Something about him that made me feel like my skin was turned inside out.
“Okay, okay, this is easy,” said Levana. “We just bake a cake and we’re done. C’mon, let’s see what we have here.”
We all stood up to get closer to what the host calledan oven,which was really just a metal compartment painted like a piece of wood for whatever reason. The white teapot was full, and near the handle, there was a piece of glass to show the inside. Around it were lines and numbers, starting with0at the bottom, and ending at20near the lid.
“Twenty minutes are in here,” said Mimi.
“Plenty for an hour,” said Russ. “Go ahead and pour it in the mold.”
“I’ll get the flour,” said Anika.
“I’ll get the sugar,” said Reggie, jumping off his chair, where he’d climbed to grab a spoon right off one of the branches over us.
I went to the other side of the table to analyze the oven better. It had a small window in the front, and a golden handle, too. It would fit the cake mold the host had given us just fine.
The blood in my veins rushed, both afraid and excited as I watched the others pour the contents into the mold together.
Meanwhile Host Ticktock stood back, a little fartheraway, sometimes spinning, sometimes humming, always watching us, even when he danced.
I swallowed hard and tried to shake the feeling that I was in the presence of a monster. March’s eyes were on me when I looked up, and he must have known exactly what I was thinking, because he kept staring at the host, too.
So far, though, he was staying away.
“There. I think that will do it,” Levana said. “A little whisk, and into the oven to bake.” She grabbed the whisk and mixed in the ingredients in the mold, then put it aside. Cook grabbed the handle of the oven, and when he pulled it open, hot air blew out like it had been eager to escape for ages.
“Oh—that’s hot,” Levana said, and she carefully put the mold into the oven with a big smile on her face.
Cook closed it, pulled the handle down, and stepped aside.
Done. Easily done.
That was a cake made of solid seconds and tea-time and flour-minutes—just like the host wanted.
“It’s done,” Anika said. “We made the cake.”
Host Ticktock, who’d been spinning around in a circle, staring down at his own feet, stopped and looked at us almost like he wassurprisedto find us there.
Then smiled, his wide blue eyes glistening. “Is it now.”
Something about his voice.
Then the table began to shake.
“Oh, no…” someone whispered as we all started to back away—because it was the oven that was vibrating like that, and shaking the entire table with it. It was vibrating and it was steaming at the corners, and the cake inside it was swelling, ballooning up as we watched, and?—
A scream.
The cakeexplodedinside the oven, and the noise was unmistakable.
We were all leaning away as far as we could, terrified, in shock, watching the steam spiraling up the corners—while the host, laughing his heart out, went to it.
He opened the oven and we all held our breaths, thinking he was going to burn his hand, but…
He pulled the mold out, and it was clean. No tea or sugar or flour or inflated cake inside it.
He put it over the oven again, just like before, then moved back to the front of the table, the smile never leaving his face.
“All hands in one hour?Oh, dear!” He shook his head. “Time chokes on such greed.”
