The silence was unbearable.
Everyone just stared at Mikey as he carefully sat up on the floor, avoiding sitting on the shards of the plate. He failed. A small cut began to bleed on his palm. The pancakes were scattered across the floor. Some contained bits of glass and others were dusted in the flour that never really got cleaned up after Joe spilled it everywhere.
"Um." someone said.
"I-" Mikey choked out a word, not knowing what to say. "I'm so so sorr-"
"It's okay! We'll move past this!" Frank said, his voice full of confidence." We have to carry on! Keep calm and carry on!"
"Keep calm and cook on!" Pete yelled out
Everyone cheered.
Andy and Ryan helped Mikey up off the floor and dusted him off. Patrick cleaned up his his bleeding hand and put a small bandaid on it.
"What are we gonna do about the pancakes? Some have glass in them and they are all covered in flour." Mikey asked Frank, embarrassed that he ruined the main meal.
"We can pick them off the floor! We don't have time to start a fresh batch but what they don't know can't hurt them, right?" Frank said, full of enthusiasm.
"But glass will hurt them Frank, glass hurts." Brendon said. "A bunch of the pancakes have glass in them."
"Well, we can pick out the ones without glass and scrape the flour off of them." Frank suggested, grabbing some knives and handing them out to a few people. They attempted to scrape and shake off the flour but it was still obvious there was something going on with the pancakes.
"Oh I know!" Ryan exclaimed, remembering what he saw in the cabinets earlier. "What if we sprinkled powered sugar in them to make it look like we did it on purpose. The flour and the sugar will blend and nobody will ever know there was flour on them!"
He retrieved the confectioners sugar from a cabinet and grabbed a spoon, carefully dusting it over the pancakes. They turned out okay. You definitely couldn't tell there was any flour by looking at it. Hopefully you couldn't taste it either. Ryan grabbed four of the fanciest plates he could find and then another four small bowls. He handed the bowls to the fruit salad squad to fill and the plates to the pancake crew.
Gerard frantically scooped the fruit into the bowls, trying to fill them as evenly as possible. Dallon tried to help but only ended up making things worse. Over at the pumpkin pancake center Ray was sweeping glass into a useless dustpan, warning everyone not to get hurt. Nobody really heard him over the loud noise. Pete slapped three of their most decent looking pancakes on each of the plates Ryan got and stacked them up. Joe was ready with a pat of butter for the top and a drizzle of syrup to top it off.
It looked perfect.
Well for a moment or two.
Then Gerard unexpected grabbed one with his bare hands, held it high above his head and said "OH OH OH! Good morning and welcome to the weekend pancake report. Pancake Mountain has announced today that the dance party will feature all you can eat pancakes. Doctors warn though however, this may cause a pank-ache." Then he randomly screamed boo. Then he murmured something about news before slapping himself in the face with a pancake.
"Gerard!" Frank yelled. "Stop!"
"Is this normal?" Patrick asked, stunned by Gerard's sudden outburst.
"Yeah, he was once on this T.V. show for kids called Pancake Mountain and he had to do the Weekend Pancake report. Now he can't take pancakes seriously anymore." Frank explained. "It's become a serious issue now."
"Uh okay..." Patrick said.
Frank was mainly referring to the time the band had tried to go to IHOP together (although there had been several pancake incidents, this was by far the worst). Ray called up his friends on a random Tuesday to see if they wanted to go get breakfast with him. Everyone ordered pancakes and as soon as the waitress came out of the kitchen, Gerard snatched the nearest pancake on her tray, knocking the waitress over. He then slapped it on his face, yelling about dance parties and the news. It was so embarrassing they had to leave and get food at Wendy's.
Frank pried the pancake from Gerard's hands and it put it on the bottom of the stack and applying a new coat of syrup to it. He hoped the judges wouldn't notice.
Brendon carefully placed his swan napkins and a fork and knife on the tray before passing it to the pancake and fruit salad leaders to put their dishes on it.
"FOUR MINUTES. JUST FOUR MINUTES LEFT. I REPEAT FOUR MINUTES. ONLY FOUR. F-O-U-R. FOUR MINUTES. THAT'S 240 SECONDS. FOUR MINUTES LEFT EVERYBODY. I REPEAT FOUR MINUTES REMAINING. DOES EVERYONE READ ME? FOUR MINU-"
"Alright alright calm down. We get it. Four minutes." Brendon said.
"IT'S NOT FOUR ANYMORE. THREE MINUTES. I SAID THREE MINUTES LEFT ON THE CLOCK."
This is how the remaining time went. Everything went surprisingly well. All eleven members were very proud of themselves and their cooking.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In a small bedroom, ten minutes later
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You call this a swan?" Tony asked, confused.
"Uh, yes. Yes sir, it is a swan indeed." Brendon answered full of fear.
"Oh." Tony replied.
"You don' see it?" Vic asked. Look, there's the head..." He poked a part of the napkin and it instantly crumbled. "Oooops! My bad!"
"Where do you see a swan, Vic?" Jaime asked, confused.
Mike shook his head, baffled at Brendon's creation.
There they were. It was finally judging time and all eleven castaways were standing in front of a king sized jumbo bed. Billie Joe just made the bedroom appear out of nowhere with the Pierce The Veil members in bed. He said some chant to the sky and a whole bedroom landed in the sand, several yards away from their house. Vic, Tony, Mike, and Jaime were all found laying on it with the sheets and covers up to their necks, looking very confused.
As soon as the gang appeared with hot breakfast, they sat up excited for their meal. A few minutes ago they were handed their trays and instructed by Billie Joe just to observe it for a moment while hearing the breakfast's description before digging in.
All four were practically drooling over their plates.
"Alright now that you've had enough time to look at them and hear what they are, why don't you start eating." Billie Joe said. "Oh and one more thing. I am not responsible for any food poisoning.
Pierce The Veil cheered before beginning. Jaime went straight for the pancakes, not even bothering to cut them. Meanwhile, Tony was inhaling the fruit. They all ate in silence for a good five minutes before Vic crunched down on something hard. He pulled something small and white out of his mouth.
"Is this... an eggshell? In the pancakes?"
Everybody gasped simultaneously. Vic shook his head sadly and scribbled something on the small notepad Billie Joe gave the four band mates to write notes on. Patrick mentally lectured himself for missing that. Pete rubbed his back trying to make him relax. They continued eating and only found one more eggshell in Mike's pancakes.
Two minutes later, Jaime gagged. He opened his mouth and coughed, spitting out blood onto his tray. He shoved a hand to his mouth and blood oozed through his fingers.
"Jaime, what's wrong?" Vic asked, scared.
"You okay, bro?" Tony asked.
Jaime coughed again, sending more blood onto the bed sheets. Vic grabbed his swan napkin and wiped away the blood around his mouth.
"Help!" Vic yelled at Billie Joe. "Something's wrong!"
"Is he choking?" Mike asked.
"No Mike you idiot! He's bleeding everywhere!" Vic said to his dumb brother, Mike.
"What do we do?" Tony asked.
The eleven chefs looked around the room awkwardly, not knowing if and when they should step in and help Jaime. "Jaime! You gonna be alright?" Billie Joe asked.
Not wanting to look weak in front of the emo god, Jaime nodded and coughed up more blood. He stuck out his lip and was shocked at what he saw. He carefully extracted a small shard of glass from his lip, struggling to not cry out in pain.
"How'd that get there?" Mikey asked, knowing exactly how it got there.
Gerard nudged him to stop, worried he might blow their cover.
"Thes glath en muh luhp!" Jaime said.
"There's what?" Vic asked, "What are you holding? What was in your mouth?"
"Glath! Glath en muh mout! Glath cuh muh mout!" Jaime yelled. He showed Vic the small piece of glass.
"Glass! There was glass in his mouth! Glass in his food!" Vic translated to the best of his ability.
"Et hurds! Et stengs muh luhp! Blud ereewhere!" Jaime babbled.
This went on for another five minutes until the bleeding finally slowed down. If you thought that a little cut on the lips would stop Jaime Preciado from enjoying a nice breakfast in bed you were wrong.
You were very very wrong.
YOU WERE WRONG, OKAY!
He continued eating his meal like a champ. Eventually, everyone finished their breakfast. It was time for the scariest part. Judging. The four boys reviewed their notes they made to prepare for giving out scores.
"I thought it was pretty good. The fruit salad had a great variety of fruit and they all tasted great together. Though the pancakes tasted a bit... I'm not sure. Did you put in too much milk?" Jaime asked.
"Um, we had to use half and half instead of milk..." Patrick said, mortified.
"I also found it delicious. Well except for the shell in my pancake. I also found uh... blood on my watermelon." Mike said.
The eleven chefs looked down at Gerard's swollen toe where he dropped the watermelon.
"Um." Gerard coughed out.
Pierce The Veil saw where everyone was looking and figured out the blood was probably Gerard's blood from the watermelon hitting his foot. Mike added it to his notes.
"To be honest I didn't like it all that much." Vic said. "The eggshell was very gross and the pancakes were kinda burned. It could have used hot sauce too. The fruit was okay though. I liked how evenly cut the strawberries were. Oh and the swan was outstanding! I admire your craftsmanship there."
"Actually, I have to disagree with Vic." Tony stated. "My pancakes were very under cooked. Almost completely raw inside. A ton of my fruit was squished too. But I liked the pumpkin. It added a nice twist but you didn't go overboard. It was very creative."
Billie Joe then dismissed the cooks to let Pierce The Veil decide on what they would score the meals. After five agonizing minutes, they were allowed back inside the bedroom.
"Remember. You need an 70% average to pass. They will grade you on a scale of one to ten." Billie Joe reminded the group.
Vic, Jaime, Mike, and Tony sat up in the bed holding large white scorecards. You know, the ones they hold up during sports events or other competitions. Billie Joe said he would count down from five and once he reached one, they would hold up their scorecards to reveal the grades.
"Five..."
This was it.
"Four..."
They would either make a 70% average.
"Three..."
Or be abandoned and forced to find their own way home.
"Two..."
Everyone held their breath.
"One..."
And that's when Patrick passed out.