When my alarm went off at seven thirty the next day, I got dressed, grabbed the pastry gun—I’d decided it was too valuable to leave out in the kitchen all night—and climbed down the ladder.
I knew Jeanine would have gotten Dad up at the crack of dawn for the Solve-a-Thon, but I was worried Mom might still be in bed. She’d been staying up late trying different chicken pot pie recipes. She’d decided chicken pot pie was a must for the restaurant but that hers needed some kind of twist. The one she’d made with beets had bright pink puff pastry on top, which was definitely different, but none of us loved the taste, so she was still experimenting.
“Levin. Tris Levin, licensed to fill.” I threw open my parents’ bedroom door, pastry gun aimed at the bed.
“Mom?”
The bed was empty, and the mattress had been stripped.
I heard a moan and followed it to the bathroom. There, lying on the floor, curled around the toilet in her bathrobe, eyes closed, was my mother.
This was bad—bad for Doughnut Day, bad for me, and, thinking about it now, bad for Mom too, though I have to admit, I wasn’t so focused on her at the time. At that moment, seeing her there on the floor, all I wanted to do was shout, “Get up! It’s Doughnut Day! My day! I’ve earned this day. I deserve this day. So whatever you have, suck it up!” But I didn’t. Instead, I said, “Are you okay?”
She moaned a “no” and hugged the toilet a little tighter.
“Did you throw up?”
Yes moan.
“More than once?”
She held up four fingers.
“Feel better?”
No moan, louder and longer than the first.
“You wanna try to get up?”
“Tile. Good. Cold,” she said, eyes still shut.
“But…” I knew I shouldn’t say it, but I couldn’t stop myself. “It’s Doughnut Day, remember?” I held up the pastry gun. “So you are getting up soon, right?”
She opened one eye and glared at me with it.
“Okay. Sorry. I was just asking because,” I said to myself as I moped away, “how do you know you won’t feel better playing Peter Pan in the basement than you do lying on the bathroom floor unless you try?”
What’s the worst that could have happened? She’d already thrown up four times. What was once more? Maybe that last fifth vomit was just what she needed?
I’d thought my father and Jeanine had left already, but when I got downstairs there they were, Dad sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea and Jeanine standing at the front door, jacket zipped, earmuffs secured, several razor-sharp number two pencils in each mitten.
“Dad! It’s 8:03…8:03!” she shouted, pointing at the clock on the wall. “Remember what I said? No later than eight o’clock.”
Dad sipped his tea. “Jeanine, you can’t pretend you don’t hear me just because you don’t like what I’m saying.”
“Oh yeah? What makes today different from all other days?” I said.
“I’m just thinking, maybe we shouldn’t go because Mom’s sick and you were going to make the doughnuts today.”
“Really?” I said. Was Dad actually thinking about choosing my Doughnut Day over one of Jeanine’s math competitions? Was it April Fools’ or something?
“What are you saying?” Jeanine was still going with the “if I don’t hear what you’re saying, it’s not happening” strategy.
“I know Tris could make the doughnuts another day, but he had this all planned. It seems a little unfair. Plus, it’s just another Solve-a-Thon. Missing one isn’t the end of the world.”
“But it is! It is the end of the world!” Jeanine said, nodding like some creepy bobblehead.
“Honey, you’ve got to keep this stuff in perspective.”
“Perspective? You want me to keep this in perspective? You want me to miss a major math competition so Tris can shoot cream into balls of fried dough?”
“Now that’s not fair,” Dad said. “He’s put a tremendous amount of work into this project.”
“What about the work I’ve put into studying for the Solve-a-Thon? I never get credit for doing work because I like to work. I work all the time, so it doesn’t matter. You don’t even care, but Tris wants to make a few doughnuts and you throw him a party!”
The craziest thing about what Jeanine was saying was that I could tell she actually believed it.
“We’re not throwing him a party,” Dad said, chuckling.
“Don’t laugh at me!” Jeanine rushed at him with her number two pencils held out like daggers.
“Calm down. You know how proud we are of you. And we drive you all over the place for all kinds of things, the Solve-a-Thons, the spelling bees, the National Geography Bees—”
“The Math Olympics,” I added.
“But you said I could go to this Solve-a-Thon.”
“It’s one Solve-a-Thon,” Dad said. “What’s the big deal?”
“You don’t get it!”
“Come on, Jeannie.” Dad tried to wrench the pencils away from her. “Take off your jacket. Sit down. Let’s figure this out.”
“No! I need this Solve-a-Thon. I need to be doing more math.”
“So fine. Do more math. The internet’s working. I can print out as many math problems as you want. You can spend a whole week doing math problems.”
“It won’t help!” She dropped her pencils and crumpled to the floor.
Dad crouched over her. “I still don’t understand. How come?”
“Because there won’t be other people. I won’t be getting smarter.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“How will I know how good I am unless I can see how many people are worse than me?”
“Okay. Now you’re scaring me.”
“You don’t understand!” She covered her face with her mittens and curled into a ball under the kitchen table.
I’d never seen her go quiet like that in the middle of a tantrum. Louder and whinier till her opponent can’t take it anymore is her usual strategy.
“So explain it to me then,” my father said. “What makes this Solve-a-Thon so important?”
Jeanine didn’t say anything. I was pretty sure she was crying.
“Come on.” Dad stuck his head under the table. “Explain it to me.”
“Because I don’t have anything here.” Jeanine’s voice was so small it didn’t even sound like hers.
“Where?”
“Here. Petersville. I don’t have Mathletes. I don’t have G&T. I don’t have Kevin. I don’t even have normal school. I don’t have anything, and…and Tris has everything!” she blurted out.
“What is she talking about?” I said to my father.
“You know what I’m talking about!”
I stuck my head under the table now too. “No, I don’t.”
She sat up and looked at me. “You like it here!”
“What?”
“You do! You like it here.”
“I do not!” I said like she’d just accused me of picking my nose.
“Yes, you do. I’ve seen you!”
“Seen me what?”
“You like Josh, and you like that crazy lady at the General Store and hockey and your doughnut business. You even like biking around. You like it here!”
I opened my mouth to tell her she was wrong, but then something made me stop.
I couldn’t believe it: she was right!
When had that happened? When had I stopped waking up in the wrong bed in the wrong room in the wrong town?
“And I know you don’t talk to Charlie, so you don’t even want to go back. You’re not even friends with him anymore!”
It was the first time anyone had said it out loud, and it hurt more because I hadn’t seen it coming.
“Jeanine!” Dad said.
I couldn’t tell if my father wanted her to stop because what she was saying about Charlie was mean or because it was true or both.
“And I don’t have one thing here. Not one friend or activity, not one anything.”
“I know,” I said. “Because you never leave the house. You won’t try.”
“That’s not it. You know that wouldn’t matter. You know it! I’m just not like you.”
“Yeah, I know. You’re smart.”
“Come on, Tris. You’re smart,” Dad said.
“Not like her. It’s okay. I’m not stupid or anything, but I’m not smart like her.”
Dad didn’t say anything.
Jeanine got on her knees so that she was facing me. She wasn’t crying anymore, but she looked sadder than I’d ever seen her. “But you’re good at this. You just made all this stuff happen here. I can’t do that. I’m not good at Petersville.”
I can’t even tell you exactly what that meant, “good at Petersville,” but she was right about that too. Whatever it meant, I was and she wasn’t. And Petersville wasn’t something like basketball she could choose not to do. She’d just have to get up and do it badly every day till one day she either got better or left. And maybe she would get better when she started school, but maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she’d wake up with that feeling that she was in the wrong bed in the wrong room in the wrong town every morning till she was old enough to go someplace right. My parents would have said that was impossible, that it would just take time, but that’s what parents have to say. The truth is they have no idea.
“I’m sorry.” I wasn’t even sure what I was apologizing for, but I felt bad. Maybe Josh was rubbing off on me.
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault.”
“But maybe I could help.” I slid off my chair so I was kneeling under the table now too. “I mean, I know I was weird when you asked Josh to join your book club, but it’s okay with me if you still want him to.”
“Thanks.” She gave a little smile, but she still looked so sad.
“And…maybe, maybe I could make the doughnuts while I take care of Zoe so you could still go to the Solve-a-Thon.” I couldn’t believe what I was offering.
“Really?” Jeanine said.
“Really?” Dad said.
“Yeah, sure. As long as Dad makes sure Zoe gets that I can’t play all day.” Even if it didn’t work, I could always make the doughnuts the next day. The Regional Solve-a-Thon wouldn’t roll around again for a year.
“Done.” Dad reached out to shake my hand before I could change my mind. “Zoe!”
“What?” Zoe yelled from the living room.
“Come here!”
“Why?”
“Now!”
A moment later, Zoe appeared in the doorway in her ski jacket and fairy wings. “Don’t yell. It hurts my concussion.” She’d been in and out of concussions since my father’s accident.
“What did we talk about yesterday? When I call, you come. Period.”
“I don’t remember yesterday. You know, concussion,” she said, pointing to her head like my dad was a complete nuddy.
Dad rolled his eyes and said something in French that sounded like, “Deeeuh meh deh!”
“What did I do?” Zoe said.
“Nothing,” Dad said.
“Then why are you Frenching at me?”
“Just listen. Mommy’s sick and has to rest and I have to take Jeanine to the Solve-a-Thon, so Tris is going to play with you, but he’s also going to be making his doughnuts, so you have to play quietly while he’s working in the kitchen. Okay?”
“Okay,” she said and skipped off.
“Okay?” he said to me.
“Okay.” It so wasn’t, but it was too late to back out now.
“All right, Jeanine, thank your brother. Let me just tell Mom. Hopefully, she’s made it off the bathroom floor by now,” he said as he climbed the stairs.
Jeanine and I crawled out from under the table and began collecting her pencils. “You really think you’ll be able to make the doughnuts with Zoe around?” she said.
I shrugged.
“Hey, um, I’m sorry for before, you know, for what I said about Charlie.”
“It’s okay. It’s true. But it’s okay, I think. He and I weren’t friends like…like you and Kevin are. I just didn’t know it.”
“Oh. I’m still sorry.” She looked down at her pencils.
“We missed one.” I pointed to a pencil that had rolled over by the stove, and Jeanine picked it up.
“I know you haven’t known him that long or anything, but Josh is really nice. It’s good you met him.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“All right, let’s get this show on the road,” Dad called. A second later, he was jogging down the stairs.
Jeanine pulled her hood up and Velcroed it under her chin. “Hey, if you can’t get the doughnuts done, maybe I can help you make them tomorrow, okay?”
“Sure. Hey, good luck,” I said.
“Thanks…also thanks for…” She trailed off.
“I know. You’re welcome.”
18
“But I told you we’re taking turns!” I yelled at the bathroom door. Zoe had locked herself inside and was holding my pastry gun hostage.
“Dad said you had to play Peter Pan.”
“Really? Is that what Dad said? Because what I remember him saying is that you have to let me bake.”
“Oh, yeah! I remember that too,” she said like she was all excited we had this in common.
“Okay, so come out, I’ll bake, and then we can play Peter Pan.”
“But Dad never said which came first, Peter Pan or doughnuts. Why can’t Peter Pan go first?”
I thought for a minute. “Look, if you come out right now, and be good till I finish making the dough, I’ll give you fairy dust to play Peter Pan with.”
The door flew open, and Zoe stood there, a band of lotion painted under each eye like a linebacker. “What fairy dust?”
• • •
Thirty minutes later, I had my first blob of doughnut dough. I’d followed the recipe more carefully than I’d ever done anything in my life, but since I’d never made doughnuts before, I had no clue how I’d done.
The dough felt good, soft like new Play-Doh and cold and sticky too, but it didn’t feel different from any other blob of dough I’d touched before, so who knew? I’d just have to wait and see, which made me nervous but also kind of excited. I covered it with plastic wrap, then put it in the pantry to rise. It would need two hours, which gave me plenty of time to play with Zoe and make the cream.
“You can come out now!” I called.
Zoe climbed out of the cardboard box she’d dragged into the kitchen and pulled the masking tape off her mouth. “Where’s my dust?”
Just so you know, the cage and muzzle were Zoe’s idea. I’d told her that if she touched or said anything while I was cooking, our deal was off, and she didn’t want to take any chances.
“It’s coming,” I said. Then I went back into the pantry and put two handfuls of King Arthur All-Purpose Flour into a ziplock bag.
“That’s it?” said Zoe, frowning when I handed her the baggie.
“That’s it,” I said.
She studied it, then ran a finger through the powder. “This is just flour!”
“Sure, if you use it to cook, but not if you use it for, uh, whatever fairies use fairy dust for.”
“But it’s not special.”
“Think of it this way—fairies have wands, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And what are wands made out of?”
“I don’t know. Sticks?”
“Exactly. They’re just sticks till fairies use them as wands. This is just flour till a fairy uses it as fairy dust.
Same thing, right?”
“I guess.” She was studying the flour again. “But there’s so little.”
“That’s because this is the powerful stuff, the deluxe dust. A tiny pinch goes a long way. But maybe you can’t handle it. Maybe I should get the rookie stuff.” I took the bag away from her.
“What’s rookie stuff?”
“It’s for the new fairies who don’t know what they’re doing.”
“It’s not flour?”
“No way. The rookie stuff is cornstarch. Maybe that would be safer.”
“Noooooo, deluxe dust! Deluxe dust!” she said. Then she snatched back the baggie and raced to the basement door.
Down in the basement, I helped Zoe put on and tighten her harness. Then we climbed to the landing halfway up the basement stairs, and I clipped her onto the zip line.
“First, I must throw the fairy dust on you,” she sang. Then she took a pinch of flour and tossed it in her face.
“Ready?”
She sneezed and gave me a thumbs-up. I let go, and she squealed all the way down to the other end of the basement.
After five minutes of clip in, walk down, clip out, walk back up, repeat, I was bored out of my skull. That’s when I decided to see if I could teach Zoe to clip in and out herself. I would never have left her there alone, but at least that way, I could use the time to go over step two of the recipe.
It took a couple of tries but eventually she figured out that if she used both hands, she could pull back the little lever on the clip and slip it over the zip line. Once it was on, there was no way she could get hurt since Jim the Kidnapper had gotten these extra safe clips used by mountain climbers. So for the next hour, Zoe clipped herself in and out of the zip line, I memorized how to make the chocolate cream, and everybody was happy. Zoe didn’t even complain when I told her it was time to go back upstairs, mostly because she was out of fairy dust by then.
Zoe didn’t want to stay in the kitchen for step two, so I told her she could play in her room till I was done.
Winnie had warned me that the chocolate cream was the hardest part of the recipe, but it turned out that it was just like making pudding. With pudding, you have this runny, melted chocolate mixture, and you’re stirring so long you feel like your arm will fall off, but the chocolate never looks any thicker. Then, just when you can’t stir one more second, something changes. The runny mixture becomes something new that wasn’t there before, something somewhere between liquid and solid. The secret is just the belief that if you keep stirring, you will eventually get there before your arm falls off.
The Doughnut Fix Series, Book 1 Page 13
