Dan the Baker loved baking cakes for the town. People always came in to buy his cakes. Until, starting last week, Dan woke up and saw wrecked cakes. He saw some cakes with frosting surrounding them and barely any frosting on the actual cake. He saw other cakes that had too much frosting, and when you ate it, it didn’t taste good because it only tasted like frosting.

He saw cakes that didn’t have any frosting but were layered, and they had too many layers. Though Dan remembered only putting on three. When he woke up, there were ten layers.

“Okay, I’ve had just about enough of this! I have to get to the bottom of who, or what, is wrecking my cakes,” said Dan.

So, that night, Dan stayed up all night. In case he needed proof, he had a tape recorder too.

“Well, I guess I’m really doing this. I’ve never stayed up all night, except for that time I made a really huge cake. It was a disaster, so I had to throw it out.”

After Dan realized that he was talking to himself out loud, he stayed quiet. And then, he heard a sound. It sounded like someone was spreading frosting across a cake. It also sounded like more layers were being added to cakes. Dan poked his head out from the cabinet he was hiding in.

“Stop right there!” Dan started to say.

Then he realized… he was talking to his cakes! His cakes were adding more layers to themselves! And his cakes were putting extra frosting on and scraping off frosting! Dan felt dumb. He had been worried about his cakes getting wrecked, but it was the cakes that were doing it! And the craziest part was that the cakes could move and talk.

“What are you doing?!” asked the cake.

“Um, um, um, um,” said Dan.

“What did you say? I can’t hear you, you’re mumbling!” screamed the cake.

“Well…” stuttered Dan. “Well, what are you doing in my bakery?”

This time, the cake stuttered.

“Well,” said the cake. “My friends and I don’t want to be eaten. So that’s why we wreck ourselves, so no one wants to buy us.”

“But… why don’t you want people to buy you? Cakes aren’t supposed to think like that!” protested Dan.

“Well, what do you know about cakes? How do you know cakes aren’t supposed to think like that. You’ve never thought about cakes, only about YOU and all the other people in this town,” yelled the cake.

“Well,” started Dan. “I don’t only care about myself and the other people in this town. I care about the cakes when I’m making them, and I think about what people want in their cakes. And sometimes…” Dan talked in a whisper. “And sometimes, I pretend the cakes are all my friends. I pretend to ask them what they want on them, and then I add it to them.” Dan blushed.

“Yeah, we’ve heard,” said the cake. “We’re the ones that you’re talking to.”

Dan blushed even harder. He thought that he was just thinking in his head when he thought all this stuff, but he guessed wrong. Then, a smile slowly creeped along Dan’s face.

“Tell you what,” said Dan, still smiling. “What if I tell the people in the town not to eat you guys,” he said, pointing to the cakes. “But they can buy you, and you guys can become friends.”

Then, Dan waited to hear the cakes’ respond to his idea. They huddled up in a circle.

Dan looked a little confused. Did cakes really think everything through before they did it? I thought they would just do whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it, Dan thought.

“Well, Dan,” said the cake in a strong, loud voice. “We’ve made our decision.”

Dan’s heart was beating fast. The cake was frowning. Dan was almost positive the cake was going to say no.

But the cake said, “Yes. We think it’s a great idea. Then we’ll all have friends and won’t have to worry about being eaten.”

Just then, another cake stepped in. He was shorter and wider.

“Wait a second!” he said. “We didn’t all agree on this. I mean, what if the people turn on us like farmers eating cows, and then eat us?! That won’t turn out good. And that’s pretty much what people do when they have cake in the house.”

The cakes looked at each other. Dan hoped they were not about to change their minds. They huddled up into another circle. This time, they were even louder than before. Dan could hear their whole conversation and was not confused at all about what they were talking about.

“Okay,” said the bigger cake. “We’ve made our—”

“Yeah, I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that the little cake changed your mind because he has a good point, and you think that the people will eat you anyways because you’re cake,” interrupted Dan.

“Well, you didn’t know that was what we were going to say. And you’re right about part of it. We don’t fully believe the people won’t eat us. But we’ll take a chance. Maybe we can look really disgusting, but they can still be friends with us because we’re nice to them.”

Of course Dan was happy to hear anything that meant he would get money for his business. He hadn’t been able to pay rent for three weeks now.

“Okay. It’s a deal,” said Dan.

Dan was waiting for the cakes to react like they were happy. But that’s not what happened. Most of them were happy, except for the little cake. He walked in front again, pushed cakes out of the way, and licked their frosting off.

“We also didn’t agree on this! I’m still on the side that the humans are going to eat us! Does anyone else agree with me?” the little cake protested.

One cake raised her hand. This cake looked female and looked awfully like the little cake’s sister, which was weird because Dan remembered making twin cakes, but never thinking of them as girls and boys. Just as his friends.

The twin cake walked up. “This is so unfair. My brother and I don’t want to take any risks. Our mom says if we do anything that could get us killed, she will— well, she can’t kill us because we’ll already be dead— but she’ll do something bad! She’ll probably be so mad at the person that ate us, that she’ll yell at them!

“Yeah! We’re so young,” said the little cake.

“Well, I guess you have a point,” said the big cake.

And that’s exactly what Dan is thinking, though he didn’t show it.

“We could make a cake that’s, of course, made of frosting and dough. But it’s not one of us. It’s someone who knows nothing about the world.  Then we test it out. If the person we send it to eats the cake, then we’ll know we shouldn’t send cakes to anyone else.”

“Deal!” all the cakes said.

“Great!” said Dan. “Now let’s get to work to make that fake cake!”

‘’YEAH!’’ the cakes agreed.

The next day, Dan was really tired. He stayed up all night, and he wasn’t just up in his bed. He was up all night talking to cakes and making cakes. Then he woke up. He thought it was just a dream. So he walked outside, and he figured it would just be another day of cakes being wrecked.

But it turned out that he was wrong. When he walked into his bakery that morning, he saw a bunch of people waiting in line. They were all holding posters that said, “If you go to Dan’s Bakery, you’ll make a friend.” Dan looked all around. Those signs were all over. On trees, cars, on the back of people’s shirts. It was definitely the cakes, Dan thought.

“So it wasn’t a dream!” he said out loud, not noticing.

“What?” said someone in the crowd.

Someone else said, “Well, what are you waiting for? Unlock the door so we can all get a friend!”

“Okay, okay,” said Dan, a little bit annoyed.

He unlocked the door. Everyone started running in. Everyone was trying to pick out a cake. And no one even dared to put their finger on it, or lick it, or anything, they just wanted a friend. Dan couldn’t stop smiling. He’d never seen that many customers in his bakery before. Wow, thought Dan.

“So,” started the big cake who was looking at Dan. “I think you’ve noticed what we’ve done.”

“Yes,” said Dan. “I’ve never seen so many people in my bakery before. How’d you know?”

“Well,” said the cake. “The cakes and I have been watching you for a long time. We have gotten to know you very well, Dan.”

Dan’s smile got even bigger. After the store was closed, Dan noticed that there was one cake that was not bought. He saw that it was the small cake. The cake was crying tears of frosting.

“What happened?” asked Dan.

“I didn’t get bought. Everybody has a friend now, except me. Now I see why everybody wanted one,” cried the small cake.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” said Dan. “Tell you what, maybe you could go home with me. I won’t eat you.”

“No!” yelled the small cake. “I don’t want to go home with you. You’re not on my side. You’re not the type of person I want to be friends with.”

Dan smiled the same way he smiled the day before.

“I have an idea,” he said.

“What is it?” asked the cake.

“Well, I happen to have a brother that is just like you.”

“What’s his name?”

“His name is Ben.”

“What are his character traits?” asked the cake.

“Let’s just say he’s just like you, stubborn and annoying.”

“Yay!” yelled the cake.

Dan went back to his house that day. He got his little brother from the house and told him all about the small cake. At first, he really wanted to eat the little cake. He was upset he couldn’t eat it, but then he was glad he finally had a friend. From that day on, Dan thanked the cakes for helping him keep his business open, and the cakes and the town thanked him for their friends.

THE END.