The next day, Victoria woke up late. She saw that Annie's bed was empty and unmade. She walked into the living room rubbing her eyes.

"Morning, Victoria," said Betty. "Slept well?"

"Mmm," said Victoria, still too sleepy to talk much. She noticed that her older sister was reading a cookbook. "What's that?"

"A recipe for chocolate cake," said Betty. "It's the boys' favourite. They all like chocolate cake. And by the boys, I mean Josh, George and Dad. He can be a child himself at times."

"What does chocolate cake taste like?"

Annie, who had been busy watching cartoons on TV, turned around in surprise. "Help!" she said. "Victoria doesn't know what chocolate cake tastes like!"

"Whoa there," said Victoria. "I was just curious. It's not a big deal."

"It's a huge deal," said Annie. "Chocolate cake is part of everyone's life. Well, unless you absolutely despise chocolate. Do you despise chocolate?"

"I have never tasted chocolate," said Victoria. "We only had simple meals at the orphanage."

"I know," said Betty. "Why don't we girls bake a chocolate cake? Victoria should have her first baking experience."

"But I don't know how to bake," said Victoria.

"Don't worry," said Annie. "We will teach you."

So Victoria got dressed and went to the kitchen. However, without any baking experience, she made some peculiar mistakes.

"Okay, first, I will measure the butter," said Betty. "Annie can sieve the flour and Victoria can get three eggs from the refrigerator. We will add them to the bowl later. Annie, remember to sieve the flour slowly. We don't want you getting flour in your hair again."

Hope brought three eggs from the refrigerator. She saw that the flour and butter were already in the mixing bowl. She tossed the eggs inside.

"Victoria, what are you doing?" asked Betty.

"Putting the eggs inside," said Victoria.

"You're supposed to crack the eggs first, not toss them in," said Annie. "Don't you know anything about eggs?"

Later, Betty said that two teaspoons of baking powder was needed. Victoria used a normal spoon to measure them. Then they needed to add a cup of milk, but instead of using a measuring cup, Victoria used a regular cup.

"Why is the mixture so runny?" asked Annie while stirring.

"I have no idea," said Betty. "Maybe we should add more flour."

Luckily, the extra flour seemed to improve the texture. Betty placed the mixture in the oven herself, telling the other girls that they were too young for this task.

"Now we need to wait for the cake to bake for 45 minutes," said Betty.

Annie went back outside to continue watching cartoons while Betty went off to her room. But Victoria stood in front of the oven, wanting to watch the process herself. But after ten minutes passed, there was no change to the cake, which made Victoria bored.

How long is this going to take? She thought. Then she had an idea. She turned up the oven's temperature. Unfortunately, that proved to be a bad idea.

Betty gasped with shock when she came back a few minutes later to find smoke coming out of the oven and Victoria standing nearby with a guilty look on her face. "What did you do?" she asked.

"I thought if I turned up the temperature of the oven, the cake would bake faster," said Victoria.

Betty reset the oven's timer back to zero so that the cake would stop baking, but the damage was done. When she opened the oven, black smoke filled the kitchen, causing both girls to cough.

"Betty?" came George's voice. "Why do I smell burnt chocolate?"

"Everyone outside!" said Betty. She opened all the windows to air the house, the smoke triggered the fire alarm.

Uh oh, thought Betty. Her parents' phones had an app which connected their phones to the house fire alarm, so they would know when there was a house fire. So after disabling the alarm, Betty called her parents to explain what had happened.

After that, Betty decided that it was safe for everyone to come back inside. But when she went to the backyard, she only found George, Annie and Josh there. "Where's Victoria?" she asked.

"I don't know," said George. "I was sure that she was here a few minutes ago. She seemed upset."

Betty sighed. "Well, the rest of you can go back inside. I will look for Victoria."