The Doughnut King

by Jessie Janowitz

  By five, I was completely sold out.

  I dropped into the armchair in the old ticket booth we use as our office and closed my eyes. I’d been awake for more than twelve hours, and it wasn’t even dark yet.

  Through the wall separating The Doughnut Stop from The Station House, I could hear Dad singing his moan-y French songs as he checked the pantry shelves. Gone was any hope of catching a nap.

  I swiveled around to face the ancient computer and pressed the Power button. The machine groaned to life. It had been a gift from Josh’s grandparents when they’d gotten a new one, and it worked fine, so long as you didn’t have any plans for the rest of the day.

  We keep our to-do list on a clipboard hanging on the wall next to the computer, and I started going through it:

  Order napkins—Josh.

  RECYCLED ONES!—W

  Have you checked the price for recycled? Too expensive—Jeanine

  IS THAT WHAT YOU’LL TELL YOUR CHILDREN WHEN THEY ASK YOU WHY THERE ARE NO MORE TREES?—W

  Winnie always writes in capital letters. If there were cartoon bubbles floating over our heads with the words we say, Winnie’s would be in all caps. And they would smell like cinnamon Tic Tacs.

  Winnie Hammond, owner of the General Store, is our business partner for one simple reason: the original chocolate cream doughnut recipe was hers.

  We put Jeanine in charge of dealing with our suppliers because even though she’s only nine, she likes to yell at people. Plus, she’s a math genius, which keeps us from getting ripped off.

  Zoe helps out too. She’s five, but she’s already a decent baker. I know: five seems pretty young for baking, but with my mom, baking ranks even higher than swimming as a life skill. At twelve, I still only doggie paddle, but I make a wicked baked Alaska.

  Since Zoe likes to eat as much as she likes to bake, her help wasn’t so helpful at first. Then Josh came up with the idea of putting her in his old peewee hockey helmet during her shifts. No way a doughnut fits through the grill on that face guard. Problem solved.

  Finally, The Doughnut Stop website popped up on the computer screen. Our site’s not fancy or anything, but it gets the job done. Calvin, who works at the Gas Mart, is taking a web design class at Crellin Community College, so he did it just for the experience.

  First thing I did was check our emails. Just one from Riley at Stinky Cheese Farm, letting us know when to expect next week’s dairy delivery.

  Then I clicked on the Comments tab to see what people were saying about us. It was usually the same thing. Stuff like, “These doughnuts are amazing!” I’m not trying to brag, but we’ve got a good product, and at four in the morning when it’s snowing or when the sink is filled with dirty pastry guns, those comments are what get me out of bed or washing up—or whatever it is I should be doing instead of watching cat versus cucumber YouTube videos.

  TheChowingTrucker 20m ago

  Somebody told me about this place because I deliver to Albany pretty regular and that takes me by Petersville so I stopped in today. What kind of store doesn’t open until 4:00 in the afternoon? Had to wait around in the parking lot like they were selling Bon Jovi tix. Almost left. So glad I didn’t. Got to shoot a doughnut full of butterscotch cream—myself! Holy mama! Best doughnut ever. Going back next chance I get.

  Reply

  I felt my mouth stretch into a smile so big it split my chapped lower lip. Best doughnut ever. I knew exactly who this guy was. The Bon Jovi concert T-shirt was a dead giveaway.

  TheLuckyLibrarian 6 hours ago

  Can’t stop eating these doughnuts. You have to try them! Just incredible.

  In the interest of full disclosure, my son is one of the owners—the business guy, not the baker. But I’m telling you, even if he weren’t, I’d love these doughnuts. And I LOVE getting to choose the cream and filling the doughnut myself. A food AND an activity. Great for kids and adults.

  Reply

  Josh’s mom. She posts almost the same thing every day. So embarrassing. I mean, super nice, but still embarrassing.

  Anonymous 4 days ago

  DO NOT GO TO THE DOUGHNUT STOP!!!!!

  THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE DOUGHNUTS. I’VE GONE FOR THE PAST THREE SATURDAYS AND EACH TIME, THEY’VE RUN OUT AND I NEVER GOT ONE. I HEAR THE DOUGHNUTS AREN’T EVEN SO GREAT.

  Reply

  I froze.

  Do not go to The Doughnut Stop. Those seven words knocked the wind right out of me, like I’d been flying through the air on a swing, my sneakers touching the trees, and the next second, the ground had reached up and punched me in the face.

  Click. Click. Click. How do you delete?

  Windows shrunk. Windows multiplied. A new comment box opened. I slammed the mouse onto the counter.

  I’d never needed to get rid of a comment before. Josh updated the site. He’d know how, but I didn’t want him to see the words, and I didn’t want to wait.

  I couldn’t wait. I had to do it now. Because every second, one more person—maybe more—would see that comment and remember what it said even after I made it disappear.

  Click. Click.

  It wasn’t as if I didn’t know we had a supply problem. I just didn’t know how to fix it. Yet.

  Even with Zoe in the helmet, we couldn’t keep up with demand. The major obstacle to increasing doughnut production? The seventh grade. I’m all for education and everything, but do you know how much time is wasted in school? I’m not talking about cutting anything useful, just speeding things up and getting rid of waste, like health class.

  Actual health: very important. Waydin Middle School Health Class: useless and completely unrelated to actual health.

  Click—

  The comment window disappeared.

  Ugh!

  I got up and paced around waiting for the site to reload.

  When the comments were finally back up on the screen, I realized there was one I hadn’t read:

  Anonymous 4 days ago

  There’s a reason we don’t let kids run for President. It’s the same reason we shouldn’t let them run businesses. They’re kids! They don’t know what they’re doing. The Doughnut Stop is run by a kid, and it’s a total disaster.

  I was there last Saturday and that kid was all, “due to high demand, we have a one doughnut per customer limit.” Then they ran out anyway. They were supposed to be open for another two hours!! It would have been funny if I hadn’t driven almost an hour and really wanted a doughnut.

  Reply

  I jumped out of my chair. My insides felt all fizzy, like a soda somebody had shaken up.

  I needed to do something.

  I climbed over the ticket counter, turned on the sink, and started washing pastry guns.

  Squirt. Scrub.

  That kid? It had to be me. Josh had been visiting his grandparents last Saturday.

  Scrub. Rinse.

  Besides, Josh was taller than most adults. And since January, he had shoulders like that guy in the circus who wears leopards around his neck like scarves. Nobody was going to call him “that kid.”

  Squirt. Scrub.

  And maybe we should let kids run for president! At least kids know when something’s not working and say it. And—

  “Hey!”

  I dropped the pastry gun, which was now cleaner than it had been when I bought it. I turned around.

  It was Josh.

  “Hey, do you know how to delete comments on our site?”

  Josh let his hockey duffel fall to the floor. “Oh, jeez. I forgot. I usually do that, you know, but I was just…” He shook his hair in front of his face. “Did you see, I mean, was there something…” He didn’t finish.

  But Josh didn’t need to finish. The truth was floating right over his head in all caps.

  Chapter 3

  “You knew we had a problem,�
�� Josh said as he kicked his hockey bag behind the counter.

  “But I thought we had time to figure it out.”

  “We did.” Kick. “We do.” Kick.

  “‘Don’t go to The Doughnut Stop?’ Obviously not!” I shut the water off so hard, the cold knob came off in my hand.

  “Why are you mad at me? I didn’t write the stupid comments.” He’d turned to face me now but he was still hiding behind his hair.

  “Because you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie. I…withheld information because I thought sharing it would have a…destructive effect.”

  I rolled my eyes, cracking a smile against my will.

  In addition to being the star of the Petersville Ice Kings, Josh is the best English student at Waydin. It’s like all those words from all those books on the shelves in the library snuck out in the middle of the night and climbed upstairs into Josh’s brain while he was sleeping. He doesn’t even remember the names of all the books he’s read.

  “What if I had told you?” he said. “How would knowing about those comments have changed anything?”

  “That’s not the point.” I screwed the knob back into the faucet. “You should have told me.”

  Josh blew out hard, sending hair flying. “I didn’t know what to do. I’m sorry. I just didn’t want to…”

  “I know,” I said, because I did—because the reason he hadn’t wanted me to know was the reason he was my best friend in the first place. And now that the shock was wearing off, I could see his point. What good would my knowing have done?

  But some part of me just wouldn’t let it go. “How many have there been? Total. Like these.”

  “What does it matter?”

  “I just want to know,” I said, but I knew why it mattered. For the first time ever, I had a thing: The Doughnut Stop. I even had a nickname, “Doughnut Boy.” There was no way I could go back to being plain old Tris.

  “Please, just tell me,” I said.

  “I don’t know.” Josh’s eyes dropped to the floor. “A couple every week?”

  “Every week!”

  “See, this is why I didn’t tell you. It’s the internet. People say all kinds of stuff on the internet. According to the internet, dinosaurs helped build the pyramids. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “But this is true! We can’t make enough doughnuts, and I have no idea how to make more.”

  Right then, Dad came bopping through the door smiling ear to ear. You’d think if you’d just spent the last hour counting cans in a closet, you might be a little grouchy, but Dad doesn’t do grouchy. If he hadn’t become a banker, he’d have made a great kindergarten teacher.

  “Ready? If we’re going to make it back here for the meeting, we gotta leave now,” he said.

  “Oh, right.” I’d completely forgotten about the town meeting that night. It would be Petersville’s first ever. Jim, the mayor, had some big surprise he was unveiling, and it was all anybody had talked about for weeks.

  “I’ll take out the trash and clean the rest of the guns,” Josh said.

  “Okay, the ones I haven’t done are still in the sink.” I went back to the ticket office to get my backpack.

  “Wait for you in the car,” Dad called.

  Josh hurdled over the ticket counter and sat down in front of the computer. “Hey, don’t worry about the comments. I’ll delete them now.” He tapped away at the keyboard.

  “Great. Thanks. And if there are any—”

  “I swear, from now on, I will tell you every single horrible thing anybody ever says about you or The Doughnut Stop until the end of time. Sound good?” He was smiling under his hair.

  “Perfect. I can’t wait.”

  • • •

  The second Dad turned on the car, Hello!…Salam! blared out of the speakers.

  “Sorry.” He lowered the volume, then waved at me. “Salam!”

  “Can we please just turn it off?” I needed to think.

  “Sorry, got to listen to the whole lesson twice a day.”

  Good morning! Sabah el kheer! The woman sounded like a cheerful robot.

  “Sabah el kheer!” Dad repeated, imitating not just the accent but all her cheerful robot-ness too.

  When Dad’s not working on restaurant stuff, he’s teaching himself Arabic—or at least, that’s what he’s doing this month. Last month, he was watching YouTube videos to learn how to tap the trees around our house so we could make our own maple syrup. That was until Jeanine figured out that the trees he thought were maples were actually sycamores. Turns out, we don’t have any maple trees. Ever heard of sycamore syrup? Yeah, there’s a good reason for that.

  Thank you. Shukran.

  “Shukran. SHUkran? ShuKRAN?” Dad’s eyebrows waggled as he tried out the word.

  Every second of this car ride was going to be painful, but I would never forget my earphones ever again.

  • • •

  “I found it!” Jeanine shook a bunch of papers in Dad’s face as she slid into the back of the station wagon.

  How are you?…Kayf halik?

  “Hold on a sec.” Dad turned off the stereo.

  I shot him a look.

  “What? You just didn’t want to listen to it. She’s actually going to talk to me.”

  “I’m applying for the Young Leaders of America Scholarship!” Jeanine announced like this was exciting news for the entire universe.

  “That’s great!” Dad said. “What is it?”

  “One week in D.C. to see how government really works. And you get to go to the White House and meet with different members of Congress.” Jeanine’s head bounced up and down in the rearview mirror. “Isn’t that amazing?”

  “Amazing.” Dad nodded. Both my parents do a lot of nodding when Jeanine is talking.

  “I know, and we get a special tour of the White House. Not the one just everybody can get. We get to go into the Oval Office.”

  “What do you have to do to win?” I asked.

  “Just write a really good essay about how I’m a leader in the community. You’re supposed to explain how you’re making a difference. I can do that. No problem. I’m a killer essay writer.”

  “Isn’t what they really care about what you’re doing, not how good a writer you are?” I said.

  “The application says the people with the best essays will be selected, which means they want the best writers.”

  “I’m not sure that’s entirely right, Jeannie,” Dad said in the same careful way he tells Zoe that Henry, her rabbit, probably won’t learn to say, “Henry wants a carrot,” no matter how many times he hears her say it.

  I turned around to face Jeanine. “Yeah, I mean, if they want to know how you’re making a difference, don’t you think they’re judging people on that?”

  “How would you know? How many scholarships have you won?”

  “Jeanine,” Dad warned.

  Just so you know, it doesn’t bother me that I could never win those Solve-a-Thons or Geography Bees like Jeanine does. What bothers me is that my parents think they need to protect me from hearing Jeanine say that I couldn’t like it’s some big secret.

  Chapter 4

  Jim’s truck was there when we pulled up in front of the house. In addition to being the mayor, Jim’s the fix-it guy, and since our house is always in need of fixing, he’s over a lot—sometimes to fix the thing he just fixed. This isn’t because he can’t do it right the first time, but because what we really need is an exorcist. That’s the person you call when something is controlled by an evil spirit—I googled it.

  Just so you know, I don’t believe in witches or ghosts or monsters under my bed, but I’d swear on my KitchenAid mixer that our house has a mind of its own and likes to mess with us. It’s also the color of grape juice and looks like was built by a fifth-grade shop class.


  I call it the Purple Demon.

  My parents do not believe in the Purple Demon, even though no electrician, plumber, or fix-it person can tell them why all the lights go out several times a month or why the downstairs toilet always does a triple flush, flooding the bathroom.

  As soon as Dad stopped the car, Jeanine jumped out. “How much time do we have before the meeting?”

  “We’ll leave in about an hour,” Dad said.

  She gave a thumbs-up and took off across the lawn.

  “What’s the rush? You’re on break!” Dad called after her. My parents are always trying to get Jeanine to study less and spend more time outside.

  “I need to Skype Kevin about the scholarship!” she called back without stopping.

  Kevin Metz has been Jeanine’s best friend since they met in Gifted and Talented in kindergarten, and somehow they’re still JeanineandKevin even though we live in Petersville now.

  “We’re home!” Dad called, as we came through the door.

  “Hi!” Mom shouted from the kitchen.

  Dad hung up his jacket and headed for the stairs. “I’m grabbing a quick shower before the meeting!”

  “Good, I can smell you from here!”

  “Very funny!”

  “Shhhhh!” Zoe’s hand waved over the back of the living room couch.

  “‘Hello’ to you too,” Dad said as he jogged up the stairs.

  “Five! Four! Three! Two! One! AAAAAANNN!” Zoe shouted at the television.

  My parents think TV rots your brain unless you’re watching a show that teaches you how to cook something. Basically, they’ll let us watch anything if it has to do with food. I’ve tried telling them that there are plenty of educational channels we could watch, like the History Channel or Discovery, but they said I could read about all that other stuff—which doesn’t really make sense, because I could read a cookbook too. I think they just didn’t want to change the rule. In our house, once a rule is made, my parents stick to it even when it stops making sense—or, in this case, never made sense. I think someone must have told them that to be good parents, you can’t rethink your own rules.