*

"Okay," Kitty slapped her palms against the smooth countertop, leaning over the open cookbook. "'Basic Chocolate Chip Cookies'. No way I can mess *this* up. Step 1," she read. "Preheat oven to 350 degrees."

Pushing herself properly upright, the wannabe cook crossed to the two ovens and set the lower one to Bake-350.
"No problem," she grinned. "Step 2. Grease cookie sheets." She looked around. "Grease? From a car? That can't be right..." Kitty's gaze came to the garbage can in the corner. Sitting on top of the overflowing mound was a Gut Bomb bag. "Ew," she wrinkled her nose. "Oh well..."

Donning a pair of rubber gloves to ward off icky animal fat, Kitty picked up the flimsy paper bag, ripped it along the seam, and rubbed the oily inside over the stainless steel cookie sheet.

"Step 2, check," she said, throwing the bag back into the trash where it belonged. "What's next?" Kitty bent over the spiral-bound book. "In a large bowl, mix butter, white sugar, and brown sugar. How much?" She ran her finger down the ingredients list. "1 cup butter. Check."

Kitty opened the corner cabinet, and pulled out one of the Institute's many drinking glasses. "One cup." The refrigerator opened with a greedy 'slup' of air, and a stick of butter was retrieved. "Butter."

Setting the glass on the counter, Kitty quickly undid the wrapping on the dairy product. The butter itself she put into the cup.

"Yeah, that about fits," she determined, transferring the yellow condiment to the mixing bowl. "Now, white sugar. 3/4 cups." She blinked at the page. "Why say three out of four, instead of just three? Oh well."

Kitty dove into another cabinet, coming up with a five-pound bag of granulated sugar. Procuring a soup spoon from the silverware drawer, she proceeded to scoop the flaky ingredient until the glass was full. "One cup," she announced to no one, emptying the contents into the bowl. Repeating the procedure, she counted off "two cups", and then "three".

Tipping the white sack back upright, Kitty looked again at the ingredients list. "Three cups brown sugar. Now why would you use sugar that's gone all yucky and brown?" Finding no reasonable answer within her mind, Kitty decided to use more good, white sugar. Cups four, five, and six were added to the batter in quick succession.

"Step 4," Kitty read off. "Add eggs, one at a time." The recipe called for two eggs, which the amateur baker managed to bring from the rack in the refrigerator without mishap. "I don't know why people think I can't cook," she mused. "I mean, even *I* know to crack the eggs before putting them in." Mercifully, both eggs did indeed get into the bowl sans-shell.

"Step 5, stir in vanilla extract...one tisp," she attempted to sound out the abbreviation. "What's a tisp?" The silverware drawer rattled in protest as she yanked it open again. "Tablespoon," she said, glancing at the handle of the first utensil she came up with. "Sounds good."

Kitty knew the vanilla was usually put away in the spice cabinet, and found it in short order. Unscrewing the tiny lid, she took a deep whiff of the pungent aroma. "Mm," she sighed. "Why don't people drink this stuff?" She carefully filled the tablespoon over the mixing bowl, and tipped the brown liquid in. Glancing quickly around, as if to make sure she was not being watched, Kitty licked the concave surface of the utensil. "Ew," she grimaced. "*That's* why."

Step 6 instructed the reader to add flour, baking soda, and salt.

"Two and one-out-of-four...the heck?" Kitty furrowed her brow at the amount. "Are they trying to prevent people who are bad at math from cooking? I guess they mean three again..."

By the same method as before, Kitty mixed three cups of flour into the batter. "One tablespoon baking soda" was the next thing on the list. "Well, duh," she rolled her eyes. "Like, everything you use to make cookies is baking whatever."

Retrieving the liter bottle of Coca-Cola from the refrigerator, she wondered, "Does the tablespoon count froth or not?" Kitty looked around at the walls, as if expecting the answer to be printed on one of them. "Guess I'll just pour some," she shrugged.

The bubbly, almost-black beverage hissed into the bowl, frothing madly towards the rim. "And one tablespoon salt," Kitty said. "Easy." It would have been one of the few things she got right, too, if she had actually known what 'tsp.' stood for.

"And Step 7, add two cups chocolate chips," Kitty read aloud. She rooted through one drawer, then another, then raided several cabinets and the pantry. "Oh, give me a break," she sighed. "We've *got* to have chocolate chips somewhere." Searches of the freezer and breadbox turned up negative. "Fine," Kitty said, determined not to fail. "Chocolate chips are mostly just sugar and chocolate, right? Right. So if I use two more cups of sugar, and two of chocolate syrup, then it's the same difference. Yeah."

With that logic, the batter acquired cups seven and eight of white sugar, and enough chocolate syrup to cause tooth decay on sight. Kitty stirred the whole mess vigorously with a long-handled wooden spoon, then scooped it onto the waiting cookie sheet and popped it in the oven.

After a few minutes of nothing but the incessant ticking of the timer, Ororo peeked into the room. "Do I smell cookies?" she asked, looking towards the oven.

"No!" Kitty said quickly. "I mean, not *my* cookies. That I'm baking. Not."

Ororo folded her arms and raised her eyebrows, in that parental expression of "spill it".

Kitty tried smiling innocently, but the former goddess won the staring contest. "Okay," she admitted. "They're mine. But, like, don't tell anyone, okay?"

"Why? Are you hoarding them all for yourself?"

"It's sort of an experiment," Kitty explained. "See, I'm going to put them in an Entenmann's box, and see what the others *really* think of them."

Ororo's eyes slid back towards the oven. "What's in these cookies?"

"Just what the recipe said," Kitty looked down at the book. "Almost."

"Almost?"

Fortuitously, the timer chose that moment to ding. Kitty leaped up to retrieve her cookies, remembering to put on the oven mitts first.

The things on the sheet vaguely resembled cookies. They were small and roundish, at least. They were also dark brown, with strange pockmarks along the surface.

"Kitty?" Ororo said, almost fearfully. "What's in the cookies?"

"Not telling 'til you try one," the young chef grinned mischievously.

"I think I'll pass..." Ororo murmured, taking her leave.

Shrugging, Kitty set the pan on the counter and set the timer for another five minutes. She wasted the time by returning the cookbook to its shelf, wiping up the spilled ingredients, and replacing the various bags and jars in their assigned places.

When the obnoxious ding came again, she pried the cookies off the sheet and shoveled them into the brand-name box, leaving the whole package in a conspicuous spot on the counter. After hiding the pan and utensils in the dishwasher, the Shadowcat made herself scarce.

*

"Kurt! Hey! Wait!"

Kurt paused, his door still slightly ajar, and looked up. Jamie was pattering down the hall towards him, mostly obscured by a large paper bag.

"Got a present for you," he panted.

"Oh?" Kurt checked the date on his watch. "It isn't my birthday."

"Nooo," Jamie smiled, overflowing with his surprise.

"Is it Christmas?" Kurt asked, knowing full well that it wasn't.

"Nope," Jamie grinned. "Guess again."

"Is it...Arbor Day?"

Jamie shook his head.

"I give up," Kurt spread his hands. "Why the present?"

"Just cuz," Jamie beamed. "Open it."

With a mock-suspicious look, Kurt unrolled the top of the bag. "Now this looks interesting." He reached down to lift the heavy object from underneath.

The brown paper crunkled as the object passed, and Kurt looked at it, pretending to recognize its purpose immediately. "Oh," he said, taking in the not-quite even sides of the ceramic vessel. "A Very Useful Pot for Keeping Things In. Danke."

"You're holding it the wrong way," Jamie said.

Kurt rotated the pot counter-clockwise, and a very unusual feature came into view.

"Now look at that," he said, studying the painted tube of clay attached to the rim of the jar. The end sported a flattened almost-triangle.

"You're still holding it the wrong way," Jamie said.

Kurt rotated the jar another 90 degrees, revealing the word "COOKIES" painted shakily, with watery blue trails dripping down from the letters.

"I know you like to have snacks in your room," Jamie explained, "so I made you something to keep them in."

"Oh!" Kurt smiled for real now, understanding the gesture. "Dankeschoen. Now I have to find something to put in it."

"Hey Jamie!" Down the hall, Jubilee poked her head out of her room. "Can I borrow you?"

"Sure!" the youngest resident of the Institute jogged off, leaving Kurt to bring his present inside and arrange it safely on the dresser.

*

"Whatever Half-pint's making, don't eat it," Logan advised as soon as the weather witch entered the den.

Ororo asked the obligatory question. "How did you know?"

"Something's in the oven," he said. "Who else would bake with soda and french fries?"

Ororo blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Coke," Logan repeated. "And french fries. And a *lot* of sugar."

"Think we should hide while the kids get it out of their systems?"

"Definitely."

*

"Tag, Rahne," Kurt greeted the younger girl as he entered the kitchen.

"Hi," she said absently.

Noting her engrossment in a textbook, he asked, "Doing homework in the kitchen again?"

"Mm-hm."

"Isn't that distracting?"

Rahne looked up. "Not really. I like to watch people go by." She paused. "I'm always distracted anyway."

"Oh?" Kurt opened a cabinet and pushed boxes around.

She laughed. "I'm living with a hyper puppy," she said. "Always telling me to sniff this, chase that, bark at them." The lycanthrope watched her housemate climb halfway into the snack cabinet. "Looking for something?"

"Need cookies," came his muffled voice.

"There're some on the counter."

"Im Ernst?" Kurt backed out of the cabinet and looked down the marble surface. "How'd I miss that?"

"They smell kinda funny," Rahne said.

"Oh? What's the date?" He picked up the box and scanned it for the blue numerals. "Tomorrow. Should be okay."

"Probably," Rahne agreed.

"Hey," Kurt paused with the box halfway open. "Why are you offering the smelly cookies to me?"

"Because you're the iron stomach," she shrugged. "No reason to let possibly edible food go to waste."

Shooting the Scottish mutant a half-suspicious look, Kurt lifted a cookie, sniffed it delicately, and popped it in his mouth. "Mm. Not bad." He chewed a bit more. "Pretty good, actually." Swallowing the confection, he commented, "*Very* good." He downed a few more in short order. "Haha!" he laughed. "Good stuff! Ich kann den Rachen nicht voll kriegen! [1]"

"Kurt?" Rahne rose from her seat at the table. "Are you all right?"

The furry teenager stared through her for a moment before blinking his eyes into focus. "All right? I'm great! Wunderbar! Never been better!" Stuffing another cookie between his crumb-flecked lips, he disappeared in an explosion of smoke and sulfur.

*

"Wheee!"

"The heck?" Bobby automatically turned his head to follow the passage of a bounding blue blur.

"Was that the furball?" Ray asked.

"Uh..." Roberto blinked. "Y'know, kangaroos can cover nine meters in one bounce, and-"

"I daresay the peasant has just bested them," Amara finished.

*

{Bamf!}

Jubilee's head jerked up as Kurt scuttled across her bedroom wall, clutching a box of cookies and singing in German.

"Laterne, Laterne," he belted out, "Sonne, Mond, und Sterne! [2]"

{Bamf!}

Jubilee stared at the blue mutant's last visible position. "Jamie? Did you just see that?"

"Did *you*?"

Jubilee considered the necessary consequences if she had. "No."

*

Kitty wandered nonchalantly into the kitchen, casting furtive glances towards where she'd planted the cookies. Finding the entire box completely gone, she asked, "What happened to the Entenmann's?"

"Kurt took them all," Rahne said, flipping a page in her textbook.

"Really?" Kitty squeaked. "All of them?" Remembering herself, she adopted a bored, slightly lamenting tone. "What a shame."

"He seems to like this batch," the Scottish girl commented.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kitty said guardedly.

"I know you baked them," Rahne glanced up.

"Did not," the guilty party protested.

"Don't bother. Logan trained me in lie detection," she smiled. "Also in how to bait the truth from people."

Kitty blushed.

*

{Bamf!}

Rogue looked up from her diary to wonder if she'd really just heard a bamf in her closet. One of her personal nightmares was realized as the door banged open and Kurt tumbled out. He swiftly righted himself, and Rogue saw that a number of her underthings were arranged artfully about his person.

With no introduction whatsoever, he burst into song. "Iiii'm a lumberjack and I'm okay!"

"You won't be for long," Rogue growled, throwing aside the little book.

Laughing, Kurt danced to the door, threw it open, and capered out into the hallway.

"The heck?"

"Now that is just perverted."

"To no end," Roberto agreed.

Screaming phrases that Logan was too young to hear, Rogue shot from her bedroom and went after Kurt, a speeding ball of female rage.

"I shall never understand this country," Amara shook her head.

"'Mara, he isn't even *from* this country."

"My name is not 'Mara!"

"*My* name isn't 'peasant'."

"That's it. I'm not staying here to be insulted."

"Not even for the suggestively-dressed men?"

For the next few days, Bobby Drake could be seen sporting a red mark across his left cheek.

*

There was a great deal of feminine intimate apparel scattered across the downstairs hallway. Being a red-blooded teenage male, Sam could not stop his hungry eyes and weak-willed feet from following the trail.

{Bamf!}

"Ganz Sein Hauptsitz sind gehoren zu uns! [3]" Kurt shouted. Sam noticed he was holding a box of cookies and an ivory statuette.

{Bamf!}

Sam's gaze fell again to the floor, and he followed the small, strappy garments into the living room.

"I *knew* I was fat," Rogue grunted.

Sam looked up to see Rogue's hips wedged firmly into one shelf of an open-backed unit, her bottom directed towards him, and her toes trying to keep contact with the floor. Several small books lay on the floor in front of her, along with shards of what had formerly been ceramic or porcelain knick-knacks.

"Should I ask?" Sam ventured.

"No," Rogue attempted to wiggle backwards. "And stop staring at my panties!"

Sam turned bright red and left the room at warp speed.

Unfortunately, he only traveled about fifty yards up the hallway before running into turbulence, in the form of Logan and Ororo.

"What's the hurry?" Logan asked in his usual slightly-put-off tone.

"Rogue," Sam babbled, "panties. And the...b-b-b...br-"

"That's enough," Ororo interrupted.

Gratefully, Sam ducked under her arm and escaped.

"Roogue!" Logan called.

"Don't look!" a Southern-accented voice ordered.

Rolling his eyes, the man who had seen everything twice strode into the living room. "Explain," he said.

"I was chasin' Kurt," Rogue said from her awkward position, "an' he jumped through here, an' I followed him, but...I didn't fit."

"Obviously," Logan sighed. "*Why* were you chasing the Elf?"

"He's gone stir-crazy!" Rogue struggled violently against her formica-ed prison. "Clutchin' this box like his life depended on it, and stealing my-"

"That's enough," Logan said quickly.

_A box?_ Ororo thought. _Why would Kurt...oh no._ "Kitty's cookies."

"What'd you say?" Logan leaned out the door.

"Kurt has Kitty's cookies," the tall woman repeated. "He's-"

"-sugar high," they finished together.

*

There was a bamf in the bathroom. Fortunately for a certain fuzzy mutant's life expentancy, Jean had only been raiding the medicine cabinet for a tylenol.

Kurt brandished an ivory statuette and clutched a paper box to his chest, imitating the Statue of Liberty's famous pose.
"I am statue-squee!" he declared.

"Don't you mean statuesque?" Jean corrected.

Kurt paused, lowered the figurine slightly. "Um...octathorp!" he screeched.

{Bamf!}

Jean barely managed to catch the fragile object with her telekinesis. "Strange..." she murmured. Setting the knick-knack on the toilet tank, she returned to her rummaging.

*

{Bamf!}

Perching in the closet of a spare bedroom, Kurt inspected his cookie supply. There was just one left, which he ate in short order. Desperate for more of the delectable confection, he licked the oily bottom of the box, catching up crumbs with his tongue.

He tossed the empty box aside, thought for a moment, and decided on a plan of action.

{Bamf!}

*

{Knock knock!}

"Yes?" Jubilee answered tremulously.

"Sparkler, you seen Elf lately?"

The Asian girl glanced at Jamie, who shook his head.

"No," she called. "I haven't."

"Not since I gave him his present," Jamie said.

"What present?" Logan demanded.

"Did I say present?" Jamie looked to Jubilee for help, but she shrugged. "I meant pheasant. Kurt wanted pheasant for lunch."

"Where the heck did you get pheasant?"

"Um, actually it was cold chicken from last night," the young mutant lied. "I don't think he noticed the difference."

*

"Lying is a lost art," Logan said to Ororo.

"Indeed," she murmured.

*

{Bamf!}

"Hello, Kurt." The Professor tilted his head back to see his student, who had inexplicably chosen to materialize on the handles of his wheelchair. "What are you d- grakmf."

Xavier found himself with a mouthful of Kurt's finger, as the blue mutant used his teacher's head as a point of balance, leaning forward to manipulate the controls with his right hand.

As Xavier had eyes in neither his chin nor his neck, he had only the vaguest idea where he was being taken as the motorized chair bumped through rooms and corridors. He recognized the uneven flooring where carpet became linoleum at the kitchen doorway.

Before the chair had wound to a complete halt, Kurt launched himself off the Professor's head and landed squarely on the kitchen table in front of Rahne.

"More cookies," he demanded.

"No more," Rahne looked him full in the eye. "Kitty only made one batch."

"Katzchen?" Kurt smiled dreamily. "Just when I thought I could not love her more..."

"I think she went outside," Rahne hinted.

{Bamf!}

Xavier thoughtfully picked a strand of fur off his tongue, and said, "Since no one is dead and the house is not on fire, I won't ask."

"Good call."

*

"Look," Ororo tapped the window pane with her finger.

Logan looked, saw Elf crossing the grounds on foot, and shouted, "After 'im!"

*

"Mmm," Kurt snuck up on Kitty and her bench from behind, and threw his arms around the former.

"Eep!" Kitty jumped before realizing who it was. "What's this about?"

"I love you," Kurt purred. "I love your cookies. I love-"

"Gotcha!" Logan grabbed Kurt's collar and hauled him off his far-and-away favorite person. "Thought you'd get high on sugar, eh? 'Cause it's *legal*? Listen kid, I'm gonna *sit* on ya 'til-"

"Herr Logan?" Kurt said. "I'm sober. And we will never again mention the things I did in the last hour, ja?"

Logan looked to Ororo for support, but she nodded gently.

"Fine," he sighed, putting the Elf down. "I won't. Especially the part with-"

"That's enough," Kurt broke in.

With many a backwards glance, Logan went back inside, trailed by Ororo.

And that is why you never give an Elf a cookie jar.

*

"Help?" Rogue cried plaintively.

The End

[1] I can't get enough!
[2] A traditional German kiddie song. "Lantern, lantern, sun, moon, and stars."
[3] Loosely, "All your base are belong to us!"

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