Going from science to home economics was like flipping a switch. If science was the land of girls, home ec was the jungle of boys. Already sitting at another table on the side of the front desk area—like makeup class, half the room was lab space and half a classroom—was Dakota, along with several people he didn’t rec— Wait, Jonni realized. That’s Biff’s face. He took a mental note of the boy sitting next to Dakota. Hmm, I wonder what his name is.
Jonni was relieved—and surprised—when Sugar walked in. “Hey honey,” she smiled back at him. Gosh, this class feels like the reprise of my day, he thought as he looked around. There was Brennalynn and Michaela, with whom he was going to go to the mall after; Dakota, his archrival; Sugar, his girlfriend (why?, he wondered); and BriBri, his makeup class partner. Several other dance boys were in the class.
The teacher, a Hispanic man named Carla Allende, sauntered into the room from his back office. “Good afternoon, class,” he began in an accented voice. “Today we are going to begin our baking unit, though it’ll be a bit before we actually bake.” The class seemed to sigh a bit at the idea that they’d be waiting a while to actually whip up stuff in the kitchen. “Baking, after all, is a science, and if you aren’t careful, everything can and will go wrong. So we’re going to open up to chapter 6,” Ms. Allende announced.
“Baking requires a slightly different skill set from most of the other cooking methods we’ve been performing so far.” It only took one sentence of lecture from the teacher for whispers to arise from corners of the classroom.
“Gosh, Jonni is so lucky. Sugar is such a romantic girl,” one boy trailed off dreamily. “Wish I had one like that.”
“You like Jonni? Sheesh,” another voice added, competing with Ms. Allende’s explanation of quick breads versus yeasts to be heard in the room. That’s Dakota, isn’t it... Jonni rolled his eyes. He’d never heard this much whispering in a classroom before, and he wasn’t sure quite how to react.
“Well, he has a girlfriend that’s just as good as Cardi B in my book, and just as pretty—”
“Chiiii-caaaas!” Ms. Allende exclaimed, exasperated. “I know you wanna chit-chat and you’re falling in love with Jonni’s girlfriend, but you don’t want your banana bread to catch fire, do you?” He looked around the room, ensuring he had the attention of every single student. Sugar looked especially flustered at the direct attention. “I’ve been there, boys. You need to pay attention.”
The teacher went back to his textbook and began reading from it. “Quick breads can be made quicker because they don’t need yeast or egg to rise,” he explained. “They are more forgiving than traditional types of breads when made, but they don’t have that yeast flavor to them.”
“So I’m using this new concealer,” someone started up. Jonni recognized it as the boy who looked sorta like Biff.
“Whispers don’t make bread rise, Hailey Meadows.” The boys seem really chatty today, Ms. Allende thought. He looked up at the clock. Still 45 minutes to go. Waiting for this class to end was going to be like looking longingly at the oven, watching dough slowly rise.
