fandomhighdorms | Fourth Floor Common Room [Saturday afternoon]

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Fourth Floor Common Room [Saturday afternoon]

The newbies had been on the island for an entire week! Rapunzel was pretty sure that at least some of them had to be feeling overwhelmed.

Besides, she hadn't had a chance to meet most of them!

But that was okay. Rapunzel had a solution to both of those problems! Baking. Lots and lots and lots of baking! Cookies, brownies, muffins, and cupcakes were already strewn over most of the flat surfaces in the common room.

And now? It was time for pie!

Rapunzel's tongue was caught lightly between her teeth as she caaaarefully worked to separate egg whites from their yolks.

Hopefully people would show up soon to either help bake, or help consume the results of all the baking. But either way, Rapunzel intended to take the opportunity to smile broadly and talk to them!

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"Well, chocolate custard," Rapunzel allowed.

"And meringue."

Which was fun to make.

"Oh, custard," Dorothy said, knowing a bit about that at least. "That I understand, even if I've never had it with chocolate. Did your mother teach you how to make this?"

It seemed the most appropriate question.

"No," Rapunzel said a bit sadly. Not because mother hadn't taught her to bake pie, but because the question reminded her how much she missed home.

Sometimes.

"I learned it from a cookbook." So it wasn't all bad!

"Well, that's a good place to learn things from," Dorothy said. "I've learned almost all I know from different books. Every time I could get a new one in Kansas I'd read it from cover to cover. Sometimes twice in a row, if it was really good. And they almost always were."

She'd notice the flash of sadness, and wanted to make up for it. "You've very pretty hair, if I may say so."

Rapunzel had finally gotten over the panic reaction of people mentioning her hair, so she just smiled. "Thank you!" It helped that it was totally magical.

"Yours is very nice, too!"

"Oh, thank you," Dorothy said, actually blushing a bit. "It's very kind of you to say so." She still thought of herself as rather plain, but that did not bother her in the least. "So where do we start with the chocolate custard?"

"Well," Rapunzel smiled, "I've already separated some eggs, so we need to make the custard and prepare the meringue." Did Dorothy have a preference for where they started?

"I know custards," Dorothy said. "We have chickens on the farm in Kansas, so it was something we'd make around Christmas, usually. So why don't we start with what I know?"

Rapunzel nodded. "That sounds like a great plan."

She smiled. "So I've already got the egg yolks. That means we just need to mix up the chocolate part. We need cocoa, corn starch, sugar, and salt. Oh! And milk!"

Dorothy started gathering the ingredients from what she could find.

"All this packaging is so different," she said. What with storage for these sorts of ingredients being a whole different situation entirely at the turn of the century. "But it is easy to find what you're looking for."

"Yeah," Rapunzel agreed. "I was surprised when I first got here, too. But at least they're all helpfully labeled!" That made it a lot easier.

"And there are a lot more things here than I'm used to." Like chocolate!

"Oh, me too," Dorothy said. "We didn't have half as many spices in Kansas. And the icebox here is one of the most amazing things I've seen in my life. They didn't even have anything like that in Oz."

Hey, she'd only just mentioned Oz for the first time. It was a record for her.

Rapunzel nodded. "I know! You can keep food in it for later!" Amazing!

"They even have a word for that! Leftovers." Wasn't that neat?

"It's so very extravagant," Dorothy said, having started to mix the ingredients for the custard. "I'm starting to wonder how much the Empress spent to send me to school here."

"It is..."

Wait.

"Spent?" Was Rapunzel supposed to be paying for school? How was she supposed to do that?

Wait.

"Empress?"

"My friend, Ozma," Dorothy said casually, still mixing the custard. "She's the Empress of Oz. She's the one who arranged to send me here. I only assume it must have cost her quite a lot, given how amazing this place is."

"Oh." Rapunzel was a bit distracted being worried about things costing money. Especially school.

"That was very nice of her," she finally managed with only a little bit less than her usual enthusiasm. Because it was true!

"It was," Dorothy said, slowing her stirring a bit. "Are you okay?"

She really hoped she'd not said anything wrong to the other girl.

"Oh, no."

"Er, I mean, yes. I'm fine."

Really!

"Well, if you say so," Dorothy said, not wanting to make a fuss or be impolite. "Is there anything else we need to do with the custard?"

It was something of a relief to get back onto a more comfortable topic.

"Well, now that we've got it mixed, we have to cook it. Once it's hot enough, we can mix in the eggs." And then they could get to work on the meringue.

Dorothy for the first time properly looked at the stove and ended up staring.

"I've really no idea how to use this," she said, somewhat in awe.

"Oh!" Rapunzel should have thought of that!

"It's actually pretty easy once you get the hang of it." She grinned "Here, I'll show you." Better than having to do it by trial and error.

Indeed, Dorothy could have easily set fire to something if she had done trial and error.

Fire was bad.

"It has all sorts of knobs and nowhere to put the wood," Dorothy said, still staring. "Is it magic?"

"It's electric." Which was pretty much like magic, as far as Rapunzel was concerned. ~~Even if the stove was gas, it totally used electric starters, so...~~

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