“Corn bread?” I said as I came into the kitchen.
“Close. Semolina,” Mom said.
She and Jeanine were already sitting at the table eating breakfast. Even though there were no windows open in there, it was almost as cold as it had been in the attic.
The Purple Demon is a mad genius.
“Is the heat working?” I said.
“I think so.” Mom handed me a plate of scrambled eggs and a thick slice of steaming bread with apple butter. “Houses are always cooler than apartments. It’s much healthier. When it’s too warm, it’s the perfect environment for bacteria to flourish. That’s why people are always sick in the city.”
“Who was always sick?” I said.
“Don’t you remember when we all got strep last winter?”
“Yeah, so? Don’t people get strep in Petersville?”
“I’m sure they do, but it doesn’t travel as fast because…because the bacteria can’t move as well through the cold.”
“Did you just make that up? Because it really sounds like you just made it up as you were saying it.”
“Look, I may not completely understand the science behind it, but I know it’s better not to keep your house too warm.”
“Too warm, maybe. But how about at all warm? I mean, look at Jeanine.”
Jeanine was sitting at the kitchen table with a sleeping bag around her bottom half, a bathrobe around her top half, and a ski mask.
“I don’t mind,” she said. “It keeps me awake. I’ve read seven hundred sixty-five pages since yesterday.”
“That’s great, honey,” Mom said.
Sometimes my mother’s completely clueless. The only reason Jeanine was able to read that much was because, unlike me, she still couldn’t sleep. Whenever I passed her room in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom, she was up, reading by flashlight.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“Upstairs. He’s really excited about this new idea he has for a pulley system to schlep stuff up the stairs.”
“Oh. That’s kind of cool, I guess.”
“I think so—and definitely better than the intercom idea. I really do think you need to be a licensed electrician to do that kind of wiring.”
Now that the unpacking was done, Dad had a lot of free time, and he’d been spending it on these home improvement ideas he kept coming up with. Some actually weren’t half-bad, but all required skills he hadn’t picked up at the investment bank. Eventually, he’d be helping with the business side of the restaurant, but since there was no business side yet, the only way to help was by eating, which could only take up so much time.
“Zoe and I are headed to Crellin. Any takers?” Mom said.
Jeanine shook her head without looking up from her book.
“No thanks,” I said. “Can I bake something?”
“What were you thinking?”
“Molten chocolate cake. I have to show the woman at the General Store I’m worthy of her doughnut recipe.”
Mom laughed. “Sure, go ahead. Just remember to turn off the oven when you’re done. And make a double batch so there’s some for tonight.”
I’d settled on molten chocolate cake for three reasons. First, I didn’t know much about Winnie’s tastes, but I thought I could be pretty sure she liked chocolate. She was weird, but I didn’t think she’d have gone to the trouble of creating a recipe for chocolate cream doughnuts when she didn’t like chocolate. Second, I’d never met anyone who didn’t flip for my mother’s molten chocolate cake. Third, other than chocolate chip cookies, I’d had more practice making it than anything else.
As soon as Mom and Zoe left, I turned on the oven and took out the ingredients; a saucepan for melting the chocolate; and ramekins, the little cups we use for making mini cakes. You have to make mini molten cakes because the cake is so gooey, a big one will fall apart. I learned that the hard way.
I was especially careful not to burn the chocolate because, in case you don’t know, burned chocolate tastes like metal and looks like dog food, and we didn’t have enough to make another batch. I was also super careful measuring out the sugar and flour. Really, a clump more or less won’t ruin anything, but I needed these to be perfect.
Twelve minutes in the oven is usually just enough to get the crackly shell on top that lets you know the cakes are done. That day, because I kept checking and letting cold air in, it took almost twenty.
As soon as the cakes were cool enough, I popped them out of the cups and tasted one. The hot, gooey center, more batter than cake, oozed out onto my tongue.
Shazzam! Taste bud happy dance all around my mouth. Perfect. So perfect that when I finished eating one, I had to go into the living room to keep myself from eating another.
“Can I have one?” Jeanine called from the kitchen. She hadn’t said a word the whole time I’d been cooking.
“No!” I called back.
I hadn’t forgotten about her telling my parents that doughnuts couldn’t be a project after I’d said her project sounded cool, which it didn’t. The day my parents told us we were moving to Petersville, it was us versus them for the first time ever. And I’d thought it would stay that way, at least for a little while, but Jeanine had already gone back to her own side, the one that only has room for her.
“I can’t have just one?” she shouted.
“They’re for my project!”
“I thought your project was doughnuts!”
“It is, but I need to give a molten chocolate cake to Winnie to get the doughnut recipe.”
“Was that English?”
“I just have to give one to somebody! Okay?” I yelled.
“Come on!”
“They’re for dessert tonight too!”
“That still leaves five!”
“Fine! Have one!” I flopped onto the couch. She wouldn’t have let up until I gave in, so what was the point of going another twenty rounds, especially when I didn’t actually have a reason, or at least not one I’d tell her?
I pulled some blankets over me and started reading Both Hands, the book Josh had made me take out of the library.
I don’t know how long I was sitting there, but before I knew it, I’d read almost forty pages. Normally, I don’t get through more than a couple without thinking about what we’re having for dinner or checking where the chapter ends, but I’d been too focused on whether Jack—he was the kid in the book—was going to make the state swimming finals to think about anything else. Jack had just won regionals when Dad came through the living room carrying his brand-new toolbox.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Fixing that leak in your room. I checked it out the other day. Guy at the hardware store says it shouldn’t be too complicated. Just give me a hand getting the ladder out of the shed?”
“Sure,” I said.
When I came back, Jeanine was lying in my spot on the couch.
“It’s warmer here,” she said.
“It’s warmer there because I was sitting there.” I ripped one of the blankets I’d been using out from under her. Then I got my book and sat down to read in one of the armchairs.
Before long, we heard banging above us.
“What’s that?” Jeanine said.
“Dad.”
“On the roof?”
“He’s fixing the leak in my room.”
“Do you know how long that’s going to take? I’m trying to get some work done here.”
“I’m pretty sure he feels the same way.”
She stuck her tongue out at me through the mouth hole in the ski mask, then went back to her book. I could tell she wasn’t getting much reading done though, because after every bang, she looked up and gave the ceiling a dirty look.
If you want to know the truth, I couldn’t tune out the noise either, but I kne
w it would drive Jeanine bonkers to think I could when she couldn’t, so I went right on pretending.
After a while, she slammed Conifers of the Northeast shut, unzipped the bottom of the sleeping bag, stuck out her feet, and stood up. “That’s it!” Then, still wearing the sleeping bag, bathrobe, and ski mask, she slid her feet into her boots and hopped out the back door.
Almost immediately, the noises stopped. Then came a loud thud that shook the house and a scream.
I jumped up and ran out the door.
Outside, Dad was lying on the ground, his face white.
“What happened?” I said.
“It’s not my fault!” Jeanine said, kneeling beside him.
I dropped to the ground on the other side. “Are you okay?”
Dad sat up slowly.
“He’s fine,” Jeanine said. “Right, Dad? You’re fine.”
“I think so?” he said, not really sounding convinced. “Just my head.”
Jeanine pulled off her ski mask and grabbed my father’s hand. “Your pulse is pretty fast.”
“I’m okay.”
“Can you get up?” I said.
“He shouldn’t move,” Jeanine said. “What if he has a spinal injury?”
“You just said he’s fine. Now he has a spinal injury?”
“You know, guys, I really think I’m okay to go inside.”
“See!” I said.
“Fine. But don’t blame me if he’s paralyzed,” Jeanine said.
We helped my father to his feet and slowly led him into the house. Jeanine made him lie on the couch, got some ice, and told him to put it on his head.
“You sure you’re okay, Dad?” I asked.
“Huh?” he said like I’d just woken him up.
“You okay?” I said again. Something about his eyes didn’t look right.
“Yeah,” he said, but he still didn’t sound sure. “Just my head.”
“Do you know what you hit it on?” I was worried that maybe he’d hit a rock, but there wasn’t any blood.
“Hit it?”
“Yeah, when you fell,” I reminded him. Now, I was beginning to worry.
“Oh.” He squinted like he was trying to see something far away.
“Yeah, you were on the roof trying to fix the leak, remember?” Jeanine said.
“Oh, yeah,” he said even though it was obvious by now that he didn’t.
“Um, Dad, why don’t you just keep that ice on your head. We’ll be right back,” I said. Then I grabbed Jeanine’s wrist and pulled her into the kitchen with me. “He must have a concussion. Should we call an ambulance?”
Jeanine nodded. For once, she didn’t seem to know what to say.
I turned to the wall behind me where a phone should have hung and would have hung if we were still at home, but this wall was blank. The landline still hadn’t been put in.
Jeanine ran out of the room. She was back a minute later with my father’s cell phone and handed it to me.
For a second, I just stared at her, blown away she didn’t want to make the call herself. Then I dialed 911 and waited for it to ring.
Nothing. No sound at all.
I looked at the screen. Not even one bar.
I showed Jeanine the phone. “No reception.”
“Is anybody there?” my father called.
I poked my head through the doorway to the living room. “Yeah, Dad, we’re here.”
He sat up. “I think I hit my head.”
“Oh, yeah? Do you remember what happened?”
Silence.
“Okay, then why don’t you just keep that ice on it.”
“Oh, okay,” he said and lay back down.
It was like talking to a little kid, a not-so-smart little kid, and that kid was my father. This was bad.
Jeanine dropped into a chair and began gnawing her fingernails. Tears were running down her cheeks. “What if he’s…he’s bleeding into his brain? He could be having a stroke.”
“He’s not having a stroke. You can’t even talk if you’re having a stroke.” At least I didn’t think you could. “It’s just a concussion. People get concussions all the time. Connor got one last summer in Little League. He was totally knocked out, and a couple of days later he was fine.”
“But this could be different. Dad could have ruptured an artery. Brain cells could be dying every second.”
“Everything okay in there?” Dad called.
“Everything’s fine,” I called back.
“Hey, do you know what this ice is for?”
“Your head!” Jeanine and I both yelled.
“Oh, yeah. Thanks.”
“See,” wept Jeanine, snot boinging from her nose. “He’s dying.”
“He has a headache! He’s not dying.”
“How do you know?”
I didn’t actually know. My best guess was that he wasn’t dying, but the problem with Jeanine always acting like she knows everything is that sometimes you believe her. “So what do you want to do?”
“There’s that clinic in town.”
“How would we get there?”
“We could take the car.”
“Dad can’t drive like that!”
“Not Dad. You! It’s not far, and it’s basically a straight line.”
“Are you crazy? I can’t drive.” Had Dad somehow also hit Jeanine’s head on his way down?
“You can’t get a license or anything, but you can drive. I’ve seen you play Speedway. You’re a great driver.”
“That’s a video game! This is a real road with real cars.”
“We’re not talking about rush hour in Times Square. How many other cars will even be on the road?”
“Hello? Anybody there?” my father called from the living room.
This time Jeanine went. “Yeah, Dad. We’re here.”
“I have a nasty headache.”
“Yeah, Dad. We know. You fell off the roof. Just keep the ice on.”
Then she went to the front door, took my father’s car keys from the hook, and put them on the table in front of me. “You really want to leave him there asking the same question every five minutes till Mom gets home?”
People get concussions all the time and don’t die, but Jeanine had really freaked me out with all that stuff about ruptured arteries and brain cells dying.
“Okay, let’s go, but I’m not taking the car.”
“So, how are we getting there?”
“I have an idea.”
10
“Ooooooh, cake!” Dad said, grabbing one as we led him through the kitchen to the front door. “Mmm.” Chocolate dribbled down his chin. “Can we take some for the road?”
I thought concussions made people sick to their stomach, but that didn’t seem true in Dad’s case. “Sure.” I grabbed three more cakes and tied them up in a dish towel.
When we’d gotten Dad down the porch steps, I told Jeanine to wait there. Then I ran around to the back of the house, got Dad’s bike, and wheeled it out front.
“What are you thinking? He can’t bike like this,” Jeanine said.
“How do you know? Let’s just see.”
Dad got on fine. He even pedaled off okay, but after less than a minute, he forgot what he was doing and just quit pedaling. Luckily, he put his feet down before he tipped over too far.
“What if we just kept saying, ‘You’re riding a bike. You’re riding a bike,’ over and over?” I said.
Jeanine started back up the porch steps. “I’m getting the car keys.”
“You are not! I told you, that’s crazy and, like, against the law.”
“So how are we getting there?”
“I have another idea. It’s crazy too but not against the law.”
“What?”
“What about the baby buggy?”
“For who?”
“Dad!” I called as I ran off to get it.
Behind the house, a big plastic sheet covered the brand-new, two-person bike. Nobody had even ridden it yet, but it was already set up with the baby buggy attached. I pulled off the sheet. The bike was so shiny that the blue paint looked silver. I flicked up the kickstand and wheeled it out front.
“Dad and I haven’t even tried it out yet.” Jeanine said.
“You ride it like a regular bike. I rode one with Mom in Montreal that time.”
Jeanine studied the bike. “Maybe I could fit in the buggy with Dad.”
“What are you talking about? Dad’ll just barely fit in the buggy by himself. Plus, I can’t pull both of you.”
“Well, why does Dad need to go in the buggy at all? Why can’t he ride on the second seat?”
“It’s for a kid. Dad’s legs are way too long. Besides, you saw him on the bike. After five minutes, he’ll fall right off or just tip over and take us all down.”
“Hey, guys?” Since his bike adventure, Dad had been sitting on the porch steps staring into space. “What’s this for?” He held up the ice pack.
“Your head. You fell off the roof,” I said.
“Why was I on the roof?”
“Because you’re a nuddy,” Jeanine said.
I poked her hard through her bathrobe.
“What? He’s not going to remember in five minutes.” She looked back at the bike and took a deep breath. “Oh, fine. We’ll take him in the buggy.” Then she snapped her fingers right in Dad’s face. “C’mon. We’re going. Get up!”
Dad looked confused but stood up.
I tied the dish towel around the remaining cake and put it in the baby buggy. “We’ll have to walk down to the road.”
“You heard him, walk!” Jeanine said, giving Dad a shove.
Again, Dad did as he was told, which just made me sad. I would have given anything right then to hear him go off in French at Jeanine for bossing him around.
When we started down Terror Mountain, I was leading the bike and Jeanine was leading Dad. But when we hit the first steep bit, the baby buggy swung downhill so fast, the bike ripped out of my hands and crashed into a tree. After that, Jeanine and Dad walked on either side of the buggy to keep it from veering into the woods. Jeanine kept reminding Dad to stay right up next to it, but of course, he kept forgetting, and before she could remind him again, he’d fall behind, and the buggy would skid off his side into a tree. Then the bike would stop suddenly, and the handlebars would smash into my chest.
The Doughnut Fix Series, Book 1 Page 6
