Anthony's expression changed from one of mildly disturbed confusion to one of excited agreement in an instant. "Well, it wouldn't be right to let a contest go without judges..."

Susan patted him, "Go on, you'll have to get back to your diet when we get back home,"

Anthony frowned, his ears drooping for an instant. "Then I'd better make it count!" he reasoned brightly.

Susan kissed his cheek, "Go Daddy!"

"You can come and watch," Randy offered to Susan.

"You know I love to see you eat," she beamed.

Randy grinned and gave his ears a wiggle. "Perhaps you could enter; you're very good in the kitchen..."

"Oh no, I'm not much for competition, I'd feel bad if I won or lost," said Susan.

Randy chuckled and gave her a kiss. "Well, you can still watch," he said.

"I'll be more than glad," she replied.

And so the five of them headed in the direction of the bake-off, Randy and Anthony both eager to sign up as judges.

Erickson signed them both up, "I think we ha' enough judges fer tha first round, tak yer seats,"

Randy sat next to Anthony, who was too excited about tasting cakes and pies to be uncomfortable with it.

The first contestant was Marie Blackwelder with a triple cherry cheese cake. "It's made from scratch!" she said proudly.

"Oh, this is fantastic," Anthony remarked, almost forgetting to fill out his score card in favor of eating the cheesecake.
"Very good. I agree," stated Randy as he considered every aspect of it from the look and smell to the texture and flavor before carefully grading everything.

The next cake was a dark chocolate raspberry confection. It was heavy and dense with a thick layer of raspberry jam in the middle, "Flackery always liked this," said Kurt.

Randy gave it a sniff and looked it over. He'd never been a huge fan of chocolate, but he was still an objective judge...
Anthony remained just as pleased as ever.

The next item was Father Erickson's blueberry pie.

And no one was more excited about this than Anthony... If he was going back to a hardcore diet when he returned home, he saw no reason not to enjoy as much as he could for the moment.

After the pie came some lemon squares from Greta.

Now it was Randy's turn to be excited, and he was sure to give the lemon squares very high marks...

The next contestant offered up a tuna and salmon pot-pie. Barry presented the judges with a slice and waited expectantly.

Randy and Anthony were both thrilled with this, though most of the other judges were not...

Barry grinned at Anthony, "How's it going brother bear?"

"Br--ber--what?" Anthony blinked up at him. It's that talking bear again... "Oh, um, just fine, thank you," he replied stiffly.

Barry beamed, "Me an the missus made that pie together! She caught the fish,"

Anthony frowned. "I'm... I'm not going to ask how," he said, more to himself than to Barry.

"She dove right into Walrus lake and caught them in her mouth!" said Barry.

Anthony looked as though he might be ill, but Randy kept right on eating the pie.

"And I sliced them up with my claws!" said Barry.

Anthony pushed his plate away and wiped at his tongue with a napkin. Even Randy at least paused to get a closer look at the pie and Barry's claws...

Barry's claws were clean but a bit worn at the ends, he wiggled them in demonstration.

Randy gave it a moment's thought, shrugged, and finished off the last of the fish pie.

After Barry they were presented with a pepper cake from Gloria.

Randy greatly approved--while Anthony did not.

The next set of goods were colorful chocolate cupcakes from Angeline, Dr. Bronson's homemade apple pie, Kiri Blackwelder's snickerdoodle cookies and contest was finished with Erika Erickson's special pineapple upside down cake.

Randy graded the entries carefully, making sure not to let his personal tastes get in the way of fair and objective judgment--and then he was presented with pineapple upside down cake. It was everything he could ever have wanted from a dessert...

Erika clung to Maxwell's arm, "Ohhh their tastin' it! Ah canna look! Whit if no one likes it?!"

"Well, someone sure likes it," Maxwell pointed out, nodding toward Randy as he furiously wrote down high scores while licking the last traces of cake from his finger.

Ericka giggled, "That does make me feel better,"