Experimental Toast // The Bar

[halftwinkly]

THEN: Arthur made a brilliant discovery.

AND THEN: Arthur had tried to make toast. Literally, produce toast, on a plate. No matter how hard he tried, screwing up his face like someone trying to remember an answer in Trivial Pursuit, he couldn't even create a crumb. However, he could put bread in the toaster and have it come out as perfect toast, even after he noticed the toaster wasn't plugged in.

NOW: Arthur is in the Bar. Well, sort of. The Bar, on the basis that she isn't stupid, has put him in a little side room with tiled walls and floor. There are a number of objects in the room. Right now, Arthur is looking at a piece of bread very hard.

"Abracadabra!"

The bread explodes into croutons.

"...Oh dear."

There's a pile of similarly dispatched bread in a bowl next to him. The squid might like it, later on.

Comments

[missnicegirl]

...

She laughs.

[halftwinkly]

Arthur catches her laughter, giggling like a loon.

"Does it taste like raspberry though?" He reaches out and breaks off a bit (it's quite a big raspberry). "...It tastes kind of... Blue..."

[missnicegirl]

"Like blue Gatorade?" she asks curiously, and takes a bit of raspberry for herself. "Hmm. I'm not sure."

[halftwinkly]

"I don't know, what's Gatorade?" Arthur asks absently. He's picked up another lolly stick, concentrating hard. The stick cracks and blossoms ice.

"Oooh, that's really cold!" Arthur tries to put it down and comes away with a small amount of ice stuck to his fist. "This is really tricky, isn't it?"

[missnicegirl]

"Yep," says Matilda. "Are you okay? You didn't freeze your fingers, did you?"

[halftwinkly]

"Oh, it's fine, I think," Arthur says, examining the reddened patch of skin. "I've had worse. I once got stuck to the side of an aeroplane. Go on, you have another go."

He wouldn't dare tell her, but this is the most fun he's had in ages.

[missnicegirl]

"...How did you get stuck to the side of an airplane?" she wonders as she summons another popsicle stick. This time the ice that forms around it is appropriately pink, but she gives it a critical look and shakes her head. "I don't think it's right."

[halftwinkly]

"I took my glove off and it was really really cold." Arthur explains, as though that's something happens to everyone. As far as Arthur's concerned, it is.

"Why don't you think it's right? It looks right to me."

[missnicegirl]

"I'm not sure," she says. "Want to try it? It's probably not toxic."

[halftwinkly]

"Alright!" Arthur nibbles at it. "...I think that's okay. I mean, it's more banana than raspberry, but that's okay! It's like a surprise."

[missnicegirl]

"That explains the colour, too," she says, looking pleased. "Here, I'll try again."

The next popsicle she creates is the same shade of pink as the first—a little too light and not purple enough for unadulterated raspberry—and when she tries it, it is indeed raspberry-banana. Emphasis on the banana.

"That's a really weird way for a spell to go wrong," she says thoughtfully. "But at least it's a tasty one!"

[halftwinkly]

"Yeah, definitely!" Arthur applies himself enthusiastically to the ice-lolly, sucking all the juice out until the ice is white. "It's kind of odd though. You can make toast but only if you have bread. In the books they just whizz it up out of nowhere."

[missnicegirl]

"Well, now I know I can conjure popsicles," says Matilda. "So it's possible to conjure toast. We just need to figure out how."

But her first priority is eating the rest of her banana-raspberry popsicle.

[halftwinkly]

Arthur sucks on his own lolly thoughtfully.

"What would you conjure? Toast is sort of boring on it's own."

[missnicegirl]

"Well... anything," she says, shrugging. "How about cake?"

[halftwinkly]

"Okay! You know, I'm really good at making cake." Even Arthur's enthusiasm cannot quite get over the enormity of this lie.


"Well. Pretty good. All right. I'm all right at making cake. Can you make cake?"

[missnicegirl]

"I... have made cake!" says Matilda, because she is a fundamentally honest person. "Not as often as I've made toast. But more often than I've made popsicles."

[halftwinkly]

"What about pancakes?" Arthur's trying to think of something he's made with reasonable success in the past. "I'm not bad at pancakes."

[missnicegirl]

"Pancakes are a good idea," she decides. "But they need plates. You've got plates, right?"

[halftwinkly]

"I think so." Arthur opens a cupboard and produces two plates. "And there's honey too."

Still holding the jar he asks, "Er... How should we do it?"

[missnicegirl]

"I have no idea," Matilda says cheerfully.

She gives the plates a considering look.

[halftwinkly]

Arthur folds his arms, gnawing on the lolly stick absently.

"I suppose you could try just asking, but that didn't work very well for the ice-lolly. Maybe if we try starting out with flour and then sort of work up to thin air?"

Conveniently, there is a bag of flour in one of the cupboards.

[missnicegirl]

"Sounds like a plan," she decides. "Let's try it."

[halftwinkly]

Arthur rips the bag open and dumps some out on his plate eagerly.

"Right." He itches over his eye and leaves a smear of flour. "Do you want to try first?"

[missnicegirl]

Matilda beckons some flour onto her own plate; it forms a smallish pile. She watches it for a moment. Nothing happens.

"Maybe not."