An hour later, Joseph is in his room. He is huddled in his ceramics corner, cleaning up a perfectly sculpted bust of himself made out from bubblegum clay with a carving knife.

All around Joseph on the newspaper-covered table and on the floor are other busts of himself and his loved ones: Max Friberg, his best friend, Michael Cramarossa, his younger brother, Alessandra Cramarossa, his younger sister, and Olivia, his girlfriend.

Brandon then ambles into his room. “Hey Joey--” He immediately halts his sentence and gapes as he takes in what is displayed in front of him. His eyes widen. “Wooow...”

Joseph peers up from his masterpiece and notices his roommate’s reaction. He then expressionlessly peers at his other works. “I made these statues.”

“With your powers, right?” Brandon crosses his arms.

He reverts his flat gaze at him. “Nooo…!”

Brandon resumes making his way to him. “Well, I came for you to help me figure out what’s causing all these curses. Or power breakouts, whatever you wanna call 'em.” He pulls a chair from the table and sits next to him.

Joseph narrows his eyes at him with irritation. “Does it look like I want to do that right now?”

“You don’t have to write, you can just talk to me.” He shrugs.

“Go to Ritch.” Joseph turns back to his sculpture and continues running the knife against the bust’s moist surface precisely.

Brandon just sits in place, gazing at Joseph’s ceramic techniques.

Joseph turns to face his roommate. “Go to Ritch,” he enunciates.

Brandon just purses his lips at him with a shrug. “I take it it’s gone.”

“DARN IT.” Joseph quickly scoops up a scrap of clay and chucks it ahead of him.

The clay flies across from the room and splats against the wall facing the two.

Brandon eyes the mess with uncertainty. “Okay, so with that, we got to—”

“What gave me that power?” he hears Joseph asking.

Brandon whirls to him, spotting him staring down at his work. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out!” His fingers tense in front of him. “Can you please cooperate with me here?”

“Fine.” Joseph reluctantly turns to him.

“Good.” He places his chin on the back of his hand. “So….let’s see here, when did these weird things start to happen…?”

“Hacker said we were off at yesterday’s practice,” Joseph points out.

Brandon narrows his eyes. “But what did we touch yesterday practice?”

“Not just us— Bryan and Joe were off too.”

“Oooo…” His eyebrows scrunch together. “...what was something that all of us touched…”

“…but not Stu?” Joseph finishes off.

Brandon straightens up with a surprised expression. “What?”

“Stu wasn’t affected.” Joseph taps his knife against the table.

“Ohhh…” Brandon slowly turns away from him, facing the clay-splattered wall. “Dang, okay, how about lunchtime when we had telepathy—?” He immediately faces Joseph again.

“Spaghetti,” the both say in unison.

Brandon holds up an index finger. “Pen?”

Joseph reaches over to a lone pen that is on his side of the table. He hands it over to him with his clay-crusted hands.

Brandon takes the pen and pulls a nearby pad of paper to him. He then scribbles on the notepad while saying, “Spa…ghet…ti.”

Joseph’s eyebrows shoot up. “And after that?”

He peers at him. “We had hamburgers.”

“And right after the hamburgers we had the ‘I wish’ thing, which was pretty sweet,” Joseph adds in with a smirk.

Brandon turns back to the paper and writes some more. “Ham…bur…gers…” He looks back at him. “Okay, and then this morning we had that incident with saying everything right.”

“Bacon and eggs.” He nods toward him. “Told you not to go all American.”

“Bacon…and…eggs…,” Brandon mutters while his left hand flies over the paper. Then he gazes up at him. “So, this all seems to be going back to what we’re eating. Therefore, the first incident must be the--” He gasps with wide eyes. “--pancakes! Since Stu didn’t have any, right?”

“Yeah.” He nods his head.

Brandon makes a perplexed expression. “He did have some?”

“He didn’t have any.”

“Oh!” Brandon then turns back to his paper and says what he writes: “Pan…cakes…” He sets his eyes on his roommate while straightening up. “So we’re getting cursed by foods. But the odd thing is that all these foods are different: pancakes, spaghetti, hamburgers, bacon and eggs. What do they have in common?”

Joseph shrugs. “They’re all food.”

“But what--why do they give us powers…unlike the other foods we’ve had?” He taps his pen against the pad of his paper.

“Because before then, we had take-out when our car was fine.” A scowl quickly comes across his face. “Dang it, should’ve wished for the car to be fixed,” he growls.

“Well, hopefully, we get that power back.” Brandon shoots him an anxious smile.

“Would we? All the powers we’ve been getting are different.”

“True…” He leans back while rubbing his chin. “So different foods gives us different powers?”

“I am not eating eggs and bacon again,” Joseph grumbles ahead of him, clutching onto the smock he is wearing.

Brandon flicks his eyes at him. “Hamburger?”

“No.”

“What if I make a gyro?”

“Don’t even try.”

Brandon lets out a heavy sigh before straightening up and taking hold of the notepad. He takes a quick scan through it. “But what gives these foods the powers?” He lowers it from his eye level to look at his roommate. “It can’t be the ingredients since they all have different ingredients. It has to be something consistent…”

“You made them,” Joseph points out with a hint of sardonicism.

“But I’ve made food before and we didn’t get powers from them.” He tosses the notepad onto the table.

“That’s because we didn’t even eat them— They weren’t edible.”

“True.” Brandon slightly frowns with his eyes casted aside while thinking. He then turns them back on him. “So is it me?”

Joseph tilts his head with raised eyebrows. “Most likely.”

Brandon gazes upward as an idea forms in his mind. “I think I know how we can test this out…”

Joseph stares hard at him. “Don’t you dare.”

Brandon faces him with the biggest smile he can pull off, which isn’t that large. “Willing to cook for us tonight?”

“Not for you two,” he growls before turning back to his bust. He resumes cleaning it.

“Joey…!” Brandon pleads with his voice strained and an anxious expression. “Please…!”

Joseph silently snatches a small sponge from the bowl of water that is by him and begins running it against the side of the bust.

“I’ll do anything for you,” he tells him meaningfully.

Joseph halts the movements of his sponge. He snaps his head to gaze at him. “Anything?”

“Come on, one meal. Just to see what is the cursed object.”

Joseph prompt drops his sponge back into the water and rises to his feet. “Root for the Leafs when they play next time.” He then unties his smock and drapes it over his chair

Brandon gawks at him, his eyes locked on him as he makes his way across the room toward the door. “What?!” He follows him with his eyes as he strides out of the room and out of sight with a left turn.

“Are you kidding me?!” He continues shouting at the hallway. “Joey!!!”

“You said anything…!” Joseph’s faraway voice is heard calling out as an answer.

---

Two hours later, Brandon and Nick are sitting around the dining table. From the kitchen comes Joseph with a large rectangular pan in his mitt-covered hands.

He plunks the pan on the middle of the table. The two other roommates peer inside to see what is their pregame meal. A blanket of melted cheese over layers of tomato sauce-covered pasta with its savoury aroma and steam rising from it. It can only be one thing: lasagna.

Nick’s eyes immediately light up at the heavenly sight. “Oooo!!!” He serves himself a massive, loaded chunk with the serving utensil onto his plate. He begins devouring it with a satisfied expression.

Brandon serves himself a small square onto his plate. He takes a bite from it with his fork. His eyes light up the flavourful, gooey taste. “Whoa, this is good.”

Joseph has taken his seat next to him and is already serving himself a portion of his own dish. “That’s because I cooked it.” He then takes in a forkful.

Suddenly, Brandon freezes himself in place as he senses the frizzy energy twisting through him. He slowly eyes him. “Joey…”

Joseph instantly thrusts his fork against the table and whirls around to face his back on Nick with crossed arms and an infuriated expression.

Nick peers behind Joseph with a small smile. He holds up a large piece of the lasagna goodness on his fork. “The lasagna’s good!” He takes in the forkful and turns back to his plate to continue eating.

Brandon dips his head and points out lowly, “So it’s not just me!”

“I want a gyro,” Joseph grumbles with his glower.

Brandon continues gazing at him while Nick is consuming his dish.

“I’m eating a gyro,” Joseph states with a slightly less intense tone.

Nick just reaches over to serve himself the rest of the lasagna.

Brandon’s eyes dart from side to side as he scrambles for an answer to this phenomenon. “It’s something else. A different power.”

Joseph shoots him a flat expression. “No duh…!”

“I wonder what’s it gonna be.” Brandon rubs his chin.

“The cure,” Joseph suggests as a fact with a shrug.

Brandon raises his eyebrows at him with a slight frown. “Obviously that’s not it if we felt it.”

He then hears Nick call out: “Monty—”

Brandon immediately snaps his head up at Nick with trepidation. He spots Nick’s content expression at him.

“—can I have a napkin?” he finishes off innocently.

Brandon’s eyebrows shoot up as a wave of relief washes over him. “Oh! Sure!” He reaches for the pile of napkins by him and gives a few to his roommate.

Nick receives them happily then turns his attention back to his plate.

Brandon turns back to Joseph and gazes at him. “We’re gonna see what it is,” he tells him lowly. “Hopefully, it’s nothing that people will see…”

As a response, Joseph gives him a suspicious look.

Notes

E.14 "What A Great Dish!"
Part 6/7
Episode 14/20