2523. Cooking class © Bruce Goodman 23 September 2022

Margaret was an excellent cook, and so should she be as she was the cooking teacher at the local high school. She had just been employed and was excited to begin. Cooking had been introduced into the curriculum for both boys and girls because these days with both parents working it was easier to leave cooking lessons up to a teacher. After all, it was a school! The school wasn’t riddled with multitudinous ovens, so cooking classes were restricted to fourteen pupils at one time using the ovens and the rest of the class creating a cold salad or dessert. On the first class Margaret ran into trouble. There were fourteen boys and twelve girls. She decided to run a little competition: boys versus girls. The boys at first were given the task of making a cold salad. The girls were to make cookies of their choice from a pile of recipes. All went well. “When you’re ready for the oven,” said Margaret, “don’t forget to set the timer. It will take about thirty minutes. When you are done, it’s the boys’ turn. Pandemonium erupted after thirty minutes. The timer alarms all went off at different times. No one knew whose alarm was whose. Some girls’ cookies hadn’t cooked; other girls’ cookies were burnt. Then it was the boys turn. Everything came out perfectly. Their cookies were perfection itself. The boys won the day! Wesley was pleased with his new-learned skill; he could adjust girls’ timers and oven temperatures without anyone noticing. Contact Author Back to Index Next Story Previous Story