Truth Without the Trimmings

by Diane Muldrow

  happyface: Why did you leave me?!

  mooretimes2: hi, sorry. We’re here.

  happyface: I thought you two left!

  mooretimes2: heeheehee, sorry...So, did you get the e-mail from Connor?

  happyface: dunno...hold on, I’ll check it out, brb

  mooretimes2: k

  happyface: back, yeah, it looks like lots of fun!

  mooretimes2: Molly talking now, kicked Amanda off, she was hogging the computer, she had to go fix her hair or something...heeheehee...anyway, yeah, it looks like fun, but one problem...

  happyface: ?

  mooretimes2: We have Ms. Barlow’s party to cater...

  happyface: what? hey! no one told me about this! what’s the deal?

  mooretimes2: we ran into Ms. B after school and she asked us to cater the party. Manda and I think it will pay pretty good.

  happyface: sweet! I will do it then.

  mooretimes2: ummm...do you know anything about catering?

  happyface: no, I was figuring you would...oh, please say you do!?!?

  mooretimes2: nope...oh gosh, we’re in trouble now...

  happyface: ok, I’ll try and figure out just what goes into a catering job...

  mooretimes2: ok, thanks! We will ask mom and dad 2. Got 2 eat now. Bye.

  happyface: byeeeeeeeee! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! Call me later.

  Molly signed off and went to the kitchen. Amanda was already there, along with her parents. They sat around the table that was already set and laid out for dinner.

  “Mom, do you know anything about catering?” Molly asked as she sat.

  “Amanda was just telling us that Dish accepted a job to cater Ms. Barlow’s party,” Mom said.

  Dad walked over to the intercom and buzzed Matthew’s room. “Come on downstairs, sport,” he said. “It’s time for dinner!”

  “Amanda says you aren’t exactly sure what catering is,” their mom went on. “Girls, was it wise to accept a job when you don’t know what you’ll be doing?”

  Amanda shrugged. “How hard could it be? We just make a lot of food, right?”

  “Oh no, it’s much more than that! You have to first make the food…and lots of it! Do you even know how many people are coming to this party? Or what kind of food Ms. Barlow wants you to prepare?”

  “Well, no,” Amanda admitted with a sinking feeling. “But I can call her tonight and find out.”

  “But preparing the food is just the beginning!” Mom continued.

  “It is?” Molly asked, feeling worried.

  “Absolutely. You girls will have to prepare all the food according to Ms. Barlow’s menu, deliver it, arrange the food attractively on the platters, serve it, and then clean up after the party—all the dishes, everything! You’ll need to stay for the entire party. And since you’ll be serving, you’ll all have to look nice. Ms. Barlow might even want you wearing matching outfits, like black pants and white blouses.”

  Together, Amanda and Molly groaned.

  “Oh no…I had no idea it involved all that!” Amanda said.

  Mrs. Moore smiled sympathetically. “But look on the bright side—it usually pays a lot, too!”

  “Well, that doesn’t hurt!” Molly said, trying to be optimistic.

  “Especially not when we have so many gifts to buy,” Amanda said as their mother dished out the roast beef and mashed potatoes.

  “Well, we already committed to Ms. Barlow, so we’re stuck doing this job even if we wanted to back out,” Molly said. “Mom, can we have an emergency meeting of the Chef Girls here tomorrow?”

  “I suppose so,” Mrs. Moore agreed.

  “Thanks!” said both twins at the same time.

  Their mother laughed. “All right, but eat your dinner now, it’s going to get cold.”

  “First I have to call Shawn to tell her!” said Molly as she rushed from the table to get the phone.

  “And I should go e-mail Peichi and Natasha about the meeting!” Amanda also left the table.

  “Get back here, girls!” Mrs. Moore called.

  Molly and Amanda came back to the table.

  “Let’s eat together—as a family, please,” their mom said. “You can make your calls after dinner.”

  After dinner was done, Amanda hopped right back on the Internet. Peichi was still online, so Amanda quickly sent her an IM.

  mooretimes2: hi, it’s Amanda, got 2 tell u something...

  happyface: Hi, what’s up?

  mooretimes2: After school Ms. Barlow asked me and Molls to cater this party she wants to have. And we just found out that catering is a really big job. We’re going to have an emergency meeting tomorrow at my place after school.

  happyface: Ok, I’ll be there. What day is Ms. Barlow’s party?

  mooretimes2: It’s the 16th

  happyface: same day as Connor’s party?

  Oh no…Amanda thought. She needed the money from catering for Ms. Barlow. But she couldn’t miss this great party and her chance to be around Justin. Peichi IM’d her again.

  happyface: Hello? U there?

  mooretimes2: yeah, sorry. It is the same day.

  happyface: 2 bad

  mooretimes2: would you email Natasha about the meeting? g2g, ttyl, bye

  happyface: No problem! Bye again.

  “So, what do you plan to do about the case of the two parties on the same day?” Molly asked as they were lying on their beds that night.

  “I don’t know,” Amanda answered. I’ll just have to find a way to do both, she thought to herself.

  chapter 6

  “Why did you take a big job like this without asking us first?” Shawn demanded. The Chef Girls were sitting in the Moore’s kitchen, talking about the catering job.

  “It just seemed like such a good thing. I was sure you’d all want to do it,” Amanda said defensively. “Besides, couldn’t you use the money? I know Molly and I could.”

  “Yeah,” Shawn admitted. “The extra cash would be really helpful.”

  “I guess we all could,” Peichi agreed.

  The timer rang. Molly got oven mitts and took a tray out of the toaster oven. “Oh, they came out so cute,” she said. The girls had cut pieces of white bread into circles with a cookie cutter. Then they stuffed them into the holes of a small muffin pan, forming little cups. They’d put them in the toaster oven to toast. Now they’d come out as little toast cups.

  This was something Mrs. Cheng had told Peichi about after seeing them at a party she went to. “Mom said that these were filled with some creamy mushroom stuffing,” Peichi had reported. “But that sounded too complicated to make for an after-school snack.”

  Instead, the girls came up with the idea of filling the cups with tuna salad and then sprinkling chopped cheddar cheese on top. “Like a tuna melt,” Molly said. Once the cups were filled, they put them back in the oven just long enough for the cheese to melt.

  “These are awesome,” Shawn said when she bit into one of them.

  The phone rang and Molly turned to get it, but Amanda grabbed it first. “She always does that,” Molly laughed. It was true, too. Amanda had an amazing talent for always beating her twin to the phone.

  “Oh, hi, Ms. Barlow,” Amanda said. “We’re all here talking about your party. Oh, okay, hang on a sec.” Amanda grabbed a pen and pad from the table and returned to the phone. “I’m ready. Fifteen people. Five are vegetarians. Four of them don’t eat dairy food.” She paused. “Wait. Do all the vegetarians eat dairy?”

  “Oh, please let them eat dairy,” Shawn said. “Otherwise what will we give them—leaves?”

  Peichi tapped Amanda’s arm. “Ask her if the vegetarians who don’t eat dairy are vegans,” she said.

  “Ms. Barlow, hold on,” Amanda said. She covered the mouthpiece. “Peichi, what is a vegan?” she whispered.

  “A vegan doesn’t eat any animal products—not dairy, or eggs, or even honey. Just check to make sure!” Peichi replied.

  “Okay, I’m back,” Amanda said into the phone. “N
ow, are any of the guests vegans? That’s a vegetarian who doesn’t eat any animal products,” Amanda said, trying to sound knowledgeable. “No? Okay. Now, for the menu… A buffet? That’s fine. Dessert? We were thinking festive …Christmas cookies, that sort of thing…we know how to make pie. We even learned how to make our own crust in cooking class. Oh, apple crisp? I think we can do that…Okay, thanks, Ms. Barlow. Bye.”

  Amanda looked down at her notes, then faced her friends. “She’s not picky about the menu, as long as it is elegant and delicious!” Amanda struck a dramatic pose, imitating Ms. Barlow. “She said she wants us to have creative freedom with the menu. And she wants an absolutely marvelous, fabulous array of desserts!”

  “Oh, is that all?” Shawn said. “How much is she paying us for all this?”

  “We haven’t really talked about money,” Amanda admitted. “We’ll do it next time she calls.”

  “We’d better,” Molly agreed. “All this food is going to cost a lot, plus we’re going to be doing a ton of work.”

  “I think I’ll ask my mom to teach me how to make little cards on the computer to place by each dish on the buffet. That way, the vegetarians and the people who don’t eat dairy food will know what they can eat,” Peichi suggested.

  “That’s a really good idea!” said Natasha.

  Amanda took five cookbooks down from the kitchen bookshelf. She staggered back under their weight before dropping them on the table with a loud thunk. “We’d better start finding recipes,” she said.

  “First let’s talk about what we already know how to make,” Natasha suggested. “A good vegetarian appetizer is hummus. That’s made from chickpeas. And baba ghanouj—it’s made out of roasted eggplant. We can serve both of those with warm pita bread. I love that.”

  “We could make baked brie,” Amanda suggested.

  “What’s that?” Peichi asked.

  “Brie is a kind of cheese,” Amanda explained. “It has this kinda hard white stuff on the outside, called rind, and the inside is soft and yummy!”

  “Sounds delicious!” Peichi said.

  “To bake it, you wrap it in pastry, like Phyllo dough, and you bake it in the oven until it gets all warm and gooey,” Amanda continued. “This cookbook has the baked brie made two different ways. I’ll put a bookmark in here.”

  Shawn thumbed through Dish, the cookbook that the girls were putting together. It contained all their favorite recipes. “Carmen’s biscotti cookies are pretty fabulous,” she said, finding the recipe in the book.

  “We also have a recipe in there for pie crust,” Peichi said to Shawn. “We could make an apple pie. Or pumpkin.”

  The girls got to work putting together old recipes and new ones. The kitchen grew unusually quiet. Only the sound of turning pages broke the stillness.

  After several minutes, Natasha spoke. “I asked Mom if I could invite you guys over for the first night of Hanukkah and she said yes. So, um, do you think you might want to come?”

  “We’ll have to ask,” Molly answered. Mrs. Ross wasn’t her favorite person. She was so formal. Molly knew Amanda felt the same way. The idea of spending an entire evening with her wasn’t too appealing. But for Natasha’s sake she’d be willing to do it. “I don’t see why not,” she added.

  “Yeah, I bet Mom will say yes,” Amanda agreed.

  “My dad will probably say okay,” Shawn said.

  “My parents, too,” said Peichi. “It sounds like fun. Do we have to bring gifts or food?”

  “No, you don’t have to worry about that. My mom will take care of everything.”

  “You’re lucky,” Peichi said. “You don’t have to wait as long for your gifts, and you have eight nights of gift giving.”

  “That’s true, but it’s just one gift a night,” Natasha reminded her.

  “I guess so,” Peichi said. “I asked for new in-line skates and I’m going crazy wondering if I’ll get them. I wish I could find out sooner.”

  “Natasha, is it weird for you, not celebrating Christmas?” Shawn asked. “I mean, do you feel, like, left out?”

  Natasha thought about this question for a moment. “When I was little I felt that way,” she admitted. “I wondered why Santa didn’t give gifts to Jewish kids. It kind of hurt my feelings, you know.”

  “You must have thought Santa was a big creep!” Peichi exclaimed.

  “Sometimes I did, but mostly I just didn’t understand it,” Natasha said.

  “Do you still feel bad about it?” Amanda asked.

  “No,” Natasha said. “Not at all. I understand it now—it’s just how different religions are celebrated. And it’s not like I sit around on Christmas feeling sad that I don’t have a bunch of presents to open. Every Christmas morning my parents and I go serve a Christmas breakfast at the homeless shelter.”

  “Wow!” said Shawn. “That’s really nice of you.”

  “Majorly nice,” Peichi agreed.

  “It really is,” Molly said. She tried to picture Mrs. Ross smiling and being jolly on Christmas. It was hard to imagine. Still, she was doing a good thing, so maybe she had a kind heart, even though she usually seemed so stern.

  Natasha smiled. “It’s my family’s tradition. And we usually go to a movie afterward, which is fun, too.”

  Matthew came into the kitchen with his best friend and neighbor, Ben Bader. “Hey, I smell something good,” he said. “Can we have some?”

  There were four tuna cups left in the tray. “Help yourselves,” Molly offered. Matthew couldn’t get his cup out of the tray and wound up with a handful of warm, cheesy tuna. He flipped it into his mouth with a loud popping sound. Then he stuck the small toast cup on his nose. “Hey, I’m a pig. Oink! Oink!”

  “You sure are,” Amanda quipped. She took a tuna toast cup out of the tray and handed it to Ben. “Now get out of here, you two, we’re trying to work.”

  “This is good,” Ben said as he and Matthew left.

  “Oink!” Matthew shouted.

  “Little boys are so crazy,” Peichi said, smiling.

  “All boys are crazy,” Shawn added.

  Talking about boys made Amanda remember Connor’s party. “I wonder how late Ms. Barlow’s party will go,” she said. “Connor’s party ends at about eleven. Maybe we can catch the second half of it.” She pictured Justin sitting there at the party, looking bored and then suddenly smiling brightly when she arrived.

  “Forget it,” Molly said. “The Barlow party can’t possibly end before ten. By the time we clean up it will definitely be past eleven.”

  “We can clean up as we go,” Amanda suggested.

  “Maybe,” Molly said. “But we’ll be serving. Remember?”

  Amanda sighed and sunk into her chair. This was no fair. There had to be a way she could do both things.

  Shawn looked up at the clock and jumped up from her chair. “I didn’t realize it was so late!” she cried. “I’ve got to go!”

  “Where are you going?” Peichi asked.

  “Ummm…” Shawn mumbled. “Uh…the, uh…my science group is getting together to plan our science project.”

  The Chef Girls exchanged quick glances. “What’s your project on?” Molly asked.

  “We’re not sure yet,” Shawn said. “Bye.”

  “She sure left fast,” Amanda grumbled when Shawn was gone. “I guess she was in a hurry to get to her new friends.”

  “She was late,” Peichi offered.

  “Well, I guess we should start working on our science project, too,” stated Molly.

  Amanda tipped her chair back and balanced on it. “I wonder what their project will be—probably the science of cheerleading. I can just imagine it.” She began speaking in a high, squeaky voice. “During this cheer we will stick our arms out at a fifty-degree angle. These cheers are very scientific.”

  The girls laughed at this. “No, they’ll do that pyramid they do at games and call it ancient Egyptian science,” Peichi said.

  Amanda straightened her chair with a hard c
lunk on the floor. She sat forward and thrust her chin into her hands. “What does she see in those girls, anyway?” she asked. “Angie Martinez is so stuck-up. I think it’s disloyal of Shawn to be friends with someone who is so rude to us. It’s like she doesn’t even care how mean Angie is to her best friends—like it’s okay with her. Ever since she became a cheerleader, everything’s changed. She’s been our best friend since we were little and now cheerleading has ruined everything!”

  Molly cleared her throat. “Manda, you need to chill a little about this whole thing with Shawn and the cheerleaders. Mom said we’d all be making new friends once we got to middle school—and she was right. I’m friends with Athena, you’re friends with Tessa. And Shawn’s friends with Angie.”

  Amanda said seriously, “I know, Molls. And I don’t mind if Shawn has other friends, like we do. But the difference is that our friends aren’t always putting Shawn down. They’re nice to her, like they’re nice to us. But Angie either ignores us or makes fun of us. And she does it right in front of Shawn, and Shawn doesn’t say anything to her—she doesn’t even tell her to cut it out. All I know is that I would never let anyone talk about my friends the way Angie does.”

  There was an awkward silence. No one seemed to know what to say. Amanda was definitely mad, but she’d made a good point. Did Shawn even care how her new friends treated her old friends? And if she did care, why didn’t she act like it?

  chapter 7

  For the rest of that day, and all the next, Amanda set her mind to one single problem: how she could cater Ms. Barlow’s holiday affair and still make it to Connor’s party.

  “Manda, you’re not paying attention,” Molly said in frustration Wednesday night after supper. They sat together in the kitchen.

  “What’s that?” Amanda asked. “What did you say?”

  “Hello! We’re supposed to be deciding on the menu for the Barlow party.”

  “Didn’t we do that already?”

  “No! We had a preliminary menu. And now we need to make the final menu. Come on, Manda! I really need your help with all this!”