Now I really need to know who was the genius who invented chocolate chips because that is my all-time favorite food.
Sam's favorite foods that aren't hamburger and fries:
Muffins - chocolate chip
Cookies - chocolate chip
Pancakes - chocolate chip
Ice cream - rocky road... with chocolate chips
Once Esther baked our pack house bread and added chocolate chips. Best thing that happened to me since I discovered you could blend Oreos with vanilla ice cream.
You can blend anything with vanilla ice cream—strawberries, caramel, cookies, cookie dough, chocolate cake, banana, chocolate chips... but I digress.
I beelined to the pancakes. The food on the buffet table was all in metal food warmers, but someone left the cover of the pancakes open, so it was easy to find.
There were plain and blueberry pancakes too, but they sat there almost completely untouched. I took one of the blueberry pancakes just so that the blueberries wouldn't feel bad, then I loaded up with the last three chocolate chip pancakes.
There was maple syrup on the side, but I had other plans for my pancakes. I toted my tray over to where I had seen a bowl of whipped cream standing by the coffee machine.
I took a large spoonful of cream and smeared the pancakes to stack them together. Then I went to the fruit bar and took a banana. This was going to be a masterpiece.
Once at the table, I sat myself down with my buffet loot and got to work. First I peeled and sliced the banana. Then I peeled back each pancake layer to add the slices in between. Nice!
My masterpiece was complete!
"What the heck, Sam!" Shannon came over with his coffee.
"Chocolate chip banana cream pancakes!" I announced.
Shannon put his cup down. "I'm getting one too." And he hightailed off.
Savy poked her fork into my masterpiece to take a bite. "Yum."
Lizzy peered curiously at my plate. "That looks more like a dessert."
"Wanna bite?" I offered. Because I was a generous person like that.
Lizzy shrugged. "I make it a point never to say no to dessert."
She took a bite.
Savy took another.
I quickly stuffed a big piece in my mouth and chewed on the yummy goodness. Lizzy was right; it was dessert at its finest, fluffiest, creamiest, sweetest.
The guys looked on. They knew better than to touch what's mine. After a while, Shannon returned with a super tall tower. It was leaning precariously, and I wasn't sure what was hidden in the layers.
"All out of chocolate chip pancakes," Shannon informed our table. "Oh, and whipped cream too."
Jonah and Ben stood up at the same time.
"Let's go," Jonah said. And they headed to the pancake tray.
They were going to finish all the pancakes! I got up to get seconds.
There were only plain and blueberry pancakes left. I picked five plain ones and started layering in the flavors. This one would be savory, with bacon and ham and beans between the layers. I drizzled the maple syrup over it. Perfection.
Ben watched, and then he started making his own pancake tower.
"What are you kids doing?" Link asked as he passed us with a full plate of omelet.
"Getting food," Ben told him.
"Cool," Link smiled. "You coming for the ultimate dodgeball games tomorrow?"
"Are you organizing?" I asked.
"Yeah, me and the others," Link said.
"Okay, sure," I said.
Jonah passed us with a triumphant smirk. "Mine is the tallest."
Ben made a face. "I bet that would taste like rubbish."
Jonah protested, "But I put good stuff inside!"
"He put bacon, strawberry yogurt, and Coco Crunch," Ben whispered to me.
I made a face.
Link, meanwhile, had gone to his own table to report, "They're going pancake crazy at that table!"
The older teens watched as we balanced our stacks back to our table. Nobody tripped or dropped anything, although Jonah's stack was seriously on the verge of the gravity effect.
By the time we got back, only half my chocolate chip pancakes were left. The girls had left it for me. They ate very neatly and left a perfect semicircle stack on the plate. That's why I only shared with girls; they were considerate.
I shared my new creation with Savy and Liz.
"It's a bit weird," Savy told me.
Liz made a face. "It's okay... a bit too much maple syrup."
I liked it, though.
Dean's family arrived next. Drew headed straight for the buffet, Darlyn sat with the kids in her year, and Dean shuffled over to me.
"Where's Jessica?" Dean asked as he sat next to me.
"She has something on at school," I told him.
"What's that?" Dean asked me. He picked up my unused spoon and helped himself. "Tastes like banana cake."
Dean was the only guy who would share my food and drink. We were training partners since we were pups, so it just kind of happened. I guess after a few camps and one too many training sessions where we swapped or shared water and food due to carelessness or necessity, I just got used to it. I'm very adaptable that way.
"Hey Dean, swap with me," Ben said.
"No, swap with me," Jonah said.
"Yeah, swap with Jonah," Ben said. He had a gleam in his eye.
I huffed. These two—what made them think that Dean would swap the last of the chocolate chip pancakes, stacked perfectly with fresh whipped cream and sliced bananas, for either of their monstrosities?
Jonah's fillings could pretty much feature in Fear Factor or some kind of punishment game. He had put salad and dressing in one of the layers because he thought it would be healthier. The fact was, Jonah's pancake tower was incredible in a too-many-cooks-spoil-the-stew sort of way, and he did it all by himself.
Should we ever have rogues in our dungeons one day, I think I would assign Jonah as the dungeon cook. Passive-aggressive torture.
Dean looked at Jonah's barely eaten blueberry pancake skyscraper and said, "Okay."
Have you ever just sat back and watched your best friend make a wrong choice? Yeah, been there, done that. More than once, actually.
Dean pushed the last of the chocolate chip pancakes over to the two boys. They wolfishly pushed Jonah's one hundred layers of punishment pancakes over in exchange.
I kept waiting for Dean to realize that something was definitely up. It's not like either guy was being subtle. But Dean just quickly pulled the tower of pancakes toward himself and dug in.
The two rascals wasted no time polishing off the plate handed to them. Dean made a face after the first bite. He took a tentative, slightly smaller second bite, and then he looked up at Ben and Jonah, who were chuckling now that the chocolate chip pancake was safely in their tumtums.
"I can't eat this," Dean told me. He got up to go get his own food from the buffet.
"What are you going to do with this?" Jonah asked him.
Dean took a look. "I don't know."
There was a zero-waste rule at the pack house buffets.
"You're going to get in trouble," Jonah warned him.
"It's not mine," Dean said.
"What?" Jonah said. "You can't go back on the exchange, all right?"
Dean looked at me.
Ben and Jonah looked at me.
Dean was my best friend.
Ben and Jonah were my beta and gamma.
The rest of the table looked at me.
I crossed my arms and leaned back. "I don't want to get involved."
Tim smirked and made a happy growling sound. "Haha, Omega. Looks like even Sam won't back you on this one."