least bit surprised when she didn’t. Even so, Pastry comforted as though she were devastated, even going so far as to hug her ever so lightly.
It was that hug that kept replaying in Sherry’s mind as she lay in bed that night. She could remember it vividly.
How gentle his smile was when he approached. How tenderly he wrapped his arm around her and told her everything was okay. How soft his fur was against her own. How when they were so close he smelled of fresh baked dough. And how warm she felt all over, even if he only held her head.
Every time she thought about it, the bubbly feeling would come back, stronger than last time.
She tried so hard to shove it down and pretend she was angry. She was just annoyed that he hugged without permission.
But every time she repeated it, the less true it sounded. Every time she tried to say that it wasn’t, his smile popped into her mind. Every time she tried to say that he was nothing but a nuisance, she heard the sweet sound of his laughter and smiled.
That left only one possibility. Only one thing that could explain that warm, bubbly feeling and those ever present blushes. She groaned and buried her face in her pillow. As much as she hated to say it and as much as she never wanted it to happen, it happened.
She had a crush on Pastry Dough.