Luca burst into Milo's workshop at precisely 7:13 a.m., arms filled with flour sacks and a serious case of pastry panic.
"Milo! I need help! Emergency! Code Custard!"
Milo, who had been peacefully sipping herbal tea and trying to coax a sleepy fern to bloom, blinked. "Code… what now?"
"Code Custard!" Luca repeated, slamming a cinnamon stick on the table like a gavel. "The Sweet Sweet Festival is tomorrow, and I've got over a hundred orders for éclairs, tarts, honey puffs, cream bombs, and something new I'm calling 'The Sugar Loaf of Destiny.' I can't bake it all in time!"
Milo squinted. "Is that the thing that jiggles when you hum near it?"
"Yes! And it takes eight hours to set!"
Alma peeked up from her notebook in the corner. "Didn't you say you were going to 'wing it like a frosted phoenix' this year?"
"I did," Luca said solemnly. "And now the phoenix is crashing into a mountain of dough."
Milo leaned back and steepled his fingers. "So, you need… a pastry-boosting potion."
"Yes!" Luca clapped. "Something that speeds up baking, enhances flavor, and maybe even folds pastry with flair!"
"Easy enough," Milo said with the confidence of a man who had once brewed a nap potion that turned everyone into sloths for an afternoon. "I'll just use a base of Sweetroot, a dash of Whiskerstem, and a few drops of Riseleaf extract…"
He got to work, bubbling, stirring, and humming a tune suspiciously similar to "Rolling in the Dough." Alma helped grind the Whiskerstem while Luca watched like a worried pastry dad.
Finally, Milo poured the shimmering liquid into a small glass vial.
"I call it… Fluffify Ultra."
"Sounds magical," Luca whispered.
"It is magical," Milo assured him. "Just one drop should enhance your entire bakery batch."
He handed over the vial.
What none of them noticed was the faint sparkle of Invertibark—an ingredient Milo had been storing too close to his experiment shelf. The tiniest particle had floated into the cauldron mid-brew.
Invertibark didn't enhance things.
It transformed them.
---
Back at the bakery, Luca wasted no time.
"One drop," he said to himself, carefully pouring it into his mixer.
The moment it touched the dough, a golden glow erupted—and the dough puffed up like a happy balloon, then spun itself into perfect croissants.
"YES!" Luca fist-pumped. "This is it! The pastry revolution!"
He ran around sprinkling drops on every batch. Cookies started arranging themselves into smiley faces. Cakes self-frosted. Tart shells sang opera as they filled themselves with lemon curd.
It was pastry paradise.
Until he dropped the bottle.
It rolled off the counter, hit the floor, and exploded in a mist of sugar-scented magic.
For a moment, everything was still.
Then the mop turned into a giant breadstick.
The flour sacks became jelly donuts.
The cash register morphed into a giant éclair that spat whipped cream when someone tried to open it.
"Oh no," Luca whispered. "I've unleashed the Doughpocalypse."
---
Meanwhile, back at the workshop…
"Milo!" came a frantic voice from the street.
Milo stepped outside, only to be greeted by a truly bizarre sight.
A woman was screaming as her hat—now a cream puff—squished over her face. A man tried to open his pastry-shaped mailbox, only for it to unravel into a strudel. The fountain in the square was now spraying caramel glaze.
Alma pointed. "Is that a baguette lamppost?"
"Yep," Milo said. "And that cat's tail is a cinnamon stick."
Luca slid into the scene, literally, on a jelly roll rug. "It's spreading! I dropped the potion bottle and now EVERYTHING is becoming pastries!"
Mayor Flanagan bounced out of the post office, which had become a giant three-tiered cake. "Milo! Why does my mailbox taste like lemon meringue?"
Milo looked around at the chaos. "Okay. Minor mistake. Tiny magical hiccup. Just a smidge of a pastry plague."
"A delicious one!" Alma grinned, taking a bite of the doorknob (now a shortbread cookie). "But still a plague!"
---
The village of Luminvale transformed into a pastry wonderland.
Trees became pretzel trunks with frosting leaves. Wagons turned into mobile pies. The well bubbled with sparkling cider. Birds began chirping in high-pitched "toot" noises that sounded suspiciously like whipped cream dispensers.
Children were building houses from danishes.
One child screamed, "I live in a muffin now!"
Luca was torn between horror and glee. "Everything I touch turns into dessert! It's a dream… and a nightmare. I just turned my shoe into a cheesecake."
Milo pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright. I can fix this."
"Before the entire earth becomes edible," Luca added.
---
Back in the workshop, Milo began brewing the counter-potion: De-Fluffium Pastrynegator.
He worked quickly, aided by Alma's memory of a passage in Grandma Willow's book: "Invertibark causes invert reactions. Add Revertroot to counter."
Milo muttered to himself as he stirred, "Sweet potion in reverse, anti-bake with a citrus burst…"
He dropped in the final ingredient—a sour raspberry from the garden.
The potion hissed, turned blue, and fizzed.
Milo dipped a cracker into it. The cracker turned… into a cracker. Success.
"We've got our fix!"
---
Armed with a sprayer shaped like a giant whipped cream can, Milo and Alma set off to restore balance to the village.
With each spray, pastry-turned items reverted to normal: bikes stopped being bagels, boots un-pied, and the mayor's moustache (which had become a flaky tart) was restored to its full citrus-scented glory.
There were casualties.
The town bell remained a jelly donut (because honestly, it was better that way).
The bakery floor became a graham cracker tile design nobody wanted to reverse.
And Luca insisted on keeping the éclair register.
"Business has never been so sweet," he claimed.
---
As the sun set, the town was back to normal, more or less.
Pastry birds still chirped in the trees. Children still lived in muffin forts. But the great pastry transformation had slowed, thanks to Milo's counter-brew.
The mayor made a formal announcement in front of the pudding fountain.
"Citizens of Luminvale! Let us never forget this day of fluffy chaos! Let it be known as—Pastry Day! A day to honor the sweets, the silliness, and the sugar-induced stampedes!"
The crowd cheered and waved croissants.
Milo, sitting beside Alma and Luca on a park bench (now only partially a danish), chuckled.
"Well," he said, "at least you're ready for the Sweet Sweet Festival."
Luca nodded solemnly. "I'll never run out of pastries again. Ever. I just hope I never see a talking scone again."
As if on cue, a scone rolled by, muttering, "They'll never butter me the same way…"
Alma whispered, "Should we follow that one?"
Milo shook his head. "Nope. That's tomorrow's problem."
They leaned back, bellies full of pastry, hearts full of laughter, and eyes watching the caramel-glazed sunset over the frosting-dusted hills.