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“Show it to me.”
“It’s that one, the little one.”
“Aw, it don’t look so bad.”
“Yeah well looks can be deceiving, Johnnycake. It’s evil.”
Johnny looked at the little gray box. Its window was smudged with soot and grease; the numbers and lettering almost completely scratched off.
“Can I open it?”
“Suit yourself.” Ponyboy stayed several steps back. It wasn’t dangerous unless you cooked something in it, or made it angry. Which, he’d learned, was very easy to do.
Johnny gingerly opened the tiny oven, half expecting bats to fly out or eerie music to start playing. It was almost a letdown when nothing happened. “It seems normal to me.”
“I’m just saying that every time I make something in it and serve it to someone, that person gets bad luck.”
“Really?” Johnny asked skeptically.
“Yeah. Old Mrs. Kay? Her cat died after she ate a muffin that I baked in that oven. Mr. Green? From down the road? He got two flat tires after he ate something from that oven. Remember that time you got real sick after eating all those cookies?”
“Well, to be fair Pony, I probably shouldn’t have eaten a dozen cookies for dinner-”
“No! It was the oven. I swear it. That’s the only time I’ve made cookies in that oven and it made you sick.”
Johnny had come by late to help Pony close up for the afternoon since Darry didn’t want anyone closing by themselves. He figured now would be as good a time as any to check out the haunted oven Ponyboy was always talking about. “It doesn’t look evil to me. But I’ll take your word for it, ‘kay? Ready to go?”
“Yeah, almost. I just gotta give it its sacrifice.” Pony reached into the fridge and pulled out an orange slice and a pinch of chocolate chips. He arranged them on a plate and slid it into the open oven before backing away again.
“Oh no, you’re serious.”
“Of course I’m serious! The only reason I can’t get rid of the darn thing is ‘cause Soda thinks it’s good luck. That’s the busted little oven my mom had when she started selling pastries out of the house, before they saved up enough money to rent this place. If you don’t feed this oven at night, then whoever steps foot in the kitchen first thing in the morning will have one whole day of bad luck.”
“Is the food gone in the morning?”
“Every. Time.”
Johnny stood there with his eyes wide, not with fear, but with genuine concern for his friend. “I don’t see how it can be haunted, Pony. It’s too small for someone to die in there.”
“That’s not how things become haunted, Johnny. Don’t you know anything?”
Johnny let the insult slide. “Look, I’m just saying. Maybe it’s not haunted. Maybe it's lonely because you don’t use it as often as the big ones.”
Pony looked at Johnny long and hard. Johnny was just the type of person to make you feel bad for hating an oven. That was easily the worst and the best thing about him. That was why Pony made him so many darn cookies. He was the kindest, and coolest, person he knew. But Ponyboy was stubborn. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Ovens can’t feel lonely.”
“You’re the one that thinks an oven is HAUNTED!”
The oven door snapped shut on its own accord, and Johnny yelped in surprise as he jumped back.
“I told ya.”
“Let's get out of here, then. I’m not trying to get possessed by an oven.”
🍪🍪🍪
The next morning, Soda was the first one to go into the kitchen as they were starting the day. He liked to get there first so he could check on his mom’s lucky oven. It was a battered little thing, set to the side in one corner away from the bigger, newer ovens. It didn’t look functional, but Soda took care of it, making sure it worked and dusting off the top every so often. In turn, the oven often rewarded him with treats a normal oven shouldn’t be able to produce. For instance, this morning the oven left him a plate with a single orange slice and several loose chocolate chips.