It Is Just a Bread
by Present Perfect
"All right, Flash," Bon-Bon said, dusting off her oven mitts, "you just stand aside and let me handle this. Home ec is my playing field." Glowering, she added under her breath, "And I am not gonna let Pinkie Pie beat me, if it's the last thing I do!"
"What?" Flash Sentry stood up from the counter, his head in a colander. "What'd I do?"
Bon-Bon placed her hand on his chest -- his firm, manly chest -- and gently pushed him away. "Lyra knows enough to stay out of my way in the kitchen. You don't, and you're not good at anything. So just leave. This. To me."
"I'm good at being infatuated with magical pony princess girls," he muttered. Knowing better than to contradict her more forcefully, he simply watched her work on their entry into the Friendship Games academic decathlon home economics contest.
That would make it the Acahomadeca...
His vision started to swim and he tried very hard to think of something else. Only one thought occurred to him.
"Hey, uh, Bon-Bon?"
"What is it, Flash?"
"Did you hear the principals say what we're supposed to be doing?"
Bon-Bon couldn't have rolled her eyes any harder if they had been motocross bike wheels.
"Duh! We're supposed to be baking. This is exactly why I'm not letting you help me, Flash!"
"Oh."
Choosing the better part of valor, he stepped back to hang out near the sink.
The thought occurred that Lyra and Bon-Bon had been hanging around him an awful lot since the Battle of the Bands. Derpy, too. He hadn't asked why because he figured the answer would make no sense. He just didn't understand girls. It was the same with how Twilight had acted like she didn't know him in the hallway the other day. That hairdo, those glasses: it was like she was a whole other person!
And that Bon-Bon. She was always touching his firm, manly chest. Sometimes when she did, Lyra would get a funny look on her face, like she'd eaten something that disagreed with her, and she wouldn't speak to him for three days. Acting-weird Twilight had touched his firm, manly chest earlier in the hall; why did no one care about that? Why was Octavia spending so much time with Trixie? Why was it called a 'laundromat'? What was in that flask the principal kept on her belt? Where did babies come from?
Girls were strange.
"All set!" Bon-Bon called.
Flash shook his head, blinking. Had he really been out that long? Not that it mattered; their entry was done! A warm, steamy loaf of bread, fresh from the oven! Just looking at it made his mouth water. The thick scent of butter and sprinkles wasn't making it any easier to maintain his self-control.
"Flash!"
There was a sudden pain on the back of his hand. The bread was very far away from him now.
"We need this to win, you doofus! Hands off!"
"S-sorry," he mumbled, rubbing his hand.
As he eyed the bread warily from a distance, he began to get the sinking suspicion that something was wrong. The other student pairs all seemed to be making the same thing. It was brown, with pink icing spread over multiple layers. Yes, they were definitely all making cakes.
Hah, well, he thought, obviously we're gonna score some points for originality!
Bon-Bon had also noticed this fact but didn't seem as excited. She was chewing on her nails, which set Flash's teeth on edge, so he tried to concentrate on what acting-weird Twilight was doing. She caught his eye for a moment, frowned, and went back to her cake.
"What're we gonna do?" Bon-Bon wailed, clutching at the sleeve of Flash's jacket.
"Uh, pretty sure we're gonna win! Or at least take second." He gave her a grin and a thumbs-up.
Bon-Bon fainted.
"And this is... what, exactly?"
Bon-Bon trembled under the collective gazes of Principal Celestia, Vice-Principal Luna and Dean Cadence. Beneath their cold and calculating stares, the loaf of bread seemed like a thing unworthy of consideration. But something sparked in Flash's mind. Finally, he understood his purpose in this competition. Clearing his throat and putting on his most confident popularest-boy-in-school smile, he proclaimed:
"Raw toast!"
Someone to his left sprang a leak.
The three principesses regarded each other with the same look Flash's mother tended to give him whenever he reminded her that Dad would be home any day now, when they least expected it.
"You do realize this was a cake-baking competition, right?" asked Vice-Principal Luna.
"Nope!" Flash beamed. "Isn't our entry great? Why, I'd say it's the acahomadectest!" He grinned and swung his arm gamely to the side.
Celestia, Luna and Cadence scribbled something on their clipboards. "Moving on," said Celestia.
Flash shot Bon-Bon his winningest grin. She seemed strangely unreceptive. In fact, she was doing her best impression of a volcano right now. In Flash's opinion, had this been a volcano lookalike contest, Bon-Bon would have probably won it.
"You are not getting any tonight, mister," she hissed under her breath.
Flash wasn't sure what it was he wouldn't be getting, but didn't have a chance to question her before she stomped off toward Lyra.
"Girls are so weird," he said to no one in particular. He shrugged. "Oh well. Another life-changing problem solved by the Flash!"
On second thought, he hoped she hadn't meant he wasn't getting any raw toast. After all, it looked acahomadelectable.