A recipe for one boy

"Now, squish it between your fingers."

A young girl named Poppy was preparing banana bread with her mother in their forest cottage.

Poppy loved squishing the ingredients together, but it frustrated her that she couldn't get the lumps out.

"Oh, the oven will take care of that, if we ask nicely."

Her mother took her to the brick oven in the yard that stood roughly the same height as Poppy. The oven confused her, but she supposed magic wouldn't make sense, and this was clearly a magic oven.

Her mother placed the loaves within and shut the big iron door. Then she looked over at Poppy, who nodded. The two spoke in unison.

"Magic oven, be so kind, yummy bread would be so divine!"

While she spoke, Poppy looked through the cracks in the door as the magic oven roared to life.

Not once did she ever notice her mother igniting the kerosene with a lever near her foot.

That evening, Poppy walked through the woods while eating her perfectly baked banana bread. She was with two boys: Lex and Anders.

She liked Anders a lot. A quiet boy with glasses, his sunken eyes and crooked nose didn't make him very popular with the other girls. But he was so considerate and never excluded her for being a girl when she wanted to play.

Lex was quite different. He was tall and strong, which went to his head. He always bossed people around and had a nasty habit of trying to one-up Poppy, which she thought was especially unnecessary. She found it gross that all the other girls wanted to marry a dumb boy like Lex.

She had a horrible secret, though. She, despite knowing how horrible he was, recently began finding him very handsome. She wished there was a nice handsome boy somewhere so she could forget about Lex.

She hated how she would wish sweet Anders was that handsome boy. But when she looked at Anders, she just could not make herself like him like that.

As they all walked along, she imagined squishing the two boys between her fingers.

She paused.

Then she frantically told the boys she had lost her favorite hair tie.

Lex just laughed, but Anders asked her where she had it last. She told them it was when she was cleaning the oven. But then she shook her head, saying going back to the oven again was much too scary.

Lex laughed at her again, but Anders immediately volunteered to search. Lex glared at him and said he would go search.

And so the trio set out to her oven. Lex shoved Anders aside, then stooped down and entered. Anders followed.

As soon as the boys went in, she slammed the door shut and pushed against it with all her weight.

Lex banged on the door, telling her it wasn't funny. Anders didn't say anything.

She closed her eyes tight.

"Magic oven, be so kind, a yummy boy would be so divine!"