“You misunderstand me, madam,” said Schloss. “The Ungenießbar collection of the Kochenarchiv serves as a documentary record of the worst cooking of all time. If you hope for your sister to be entered therein, you must prove to me that her dishes are as awful as the Concrete Cakes of Zurich, the 1000 Screaming Demon Death Fugu of Kagoshima, and the Six Day Colon War Latkes of Kibbutz Shlomi.”

“Here, try it,” said Hanna, carefully handling a normal-looking cupcake with a heavy welder’s glove.

“I’m sorry, madam,” Schloss said, raising a hand. “I can only gather documentary evidence, not first-hand accounts. We from the Kochenarchiv have been forbidden to taste possible entries since we lost Weiss and Braun to the Doom Salad of Vancouver.”

Hanna nodded. “Very well. Shall we step next door, then?”

The preschool next door had been converted into a makeshift hospital to handle overflow after the bake sale had gone terribly wrong. One patient, lashed to a cot, jerked madly about, floaming at the mouth. Another ran madly in circles, gibbering madly that “only the finest warrior goblins were fit to be chosen.” The patient closest to the door simply thumped his head against the wall, deliberately, endlessly.

“These are people that ate your sister’s cupcakes?” said Schloss, sounding both impressed and concerned.

“Oh no, herr doktor, said Hanna. “They just licked the bowl.”

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