A Dash of Pepper
"Settle down, y'all," Granny Smith instructed from the small wooden desk at the front of the Home Ec room. "Principal Celestia's asked me to cover all Home Ec classes today. Turns out your teacher's mighty sick. Hope it wasn't food poisoning, but knowin' June, it wouldn't surprise me. Anyway, ah should probably start with roll call."
"Ugh, what's the point of even having Home Ec any more?" Rainbow Dash questioned, sinking down into her chair as the old woman read out the list of names. "We did our practical exam last week. I'm here 'cause I wanna be able to make awesome food, not so I can learn more science!"
"Oh, it's not that bad," Fluttershy offered softly, flipping through her folder and pulling out a sheet on carbohydrates. "Theory's actually really important, Rainbow Dash. What's the point of making food if you don't understand how cooking works at all?"
"Uh. To eat?"
"Well, yes, but it's important to think about what elements go into a meal," Fluttershy responded. "When I'm putting together meals for the animals at the shelter, I can't just give them food straight out of the packets you buy at the pet store. It's important that they all get the right amounts on nutrients in what they eat. Otherwise, it could potentially be as bad for them as not eating at all."
Rainbow opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off by Granny Smith calling her name. "Yes, Ms Smith!" she answered quickly.
"Right then," the old woman responded, standing up from the computer and picking up a sheet of paper from her desk. "Looks like y'all are supposed to be doin'..." She squinted at the paper, before muttering, "Shoulda brought my reading glasses," and putting the sheet back down. "So, what are y'all supposed to be doin'?"
Fluttershy answered, "We have a class project due on Thursday about monosacch--"
"Baking!" Rainbow interrupted loudly, to confused looks from the rest of the class.
"Um, no, we aren't," Fluttershy offered meekly.
"We are!" Rainbow repeated. "We, uh, have a final exam. This week! And we have to make something."
Granny stared at her blankly. "And what is it y'all hafta make?"
Rainbow Dash froze. "Uh. Uhhhhhh. Bread?"
There was silence for a few seconds, before Granny shrugged and replied, "Sounds good to me. Get on with it, y'all!"
Rainbow Dash wasted no time in darting out of her seat and grabbing a massive bag of flour. "Fluttershy, measure this out, will ya?" she asked.
Fluttershy didn't move. "Rainbow Dash. I'm so confused. Do you even know how to make bread?"
Rainbow scoffed. "Uh, duh? How hard can it be, right? Flour, and butter, and--"
"You don't put butter in bread," Fluttershy interrupted. "It's flour, salt, yeast and water. But I don't understand why--"
"Let's do this!" Rainbow insisted, throwing an apron at her friend, who eeped and hid under the desk. This was going to be easy.
This was not easy.
It turned out that, despite having done practical work for three years, nobody in the class except Fluttershy seemed to know how to bake bread. But Fluttershy had apparently decided to let Rainbow suffer.
"We were supposed to be researching monosaccharides," the girl reminded every time Rainbow pleaded with her for some advice (still wearing the apron), "so I'm going to do that. Mrs Bakewell isn't going to be happy if we don't finish our projects on time."
Rainbow didn't know exactly how her bread was coming along. She'd tried to stick to Fluttershy's recipe, but there hadn't been any salt in the cupboard so she'd ended up going into the storage cupboard - luckily, she'd found a white container which probably contained salt (but she didn't want to take the lid off in case it went everywhere).
"Flour, check. Yeast, check. Water, check." The girl looked down at the bowl on the desk in front of her. "Gotta be the salt now, right?"
She grabbed the shaker and flipped it over. Nothing came out.
"What?" Rainbow questioned, shaking the object. Nothing. "Fluttershy, nothing's coming out of here."
"We were supposed to be resear--"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it," the girl interrupted, rolling her eyes. She took the lid off the shaker and poured the contents into the bowl. Grabbing a wooden spoon, she mixed the contents of the bowl into a thick dough and kneaded it into a ball before slamming it down onto a baking tray and throwing it in the oven.
"What temperature should I set it at?" she questioned. "Hey, Fluttershy?"
"We were supp-"
"I GET IT."
Grumbling, Rainbow turned the temperature dial up to the highest one and sat back down at her desk next to her friend. "Fluttershy?"
Fluttershy closed her textbook and turned away.
"Ugh. Fluttershy, look, I'm sorry I didn't want to do the research, okay? But it's boring. Like, there's literally nothing I'd want to do less than it."
The girl hesitated, before turning back to Rainbow. "I know you aren't interested in it, Rainbow, but I am. The animal shelter needs me to get a good grade in Home Ec, because they need to know that I know enough about food to be able to make meals for the animals."
"Yeah," Rainbow sighed, "I know. I guess I ruined the whole lesson for you because I was only thinking about myself, huh?"
Fluttershy smiled softly. "I wouldn't say so. We still have half an hour! And--"
A high-pitched beeping rang through the room, and the girls looked up to see smoke rising from Rainbow's oven. "Crap, crap, crap!" Rainbow cursed, darting over to it and wrenching open the door. A thick cloud of smoke obscured her vision, but quickly parted to show a charred brown lump.
"What in tarnation is goin' on over here?" Granny demanded, walking over to the oven. Her eyes brightened when she saw the bread. "Oh, your bread's done? Let's taste it!"
Picking up a dishcloth from the desk, she grabbed the tray through the cloth and placed it on the work surface. "Go on," she urged Rainbow, "try it!"
Hesitantly, Rainbow Dash cut out a small piece with a knife and broke off an even smaller section. As soon as she'd tasted it, she gagged and spat it out. "Ew! That's awful!"
"Let me try," Fluttershy offered, walking over to her friend and taking the rest of the piece in her hand. She chewed for a moment, before laughing. "Rainbow Dash! You didn't take a salt shaker out of the supply cupboard - you took a pepper grinder!"
There was a moment of silence, before the rest of the class joined in the laughter. Rainbow just smiled sheepishly. There was always the next time.
One thing was for sure, though.
She'd failed her practical exam.