HEBB2 - CHALLENGE 31: Supermarket Sweep

Thick smoke was rising into the air and a weird smell of disastrously burned flesh could be determined from a far distance already. Desperately Gemma looked at the mess around her, almost on the verge of tears. She had planned a nice evening with her Banana friend and had wanted to impress her with some great cooking skills. However the expensive meat had had a hard time in the oven, and now the kitchen reminded her of the chaos of a battlefield rather than of a place where she could create a tasty meal. She cursed herself for proudly having announced that it'd be a three course dinner before she had ever tried cooking it. Now she was stuck with her promise which badly influenced her outlook onto what was supposed to be a nice evening.

Cursing under her breath, Gemma grabbed her handbag - into which she hoped she had put her keys and purse the night before - and headed out of the door and to the local supermarket. As she glanced at all the yummy things on the shelves, her mood lit up and she checked how much money she had actually taken with her. Browsing through notes and coins and doing some rough maths, she figured there were about 30₤ in her purse. Just the right amount for a nice and not so posh dinner, and that was probably what'd be nicest for her and Kay.

Devising a quick plan, she systematically searched for the necessary things for starters. She'd decided to go for the Italian style and thus serve Ciabatta bread and slices of Mozzarella cheese on tomato seasoned with fresh basil. Finding what she needed didn't take her too long, so she next got herself some fish fillets, a lemon to squeeze onto the fish, garden peas and plain rice. It seemed to her that this would be the perfect light meal to prepare her and her guest for a crazy dessert course. Grinning madly, she let herself go mad there, grabbing a hold of everything that looked fairly delicious and the slightest bit appropriate for dessert. When half of her shopping trolley was filled with decent sweet stuff, she finally went to buy some coke for her energy level. At last she made her way to the checkout, praying silently that she hadn't bought too much and would have to handle the embarassment of not being able to pay. To her surprise and luck, she got to a total of 29.44₤ and, smiling happily at the cashier, packed her groceries up and left to get back to preparations.

Once back home Gemma got rid of whatever it was that she had created in the kitchen before, cleaned up the chaos the best she could and set the table with a nice green tablecloth and silver table runners. Deciding to go all the Slytherin way, she added silver flats, a huge candleholder of the same colour, her best cutlery and crockery and some decorative snake-like knife rests. She gave the whole thing a final touch with some modern antique goblets and stepped back to admire her work. It definitely looked worthy of n exclusive dinner of craziness, though then again the crazy touch was somewhat missing. But as she took a look at the dessert assortions she had bought, she found just the necessary. Giggling to herself, she took the yellow banana and a permanent marker and painted a little smilie face onto the fruit before putting it into the candle holder instead of the original candles. Now that looked more like it!

Half an hour later she was cutting the tomatoes and Mozzarella cheese into slices, putting the cheese onto the vegetables and sprinkling them with finely cut basil. The bread was already in the oven to get nicely warm and crispy again, and once she had put the plate with the starters and the still emptx bread basket onto the table she heard the bell ring. Excitedly she stormed towards the doors, throwing them open and tacklehugging her friend as if they hadn't seen each other in years. Well it did feel like it! They started talking simultaneously, laughing and having fun, and made their way through the starters and the main course - Basa fillets spiked with fresh lemon juice, boiled rice and garden peas - relatively quick during their endless chatter. The crazy banana was one of their frequent topics as it seemed such a perfect representative of their behaviour, but once it was dessert time Gemma managed to leave Kay speechless by lining up the couch table with the most various things: a gateau, ice cream, cookies, liquorice, popcorn - somehow everything that was remarkably sweet seemed to be there. She had even filled a huge bowl with pure sugar, just in case they were to be endangered by sugarless comas.

At the end of the evening, almost all the things she had bought had somehow vanished, and on the sofa sat two absolutely filled, but very happy and very hyper loons, giggling and talking endlessly about how they could pull off a nice Quidditch match, do well in something called HEBB, or win the House Cup. Luckily Gemma's flat had soundproof walls, cause had any sane neighbour heard their seemingly pointless talk he'd probably have had them locked up in a psych ward - though actually, the Psych Ward was another one of their many topics either way!