Enjoy Your Garbage Cookie

The newspaper club had three students who hated each other with the type of energy only a high schooler could channel. The club consisted of Sophia, the tall, blonde popular girl, Hazel Louise, Sophia’s polar opposite, and Zachary, the one who was only in it for sports coverage of the girl’s swim team. Despite their arguments, and the fact that one of them quit every week, the newspaper was consistently churned out of the steadily breaking printer in the office and sold during lunch. The teacher in charge of the club, Mr. Garcia, was never there for meetings. He would pop in from time to time to check that his classroom wasn’t destroyed and that the students hadn’t killed each other. One such occasion was the last meeting before winter break. Zach was sitting on the table wearing the ugliest Christmas sweater in existence, a pastel red and green horror with dancing reindeer and lights that actually lit up. There were ornaments in his curled, messy hair. Sophia sat on her phone in a corner, wearing her usual varsity jacket. Hazel was on the other side of the room, the only one actually working.

“Book club has issued a challenge for us.” Mr. Garcia announced. It should be mentioned that the only people the students in the newspaper club hated more than each other were the students in the book club. Sophia was off her phone in a second, Hazel shut her laptop, and for the first time in the past three weeks Zach shut up.

“What kind of challenge?” Hazel asked cautiously.

“Baking.” Mr. Garcia handed out the papers, “Cookie baking, to be exact.”

“Bummer.” Zach scanned his paper, “Sophia can’t cook.”

“I’m going to beat you to death with a chair.” Sophia’s tone was casual. Her words, however, were anything but.

“That’s-” Zach laughed, “That’s a threat. Mr. G, she’s threatening me!” 

“I hate book club.” Hazel muttered, “They think they’re so much better than newspaper because they’re the ones who give us the book reviews.”

“Whoever makes the bigger cookie gets to make the losers do whatever they want for a day.” Sophia read, “If we won, we could force them to wear cheerleading uniforms to school.” 

“One glaring problem though,” Zach said with a grin, “Sophia can’t cook.” 

Sophia stood up and picked up her chair. Mr. Garcia sighed, “Sophia, please put the chair down.”

“Watch yourself, Zach.” Sophia pointed at him threateningly, “I know where you live.”

“Alright, Drama Queen.” Zach rolled his eyes, “But we do have a real problem though. We’d need a big kitchen. Also isn’t Hazel like, really allergic to everything?”

“As long as we’re not using any kind of nuts in the cookie I shouldn’t die.” Hazel said, “And my kitchen’s big enough for this.”

“You’d let us into your house?” Sophia asked. Hazel sighed, “I wish I didn’t have to, but you don’t understand. I would do literally anything to knock the book club down a few pegs.” 

“Even let Zach into your house? He’s like a vampire, if you let him in he drains your life.”

Zach put a hand over his heart, “I’m wounded. My heart, pierced by your words like knives, bleeds dry over the remains of our sordid affair.”

“Oh that’s nice, who’d you steal that one from?” Sophia leveled her no-nonsense glare at Zach, who only winked back.

Hazel wrote her address on a piece of scrap paper, “I’m leaving now. If you want to win this competition, be at my place by eight on Saturday.”

“Like, in the morning?” Zach asked, “Because it’s going to take some time to get the car from my brother.”

“I suggest you get up at six then.” Mr. Garcia added helpfully, “Try not to destroy Hazel’s kitchen. I don’t think her parents would be too happy if you wrecked the place in the name of a school rivalry.”

Zach and Sophia were quiet as Hazel left the room. Once she was out of earshot, Zach laughed, an annoying, hyena-esque cackle that let everyone within a five mile radius know he was there.

“I’m going to destroy the place.” He admitted before bursting into hysterical laughter again, as if he had just told the funniest joke ever. Sophia put her head in her hands, “I want to throw myself into the sun.” 

Mr. Garcia simply chuckled awkwardly, ducking out of the room as quickly as possible. 

Sophia didn’t know what to expect from the home of Hazel Louise. Growing up in a one parent household had given her the idea that every house was as modest as the one her adoptive mother brought her into. Hazel’s parents obviously had good jobs given the size of the house. It wasn’t as big as most places, but it was definitely a house with two working parents. The door was unlocked, and Sophia let herself in.

“Hello?” She called out, hoping that Hazel’s parents weren’t home. 

“We’re in the back!” Hazel yelled, promptly followed by “I taped knives to my hands” from Zach. Sophia walked past the staircase and through a doorway to find a kitchen fit for a professional. Hazel had a cookbook out on the counter and was gathering ingredients while Zach, true to his word, sat taping kitchen knives to his hands.

“The ultimate weapons.” He told Sophia solemnly. 

“Right. Hazel, I found a frosting recipe online that should be good.” Sophia held out her phone for Hazel to read the ingredients.

“Yeah, that’ll work. It’s not like I’m going to be eating the final product anyways.”

“I mean, I guess. I just don’t want to kill you on your own property.”

“It’s fine. My parents aren’t home and it’s not like Zach would snitch.” Hazel’s voice was deadpan as she handed the phone back, “I should have some of the ingredients in the pantry, if you want to take a look. I need to find a big tray.”

“Oh, alright.” 

Zach broke the awkward silence that followed.

“Did you know almonds have cyanide in them? What if we just… put almonds in the cookie and poisoned the book club?”

“Zach I’m allergic to almonds.” Hazel pulled a pan out of a cupboard, “I would die.”

“I mean, if we put enough, anyone would die. Cyanide does that to people.”

“Zach come help me look for ingredients.” Sophia commanded.

“Yes ma’am.” Zach slid off the kitchen table and followed Sophia to the pantry while Hazel gathered the supplies needed to make the cookie.

Twelve minutes and several ingredients later, the group began. Zach, ever the comic relief, spent the majority of the time throwing flour around the kitchen, to the point where even Hazel’s dark hair was a powdery white. Sophia took the job of throwing the ingredients in the mixer, and Hazel prepared the tray.

“Just dump the dough on the tray and I’ll spread it out.” Hazel said, throwing down a sheet of parchment paper. 

“Oh, hold on!” Zach stopped throwing flour around the kitchen and ran to his backpack, “I brought some stuff for the cookie.”

He shoved Sophia out of the way and dumped an entire bottle of rainbow sprinkles into the mixer.

“Zach… why do you have two bottles of rainbow sprinkles with you?” Sophia knew she sounded like a tired parent, but when it came to Zach, even the most stereotypical of teenagers suddenly became thirty year old adults with mortgages and a 401K.

“Oh Sophia.” Zach slung his arm around her shoulders, causing a cloud of flour to billow down. 

“I have way more than two bottles of rainbow sprinkles.”

Hazel picked up Zach’s bag and dumped it out. The sound eighteen plastic containers full of sprinkles hitting the ground filled the kitchen. Despite the mixer running at full speed, the noise was nearly deafening.

“Zachary.” Hazel stated. She did not continue to speak.

“Yes?” Zach prompted.

“Zachary why are you the way you are?” Sophia continued for Hazel, who was very visibly going through the five stages of grief. 

“I live in a house with four other siblings.” Zach shrugged, “If I don’t do this kind of stuff I think I’ll disappear.”

“No, shut up, that’s too sad.” Hazel picked up as many bottles of sprinkles as she could hold, “Come on, we’re dumping them all in.”

“We’re what?” Sophia tried to stop Hazel, “We can’t put twenty bottles of sprinkles in the cookie dough!”

“Well the alternative is we share a heartfelt and touching moment that reminds us that we’re not so different after all, and quite frankly I don’t want to do that!” 

Once again, Sophia was shoved out of the way and rainbow sprinkles disappeared into the mixer. The sugary abomination was dumped onto the pan and flattened out, then shoved into the oven to bake. Making the frosting didn’t go any better, since Zach insisted on mixing in any remaining sprinkles. They cleaned as the cookie cooled, and when Hazel’s dad returned from work he was greeted by a perfectly normal kitchen and three kids coated in flour.

“I would ask, but I’m afraid of the answer.” He remarked as he glanced in the kitchen to make sure there had been no accidents. Other than a pile of knives covered in duct tape, nothing seemed out of place.

“What do we do with the cookie now?” Zach asked.

“I’ll bring it to school on Monday if you want.” Hazel said, “That way you guys don’t have to worry about it.”

“How are we going to sabotage the book club?” Zach continued. He raised an eyebrow at the silence that followed.

“We are sabotaging them, right? I mean, this is a big cookie, but there’s no way it’ll win against those guys.”

“That would be cheating though.” Sophia pointed out, “We’d be lowering ourselves to their level.”

“But it would be fun.” Zach whined.

“No, Zach, it wouldn’t.” Hazel put plastic wrap over the cookie, “I hate to say it, but Sophia’s right. We can’t stoop to their level.”

“Okay, but if we lose I’m going to start throwing things.” Zach warned, shoving empty sprinkles bottles back into his bag. 

“Okay bye guys, thanks for your help!” Hazel practically shoved them out of the house, shutting the door behind them. Zach waved at Sophia, “Good luck getting all the flour off!”

“You better drive fast, Zachary!” Sophia yelled, “If you’re still here by the time I’m pulling out of the driveway I’m going to crash into you!”

“You’d risk your insurance rates for me?” He sprinted to his car, cackling, “I’m touched!”

Monday rolled around faster than ever before, and the newspaper club met with the book club in the cafeteria.

“Glad you three could make it!” A kid ran over to greet them.

“Oh, yeah, thanks for the challenge.” Hazel smiled awkwardly, “We’ve got our cookie right here, so… um…” 

Zach was much less tactful.

“Who the heck are you?”

“Really, Zach?” The kid sighed, “We’ve been going to school together since fifth grade. It’s Liam? You know, the president of the book club?”

“Oh, right.” Zach leaned over to Sophia, “I don’t remember this person at all.”

“Look, just bring your cookie over to the front table and we’ll measure them.” Liam led Hazel away and Sophia and Zach were forced to follow. The cookies were measured quickly, as it was best to keep the newspaper club from being in the same room with the book club for an extended amount of time. Last time the two clubs were together ended with three people needing to go to the hospital and five suspensions. The less said about that incident, the better. Notes were taken, measurements were checked, and the teachers declared a winner.

“By half an inch, on both length and width, the winner is…” The book club supervisor sighed, “Newspaper club.”

Zach flipped the table. Chunks of rainbow abomination and chocolate chip went flying everywhere. Hazel and Sophia didn’t reprimand him, instead focusing their energy on making fun of the losers. The teachers practically ran out of the cafeteria before the affair could come to blows, the last thing they heard being Zach screeching “Enjoy your garbage cookie, nerds!”

The next day, the entirety of the book club came to school in cheerleading outfits to document their loss, covered in bruises revealing the fight that had followed. The newspaper club was not there to see it, as they had been suspended for the next three days for instigating an all out brawl. The Great Cookie Battle went down in school history, and in the following weeks newspaper sales increased as word spread about the three lunatics who had won both a cookie baking contest and a fistfight against a much bigger group in the same day. Even after the gossip stopped spreading in favor of a story about the prom queen’s latest hook up, there was something in the newspaper that hadn’t been there before. The group had gone from mortal enemies to reluctant allies, and together they struck fear into the hearts of the book club members until graduation.