Dinner Biscuits

“Mrs. Conte, we don’t have a recipe.” Juan almost forgot to raise his hand. One of his home economics teacher’s strict rules was students had to raise their hands so she knew who was talking to her among the chattering from the kitchen stations.

One station over, Maya rummaged through the cupboards looking for the ingredients they needed. “Flour, salt, baking soda,” she muttered. Her partner, Kaitlyn, assembled a mixing bowl, measuring cups and spoons, and a pastry blender on the counter. Together, they perused the recipe for today’s assignment: dinner biscuits. The group or groups whose final product had the highest score would help make biscuits for the faculty breakfast the following week and be excused from their first-period class.

During the taste test, Mrs. Conte awarded high marks to Maya and Kaitlyn’s biscuits. “What’s that unusual flavor I detect? And your biscuits are a bit sweeter—did you follow the recipe exactly?”

Kaitlyn smiled and nodded. She knew her biscuits were light and flaky, and she also knew how she had chosen to deviate from the recipe.

“See you at the faculty breakfast, Mrs. Conte,” Kaitlyn gathered her books and waved as she left the home economics room.

After all the students had exited, Mrs. Conte rifled through the papers in the basket on the corner of her desk. She had distributed copies of the same recipe to the entire class, marking the kitchen number on each recipe copy, and requested that students leave their copies on their way out. Kaitlyn and Maya’s recipe copy wasn’t there. Thinking they had left it on the kitchen counter, the teacher searched their station. No recipe.