Everypony likes breaks. After day after day of running around, trying to catch up on work only to have even more rain down, taking a break is nice. It's like having a long winter end, then going south to a beach, because beaches are nice! Well, most of them. You know, there's this one beach in Chicago where the sand is all grayish and gritty and it's just not a nice beach. One time my family went there...
Breaks! Breaks are nice! Except of course, when...
"Teachers have completely missed the bucking point of break!"
"Tell me about it," said Lyra, eyes glued to her typewriter. "'Write the first twenty pages of your winter novel, class! It's not like you had any plans for the three day weekend or anything! No, that would be preposterous!'"
"Compose a 64-measure piece," said Octavia. "Because of course, that's a perfectly feasible task when you have an extra 24 hours on your hooves. Problem is, I don't spend 24 hours working on composition everyday, so I'm screwed."
"Break sucks," said Lyra.
Octavia sighed, shredded up another page, and tossed it into the overflowing waste bin. "I couldn't have said it more eloquently myself. Come on, all I want to do is just play my cel--"
Suddenly, the door burst open and Derpy rushed in.
Octavia pulled out her pocketbook. "Another repair, it seems..."
"Girls!" Derpy shouted. "This is the most horrible news I've ever heard!"
"Yup, break sucks, join the club," Octavia muttered.
At once, Lyra leapt to her hooves to tackle Derpy to the floor. "Oh my gosh, kid!" said Lyra, who may have been hugging Derpy or trying to strangle her. "What happened? What did they assign that was so bad?" A fire sparked in her eyes. "Torturing the rest of the student body is one thing, but making Derpy suffer too? That's crossing the line! Come on, kid, grab your oopli stick! We're going to make those teachers pay!"
Derpy wiggled her way out of Lyra's grasp. "No, no, it's not that!" she said. "It's Sea Swirl! She's come down with a bad fever, and she's feeling really horrible!"
"Who is this pony, and why should we care?" asked Octavia while she calculated the repair costs.
Lyra stared at Octavia, appalled. "We should care because Derpy cares!" she said before turning her attention back to Derpy. "Is there anything we can do?"
"Well..." Derpy shuffled her hooves. "I was thinking of making cookies for her."
"Derpy, hon, you're sweet and everything, but if you want to get cookies from Jewel, you'll have to use your own money."
"No, that's not it," said Derpy. "I was thinking of actually baking them... well, not by myself. I've never really cooked before. I was going to ask you two for help, but..." Her eyes scanned the floor, covered in paper. "...you seem really busy, so I'll--"
"Wait!" Lyra gasped, clinging to Derpy's foreleg like a mare drowning in an ocean. "I'll help, I'll help!"
"But I thought you had to work on your novel."
"It doesn't matter!" cried Lyra. "Helping my fellow pony is far more important!"
"But isn't it due by the end of the week?" Derpy insisted.
Lyra dropped to her knees to drown in the vast sea of crumpled paper. "Please. Let. Me. Help. You."
Octavia sighed and closed her pocketbook with a snap. "I suppose I'll come help you as well, if only to make sure you don't get into trouble. Where are we going to bake, Derpy?"
"I asked Daisy if she could let me use the Cooking Club's room, and she said yes," replied Derpy, holding up a shiny key for the others to see. "We'll have to buy the ingredients, though."
Octavia glared at Lyra. "You," she barked. "Store. Now."
"I hate my life," said Octavia, collapsing under the weight of the grocery bags.
"Good to know!" answered Lyra cheerfully, picking up the nearest bag. "Oh good, you got the two percent milk. Excellent work, Octavia!"
"I will slit your crazy throat with one of those chopping knives they keep here," Octavia threatened.
"But then the blood would get into the cookies!" Lyra said. "Actually, I wonder what that would taste like. Who knows? It might be good!"
Octavia rolled her eyes as Lyra held out a hoof to help her stand. "And you say that I'm a vampire."
"Girls, look what I found!" shouted Derpy.
When Octavia turned and saw the pegasus, she shook her head and gave her standard 'oh Derpy' smile. Lyra, on the other hoof, broke out squealing. "My Celestia! My Celestia, could you honestly get any cuter?"
"I don't think so!" exclaimed Derpy, grinning under her giant, poofy chef's hat.
"I don't even need cookies; she's more than sweet enough for anypony," said Lyra to Octavia. "Come on, let's get baking!"
"Hmm," said Octavia, skimming the recipe. "The first ingredient is four cups of all-purpose flour. Derpy, could you please get some from the bag? There should be one already open."
"Okie dokie lokie!" said Derpy with a military salute.
"What?" Lyra protested. "Derpy, you're in charge here. You should be the one reading directions and giving orders, not her?"
"And why exactly is that?" asked Octavia crossly.
"She's wearing the chef's hat, Octavia," said Lyra, as if speaking to a five-year-old. "It's practically her birthright you're taking away from her."
"Oh, but I don't mind at all!" said Derpy.
"But it's really fun to be the boss," said Lyra. "Just watch!" With a whoosh, she was back with four cups of flour poured into a yellow mixing bowl. Offering up the bowl, the unicorn bowed so low to the ground that her horn scrapped against the polished tiles. "Here you are, ma'am!"
Derpy took the bowl eagerly. "Oh, look!" she said, nearly dunking her head into the flour. "It makes little white clouds!"
"Woah, really?" Lyra gasped and rushed to Derpy's side. "Hey, kid, that's really cool!" She dipped the tip of her hoof in the flour, then lightly tapped Derpy's nose. "Boop!"
Derpy giggled. "Hey, you can't do that to the boss!" Then she retaliated by reaching up on the tips of her hooves to do the same to Lyra. Soon, the air around them was filled with laughter and flour.
Octavia sighed and went to buy another bag.
"Next, it says we have to mix the batter until smooth," Derpy read aloud. Armed with a wooden spoon and her enthusiasm, she drove it straight into the batter, where it stuck as if it were frozen in the Arctic. The chef tried to mix it, but her two seconds of strenuous effort were in vain. Turning to Octavia, she said with wide, shimmering eyes, "Could you please stir it for me?"
Octavia nodded and scooted closer to grip the spoon. While she was able to move it through the batter, it was slow work, and after a few minutes, the batter was still as lumpy as before.
Lyra looked up from the bag of chocolate chips, which she quickly stuffed behind the empty mixing bowl. She chewed, swallowed, then said, "Need some help?"
"No, I'm just fine," Octavia answered.
Lyra sighed. "You're stirring it wrong."
"And just how would you know?" Octavia asked. "Last time I checked, you didn't major in cooking."
"I know because I've cooked before, which is more than I can say for you. You can't just stir in one continuous motion." She pulled the bowl from Octavia's lax hooves. "You need to do it in curves, turning the bowl as you go, and always scrape the sides. Tada!" Within a minute, the batter was as smooth as glass.
"Wow," said Octavia, her eyes round like saucers. "When did you learn to do that?"
Lyra shrugged. "My mom taught me when I was little. I guess it's stayed with me."
"Seriously? But you're a Heartstring! You should have to do... you know..."
"Actual work?" Lyra supplied, to which Octavia nodded meekly. "Hey, baking's fun once you get the hang of it. You seriously haven't cooked before?"
Octavia shook her head. "My sister Clarity was more interested in that sort of thing. I just stayed out of her way and let her do what she liked in the kitchen, as long as I got good food in the process."
"I've never baked before!" Derpy added. "My mom always sad I would cause some sort of explosion if I did."
"Can't imagine why." Octavia snorted. "But in all honesty, Lyra, it's cool that your family does things like cooking. I never expected that you'd be the type to know how to cook at all."
"Tsk tsk, haven't I drilled it into your head by now that I thrive off of unpredictability? Besides, my parents don't like to abuse our money like other Canterlot ponies do. Power can go to your head, after all. Sometimes I try to pretend like our money doesn't exist."
"Which is why you have me buy all the ingredients?" Octavia asked.
"No, I have you do it for the same reason that Derpy's wearing a chef's hat," said Lyra. "There is a chain of order here, and guess what? You're at the very bottom."
Lyra's playful smile transformed into a sneer. "Speaking off that chain..."
Derpy wobbled on her little stepstool. Splat, splat, splat! Three eggs met their untimely doom.
"...we'll be needing more eggs."
"Er, Derpy?" asked Lyra, hesitantly tapping her on the shoulder. "Are you okay?"
"Of course," Derpy answered, focused with a frightening intensity on the batter in front of her.
Lyra raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure of that? Because that's an awful lot of sugar--"
"Hey, I'm the boss, right?" Derpy said. "Don't worry, Lyra, I know what I'm doing."
"What was that about letting power go to your head?" Octavia whispered fearfully.
"One thing's for sure," said Lyra, "we're never letting her wear that chef's hat again."
Octavia gave Lyra the look. "You don't mean that whatsoever, Lyra Heartstrings."
"Cuteness is a drug," Lyra said.
"So is whatever's in those cookies," said Octavia as Derpy pulled out a tray filled with grey, crumbling, smoking mush. "Is there such a thing as dying from sugar poisoning?"
"I think aliens teleported Derpy's cookies away and replaced them with space matter."
"For once, I agree with you," said Octavia in all seriousness.
"Oh Faust," whispered Lyra, gripping Octavia's hoof. "She's going to die, isn't she?"
"Should we call for help?" Octavia asked as she unblinkingly watch the space matter come closer to Derpy's mouth.
"With that deranged look in her eyes? Nopony can help her now. Oh well, at least she'll die cute."
A chomp rang throughout the breathless silence.
"Mmm! These are delicious!" Derpy exclaimed. "Here, try one!"
"So I don't have to write an obituary?" asked Lyra in breathless relief.
Octavia hesitantly bit into a cookie. "Hey... these are... umm... really good!"
"Don't spit it into the sink," Lyra hissed. "Think of the disaster if it got into the water supply."
"Will you two help me wrap them for Sea Swirl?" Derpy asked.
"Yeah, of course!" exclaimed Octavia. "Then how about we do something without chefs hats or rankings? Something where everypony's on an equal playing field?"
"Ooh, like hoofball?" asked Lyra.
"Nope! Like homework."
"Buzzkill," Lyra muttered.
"But first..." Octavia turned to Lyra and dropped her voice to a deadly whisper.
"You're stopping by Jewel."