The Doughnut Fix Series, Book 1

by Jessie Janowitz

  This was just cruel. “So if they were so good, why don’t you make them anymore?”

  “Too much work. After that story, people came in here from all over, all hours of the day and night. Nearly drove me crazy. I really had no choice.”

  Just in case you think you don’t get it, let me tell you, you do: the General Store’s chocolate cream doughnuts were so good, and people liked them so much, they decided not to make them anymore.

  “But weren’t you making a lot of money from them if they were so popular?”

  The woman waved me away like this question was so stupid she wouldn’t even answer it.

  “Do you sell anything like doughnuts?” I asked hopefully.

  “I’m mostly just hardware now. And eggs.” She pointed to the egg cartons stacked on the cooler behind me. “I got some chickens a couple of years ago and thought, ‘Why not?’ Won’t find any better. Yolks are orange.”

  Was that good? I opened one of the cartons. The eggs looked like something out of Dr. Seuss, some green, some blue, some brown, all different sizes, including one no bigger than a marble. “Where are the white ones?”

  “Different chickens.”

  “Oh,” I said, pretending to understand. “Okay, I’ll take these then.”

  They weren’t doughnuts, but they had to be better than anything I’d find at the gas station.

  6

  Rain was hammering the windows of the General Store, but I didn’t think I should wait till it stopped. I’d been gone a pretty long time already, and there was a good chance my parents were up now, calling the local sheriff or ranger or whoever it is you call out here when kids go missing. So I put the eggs under my sweatshirt, tucked the sweatshirt into my jeans, and ran out into the rain.

  Just as I reached the traffic light, lightning split the sky. Crack!

  I jumped, then swerved. I managed to keep the bike under me, but I was still wobbling when I hit the hill on the edge of town. In seconds, I was flying…blind. The faster I went, the harder the rain came at me and the less I could see. I tried to slow down, but the brakes weren’t holding because of all the water.

  Suddenly, the bike stopped, and what I mean is, only the bike stopped. Me and the eggs, we kept going. We flew right over the handlebars and landed with a splat, the sound of some number of eggs being crushed under me as I fell into freezing cold water.

  Somehow, since I’d ridden into town, a pond so big it deserved its own name had formed at the bottom of the hill. Lucky for me too, because landing in the water was way better than landing on the concrete would have been. I wasn’t even hurt, just wet and cold.

  When I stood up, I couldn’t believe how high the water was, up past my knees. My bike was gone.

  Just then, a horn honked, and a white truck pulled up next to me. The window rolled down.

  “Need a ride,” said the driver, a man with a tangled mop of brown hair and a beard that had taken over most of his face.

  “Uh, no thanks,” I said. “I’m okay. My parents are just behind me. They’ll be here in a second.” According to my mother, only kidnappers pull over their cars and offer kids rides.

  The kidnapper laughed. “Uh, okay, kid, but I just came from behind, and there’s nobody back there.”

  My face went hot, which was kind of amazing since I’d started to shiver.

  “Look, it’s no skin off my back if you want to drown in a flash flood. I was just trying to help,” the man said, rolling up his window.

  Did kidnappers give up this easily? It seemed unlikely. “Hey, wait, what did you say this is?”

  “A flash flood. It’s rained so much so fast, the ground can’t absorb any more of it.”

  “I was on a bike. It’s here somewhere.” I waded back to where I thought I’d fallen.

  “Ever heard of The Weather Channel?” He laughed as he got out of the truck. He went around to the back, pulled a long pipe off the bed, and began sweeping it back and forth through the water.

  “There it is,” he said a short time later, slapping the end of the pipe in the water.

  I dove in and pulled up the bike. The seat was turned the wrong way, but otherwise it looked okay.

  “You know you can’t ride through this,” he said.

  “Yeah, I think I figured that out.”

  “Okay. Good luck then,” the kidnapper said and got back in his truck.

  “Hey, wait! Can I still get a ride?”

  “I stopped to offer you one, didn’t I?”

  The first thing I did when I got into the truck was slide the carton of eggs out from under my sweatshirt. Amazingly, only three had broken, but I was covered in egg slime.

  “Here.” The kidnapper passed me a roll of paper towels. “Those from Winnie?”

  “What?”

  “The eggs. Did you get them at the General Store?”

  I nodded.

  He started the truck. “I love those eggs. Yolks are orange.”

  “Yeah, I can see that,” I said, dabbing at the egg with a balled-up paper towel.

  Even though the kidnapper drove really slowly, the truck kept sliding from one side of the road to the other. I gave up cleaning off and quickly put on my seat belt.

  “Hydroplaning,” the kidnapper explained. “Know what you’re supposed to do when the car does that?”

  I shook my head as the truck began to slide left.

  “Gotta turn into the spin,” he said, slowly turning the steering wheel to the left and then straightening us out just before we ran off the road.

  I held tight to the seat belt with one hand and the door handle with the other.

  “I’m Jim, by the way.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “This is where you tell me your name.”

  “Oh, right. Jax,” I said without missing a beat. I was taking the ride. He was going to see where I lived. No reason I had to give him my real name.

  “Jacks, huh? As in more than one Jack?” He chuckled.

  “No. Jax with an X.”

  “Okay, Jax with an X, you visiting?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Haven’t decided yet?” he said, winking at me.

  “Something like that.” I turned to look out my window, hoping it would discourage chitchat.

  “So what do you think so far?”

  No such luck. “Of what?”

  “Town.”

  “I don’t know. Not much to it—I mean…uh…” What kind of nuddy insults his kidnapper’s hometown? “I just meant, it could use some more stores and stuff.”

  “I hear you,” he said.

  Maybe he was faking it, but he really didn’t seem offended.

  “The town is actually trying to get some more businesses in. In fact, people really want to see something go in the old station house.”

  “The place with the Petersville sign?” I said.

  “That’s right. The train used to run through town and stop there. We thought it should be put to some use, but nobody’s sure for what.”

  “I once went to a restaurant in an old firehouse. It was really cool. They kept the pole and everything. You could do something like that?”

  “You think we should put a restaurant there?”

  “The town could use one. I mean, it seems like there’s no place where people can get together, and that place would be perfect.” I considered telling him about Mom’s plans but decided it was best to keep Jim the Kidnapper on a need-to-know basis only. Just then, I saw our driveway fly by. “This is it!”

  “What?”

  “Here, here, here, stop here!”

  “All right, relax. You sure you don’t want me to take you up that hill. Looks like you still have a long way to go.”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ll just get out here, thanks.”

  Jim the Kidnapper
pulled over. I got out and pulled my bike off the back.

  “Okay, bye,” I said, waving.

  “Just wait one second.” Jim climbed out of the truck holding a small tool. “Let me see that seat.” After a minute of tinkering, the seat was back in its place.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “You’re welcome, Jax. See you around.”

  “Yeah, right. See you around,” I said, wondering where exactly you saw people around in Petersville. Did they hang out at Turnby’s discussing the odd mix of products, trying to crack the code that tied them together? Judging from the chocolate cream doughnuts story, I couldn’t imagine Winnie wanted a bunch of people chatting in her store even if they were buying stuff.

  As I dragged my bike up Terror Mountain, I wondered how many state troopers my parents had out looking for me by now. After all, they’d woken up with me gone who-knows-where in the middle of a flash flood.

  But there were no cars with sirens in front of the house when I finally made it there, just the moving truck. Wet cardboard boxes were already piled on the porch, and three guys in soaked SMOOTHE MOVE T-shirts were standing in front of them, studying the sky.

  “Hey,” one of them said to me as I came up the steps.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “That your sister in there?” another asked.

  “Yeah.” I didn’t have to ask who they meant.

  “She’s totally freaking out, man,” the first said.

  “Totally!” the second said.

  “She yelled and then she cried and then she yelled some more,” the third said.

  “Yeah. She does that,” I said.

  “It’s crazy,” the first said.

  “Totally,” the second said again.

  “And kind of scary,” the third said with a shiver.

  “Yup,” I said.

  Not only had my parents not been worried about me, they hadn’t even noticed I was gone. And now that I was back, they barely seemed to notice that either.

  “Does Tris know?” Jeanine shrieked when I came through the door.

  “Know what?” I said.

  “Go on. Tell him,” she said.

  “Right before we left the city, I got a call from the principal of Waydin Elementary. He seems so nice, really bright,” Mom said.

  “Get to the point!” Jeanine snapped.

  “Jeannie,” my father warned.

  “Jeanine’s upset because Mr. Kritcher doesn’t want you two to start till second semester. He thinks it will make for a smoother transition,” my mother explained.

  “Do you even know how long that is? January! It’s November. What are we going to do all that time?” Jeanine said.

  I have to admit, I was with Jeanine on this one. What would we do all that time? I was all for an extra-long winter break, but given what I’d just seen of town, there was a good chance I’d die of boredom.

  “I don’t know,” Mom said. “Start a project or something.”

  “Perfect! I love that idea,” Dad said. “I’m making it official. Both of you will come up with a project, something all your own, that you can work on before school starts.”

  This was so much worse than dying of boredom.

  “A project isn’t school. How can we not go to school for two whole months?” Jeanine sobbed.

  “Please, calm down,” Mom begged, pressing her fingers to the sides of her forehead.

  “And don’t exaggerate. It’s less than two months,” Dad said.

  “Isn’t this illegal? Don’t we have to be in school by law? What if I call the police and tell them my parents are keeping me out of school against my will?” Jeanine was pacing the kitchen now, and her voice was all crazy like we were playing her on the wrong speed. “What if I call Kevin’s dad and ask him if there’s some kind of court case he can file? What if I write to newspapers and news stations and—”

  “Sa-Sooo-Feeee!” my father shouted so loud the third Smoothe Move guy, who’d finally gotten the courage to start bringing boxes in again, ran back outside.

  Don’t ask me what Dad yelled. All I can tell you is that it was French. Even though he grew up in New York, he spoke French at home because my grandmother is from France. Now his French never comes out unless he’s really angry or talking to my grandmother—or both.

  Jeanine doesn’t speak French any more than I do, but right after Dad yelled, she ran out of the room too. Dad’s French usually has that effect. Not just because he almost never yells, but also because getting yelled at in a language you don’t understand is especially scary, which is strange when you think about it because, for all we know, he could be yelling, “I love croissants!”

  “I need coffee,” my mother said, searching through a box labeled Pantry. “Who’s hungry?”

  “Here, I got these.” I put the eggs on the counter.

  “Where are they from?” She opened the carton. “Wow! They’re gorgeous. The ones that made it anyway.”

  “I went to town. The yolks are orange,” I said as I headed upstairs to shower off egg slime and mud.

  “Want me to make some?” she called after me.

  “No!” I called back. How could they not have even noticed I was gone?

  “I have other stuff I brought from home. You want something else?”

  “Chocolate cream doughnuts,” I muttered as I moped up the stairs.

  “What?”

  “Nothing! I’m not hungry.”

  7

  To: CKramerRocks@mar.com

  From: JaxTLevin441@mar.com

  Subject: Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  Ow ow ooowww. Yes. Coyotes do really sound like that. I know this because I heard them circling our house last night. No lie. If you don’t hear from me again, a mother coyote has fed me to her pups. I guess there could be worse ways to go. Uh, maybe not. Torn apart by coyote teeth has to be one of the top ten worst ways to die.

  What’s up?

  T.

  To: CKramerRocks@mar.com

  From: JaxTLevin441@mar.com

  Subject: Hello?

  Did you get my email?

  Coyotes closing in.

  Have you ever seen a blue egg with an orange yolk? We’ve moved to Whoville.

  Please send bagels FedEx.

  To: JaxTLevin441@mar.com

  From: CKramerRocks@mar.com

  Subject: Re: Hello?

  Are your parents ever getting you a cell phone? You and my grandparents are the last people on earth not using one. Try working the YOU DESTROYED MY LIFE BY MOVING ME TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE thing. Maybe they’ll feel bad enough to get you a phone.

  Super busy getting ready for tryouts. My dad got me some private sessions with one of the coaches from Uptown Athletic Center so I could work on my shooting. Gotten way better already.

  Send pics of the coyotes.

  What’s up with the eggs there? We’ll bring bagels when we come for Thanksgiving. Where do you go for fun up there in Peter’s Village?

  • • •

  For the next two days, I did nothing except unpack boxes and think about chocolate cream doughnuts.

  Did the doughnut witch use milk chocolate or semisweet or dark? Was the cream airy like mousse or thick like pudding? Did she glaze the doughnuts or sprinkle them with powdered sugar?

  The second night, when I couldn’t take it anymore, I went downstairs and searched all sixty-seven of my mother’s cookbooks while I finished off the apple crisp we’d had for dessert.

  Not even Roland had a recipe for chocolate cream doughnuts. I guess it’s hard to make fried dough presidential. I’m sure I could have found one on the internet, but you never know about recipes you find online. Besides, I wasn’t interested in making just any chocolate cream doughnuts.

  On the third day, my parents announced we were go
ing to the library. Jeanine needed books for her project. Of course, she had it all figured out already and was raring to go. She was so fired up, she’d even forgotten about her plan to put my parents under citizen’s arrest for keeping us out of school.

  “It’s a field study of the land around our house,” she explained on the drive to the library. “First, I’ll do a map. Then I’ll mark the topography, you know, where the land rises and falls and then—this is the coolest part—I’ll identify and label all the trees, plants, and animals with their common and scientific names!”

  “Cool!” I was hoping my enthusiasm for Jeanine’s project would keep anyone from asking about mine.

  “Sounds fantastic,” Dad said. “Zoe? What are you looking for?”

  “Fairy dust.”

  “I was thinking books.”

  “You didn’t say that. You said, looking for, and I’m looking for fairy dust because the happy thoughts aren’t working.” Zoe had been watching this old Peter Pan movie nonstop. Now all she could talk about was filling her mind with happy thoughts so she could fly, which, I guess if you ask Peter Pan, is all it takes.

  “I don’t think they have fairy dust at the library,” Mom said.

  “Can we make some?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “When we get home?”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Tawatty Tawatty Dabu Dabu hate ‘we’ll see.’” Zoe smacked the back of Mom’s seat with her vomit bucket.

  Tawatty Tawatty and Dabu Dabu are Zoe’s imaginary friends. We have no idea what they look like, but they must be very small because she’s always pulling them out of her pockets. It’s also possible they’re attached in some way because one never appears without the other, and she usually refers to them as the unit, Tawatty Tawatty Dabu Dabu.

  Mom turned around and snatched the bucket out of Zoe’s hand. “You know what I hate? When Tawatty Tawatty Dabu Dabu make a mess. No fairy potion project unless I specifically say so, got it?”

  “Fairy dust, not fair potion.”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “I did,” Zoe said.

  “And Tawatty Tawatty Dabu Dabu?” Mom said.

  Zoe shrugged.

  “Behave yourself,” Mom said and handed Zoe back her bucket.