Anna's mind buzzed as she thought of how she could represent her bees without using their obvious association with honey. Making a black and yellow dessert would be way too boring and simple. Using lavender or rose water based on how her bees pollinated flowers would give her dessert an elegant flare, but as fancy as that sounded, Taylor and Eliza had been right. That wasn't the sort of thing they served at Sweet Surprise, and it wouldn't suit her either.

"Coming through!" Norman accidentally elbowed Anna on his way out of the pantry, his basket overflowing with pretzels and chocolate. His beaver grunted as it waddled after him.

"Need help gettin' anything?" Despite being a couple inches taller than Anna, Reese had to stand on their tiptoes to grab a bag of Oreos.

"I'm good, thanks!" Or at least as good as she could be with baker's block.

Anna's eyes darted from one shelf to the next until the labels started blurring. She'd made it so far, yet now that she was actually on Sliced, nothing felt right.

Anna forced herself to take a deep breath and count to ten. Panicking wouldn't do her a lick of good. What she needed was a way to blend different flavors together like Eliza did with the flowers' colors. Something like how her friends shared ideas with each other, each bringing something different yet amazing like how bees worked to make honey after pollinating all sorts of different plants.

That was it!

Anna squeezed past Connor and the pantry's enormous selection of different types of chocolate to reach the produce section. Her bees' pollination didn't just make honey but also helped plants grow all sorts of fruits and vegetables. The pantry held a whole rainbow of produce from bright yellow lemons to dark green zucchini. With so many ingredients to choose from, all she had to do was decide which flavors she wanted.

After what Ivan had said about the cupcakes she brought for her audition, Anna knew what she had to do. She grabbed rhubarb, kiwis, lemons, and all the other ingredients she needed before running to her station.

Long, hard, and stringy like celery, rhubarb wasn't something her grandpa used often outside of tarts filled with strawberries and a heaping helping of sugar. Not even the vegetable's impressive crunch was as striking as its lip-puckering, toe-curling tartness. Yet, while many people refused to give rhubarb a chance, bees visited their flowers without a second thought.

"Ain't that a vegetable?" Norman wrinkled his nose as he snuck a glance at what Anna was making. "Reminds me of the time Dad dipped a whole bunch of Brussels sprouts in chocolate. That was the last time Mom ever let anyone mess with food on April Fool's Day."

"Yeah, but this'll taste a million times better than Brussels sprouts." Anna chopped the ends off the stalks of rhubarb. Now that she was finally baking, her stress eased out of her with each knife stroke. She could do this.

"Watch out for the strings," Connor said. He'd already started whisking together a thick, creamy batter. "Those are like eating dental floss. You can borrow my peeler if you need to get rid of 'em."

"Good point, thanks!" As great as her knife was for chopping the stalks, the peeler took care of the stray strings much more easily. Soon Anna had a whole pink and green tangle of them on her cutting board.

"Would be too easy to beat you if the judges felt like you took 'em to the dentist," he said with a smirk. "Good thinking with the kiwis, though. Strawberries are alright, but they're just so boring."

"Thanks! Your dessert looks real good, too. Smells like... cheesecake?"

"Yup!" Connor slipped his finger into the batter before adding another dash of vanilla. "You can do just about anything with a cheesecake, so I figure I can't go wrong with one."

"That's the same reason I'm using a bunch of Oreos," Reese said. Dark brown crumbs covered their rolling pin.

"I don't have the foggiest idea what I'm doing." Norman laughed nervously. "I've barely ever baked anything without my mom before."

"That doesn't mean you can't bake anything good. I mean, Grandpa's had me baking since I could walk, and he still thinks I'm a..." Connor cleared his throat. A blush crept up his cheeks as his gaze flicked to the cameras. "You'll do fine. What're you making, cupcakes?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna dip a bunch of pretzels in chocolate to make them look like sticks." Norman winced as he looked inside his mixing bowl. "I'm gonna need some of these cupcakes for myself by the time I'm done. This is worse than math!"

"I think we're all gonna need a pick me up," Anna said. She'd only just started making her crust, and she already knew she was going to collapse in bed later. Her bees were already starting to fly closer to the countertop as if they knew they'd be too tired to land gracefully by the end of the episode. "Are y'all up for sharing all our leftovers later?"

"Of course!" Everyone's answer came as easily as if she'd just asked if ice cream tasted extra delicious in summer. No matter who ended up winning, they'd all enjoy each other's desserts when all was said and done.

The chatter faded to grumbling at uncooperative ingredients and the occasional request for help opening a particularly stubborn jar as all four contestants turned their attention back to their desserts. With everybody deep in the zone, Anna felt as confident as she did when she was baking with her grandpa at Sweet Surprise.

At least, she did until the judges started prowling through the kitchen.

Ivan loomed behind Anna with his vulture peering down at her from atop his shoulder. "I see you've moved on to your crust." Ivan observed Anna through narrowed eyes. "Tell me what you have planned."

"First, I'm gonna line the crust with slivered almonds before I put it into the oven for the first time," Anna explained, fighting to keep her voice and hands from shaking as her bees zipped around her. "Then, I'm gonna fill it with rhubarb, kiwis, and custard before I put it back in the oven."

"And it's going to need to be in there for a while, or else the custard will be little more than a very sweet soup. Quite ambitious to use such a time-consuming recipe. What inspired you to make it?"

"My friends and I were talking about how I could make my flavors stand out more, and one of them told me about stuff she does with her art." Now that her crust was the right thickness, Anna carefully transferred it into her pie pan. Her fingers set to work trimming the excess dough and crimping the edges into gentle waves. "I don't know much about art, but what she said about different colors bringing out the best in each other got me thinking that I should do something like that with the flavors I'm using."

For a moment, Anna thought she saw something shift in Ivan's expression. A slight upturn of his lips. A twinkle in his eyes.

Yet, as soon as she noticed it, Ivan's features shifted back into their usual stone-cold seriousness. "You'd better pick up the pace if you want this to work," he glanced at her still-empty oven, "especially since you have yet to start baking your crust."

Anna's heart sank. Darn it, she should have known to finish her crust before working on the filling. She and her grandpa always got frustrated whenever contestants made this exact mistake. With only so much time on the clock, prepping all the ingredients before putting anything in the oven could easily lead to an underbaked, sloppily decorated dessert.

There was no use beating herself up over that now. Anna put her crust in the oven, shutting the door with a firm thud. It would have to cool for half an hour before she could pour anything into it, giving her plenty of time to prepare her custard.

Anna mixed together milk, eggs, sugar, and all of the other ingredients she needed. Her custard wouldn't be anything too fancy since she wanted to keep the focus on the rhubarb and kiwis, but she added a dash of vanilla and cinnamon so it wouldn't be too plain.

All around her, the other bakers fussed over their desserts. Norman said a word that was bound to get bleeped as he nearly dropped his cupcake pan, and Reese smacked the side of the ice cream maker as their skunk raised its tail in the rumbling machine's direction. Connor mumbled to himself as he yanked on a pair of oven mitts, his rooster clucking up a storm as it paced through the kitchen.

Anna scraped the sides of her bowl with a spoon and took a taste. Instead of smooth and creamy, the mixture was still too watery. If she added some flour—

"Oh shoot!" Connor yelled.