This is a short children's story I wrote in Collaboration with Valerie. it is loosely based on a real story (but very loosely). She is currently working on illustrations and we're both super excited to see the final product. More stories like this coming soon! How to read a picture book without the pictures yet: read the paragraph breaks as though each one is a page -some will be double-page spreads, others are single pages but no matter. Use your imagination!!
When Grace Waldner and Matilda Maendel found the colony Friday bun recipe in their mom’s drawer, they knew they just HAD to steal it and make their own Cinnamon Buns, because they really Really REALLY loved Cinnamon Buns.
They set their alarms for 4:37 am so that no cooks or anyone else would be awake, and headed for the Bochheis’l to mix up their zwieboch recipe.
“We need 10 eggs”
“We need 3 tablespoons of salt”
“We need a gallon of milk”
“We need exactly four cups of water and 30 cups of flour
“We need a pinch of sugar for the yeast”
Yeast...” thought grace.... “mom says that’s what makes dough rise...”
“interesting” observed Matilda. Let's switch the cup of yeast with the 30 cups of flour to get EVEN MORE DOUGH FOR CINNAMON BUNS
The girls high fived each other for their good idea and did just that
At exactly 5:59 am, a second before the cooks were going to arrive, the girls finished their recipe, covered their dough, and set the warming room temperature to maximum, and went home to bed. Grace thought, just as she was closing the warming room door, she already saw the dough getting bigger. “it's all in my head” thought shrugging and went home.
The girls were tired when they dragged themselves lut of beg for Essenschule. They were soooo tired, they almost g]fell asleep into their oatmeal and eggs. But then they remembered “our dough
1”
They snuck into the bakery and oooppppeeeennneddd the warming room door.
Oh no. said Matilda
Oh no said, Grace
The dough-
The dough is as big as the room!
How do you suppose two little girls snuck dough as big as a small closet out of the kitchen? There was lots of pulling
There was a lot of shoving
There was a heave
There was a ho!
Then a fall
And a SLAT!
And they were off to hide their dough
It was a hot summer day and starting to get icky and humid when the girls reached the colony junk pit. “no one will check here” said Matilda “they tossed it onto a pile of branches, the dough bounced along, hitting a Trashbag of pampers, onto an old couch, and finally rested over some cardboard boxes from the shop. And off they went to school, forgetting all about their dough
The sun was getting hotter.
And dough, with so much yeast, gets bigger, the hotter the air.
It quietly grew...and grew... and grew...
At around 1:43 pm in the afternoon, the girls went to help the women weed the pea patch. It was the hottest day of the summer, everyone was tired and thirsty and hungry...
Sniff went grace
Sniff sniff went Matilda
Both girls looked at each other. “do you smell what I smell?” yes I think I do, it smells like freshly baked goods.”
They both turned towards the treeline hiding the junk pit. A giant shadow covered them
Oh no.... they said...
“IS THAT BREAD!”
The women and girls took running towards their dough -that had grown over the trees, over the leg, high into the air, and so close to the hot burning sun that it had baked into a loaf of fresh delicious bread.
What on earth do we do about all this bread.
The only thing the women could come up to be rid of it was to start eating it all up. First, they called all the kids who started to eat and eat and eat. Then the kitchen and told them to have family supper, there was food enough at the junk pit. Then they called the shop to tell all the guys to come help eat bread. But it wasn’t enough either
They called the Prediger: “we need help” there is too much bread and it will go stale during the night.” The Prediger called all the nearby colonies, and they came with bus-fulls of kids who all jumped in and started eating.
Some kids gobbled down deep into the middle of the loaf and fell asleep inside the nice warm center. Others nibbled footholes up the side of the crust and skied down the sides. Others gnawed away big casms inside the loaf and jumped around on the spongy inside. Others had carving contests, and still, others were sooo full they just had to go sit down and watch everyone else.
By 9:37 pm, it started getting dark, and the loaf was pretty much gone. The busses from other colonies left with bags of bread to take home to everyone else, and finally, everyone asked the important question: how did the bread get here.
Grace and Matilda did get punished. They didn’t get their cinnamon buns, they were so full of bread that they had a stomach ache for 2 and half weeks. And they had to help clean up the crumbs leftover everywhere and collect them for the birds.
Maybe they learned their lesson...
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