Hpapy BRihdyat!!1

When I turn eighteen — the UK’s legal drinking age — the very first thing I do is to run to town and start smuggling alcohol into my boarding school’s dorm.

Naturally, being a kid with no knowledge about picking alcohol and on a budget, most of the wines I buy are cheap and foul tasting. Every time I open a bottle I don’t like, I usually dispose of the contents by pouring them into batter and baking cupcakes out of them. By a happy coincidence, a whole lot of my classmates and friends have birthdays around this time, which means no shortage of baking opportunities for me. Amusingly enough, everyone agrees they like my new cupcakes more than the old ones.

But then, one of my friends wants a jelly cake for his birthday instead of a regular cake. That’s nothing I can’t handle, so I make the mixture, pour in my latest batch of horrible wine, and make a big jelly cake out of it.

The very next day, I present it to the birthday boy, who happily blows out the candles, cuts the cake, and takes a bite out of his slice.

Birthday Boy: *Suddenly freezes* “There’s alcohol in this.”

The entire room goes silent, and everyone turns to look at me. I should mention that [Birthday Boy] is a prefect, and there are no less than three other prefects in the party crowd. Also, the staff room is practically across the corridor.

Me: “No, no, no. That’s just Ribena! It’s my secret ingredient. It’s not wine or anything!”

I immediately grabbed my cake and beat a hasty retreat back to my dorm. I then proceeded to eat almost the entire cake by myself in one sitting to dispose of the evidence. It was delicious. And apparently, there was still enough alcohol in the thing that I actually felt tipsy after eating it.

Thankfully, none of them reported me. Nevertheless, I learnt my lesson.

The next time I made a jelly cake, I made sure the alcohol had been fully boiled off before pouring it into a mould.