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Sweet As Salt
By Tamara Kula
“Can I help? Please, please, please!” I begged my older brother Steve. Steve had just told me his plan to have an April Fool’s Day party for his friends tomorrow, and I was dying to help out.
“Pleeease?” I whined again. “I can make the cake. I make delicious cakes!”
“Well, OK,” Steve said. “You can make the cake.”
I grinned. I had the best idea for an April Fool’s joke! The next morning I jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen to start baking. Water, eggs, flour, vanilla – I mixed everything together. The recipe said to use one cup of sugar. I giggled as I took the salt container from the cupboard. I poured a whole cup of salt into my cake batter. “This will taste horrible!” I laughed to myself.
I put the cake in the oven. While it was baking, I made a small cake for me. Of course I used sugar in my cake!
That afternoon I helped Steve decorate the yard and set up tables and chairs. When all of Steve’s friends started to arrive, we brought out the food.
“Your cake looks fantastic!” Steve told me. “I can’t wait to eat it.”
“Thank you,” I said with a polite smile.
Soon everyone was helping themselves to the cake. Surprisingly, all of Steve’s friends were complimenting him! Maybe they just didn’t want to embarrass my brother.
“This is great cake, Steve,” said one girl.
“My little sister made it,” Steve explained.
I was very confused. I sat down at a table and took a big bite of my own special cake.
Yuck!! I immediately spat it out. It tasted disgusting! It tasted like … salt. Suddenly I heard Steve laughing hysterically.
“What!” I demanded grumpily.
“I switched the sugar and the salt!” he exclaimed. “The salt is in the sugar bowl and the sugar is in the salt container! April Fool’s!!”
He laughed and laughed. But I didn’t think it was very funny at all.
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