Banana Splits

by Coco Simon

  It doesn’t have to mean anything, a little voice in my head told me. Stop asking so many questions, and have fun! Then I shouted, “Woo-hoo! Yay, Wildflowers!” at the top of my lungs. Ewan laughed, and I smiled at him.

  I had a good feeling about everything—the Wildflowers, my blog, Molly’s, and my friends!

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  A PLAN

  “You’re up early, Tamiko,” Mom said. “You’ve been getting up so late recently.” Mom and Dad were in the kitchen. They both worked at the college nearby—Mom worked in the media office, and Dad was a professor—and usually drove in together. Dad was video-chatting with Grandpa Sato.

  “Is that Tamiko?” I heard my grandfather say.

  “Hi!” I greeted him.

  “Let me see my Tamiko,” Grandpa said, and Dad got up so that I could take the seat. “Good morning, Tamiko. Yesterday I spoke to Kai, and he told me what happened with your blog. Have you decided to apologize?”

  Thanks, Kai, I thought. He will always throw me under the bus if it means he can be Grandpa’s favorite.

  “Yes,” I told him. “I have a good idea about how to make things better. I’m going to take care of that today.”

  He smiled. “I knew you would do the right thing, Tamiko.”

  I gave the seat back to Dad and saw Mom staring at me with wide eyes.

  “Okay, what did I miss?” she asked.

  “It’s not a super-big deal anymore,” I began, and then I told her the story of what had happened, and my plan to make it right.

  Mom shook her head. “I’m sorry, Tamiko. The internet is not always a positive place. I worry about the people who are writing negative comments on your site. But can I trust that you have it under control?”

  “You can trust me,” I said. “I’ll let you know if they keep leaving mean comments, but I have a feeling it’ll go away once I apologize.”

  “Okay,” Mom said. “I’ve been so busy that I forgot to check in on your blog. I’m going to check in on it every day from now on, okay? Is there some way you can make me, like, an administrator? I know that adults can’t log on to the site with their own accounts.”

  “I can forward my posts to you,” I said. “As soon as I restart my blog. Just promise you won’t cramp my style, okay?”

  “When have I ever done that, my free-spirited daughter?” Mom asked.

  I grinned. “Thanks, Ayumi!” I said, and then I grabbed a cereal bar and ran out before she could lecture me.

  After school I sprinted to Molly’s. The first part of my plan was to get to the store before the after-school rush so that I could talk to Mrs. S. privately. When I got there, I could see her wiping down tables, and the college students who usually helped her hadn’t arrived yet. Perfect!

  I coughed, and Mrs. S. looked up. “Tamiko? What are you doing here? Allie is at her dad’s house,” she said.

  “Actually I came to talk with you. Is that okay?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Sure. Let’s sit down.”

  We sat at one of the round customer tables, which was a lot less stressful than talking to her over the top of an office desk.

  “Is this about the website?” she asked.

  I nodded. “I want to issue an apology on my blog, but I want it to be MY apology. I mean, I want to explain myself, but also offer up a peace offering.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What kind of peace offering are we talking about?”

  I took a deep breath. “I want to offer a Make Your Own Sundae demonstration at Molly’s. For Jodie it will be free, but you could maybe charge a small fee for anyone else who would like to come. And they’d get to eat their creations afterward. What do you think?”

  I crossed my fingers under the table. I knew it was a risky idea. We would have to shut down Molly’s for an hour or two during the demonstration. Plus, even though we would make a little money on the demonstration fees, it might not be enough to cover the cost of the ice cream we’d be shelling out. Not to mention, there’d be prep before and cleanup afterward. But still, I knew it would make Jodie happy, and it might make other people like Molly’s even more. I held my breath, waiting for Mrs. S. to answer me.

  To my enormous relief, a big smile swept across her face. “I think that’s a great idea,” she said. “It will be a nice promotion, and it will get the reputation of Molly’s back on track as a nice, non-judgy place to visit.”

  I nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking!”

  “I don’t even think we should charge people anything for the sundae-making class,” she said. “How about we do this: Why don’t you write up a draft of your apology and the invitation to the demonstration? Show it to me, and we’ll get moving on your idea. This demonstration could be really fun. Maybe we’ll even film it and post it on the web page when it’s over.”

  “Great idea, Mrs. S.!” I said. “I hadn’t thought of that!”

  Mrs. S. stood up. “Thanks, Tamiko. I appreciate that you’re trying to make this right.”

  “I have to,” I said. “I love Molly’s!”

  I left the shop feeling excited about the plan. I just needed one more thing to make it work. I stopped at the food market on Ocean Avenue. I went to the banana bin and dug to the bottom until I found a rotten banana covered with brown spots. The guy at the checkout gave me a weird look when I bought it.

  “Even rotten bananas need love,” I told him, which did not change the weird look on his face one bit.

  Then I went home, took the banana to my room, and took a photo of it. Then I started to type what had been rolling around in my head. I started with the title: “I Am a Bad Banana!”

  “Recently I made fun of a sundae created by a Molly’s customer. It was a silly remark, and I meant no harm. And luckily, the person the comment was meant for knew I was joking. But a lot of people didn’t, and I apologize to you all.

  “I also want to do something more. I’d like to offer a free demonstration at Molly’s on how to make a classic banana split. Pretty to look at, but also, more important, delicious to eat. (And made with beautiful, yellow bananas!) Once your banana split is completed, you’ll get to eat your masterpiece! If you’re interested, send an e-mail to Molly’s today. Seating is limited.”

  Then I added a photo of the beautiful banana split that Allie had made for my photo shoot.

  I saved the post as a draft and e-mailed it to Mrs. S. with some ideas for dates and times when we could do it. I knew she was working, but I anxiously kept checking my e-mail to see if she had replied.

  To pass the time, I tried to finish a project I’d been working on—gluing alphabet tiles from a word game onto an old purse. If I was going to keep doing the blog, I’d need to keep up with my projects. I had trouble deciding on what words to make, though.

  “FASHION”? Predictable.

  “LOVE”? Corny.

  “BANANA”? I really needed to stop thinking about bananas!

  Fortunately, Mrs. S. e-mailed me back before dinnertime.

  “This is perfect, Tamiko! Go ahead and upload the apology to your blog, and I’ll upload the demonstration announcement to the Molly’s website.”

  That message made me happy and also a little sad, because it reminded me that I was suspended from the Molly’s website. One step at a time, I guess. I quickly uploaded the new post.

  “Set Your Blog to Live?” the screen prompted.

  I hit the Yes button confidently. Then I texted Sierra and Allie.

  The blog is back up. And there’s a little surprise.

  ?????, Allie texted back, but then she must have checked it out, because I saw that the blog had gotten a new view. A second later she texted,

  You are not a bad banana! , Sierra texted me.

  I asked my friends if they would help out during the demonstration, and they said yes! I grinned. I knew that things were 100 percent cool with Allie and Sierra. Now I just had to find out what the rest of the world thought.

  I turned back to my purse project and mad
e a few more words with the tiles.

  “TRUTH”? Too preachy.

  “FREEDOM”? What did that have to do with a purse?

  “STUFF”? Definitely more purselike. Not bad.

  I checked my blog. Some comments were starting to come in.

  “Sounds like fun!”

  “Mmmm, banana splits!”

  Nothing about forgiving me or anything, but that was cool. At least the comments had stopped being mean!

  Then I saw a comment from Jodie. “Thanks, Tamiko! I’ll be there!”

  That one made me happy. Happy that Jodie hadn’t been hurt by my comment, and also happy that maybe other people would see her comment from today and stop dogging me for being mean to her.

  Then I checked the announcement about the demonstration on the Molly’s website (as a visitor, not an admin). That had comments too!

  “Hooray for ice cream!”

  “I signed up.  Yay!”

  That was a good sign that the demonstration would be filled up. I felt so relieved that my banana mess didn’t seem to be hurting Molly’s business. I just hoped that Mrs. S. wasn’t still disappointed in me.

  About an hour later I got an e-mail from Mrs. S.

  “All slots filled! Great idea, Tamiko.”

  I couldn’t believe it! The demo had filled up so fast! I was so excited that I reread Mrs. S.’s e-mail over and over again.

  My blog was up and running, people were excited about the demonstration, and no one was mad at me anymore.

  It felt good to be the queen of social media again.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  A SWEET ENDING

  “Welcome to the first ever Molly’s sundae-making demonstration!” I announced.

  It was a sunny Saturday morning. Bayville was packed with beachgoers, and Molly’s Ice Cream was closed for a banana-split-making demonstration.

  Kai was with me. I’d asked him to get a video of the demonstration that we could put on the Molly’s website, and he’d agreed—if I paid him ten bucks. I’d almost argued with him, because I was pretty much broke after all the stuff I’d bought for my blog photo shoots. But I wanted to do this right for Mrs. S., so I’d said yes. Also, I had acted ungrateful when he’d told me to post an apology on my blog, and that had turned out to be good advice. So I felt like I owed him one (or ten).

  Mrs. S. had decided on fifteen people for the demonstration, which seemed manageable. Jodie was there with two of her friends. Some of our regular customers were there: two white-haired ladies who came every Wednesday at the same time and ordered vanilla cones, and a mom who was there almost every day with her two little boys. Allie’s friends Eloise and Amanda had shown up too. And there were a few people I didn’t recognize. We’d told everyone to take a seat at one of the tables.

  “Those boys are going to make such a mess!” Allie had whispered to me before we’d started.

  “It will be fine,” I’d promised her. Allie, Sierra, and I had come in early to set up the demonstration, and I was pretty confident it would be a success.

  “Today we’re going to make a banana split with a Molly’s twist,” I began. “First of all, can anyone guess the year that banana splits were invented?”

  The mom raised her hand. “1955?” she asked.

  “It would have to be earlier than that, dear,” said one of the white-haired ladies. “I remember eating them when I was a little girl at my uncle’s soda shop.”

  “You’re right, it was earlier than 1955,” I said. “It was actually 1904. A guy named David Strickler worked at a soda fountain at a pharmacy in Pennsylvania. He liked to experiment with making different sundaes, and he came up with the banana split. Word got around, and it became popular all over, which is pretty amazing, considering that was before the internet was invented.”

  “I was also invented before the internet,” the same white-haired lady said, and everybody laughed.

  “Please put on the plastic gloves we’ve provided, and then pick up the boat-shaped bowl in front of you. That’s the traditional bowl used for a banana split,” I informed them. “The first thing that goes in is three scoops of ice cream. The traditional flavors are chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry, but here at Molly’s we like to use the Banana Pudding flavor in place of the vanilla. Allie is going to demonstrate how to scoop, and then we can start filling our bowls.”

  I turned to Allie. We had put three tubs of ice cream on one of the long tables, so people didn’t have to go behind the counter to get it. We had the toppings set up next to them.

  “The first thing you need to get a nice, round scoop is a glass of hot water,” she said, and she dipped the metal ice cream scoop into it. “This will help you get the ice cream out more easily. It also helps if you take your ice cream out of the freezer for a few minutes to soften it up. We’ve done that today, but otherwise our ice cream is always frozen hard when we scoop it.”

  She plunged the scoop into the tub of chocolate ice cream. “Now here’s a trick. Try to make an S shape as you scoop, twisting your wrist like this. That helps you form the ice cream into a ball.”

  She demonstrated, and then she plopped the scoop of chocolate into her boat. “See?”

  The white-haired ladies clapped. The little boys started jumping up and down.

  “Can we try? Can we try?” they yelled.

  “Yes, line up and grab a scoop,” I instructed. (Mrs. S. had researched it, and for food safety reasons, every group needed their own scoop. But we had enough in the shop, so that was okay.) “Dip your scoop into the water before you do each new ice cream ball.”

  Jodie and her friends lined up first. Jodie picked up the scoop and tentatively dug it into the tub of ice cream.

  “Get it in there,” Allie coached her. “You want to submerge the round part of the scoop all the way.”

  Jodie nodded and then made an S shape as she scooped. A perfect round ball of chocolate plopped into her bowl.

  “Perfect!” I said, and she gave me a big smile.

  Everybody scooped their ice cream, and Allie helped the two little boys so that they made perfect scoops too, which made them really happy.

  “Now we nestle a sliced banana half on each side of the ice cream, like this,” I said, demonstrating. Everybody moved down the line, adding their bananas.

  “And now comes the fun part—toppings,” I said. “The lovely Sierra is going to show us how it’s done.”

  “Hey, you’re the singer for the Wildflowers!” a teenage girl exclaimed, and Sierra blushed a little.

  “That’s me,” she said. “But today I’m making banana splits, not singing.”

  I narrated as Sierra topped the sundae that Allie and I had started.

  “For the banana split you’ll need three sauces: chocolate syrup, strawberry sauce, and caramel sauce,” I said. “You can find all of these in any supermarket. You can see that Sierra is using a small spoon, and she is carefully drizzling the sauces, one at a time, over the ice cream. Each scoop should have all of the sauces on it when you’re done. And don’t put too much, or it will become soupy.”

  The little boys needed some extra attention during the topping phase, and there was definitely some spillage. Allie swooped in with some wet wipes and cleaned the sauces off the boys’ arms, earning a grateful smile from their mom.

  “After the sauces come the crushed nuts,” I said. “We use walnuts here, but you could use any nuts you want. Or leave the nuts off altogether, if you’re allergic.”

  After everyone was done with the nuts, Sierra picked up a whipped cream canister.

  “A neat way to do this is to squirt a little rosette onto each of the scoops,” I said as Sierra demonstrated. “But if you love whipped cream, you can go a little crazy.”

  On cue, Sierra started to make the whipped cream piles higher.

  Everyone took turns with the whipped cream. When it was the little boys’ turn, I leaned closer to them. “The whipped cream stays on the ice cream. Got it?”

  They
nodded, eager to please, and were both very careful when applying their whipped cream. I flashed a smile at Allie.

  “The final touch is usually a cherry on top,” I said, “but here at Molly’s we add one more thing. A sprinkle of happy!”

  Sierra put a cherry on top of our sample sundae, and I added a shower of rainbow sprinkles. Everybody clapped, and Kai came in with his camera to get a close-up.

  “Now you know how to make a perfect banana split,” I said. “But remember, don’t be afraid to experiment! Try different flavors and toppings and combinations at home. It might not turn out to be the perfect banana split, but it would be your unique creation!”

  Jodie smiled warmly at me. I think she understood what I was talking about.

  “Now here’s the best part,” I said. “It’s time to eat!”

  Everyone began to eat. Some people were taking pictures of their sundaes.

  “Hashtag Molly’s Ice Cream!” I shouted.

  Mrs. S., who had been watching the whole time, approached me.

  “This was very successful, Tamiko,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

  “Kai’s going to edit the footage later today,” I said. “I’ll have him send it to you so you can put it up on the website.”

  “You can do that yourself, Tamiko,” she said.

  Had I heard her right? “You mean . . .”

  She nodded. “You handled this very professionally today. I trust that you will continue to act professionally as the social media director for Molly’s. If you still want to do it?”

  “YES!” I shrieked. “Thank you! I won’t let you down!”

  Mrs. S. turned to Allie and Sierra. “Daphne and Rashid are coming in a few minutes to start their shift. If you wouldn’t mind cleaning up, I’ll open the shop.”

  “No problem!” Allie said, and we all pitched in to put away the ice cream and the toppings. Daphne and Rashid showed up, and Mrs. S. opened the shop.

  “So, does this all mean that you’re going to keep posting on your blog?” Sierra asked.

  “Definitely,” I said. I still had so many ideas and things I wanted to share with the world. “But I don’t think I’ll pressure myself to post that often. That way I can be more thoughtful about what I write.”