Truth Without the Trimmings

by Diane Muldrow

  chapter 14

  “The judges are coming to us,” Molly told Amanda, Peichi, and Natasha. It was Wednesday, the night of the Science Fair. The girls had set their table up in a corner of the gym along with all of the other sixth-grade science projects.

  On their table were examples of bread and cake that had risen because yeast or baking powder had been added. They also showed some flatbreads, like matzo, that were made without yeast. Behind their displays was a three-sided project board. It displayed pictures and facts about yeast and fermentation.

  “This looks interesting,” said one of the judges. “Tell us about it.”

  Molly stood, as they had planned, and spoke first. Her voice shook as she began. “Yeast is a microorganism that causes a chemical reaction within food,” she began. “From earliest times, yeast cells were used to break down the nutrients in cereal grain.”

  “The byproducts were carbon dioxide and alcohol,” Peichi took over. “This process was known as fermentation.”

  Peichi sat and Natasha stood to say her part. “By four thousand B.C., ancient Egyptians were using fermentation to make beer and wine and also to bake bread. Like beer and wine production, bread baking also depends on the action of yeast cells.”

  Amanda concluded their talk. “The bread dough contains nutrients that these cells digest. The alcohol that is produced contributes to that wonderful smell of baking bread. The carbon dioxide gas makes the dough rise.”

  Shawn watched the girls from across the room. Their project looked so good. She picked up the small pulley she had devised for their group. It was made of two empty thread spools hung on metal triangles made from hangers. The spools made up a simple pulley. A rope was wrapped around them and a bucket was attached at the bottom. The idea was that the two spools together made it easier to lift a bucket than lifting it over a single spool. It might have been an okay project, but the wires were taped together badly and didn’t hold together. They needed to be retaped at the last minute.

  This project is pathetic, she thought as she looked at her group’s presentation. The judges didn’t say much to Shawn when they came by her table. They just made a few marks in their notebook. We’ll probably get a really lousy grade, Shawn thought. But this group deserves it. They had no poster to support their project, only the one-page report that Shawn had written up late the night before. Now she sat at the table alone. Angie and the other girls had immediately run off to hang around at Chris Ratner’s table.

  Shawn felt like the night dragged on for hours. Finally, though, Molly came by. “You don’t seem to be having much fun,” she observed.

  “Tell me about it,” Shawn agreed. “How did you do?”

  “We got an honorable mention,” Molly told her. “I guess that means we’ll get a good grade. We had fun doing it, too. Last night we baked all the cakes and breads. It was crazy! We practically had to hold Amanda back, the cakes smelled so good.”

  “I should have worked with you guys,” Shawn said miserably.

  “I’ll remind you of that next time a group project comes up,” Molly said with a light laugh. “Hey, I have some good news for you.”

  “What?” Shawn asked.

  “Winter break! It starts right now!”

  Shawn smiled for the first time all evening. “Way to go!” she cheered.

  “Do you want to come out to Pizza Roma with us? We’re planning the menu for our New Year’s brunch”

  “Definitely!” Shawn replied.

  chapter 15

  Amanda awoke as the first gray light of morning streamed into her window. Dressing quickly in jeans and a red sweater, she pulled a box of wrapped gifts from under her bed. She carried it downstairs and put it under the tree in the living room.

  Then she knelt at the coffee table and scribbled out a quick note to her family.

  She ran outside and found Natasha and her parents waiting for her.

  “We’re so glad you’re joining us this morning,” Mrs. Ross said.

  “Well, this is something I really want to do,” Amanda said. She smiled at Natasha.

  The group walked silently down Eighth Avenue, heading for the big square, brick building that many adults still called the armory. Although the building used to be a place where military supplies were stored, it had been converted into a homeless shelter many years ago.

  A light snow began falling and Amanda stuck out her tongue to catch a flake. She glanced at the still-dark windows of all the houses. For a moment, she had the urge to run up to the houses, ring the bells, and shout, “It’s snowing! Come on out and see! We’re going to have a white Christmas!” But, of course, she knew this was a crazy idea—something a little kid might do. I’m not a kid anymore, she thought. I’ve acted like a selfish baby, and it’s going to stop.

  When she reached the armory building, she had a sudden desire to run back home. She didn’t know what she’d see inside, and it scared her. For a moment, she stood staring at the building, her hands jammed in her pockets.

  “Come on in, Amanda,” Mr. Ross said. “You don’t want to stand out in the snow all day, do you?”

  There was no sense being frightened, Amanda told herself. Natasha and her parents did this every year. And she truly wanted to be an unselfish person. This seemed like a good place to start.

  Amanda pulled open the heavy door and entered a dark lobby. “This way,” Mrs. Ross said. “We’ll work on serving the food.” Voices and the smell of food came from down the hall to the right. Mrs. Ross held open a swinging door, and they entered a large, well-lit room with many tables.

  Amanda followed them over to a long table full of dishes and trays. Other volunteers also stood in a line behind the table. Amanda stood behind a tray of steaming scrambled eggs. Natasha stood next to her, ready to serve blueberry and corn muffins.

  Just then, a woman in a lightweight pink coat with ripped pockets got in the line. She had a skinny girl, about four or five years old, with her. The girl’s coat didn’t have any buttons left on it. They moved down the line, getting pancakes and bacon. “Happy holidays,” Natasha said as she used tongs to put a warm blueberry muffin on each of their plates.

  “Merry Christmas,” Amanda said, scooping eggs onto their plate. She smiled at the little girl. “It’s snowing,” she told her. “Did you wish for snow this Christmas?”

  The girl nodded shyly.

  “You made a good wish! Thanks for getting us some snow.”

  “You’re welcome,” the girl replied. Her thin, small face suddenly blossomed into a beautiful smile. At that moment, Amanda understood why people said helping others brought them so much joy.

  As Amanda continued to serve food, she began thinking about how Dish had started. They’d cooked up food for Justin’s family after a fire had ruined their kitchen. They’d felt good about doing that. They’d also been happy when they brought the meals over to Peichi’s neighbors. Amanda realized that feeding people really was a way of showing love—and doing it felt great. Dish should cook more for people who need help, she thought. I think I’ll bring that up at our next meeting.

  For the next hour, she kept serving eggs. As the time passed she grew more at home in her surroundings. She found it easier to smile and say, “Merry Christmas!” in a strong, cheery voice.

  Amanda was scooping up some eggs when Natasha tapped her shoulder. “Look who’s here,” she said.

  Molly, Peichi, and Shawn were crossing the room, coming toward them. Each girl held the gingerbread houses she’d made. “Hey,” Molly greeted them. “I saw your note when I woke up and thought this was a great idea. Why didn’t you tell me you were going to do this?”

  “I didn’t know if you’d want to—on Christmas and all,” Amanda explained.

  “You brought your houses!” Natasha said. “What a great idea!”

  Shawn placed her house down on the table. “Yeah. You can’t keep these forever, so we figured we might as well put them to use where a lot of people can enjoy them. Believe me, it wa
sn’t easy carrying them over here in the snow!”

  Peichi and Molly put their houses on both ends of the table. “That makes it look more jolly,” Peichi said.

  The woman volunteering to Amanda’s left spoke up then. “Would you girls mind taking over for my family and me? We have to drive to our cousins’ house in New Jersey and we’d love to get on the road.”

  “No problem,” Peichi said as she reached for a spoon.

  “The second shift has arrived,” Shawn added.

  On the day after Christmas, the Chef Girls sat in the Moores’ living room, still planning their New Year’s brunch. “I can’t believe how much cool cooking stuff Mom and Dad gave us. I have to grill something with my new electric grill. And we’ll have to make waffles with the waffle maker,” Molly said.

  “I think the rotisserie is the best cooking thing we got,” Amanda said.

  “I have great news,” Natasha said. “You guys really impressed my parents! They liked you so much at Hanukkah, and they thought it was great the way you came to serve breakfast at Christmas. And Mrs. Moore and my mom had a really nice talk on the phone the other day. Because of all that, they said I can sleep over. This will be my first sleepover ever, in my whole life!”

  “Fantastic!” Molly cheered.

  “Oh, face it! It was the mandelbrodt that changed their minds,” Amanda joked. Did that sound selfish and egotistical? she wondered. She decided she wouldn’t worry about it. Her plan was to become a better person, not a perfect one, and she’d never have any fun if she was always worrying about doing or saying the perfect thing.

  “How would you guys feel if Athena slept over, too? She’s a cool girl,” Molly asked. “And she likes to cook, too. I know she’d love to help us get everything ready.”

  “If you’re inviting her, could I invite Angie?” Shawn asked.

  “No way!” Amanda cried.

  “Why do you hate her so much?” Shawn asked. “You’ve never even given her a chance.”

  “Yeah, well, if I saw Dracula coming down the street, I wouldn’t give him a chance, either,” Amanda answered. “Angie is not sleeping over at my house.” Now Amanda didn’t care one bit if she was being selfish. Selfish or not—sleeping beside Angie Martinez was more than she could ever stand. And Amanda already knew that she wouldn’t have any fun at her own party if Angie was there making fun of her for the entire night. Amanda glanced at Shawn’s frown. She sighed. “Okay, she can come to brunch, but that’s it.”

  “That’s a great idea!” Peichi said. “The sleepover will be for just the five of us. And we’ll invite other people to come over for the brunch on New Year’s Day.”

  “I like it,” Molly said. She went to the computer and turned it on. “Let’s compose our e-mail invitation right now. Who should we invite?”

  “Angie,” Shawn said.

  “Athena,” Molly added.

  “Tessa,” Amanda said. “And Justin! And Connor and Omar.”

  Molly wrinkled her nose. “Boys?” she asked. “Do we have to invite boys?”

  “Oh, come on, Molls, it will be fun! Just like cooking class!” Amanda encouraged her.

  “Yeah, I think we should!” Shawn agreed. She smiled at Amanda.

  “Oh, all right.” Molly logged on to the Internet and began typing e-mail addresses. Then she smiled. “This is going to be great!”

  chapter 16

  Amanda shut off the vacuum cleaner. “I had no idea our room was like a giant dust ball,” she said to Molly.

  Molly stopped cleaning their full-length mirror. “I know,” she agreed. “This mirror is super-smeared. We should make this party an annual thing, so our room will get at least one big cleaning every year!”

  “It’s going to be so fun. What pajamas are you going to wear?”

  “I have no idea,” Molly replied. “Listen, Amanda, can I talk to you about something?”

  Amanda sat on her bed. “Sure. What?”

  “This is the end of the year. I want to start the new year fresh, without any bad feelings.”

  Amanda was pretty sure she knew what this was going to be about. “I thought you weren’t mad at me anymore.”

  Molly sat down beside her. “I’m not. But I still have one question that’s been bothering me. Why did you lie to me about being sick? Didn’t you think you could tell me what you wanted to do?”

  “You would have just said it wasn’t fair and there was no way I could leave early.”

  “Maybe I would have,” Molly agreed. “But maybe we could have worked something out. Like, we could have said you could leave early if you cooked extra Dish meals for our next job, or did all the delivery, or something like that.”

  “You would have really thought that was okay?” Amanda asked.

  “I think so,” Molly said. “I think I would have done it if you’d explained to me how much you really, really wanted to go. And I would have tried to convince everybody else that it would be okay, too.”

  “I should have trusted you to be on my side,” Amanda realized. “You’ve always been on my side. It was dumb of me to think you wouldn’t be there for me this time.”

  Molly put her arm around Amanda and the twins hugged.

  “Another plate of hot nachos coming up,” Molly announced, as she pulled the chili-and-cheese-covered chips from the oven.

  Amanda opened the refrigerator. “Don’t tell me we’re out of soda!” she cried, horrified.

  “There’s more in our fridge downstairs,” Molly told her.

  Amanda sighed with relief. “Thank goodness!” She ran down the steps to the basement.

  Molly brought the tray into the living room. She set it down on the trivets they’d placed on the coffee table. “Manda’s getting more soda,” she announced.

  “I’m tired of playing Charades,” Peichi said. “Let’s do something else.” She turned on the TV and found the channel that showed the crowd in Times Square. They were all waiting for midnight, when the huge silver ball would drop. “Someday I’m going to go to Manhattan and do that,” she said. “It looks like such a blast! It must be the biggest party in the world!”

  “Want to play Truth or Dare?” Molly suggested.

  “I’m not sure how to play that,” Natasha admitted.

  “It’s easy,” Shawn said. “You have to choose if you want to answer a personal question or do a dare. But the tricky part is that you don’t know what the question or the dare is ahead of time. It could be a really personal question, or a really embarrassing dare!”

  “I don’t know,” Natasha said. “It doesn’t sound like much fun.”

  “Oh, it is!” Peichi said. “Try it, you’ll like it.”

  “Yeah, it’s usually fun, but can we trust Amanda to tell the truth?” Shawn said.

  Amanda was walking into the room with soda. She got there just in time to hear Shawn’s remark. “I made one mistake and I said I was sorry,” she said to Shawn angrily as she put the soda on the table. “When are you going to drop it?”

  “You don’t have a right to blow up just because I said what I think,” Shawn told her.

  “I’ll say what I think, then,” Amanda came back at her. “I’m pretty tired of you treating us like your secondchoice friends. You’ve been ditching Dish ever since you became a cheerleader. You even ditched us on the science project. I thought we were best friends—but then you went and told Angie that I like Justin. I would never do that to you!”

  “What?” Shawn cried.

  “She knew that I like him! She told me so at Connor’s party.”

  “She did not get that info from me!” Shawn insisted. “I would never do that! Either someone else told her or she figured it out for herself.”

  Amanda remembered that she’d been talking to Justin just before Angie spoke to her. Maybe Angie really had figured it out on her own.

  “I agree with Amanda on one thing. You haven’t been hanging with us as much as you used to,” Molly said.

  Shawn looked uncomfortable. �
�I love Dish and really want to be a part of it. I love cheerleading, too, though. It’s not easy balancing two groups of friends,” she said. “You guys are really different. It’s not like I can just get everyone to hang out together. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt anyone’s feelings. I never wanted to.”

  “I guess it must be hard,” Peichi said. “I just wish you’d prefer us to them sometimes.”

  “I wish I’d done the Science Fair with you,” Shawn said.

  “You would have had a much better project,” Peichi said bluntly.

  “I know. Believe me, I know! I’m sorry, guys. I’ll try to be around more next year, which is in less than fifteen minutes,” Shawn said. “I’ll make it my New Year’s resolution. And I’ll get off your case, Amanda—if you get off mine.”

  “Deal,” Amanda agreed. “My New Year’s resolution is never to lie to you guys again.”

  Natasha cleared her throat anxiously. All the girls looked at her. “As long as we’re all telling the truth…” she said.

  Molly and Amanda glanced at each other. Was this it? Would she tell them her big secret?

  Natasha coughed and looked up at the ceiling. For a moment, they thought she’d changed her mind. But then she bit her lip and began again. “This is something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while. I just didn’t know how to say it. So…this is the thing…I’m adopted.”

  Molly caught Amanda’s eye and gave a little sigh of relief. Amanda knew how she felt. They’d both imagined that Natasha’s problem was much worse than this. She was obviously upset about it. But to them, it hardly seemed like a problem at all.

  “I only found out last year,” she went on. “I found some papers and asked my parents, and they told me they adopted me when I was a little baby. I’ve been upset about it ever since I found out.”