Our Final Chance

I come to a stop in front of a large wide building. This was it, this is what we had been working toward for months. I get out of my car and almost trip over myself with excitement and nervousness. I head up the path to the building were I will see if our hard work would pay off.

I open the door to the building and head to the front desk. A women looks up from her computer.

"How can I help you sir?"

"I am here for the baking championship."

The woman nods and looks at her computer. "What is your name?"

"Leandor Running's." I say nervously.

The woman, still looking at her computer nods. "And I see you already filled out the information online?"

"Yes."

"Go down the hall and to the right, there is going to be a person waiting there. Tell them your name and they will give you your ID for the day."

"Thank you." I say awkwardly and shuffle down the hall.

When I get to the door the lady was telling me about a tall, lanky man was waiting for me.

"Leandor Running's I am assuming."

"Yes." I answer still nervous.

He hands me an ID that has my name, age and date and pushes me through the door.

When I get to the other side I see the rest of my team there with worried looks.

"Where have you been?" Hisses Lorie.

I look down at the time, "I still have ten minutes."

"We wanted you here 30 minutes early to discuss tactics and our plan of action." Interjects Caroline, in her stern voice that always seemed to frighten me. "But no matter that, we can start now."

So for the next ten minutes we went over and recited different ingredients and techniques that we might need to win.

Then the door at the back of the room slide open.

"It must be time." Whispers Lorie as she squares her shoulders.

"We've got this guys." I say firmly, even though I felt like I was about to throw up.

We walk out into a large space, the other team coming out a door on the other side. The room is large with high arched ceilings. There are two working stations for the teams and large ovens and mounds of ingredients lining the walls.

We walk over to the station with our names and put on the aprons assigned to us.

A moment later four people step into the room. A dark and muscular man who looked like a frown was engraved onto his face, a smiling and slightly overweight woman. Another women with cat like eyes and a white haired, wrinkled man.

The smiling woman stepped forward and began to talk. "Welcome, to the final challenge, you have fought long and hard to get here now it is time to determine which team is the ultimate winner. As you know we started out with ten teams and after each challenge a team was eliminated. After this challenges it will be up to me and the judges to determine which team deserves the full scholar ship to 'The Culinary Institute of America." She paused a minute letting us take it in. "This challenge is simple you will have two hours to create the largest and tastiest cookie you can. It can be any flavor or design, it just has to be larger than the other teams. And your time starts now!"

My stomach flipped over. I raced over to our cooking station with Caroline and Lorie.

"We should make simple chocolate chip cookies, that way we can expand it if we need to." I suggest quickly.

"No they will be expecting that." Says Lorie, "We should do lemon meringue cookies."

"That will take to long. I think Leandor is right we need to do something simple so we can make it as big as possible." Caroline says, glancing at the other team.

Lorie give a slight frown.

"How about we do double chocolate chip." I said, thinking quickly.

Lorie still looked skeptical but agreed.

Lorie and I raced off to get the ingredients while Caroline got out the supplies. We quickly made three batches of dough. I could have also sworn the clock was moving on double time. We knew other team was good, we had faced them in out previous competitions. And from our point of view it looked like they had made a very extensive cookie. Thirty minutes to go and heart rates were beating fast. We were on our tenth batch when the real problem began. The judges got out of their seats and began walking over to us.

"Could we please have your attention." This time it was the wrinkled man talking.

I look over at the clock which had stopped.

"I see you have thirty minutes left." He said his voice projecting off the high arched sealing. "Which is enough time for you to make a batch of twelve cookies completely different to the giant cookie you are currently making." He finished and the clock began to move again.

"I'll do it." Exclaimed Lorie with a flustered expression. "You guys keep making the cookie." She then raced off to go get more ingredients.

Caroline and I ran back toward the cookie.

Bigger and Bigger we made it and pushed it into the oven.

The minutes ticked by like seconds.

Twenty minutes,

Ten minutes,

Five minutes, Lorie's batch of cookies were being pulled out of the oven.

Three minutes,

One minute, our big cookie was pulled out of the oven.

Time.

"Hands up!" Shouted the judges all together.

I look over at Lorie who seemed close to tears and Caroline who wore a stone expression.

"Please take off your aprons and go back to the room in which you came. From there please wait to be called." Explained the smiling judge.

We went back to out room and sat down in the cushioned seat with a sigh.

Nobody said anything. Just a few minutes ago every minute seemed like a second, now every minute seemed like an hour.

Then finally we got called. I took a deep breath and walked out the door to the judges.

They all looked at us, each pare of eyes boring into my skull.

"What did you make for us today?" Asked the dark judge who was gesturing to the batch of cookies, plus the large cookie.

"We-" I began but Caroline cut me off.

"We made a large double chip cookie, with a batch of twelve lemon cookies." She said with an extremely clear voice.

"And do you know how large it is." Asked the cat eyed judge.

"No ma'am." I said before Caroline could cut me off.

The cat eyed woman took out a tape measure and measured the cookie. She then wrote something down in a notebook.

"Well should we give it a try." Asked the smiling judge.

Lorie then wen up and served them all a piece of the large cookie and a lemon cookie.

I held my breath.

The wrinkled man was the first to speak. "It is a very well crafted cookie, however it is doughy on the inside as if it did not cook long enough."

"I agree." Said the dark man, his dark eyes studying the cookie. "It is very doughy but the double chocolate gives it just the right flavor."

They discussed the cookie for a few more minutes before moving on to the lemon cookie.

The judges brought it to their mouths and tasted, they then all made a similar face with their mouths all screwed up.

"It is very sour, I think perhaps there was a mistake in the measuring." Said the cat eyes woman.

The other judges murmured their agreement and talked a few moments more on the cookie before sending us back to our waiting room.

As I walked back I felt my heart drop and could do nothing more than wait for them to tell us who won.

We sat there for what seemed like an eternity, then finally they called us all back out.

I looked at the other group walking out and noticed they did not seem very confidant either.

The smiling judge stepped up. "Good job today all of you, you fought really hard and amazed us with your talents in baking." She turned to the other team. "You guys did really well, your cookie was three feet long and had a height of one inch, however when plating your cookies one fell onto the ground and you could no longer use it, leaving you with only eleven cookies." She then turned to us. "You guys preformed today just as well, your cookie was three feet, 6 inches long and it had had a height of one inch. You had all twelve cookies but they were extremely sour."

She paused and looked around at all of us. I felt so nervous I could barely feel anything at all.

"The winning team who will be winning a four year scholar ship to 'The Culinary Institute of America' is...Leandor Running, Caroline Rawlings and Lorie Collins." She finished with a great big smile on her face.

My heart soard, my mind flew. We had won, I was going to culinary school, I was going to make something of myself.

I looked at my team and smiled, after all the stress we went through in the last month, we had finally won it, evrything we had gone through was worth it and I could have not been more grateful.