A Morning Laugh Chases Away Woes

Previously

…A smile spread across Barnaby’s face, brighter and more genuine than any he’d worn all morning. This year’s bake-off entry would be… different. It would be a celebration of the unexpected, a testament to the chaotic, hilarious journey his starter had taken. He would call it, with a twinkle in his eye, the “Hedgehog Surprise.” And for the first time that morning, Barnaby Buttercup felt a genuine sense of anticipation, not for victory, but for the sheer, unadulterated joy of sharing his peculiar, hedgehogs-approved creation with the world. The Golden Spatula might be out of reach, but a morning laugh, he realized, was worth more than all the artisanal cheese in the world.