Page 42 of Faking it with the Hybrid

Mattie felt like the butterflies in her stomach were doing loop-the-loops with joy. Those were the highest scores yet! But she still had the toughest judge to impress—Mrs. Kranst. What would she say?

Her old Home Ec. teacher was still chewing, examining the half ball in her hand with a critical eye. At last she swallowed.

“Nice tender texture…good composition…excellent balance between salty and sweet,” she said, nodding. “Very good, Ms. Porter—I will give these a solid eight,” she said, nodding.

Since this was the highest score Mrs. Kranst had given anyone so far, Mattie nodded gratefully.

“Thank you so much,” she said.

Then she moved to the side of the stage where the other contestants were waiting. Honestly though, it wasn’t much of a contest by that point. Mattie had the best scores so far—it just depended on if the judges liked Amanda’s sugar cookies more than the pecan balls.

Amanda clearly thought they would. She was standing with one hip cocked to the side and her giant designer handbag draped over one arm, waiting impatiently for her turn to be judged.

“Amanda Hutchinson,” the announcer called. “Amanda has made stained glass sugar cookies,” she added. “Please come up to the stage, dear.”

“Thank you.” Amanda glided smoothly up the steps to stand in front of the judges table. “I hope you like my homemade sugar cookies,” she informed the three of them, as they all chose a cookie and bit into them. “They’re famous all over Christmasville.”

“Mm-hm.” Mr. Carmichael swallowed the bite of green-iced Christmas tree and smiled weakly. “These are…nice. A little dry, though. Five point five.”

The confident grin fell off Amanda’s face and she opened her mouth to say something, but Judy Owens, the second judge, was already speaking.

“The icing is too sweet and the cookies are too hard. Sugar cookies ought to be tender and melt in your mouth,” she informed Amanda. “Four point five.”

“What?” Amanda gasped. “But…but…”

“I find these to beaggressivelymediocre,” Mrs. Kranst said, before Amanda could voice her objections. “They taste like the Pillsbury cookies one can buy in any supermarket, only these have been mixed with much too much flour, which has given them a cardboard-like texture. I give them a two and that’s beinggenerous.”

“You’re all crazy!” Amanda exclaimed, her face turning pink with anger. “I’ll have you know these cookies have won this Bake-offfive times!”

“Yes, well I believe that’s because your uncle was one of the judges,” Mrs. Kranst said dryly. “In fact,thesecookies—and the complaints they generated—are one of the reasons your uncle was retired as a judge and I was brought on board.”

“But this isn’t fair!” Amanda insisted, stamping her foot. “I should win—Ialwayswin!”

“Not this time, Ms. Hutchinson,” Mrs. Kranst snapped. “Now if you don’t mind, we have a winner to announce. Ms. Madeline Porter, will you please come forward?”

Hesitantly, Mattie stepped forward but Amanda refused to budge from her spot in front of the judges table.

“I told you—I’mthe winner!” she insisted, sounding more like a petulant child than a full-grown woman, in Mattie’s opinion.

“Ms. Hutchinson, please—step aside,” Mrs. Kranst said coldly. “You arenotthe winner—Ms. Porter is the winner, as her combined scoresclearlyprove.”

“She can’t be the winner—shecheated!”Amanda exclaimed, pointing at Mattie. “She used another contestant’s powdered sugar when she lost her own!”

“Gifting another contestant an ingredient they need isnotagainst the rules as long as it is freely given. Also, Ms. Porter has already informed us of that she was given powdered sugar when her own went missing,” Mrs. Kranst said, frowning.

“Well but…but she didn’t even use her oven!” Amanda exclaimed. “She had that big Kindred boyfriend of hers do some kind of freaky Kindred magic on the cookies to bake them!”

“Icouldn’tuse the oven because somebody turned mineoffand there was no time to preheat it again,” Mattie bit out. “Grath is able to generate heat with his hands, so we baked the cookies that way. Is there a rule against baking the cookies with your hands?”

“Well…” For the first time, Mrs. Kranst looked slightly flummoxed. She huddled with the two other judges and they whispered for a moment. They seemed to come to a consensus because she straightened up and said, “No, there is no rule like that in the Bake-off rule book. I don’t see how there could be—we’ve never had a contestant, er,hand-baketheir cookies before. If that is the correct term for it.”

“Excuse me,” a deep, familiar voice called from the audience.

Mattie looked up to see Grath striding forward. He had several things in his hands but the stage lights were in her eyes and she couldn’t see what they were at first.

“I’m sorry, but we are in the middle of the judging!” Mrs. Kranst exclaimed. “Now is not the time for an interruption!”

“I just thought you might like to know why Amanda Hutchinson’s cookies tasted like they came out of a package,” Grath said. “It’s because they fuckingdid. Look what I found in her trashcan.” And he held up several bright plastic wrappers that had the plump little Pillsbury dough boy on them.

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