“You never told me I needed a business plan.”
“I never told you not to put chili peppers in chocolate cake either, but you knew that. Of course you need a business plan. You’re selling something, right? If you’re selling, you’re in business. You need a budget. You need to figure out your costs. You need to figure out how many doughnuts you’re planning to sell each day. I wouldn’t recommend making more than forty for starters, no matter how much people beg. And then…”
I wanted to cry. I just wanted a chocolate cream doughnut. Now I was starting a business? I’d only come up with the idea to sell the doughnuts to get Winnie to give me the recipe and get my parents off my back.
“After all, I need to know your profits so I can figure out my cut,” Winnie was saying when I started listening again.
“What? You want money? But I’m going to be doing all the work.”
“But it’s my recipe. They call it intellectual property. You’ve got to pay for a license to use what I created. Now that sounds fair, doesn’t it?” She took another big bite of cake. She seemed quite pleased with how things were going. Why wouldn’t she be? She’d gotten the stupid new kid in town to make her chocolate cake, and now she thought she was going to get him to pay her for the privilege of making her doughnuts.
“When you use a recipe from a cookbook, you don’t have to buy a license,” I argued.
“Ah, but you do,” she said, dotting an I in the air with her fork. “You had to buy the cookbook.”
Unfortunately, I could see her point. “How much do you want?”
“I told you. I can’t figure that out without seeing the numbers.”
“But I don’t know anything about making a budget and all that other stuff. It sounds like a lot of math. Maybe I could get my sister to work on it. She’s really good at that kind of thing.”
“What are you talking about? This isn’t math. It’s common sense. Besides, this is your business. Why do you want to hand over the details of your business to just anybody?”
“She’s not anybody. She’s my sister.”
“Even worse. Family members don’t respect each other’s property. It’s the first rule of family: what’s mine is yours. You really want somebody who can’t tell the difference between yours and theirs working on your business?”
“She did sell my stuff at this tag sale we had once,” I admitted.
“Of course she did! Family. They sell your stuff right out from under you.”
“But I wouldn’t even know how to start putting a budget together.”
“Like I said, this isn’t rocket science. Go across the street.”
“What’s across the street?”
“You have your sister do your reading for you too? Ever heard of a library?” she said, knocking on my head.
“You want me to do research?” I groaned. Those doughnuts were slipping farther away every second.
“Just tell Mary what you’re looking for, and she’ll point you in the right direction.”
“I can’t believe this,” I muttered as I dragged myself out of the store.
“What was that?” Winnie called.
“Bye!” I shouted over my shoulder.
My only hope was that if I acted really stupid, Josh’s mom would just do the budget for me. She was a librarian so she had to be pretty smart, and she wasn’t family so I figured I could trust her more than Jeanine.
11
If you’re ever thinking about starting your own business, you should really check out Starting Your Own Business for Dummies. It was definitely the most useful book Josh gave me. He was the one who helped me at the library that day, not his mom. She’d been too busy trying to keep Zoe from ripping out some little girl’s pigtails. I hadn’t been there when the fight broke out, but Josh told me later that it started when this girl said all fairies were made up except for the Tooth Fairy, who was obviously real because she had a job and money.
The truth is, I hadn’t wanted to tell Josh about the doughnut business. So what if he loved Winnie’s doughnuts? Wouldn’t he think I was a weirdo for trying to build a business around something I’d never even tasted? Or maybe he’d think what Charlie and his dad did, that kids can’t start businesses at all, and that I was stupid to even try? But I needed those books, and I was sure he’d know how to find them. Besides, he’d find out eventually.
“Can I help?” he said the second I finished telling him about my project. “Not just with the research but with the actual business?”
I couldn’t believe it. Josh wanted in on the doughnut stand. I guess that’s what happens when you live someplace with so little entertainment. You’re willing to try anything. Since he wasn’t family, I said yes.
By the time my parents showed up at the library to take us home that day, Josh had found me a stack of books and flagged the ones he thought would be most useful. Starting Your Own Business for Dummies was on top.
“That doesn’t mean I think you’re stupid or anything, you know,” Josh said as he handed me the books.
“Yeah, I know,” I said, though I liked that he was the kind of person who’d check to make sure.
• • •
A few days later, I woke up and my window was frosted over with ice crystals. Outside, the grass was frozen stiff and crackled when you walked on it. Since it was only November, I figured it would warm up again, at least a little, but it never did. And before I knew it, the pond was frozen. Josh said we’d gotten “lucky” winter had come early because it meant a longer skating season. I told him that now when I biked to town, the cold made my nose run and then froze the snot to my face. I didn’t feel “lucky” that winter had come early, but I promised to give pond skating a try anyway.
I can now tell you from personal experience, Dad was wrong. Pond skating is almost as boring as regular skating. I say “almost” because the possibility that you might fall through the ice at any second does add a certain something. It didn’t matter that my parents had it tested. First of all, the guy who tested it wasn’t actually a professional ice tester. He was Jim the Kidnapper, also known as Jim, the carpenter my parents hired to work on the roof since Dad wasn’t allowed up there anymore. Second, there was no magic test. He just drilled a hole in the ice, stuck a stick down into it, pulled it out, and said, “Should be fine. But get off if you hear any cracking.”
I never would have risked my life just to skate around in circles, but it turns out skating is actually not at all boring if you can whack something across the ice with a stick at the same time.
When Josh first came over with his hockey stuff, I was the worst anyone has ever been at anything. I spent the whole day crawling around the ice, using my body to block the puck. But after only a week, I could skate and flick the puck with my stick at the same time, at least when I didn’t accidently skate right past it. It took me so long to stop and change direction, by the time I got back to where it had been, Josh had already whisked it off to the other side of the pond.
Josh was amazing, better than I was at basketball, better than anyone my age was at any sport, at least that I’d seen in real life. It was as if he’d been born on ice skates. He could run and spin and glide. He could dance, bits of ice spraying out from his blades with each new move. He zoomed backward and forward, dodging and weaving between invisible players charging at him for the puck.
Josh said I might be able to make the rec team if I could get my hockey stop and backward skating down. I was pretty sure rec was just a nice way of saying the worst, but I didn’t care as long as I’d get to play.
Zoe wanted to learn to skate, but she was too scared. Every time Josh and I went down to the pond, she’d put on her water wings, snowsuit, and skates and just sit in a pile of leaves at the edge of the pond throwing rocks onto the ice. It was Josh who finally got her to get on.
That day, he and I were doing this d
rill he’d taught me where you go back and forth across the pond skating as fast as you can, hockey stopping on each end, until you’re so tired you can’t move. I couldn’t go fast or stop fast, so it took me forever to get from one side to the other. It also took a lot of concentration since I was so bad I had to tell my legs and feet exactly what to do every second: push, push, straighten, turn, bend. I was so focused I didn’t even notice when Josh stopped flying past me every thirty seconds.
I have no idea what he said or how long it took him to get Zoe to take that first step onto the ice, but by the time I realized Josh wasn’t doing the drill anymore, he had her way out in the middle of the pond, skating between his legs, and she didn’t even look scared. She had a huge smile on her face.
“Yay, Zoe!” I yelled.
She smiled even bigger.
“Hey! Can you bring us one of those?” Josh called, pointing to the circle of plastic chairs my parents had set up next to the pond.
“Onto the ice?”
“Uh-huh.”
Zoe clearly wasn’t the first kid Josh had taught to skate. The chair was genius. Zoe could lean on it and push it along the ice. By the time we went inside, she was pushing off and gliding a good ways holding on to the chair with just one hand.
When we got back to the house, we went straight to the living room to warm up by the fire. Jeanine was in there on the couch reading The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Again. I’m pretty sure she was still staying up at night reading it because her eyes were puffy and red all the time. If you asked my parents, this was from allergies even though we all knew Jeanine stopped getting allergies when it got cold.
Jeanine hadn’t gotten on the ice even once and not just because she was convinced she was going to fall through it. Now that she was done with gathering stuff for her project, she never left the house. At least before, she’d go outside to collect leaves and dirt and “scat,” which is what she called the animal poop she picked up with rubber gloves, put in ziplock bags, and stored in our freezer. But now that she had everything she needed, she wouldn’t even get off the couch. She sat there all day long working on her project and studying for the Regional Solve-a-Thon, this huge competition for all the Jeanine Levins and Kevin Metzes in the Northeast who want to see how many math problems they can do in six hours. When she needed a break, she’d read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase for the bazillionth time.
I took off my jacket and gloves and hung them on the fireplace screen. “I’m making hot chocolate. Who wants?”
“Is this a trick question?” Josh said.
“With marshandyellows,” Zoe said.
“Me too,” Jeanine said, without looking up from the book.
“What’s hot chocolate without marshandyellows?” Josh said and plopped down on the couch next to Jeanine. “You know, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase is, like, one of my top favorite books of all time.”
Jeanine sat up. “You’ve read The Wolves of Willoughby Chase?”
“Only like a hundred times.”
“Me too!”
I felt like someone had just punched me in the stomach.
Zoe tugged on my hand. “Hot chocolate!” I was standing at the entrance to the living room watching Jeanine and Josh like they were behind glass. “Now,” she said, pulling me into the kitchen.
As I stirred the milk in the saucepan, I listened to Josh and Jeanine talking in the living room.
Jeanine: “Have you read the sequel?”
Josh: “Black Hearts in Battersea? Yeah, not as good.”
Jeanine: “I know. Um, do you think you’d want to join a book club with me and my friend Kevin? He lives in Manhattan, but he’ll join by Skype.”
Josh: “Sure. That sounds cool. My mom can get us the books on interlibrary loan if you want.”
Jeanine: “Oh, yeah.”
My skin felt prickly all over. “Hot chocolate!” I yelled. The milk was barely hot, but I poured it into the cups anyway. I stirred and stirred, but the cocoa clumped up and wouldn’t dissolve.
“So I’m joining your book club,” Josh said as he and Jeanine came into the kitchen.
Jeanine laughed. “Tris doesn’t do book clubs. He isn’t really a reader.” Then she picked up her hot chocolate and took a sip. “Uch, this is cold,” she said and went back into the living room.
Josh, Zoe, and I sat down at the kitchen table and drank our awful hot chocolate.
“Thanks for the making this,” Josh said.
“I took the milk off too soon.”
“It’s still good.”
I shrugged.
“The marshandyellows are good,” Zoe said.
“Great,” I said.
She put her cup down and squinted at me. “How come you have the mad face?”
“I’m not mad.”
“You have the face.” She stuck out her chin and mashed her lips together.
“Are you mad?” Josh asked.
“No, I’m just…don’t worry about it.”
What could I say? Don’t be so nice? You can’t be in my sister’s book club? He’d think I was a complete jerk.
Besides, I wasn’t mad at him. This wasn’t his fault. It was Jeanine’s. Had I ever asked Kevin to play basketball? There were rules about sisters and brothers and friends, and Jeanine had broken them. Josh wasn’t the only kid in Petersville. If she wanted a friend here, she should leave the house and find one.
• • •
Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Basically, because it’s all about food and being thankful that you have food, which, not to brag, I feel like I am normally anyway. Not because I think so much more about world hunger than the next kid, but because I think way more about food than the next kid. Anyway, since food is food no matter where you are, and since Mom’s food is always amazing, I figured Thanksgiving could be the way it was supposed to be even in Petersville.
Then Charlie called.
It was after dinner. We were in the middle of dessert, something new Mom was calling Three P Crumble because it’s made with pears, plums, and pecans. We were arguing about whether it was good enough to make the menu. I was a big no. She’d left the skins on the plums, and they’d made the whole thing bitter.
Suddenly, the lights went out.
We thought it was the power, but then the phone rang. I knew it was Charlie calling to ask what he should bring since Thanksgiving was only a week away.
I jumped up and felt my way to the living room. Somewhere in there, my foot caught something and brought it down with a crash.
“Sorry!” I yelled as I patted down the couch for the phone. I was pretty sure I’d just destroyed a half-built, motorized bird feeder, Dad’s latest project.
“Hello?”
I was right. It was Charlie.
All the things I’d been dying to tell him about flooded my brain: Josh, the Purple Demon, the flash flood, ice hockey…
“Hey! So, it’s like the North Pole up here, and my room’s in the attic, which is extra cold so bring all the clothes you own,” I said, speaking as fast as Josh. “And definitely bring a sleeping bag because mine smells funny since Zoe used it and—”
“We’re not coming,” Charlie said. “I know. It sucks.”
“Why? What happened?”
“Nothing. Or, I mean, not just one thing. Justin’s got this cold, and my dad’s been working really hard. Oh, plus my mom says they didn’t know it was so far when they said yes.”
What? Nobody had gotten hit by a bus? Nobody had bird flu?
I was getting the dog-ate-my-homework, this-seat-is-saved, didn’t-you-get-the-invitation. And not just from anybody. From Charlie.
The Kramers didn’t want to come. Fine. They and my parents were just friends because Charlie and I had been forever. But what about Charlie? I knew what angry Charlie sounded like—spitti
ng, cursing, I’ll-show-them Charlie. This wasn’t him.
“It’s not like you won’t be coming back to the city, right?” he said. “I mean everybody comes to the city sometime.”
“I guess,” I said, wondering what Charlie would say if I told him Josh had never been to New York City.
“My mom says it will just be easier to see you on your trips back home.”
“Back home, huh?” I said.
“What?”
He didn’t get it. “Nothing.”
“And she said maybe we can go up there in the summer. You know, when it’s not so cold.”
“Sure.” Sure, summer, seven months from now.
Then we both went quiet, which feels weird when you’re on the phone, because you can’t see the other person, and you start to feel like you’re alone, especially when you’re standing there in the dark thinking about the things you wanted to say but suddenly don’t anymore.
Then Charlie said, “Anyway, I got to go. Sam and I are going back to school. They’re keeping the gym open late so we can get a little more practice in before tomorrow.”
He wasn’t coming for Thanksgiving. He hadn’t asked me anything about Petersville, and now he was getting off?
“Oh, right, tryouts,” I said, and as I did, I could feel this dark corner of me hope he wouldn’t make the team.
“Let me know when you’re coming home,” he said, and it felt even worse this time than it had the first time he’d said it.
Mom and Dad did their best to cheer me up. Mom promised to make all my favorite dishes, including double-layer carrot cake with coconut frosting and baby brussels sprouts with pancetta (think bacon but better). Then she and Dad came up with this really “fun” idea to make Thanksgiving even more special: we were going to pick our own turkey, not plucked and headless from a butcher, but live with feathers from a farm.
I think they thought it was going to be like picking your own Christmas tree, not that any of us had ever done that before either. The thing about a Christmas tree though is that even if you’re chopping one down, it’s a plant, so it’s pretty easy to get over the whole ending-a-life thing. Turkeys, however, are very obviously alive. They don’t actually “gobble, gobble,” and they’re not cute or anything, but they do make noise and run around. Another important difference between Christmas trees and turkeys: we don’t keep Christmas trees in little jails where they walk around looking sad and begging to be rescued.
The Doughnut Fix Series, Book 1 Page 8
