A Birthday for Gertrude

The Moon Prince continues wandering the B&B with his head down and sketching the whole time. Some instinct keeps him from walking into frantic party preppers and gift wrappers. His hand snakes out as he is passing a writing desk and snags a silver colored pencil. The landscape continues to come into form on the page.

Robin swipes a relieved hand across his forehead as Gertrude leaves. A white smear of flour now adorns his face like a bandana. He renews his efforts with the cake adding the wet ingredients into the dry and then reaching for the hand mixer. He places it into the bowl, then carefully takes it back out and makes sure it is set to low this time. With a smile, Robin flicks the switch and the mixer burst into life with a steady hum. No wave of cake batter drenches him this time. The batter is beaten, poured into cake tins and slid into the oven. Robin sighs. Now that he has time to kill it occurs to him that he doesn't have a gift yet. Is his cake the gift? No, that doesn't feel right. Everyone will have the cake. But maybe a treat just for the birthday girl?

Robin starts flipping through his recipe book. Nothing seemed quite right. He couldn't remember what Gertrude really enjoyed at mealtime. He flipped through the book faster and faster until it burst into flames in his hands! With a yelp he threw the book into the sink and doused it with water. Maybe he should stick to the cake.

Blissfully unaware of the Ptisilith's "help" with the cake, Robin has collected sugar, butter, vanilla and is in the middle of whipping up huge bowl of buttercream icing. Several bottles of food coloring stand ready to to be mixed in to portions to give him the rainbow to work with when it is time for icing. At the ding of the timer, Robin slides the cakes out of the oven and onto the countertop to cool.

The Moon Prince continues his wandering of the hallways with his nose in his sketchbook. He has gotten to the part of his drawing where where he wants to draw the Earth in the sky and he finds himself unsure about it. He absently steps over Alex's head then crouches down and shows him the picture.

"I think this is coming along quite well but I can't quite capture how your planet looks in the night sky. I thought you would be able to help me that but now that I've asked the question, you wouldn't know what it looks like in the night sky as you be on it. Sorry to have disturbed you." The Moon Prince blushes, raises back up and continues his itinerant sketching.