While Margo pounded herself in the head, Manny approached quietly. She had seen him many times before; he was the person who put out more food as the trays were emptied. Lunch Lady Lois was the chef and the person who ran the operation, and Lunch Lady Kim and Lunch Lady Abby were the two overworked servers, but Manny seemed to do everything else. His attention was making her self-conscious, so she ceased the punishment.
“Why are you doing that to yourself?” Manny asked.
“I always smack myself around whenever I get something really wrong,” Margo explained. “To remind myself not to get my hopes up. It doesn’t work, though,” she added with a sigh.
“I overheard what you said to Lunch Lady Lois, about the food not being what it’s supposed to be.”
“Yeah. Pretty stupid, huh? I shouldn’t be disappointed, though. It does taste delicious.”
“There’s a good reason for that,” Manny said, lowering his voice. He glanced at Lunch Lady Lois, who was continuing to do paperwork. “She does add something to the food to make it taste the way it does. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but I see a lot of things in this kitchen, a lot. And I don’t want you to hit yourself in the head like that when you don’t deserve it.”
“You mean, there is something in the food?” Margo squeaked.
“Yes. A very special ingredient.”
“What’s that?” she whispered, her eyes wide. Margo’s fingers trembled as she hit record on her phone app.
“The secret ingredient is … love.”
“Oh, give me a break!” Margo snapped.
“Shhh!” Manny cautioned. Fortunately, Lunch Lady Lois was completely absorbed in her task and hadn’t noticed the outburst.
“I’m sorry, but you got my hopes up and then you served me that baloney,” Margo complained. “She makes her food with love. I mean, really? I’ve got to go. I need to find another story to mess up.”
“But it’s true,” Manny insisted. He grabbed Margo’s arm as she passed him. “You seem like a nice kid. You didn’t mess this up. I’ll show you.”
Manny took one more glance at Lunch Lady Lois as he crossed to the stove. It was a huge black iron industrial appliance with eight burners and two ovens beneath it. On the counter next to it was a spice rack. “This is what she uses to season the food,” Manny explained.
Margo read the labels. “Garlic powder, lemon pepper, onion salt, rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano … so what? My mom uses these same spices.”
Manny held up a finger and put his hand on a large metal box on the counter next to the spice rack. “But this is what she uses to give it flavor,” Manny said. He took a key from his key ring and unlocked the box. Lifting the lid, he revealed another spice rack, but these spices were in small jam jars or simply in plastic bags. The containers were hand-labeled in a spidery cursive. Sometimes there wasn’t even a name, simply a symbol. Margo was only able to decipher a few of them: curiosity, patience, confidence, generosity, honesty.
“What are all these?” Margo murmured.
“The spices of life,” Manny answered. He held up a jar full of pink powder. On the label was an image of a heart with an arrow through it. “This is love, by the way,” he said, handing it to Margo. She turned it over in her hand, holding it up to the light and peering at the contents. Diamondlike crystals glittered from within the pink dust.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, handing it back. “What’s this one?” She pointed to a jar filled with what looked like sticky blue burrs, prickly and sharp, like something one might find matted in the fur of long-haired dogs.
“That’s truth. It’s hard to swallow.”
“No offense, but these seem an awful lot like … well, like magic. Is Lunch Lady Lois a … a witch?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Manny gestured at Lunch Lady Lois, who had let her hair out of the netting. It snaked down her back in thick, luscious black coils. “Haven’t you seen all the black cats roaming around the school grounds? Those are hers. She’s crazy about black cats. That’s her broom over there.” Manny pointed to an ordinary-looking push broom standing in a corner.
“That doesn’t look like a witch’s broom. A witch’s broom is supposed to be knobby and have a big clump of straw at the end.”
“What era are you living in, the eighteenth century?”
Manny laughed. “Witches don’t ride those anymore. Do we still drive around in Model Ts?”
“But her teeth are so straight, and her hair isn’t … you know, straggly.”
“Last year she wore braces to fix her overbite. And anyone can find a good hair conditioner.”
“Manny!” Lunch Lady Lois called from the counter. Manny quickly shut the spice rack while Margo ducked, which was unnecessary because you couldn’t see the kitchen from the serving counter. Still, it seemed appropriate. “Manny, I need to know how we’re doing on paper products. Do we need more napkins?”
“I’ll be right there!” Manny called out. He turned to Margo. “You’d better leave. Go out the back way, into the alley.”
“Can I write about this for the newspaper?”
“If you do, leave me out of it. I could lose my job.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, and now you can stop hitting yourself in the head.” Manny gave Margo a thumbs-up and pushed through the swinging door. She gave Manny a thumbs-up in return, even though he had already left the room. As she turned to leave, she noticed the key still in the metal box. She hesitated only a moment, then opened it and grabbed the jar with the heart on it. She poured about a quarter cup of the powder into a disposable glove she’d snatched from a box on the counter. She replaced the jar, closed and locked the spice rack lid, and tucked the glove into her pocket. The whole operation took less than fifteen seconds.
As Margo walked down the alley, whistling a tune, she felt wonderful, absolutely giddy. She had a story, but more important, Margo was going to spread a little love.
SNACK TIME
On Friday, Margo arrived at the bus stop with a plate of chocolate chip cookies. Only the most discerning eye would be able to see the diamondlike crystals shimmering within the perfectly baked golden-brown treats. Margo was not that good a cook, but the powder had somehow rendered her cookies perfect. She had made them because she knew they were Victoria’s favorite dessert. Margo had seen Victoria buy chocolate chip cookies at the cafeteria, three at a time. She planned to offer them to her, savoring the moment when Victoria greedily gobbled them up, for the more cookies Victoria ate, the more loving she would become.
That was the plan, anyway, but as soon as Margo got on the bus, all hell broke loose.
“Hey, I smell cookies!” someone screamed. “Who has cookies?”
“Oh my gosh, they’re freshly baked!” yelled someone else.
“Margo has them!” cried the girl sitting next to Margo. Margo couldn’t hide the plate. It was sitting right on her lap, covered with foil. Within seconds a small crowd formed around her.
“Margo, is it your birthday?” “Did you make those?”
“Who are they for?” “Can I have one? Please? Pleeeeaaaase!” they cried over one another.
“Sit down!” yelled Mr. Freeman, the bus driver who doubled as the PE teacher. “Don’t make me stop the bus!”
“You guys, you can’t have any …,” Margo began, but Aliya and Taliya interrupted her.
“That is so unfair,” Taliya said, speaking first, which she had begun to do recently.
“You’re torturing us,” agreed Aliya. “Those cookies smell amazing!”
Margo realized then that the potion not only made the cookies look irresistible, it made them smell irresistible too, even though they had completely cooled … but no, wait. The plate was still warm! These cookies were eternally freshly baked! Margo guessed that if she buried these cookies in a time capsule and someone dug it up five hundred years later, they would still be warm and smell delicious.
“But I made them for somebody.” Margo
could tell her plan was quickly falling apart. She would feel pretty stupid telling the whole bus she’d made cookies for Victoria.
“Who? A guy?” teased Ruben. “Leo? You made them for Leo? Or Jory?”
“No, not Leo or Jory,” Margo said quickly. If she were going to make cookies for a guy, neither Leo nor Jory would be her first choice, though Jory was certainly exciting and Leo was very sweet. No, the only guy for whom she would make cookies was Sam. Sam was so quirky and mysterious. She wondered what he really looked like under all those costumes and wigs and makeup. He probably looked goofy, but in a cute sort of way. His eyes were the brightest blue, and his voice was so adorably husky.…
Margo should not have allowed her mind to wander. The next thing she knew, somebody had snatched the plate from her hands, and everyone on the bus was taking a cookie and passing the plate along to the next person.
“Stop!” Margo shouted desperately. “They’re for Victoria! It’s … it’s her birthday!”
“It’s not my birthday,” Victoria said. “My birthday’s in the summer, and you don’t need to worry about getting me anything because if I do have a party, you won’t be invited.”
The plate had made its way up one side of the aisle, to the front of the bus. Even Mr. Freeman took a cookie and stuffed it into his mouth before sending the plate back down the other side of the aisle. Victoria now had the plate in her hands.
“Sorry, I must have been mistaken,” Margo said. “Well, enjoy them anyway. I did make them for you. I know how much you like chocolate chip cookies.”
“I don’t like chocolate chip cookies,” Victoria replied, passing the plate to the person behind her without taking one.
Margo’s neck started to get hot. “But … I’ve seen you buy them at the cafeteria.…”
“The cafeteria makes chocolate chunk cookies. I absolutely love chocolate chunk cookies. I despise chocolate chip cookies.”
“What’s the difference?”
“Really? You don’t know the difference between chocolate chip and chocolate chunk?”
“No!”
“One is chunky, while the other is chippy,” Victoria said drily, turning back to the book she had been reading. Meanwhile, everyone on the bus who had gotten a cookie eagerly munched away as the empty plate made its way back to Margo. She took the plate, balled her fingers into a tight little fist, and pounded herself in the head several times, against Manny’s advice.
By third period, the powder in the cookies had started to take effect. As Margo expected, the love in the potion was not the romantic kind of love, but the love-of-your-fellow-man kind of love. Still, people were behaving in a way that could only be described as odd, and by seventh period “odd” had progressed to “disturbing.”
For instance, in life science Margo was teamed up with Ruben to do a lab that involved looking at leaf and skin cells through a microscope. Normally, Margo did not enjoy being around Ruben. After Victoria, he was the meanest person in the class, at least to her. But she had seen him swallow a cookie in one bite and was curious to find out if it changed his behavior. Would he listen to her? Would he resist the urge to tease her when she got an answer wrong? Would he defend her if Victoria made fun of her? She was actually looking forward to this. What she got was a shock.
“We’re supposed to look at the leaf cells first,” Margo said, scooting her stool closer to the counter. The slides were in a box next to the microscope that they were going to share. She put the leaf cells into the slide holder. “Do you want to go first? I’ll write down your observations.”
“Why would you ask that? Are you implying I don’t know how to write?” Ruben pouted.
“I didn’t mean anything by it.…”
“I’m not stupid. I can write, you know. Just because I’m big people always think I’m dumb. I’m not dumb!”
“I’m sorry, Ruben, I didn’t—”
“Well, you should think before you say something so hurtful.”
Margo frowned. “Uh, okay, I’ll look first and you write my observations.”
“I can’t believe you said that!” Ruben wailed.
“What?”
“What am I, your servant? Who died and left you in charge?”
“Well, how do you want to do it?” Margo said, frustrated.
“I can hear the sarcasm loud and clear,” Ruben insisted. “You don’t think I can come up with a plan. You think I’m an idiot.”
Margo didn’t want to respond. Everything she said only made it worse. She glanced around the classroom and realized nobody was getting anything done. Instead of looking at the slides, people were picking fights. This was definitely not a lovefest. Even Aliya and Taliya were at each other’s throats. The only person in the room who wasn’t arguing or crying was Victoria. She was doing the lab by herself, since Jory, her lab partner, was sitting on the ledge outside the window. Mr. Nash, the seventh-grade science teacher, called in Mr. Gruber, who arrived wearing the hypnotherapy glasses. Margo knew something had gone horribly wrong. Since nobody was paying much attention to her, she left.
She was glad to see that the cafeteria was open. She went inside and found Manny filling napkin dispensers.
“Hello, Manny,” Margo said.
“Hello, Margo,” Manny answered. “Lunch is over.”
“I’m not here for lunch. I came to see you. I … I’m trying to write this article, and I have a few questions.”
“Off the record?”
“Of course. Off the record.”
“Okay, go ahead. Shoot.”
“Well, how exactly does Lunch Lady Lois use those spices? Does she just dump one into a dish? Does she use a couple at a time?”
“Oh no! She doesn’t dump anything. She takes one crystal at a time, very delicately, with a tweezer.”
“A tweezer?”
“Of course. She doesn’t want to use too much. That would be a disaster!”
“Huh. Really? A disaster, you say?”
“A colossal catastrophe! You know how they say you can’t have too much of a good thing? That’s not true. You can have too much of a good thing. Too much of these spices can be lethal! Think about it. People who are so honest they say something stupid that gets them killed. People so generous they give away everything, including what they need to live. People so curious they … well, you know curiosity killed the cat. It’ll hurt people too if they’re not careful.”
“Oh my gosh. That’s horrible!”
“No need to worry, Lunch Lady Lois knows what she is doing. She’s very careful.”
“That’s very reassuring, but if someone did happen to overdose …”
“But that would never happen.”
“I know, I know. Lunch Lady Lois is careful.…”
“Very careful.”
“Okay! I get it! But if by some crazy set of circumstances somebody took too much of a spice, say the love spice, you know, the one with the heart symbol with a tear next to it, what would happen?”
“I couldn’t begin to imagine. It just wouldn’t happen in a million years.”
Margo quickly realized Manny had outlasted his usefulness. “Well, thank you for your help,” she said, making a beeline for the door.
“By the way, the love spice is in the jar with the heart that has an arrow through it. The heart with a tear is something else altogether.”
Margo halted. “What did you say?”
“I just want to be sure you’ve got your facts straight for your story.”
“Yes, of course. So what’s the spice in the jar with the heart and the tear?”
“Sensitivity.”
“Ah. Sensitivity. So I didn’t even pick the right jar,” Margo muttered woefully to herself. She made a fist and was just about to hit her head a few times, when an idea suddenly came to her and she bolted out the doors instead.
“That was all off the record!” Manny called after her as she sprinted across the courtyard, back to the academic building.
• •
•
Nobody in the classroom had noticed Margo’s disappearance; they were still in the throes of emotional turmoil. She had only one idea. She didn’t like the idea, but she was responsible for this mess, so she knew she had to put her personal feelings aside if she was going to fix it. Only of course she couldn’t fix it; she couldn’t fix anything. All she did was get things wrong. But there was one person who could.
“Victoria, I need your help,” Margo said. Victoria looked up from her microscope. Despite the chaos around her, Victoria had continued to do the assignment. After all, she still wanted to get a good grade.
“I was wondering when you were going to come over here. I knew you had to have something to do with all this.” Victoria swept her hand across the scene. Even though Mr. Gruber had managed to get a few kids to start behaving like mealworms, the pandemonium had not significantly reduced.
“What makes you think I had anything to do with it?”
“You’re the only other kid who’s not acting crazy. And you tried to ply me with cookies this morning. There was something in them, wasn’t there?”
Victoria certainly was smart. Margo had picked the right person. She admitted what she had done, from her botched story about the cafeteria food to finding out about the spices to stealing a sample to making the cookies … all the way up to when they had been passed around on the bus. During Margo’s recitation Victoria’s expression changed from disdain to disbelief and finally to something that was entirely unlikely: awe and wonder.
“So let me get this straight,” Victoria said after Margo was finished. “You were so angry with me that not only did you steal something from the kitchen, but you tried to poison me and ended up poisoning everyone on the bus instead?”
Margo hung her head. It sounded pretty awful when put that way.
“Why, you evil little thing!” Victoria squealed. Margo couldn’t believe her ears. Victoria wasn’t mad; she was delighted. “I didn’t know you had it in you!”
“You mean to mess things up on such a large scale?”
“No, to stand up for yourself. Good for you. But you’re right. This is a monumental screwup. What do you expect me to do about it?”
Middle-School Cool Page 11
