“Ten and a half dozen macarons?” Macarons took a really long time to make, especially if we made them in different colors and flavors.
Ella leaned in closer to read the customer’s comments aloud: “They need twenty-one boxes with six macarons each for a bridal shower.”
“By when?” Maddy asked.
“Yikes,” I said. “A week from tomorrow!”
“Oh my,” Mom said, massaging my shoulders. I was glad for the weight and warmth of her hands, telling me she understood how big this was for us.
Just then, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” Mom said. When she returned with Mrs. Eaton, Maddy looked surprised to see her mom.
“Mom! Hi!” Maddy exclaimed. “What’s up?”
Mrs. Eaton steered clear of our bowls of batter as she walked through the kitchen. Maybe she was worried that she’d mess up her silky white blouse. Maddy’s parents ran an antique shop, and her mom was dressed up in her work clothes.
Mrs. Eaton looked approvingly at the tartelette shells that lined the counter. “You girls are doing great work,” she said. “It’s fun to see you in action!”
“Thanks, Mrs. Eaton,” I said.
Maddy was eyeing her mom suspiciously. “What’s up, Mom?” she asked again.
Mrs. Eaton slid onto a stool. “Well,” she said, “I finally had time to check out residential bakery laws in Massachusetts, as we talked about last month. I learned some good news and some bad news.”
“Can you tell us the good news first?” Maddy asked.
“Okay,” her mom replied. “The good news is that you girls can apply for a residential bakery license and make La Petite Pâtisserie an official business.”
Maddy cheered, and Ella and I high-fived.
“We would need to register your business and get a federal tax ID number, and we’d also need to apply for a business certificate through the town clerk,” Mrs. Eaton added, “and that’s all doable. But there are some expenses involved. The license itself will cost seventy-five dollars.”
“Wow,” said Ella. I could almost see the math wheels turning in her brain.
Even I knew that we’d have to sell lots of treats to make up for that expense. But if it meant we could be a real business, we should do it. I gave Ella a reassuring smile.
Mrs. Eaton continued. “You would also need to apply for something called a ‘ServSafe certification,’ which would cost another hundred and thirty dollars.”
“Seriously?” I asked, starting to worry now. “A hundred and thirty dollars just to bake out of our own kitchen?”
“Not just to bake, but to bake and sell to the public,” Mrs. Eaton said. “That’s the big difference.”
“Goodness,” Mom said. “This is all sounding very complicated—and expensive.”
“Well, here’s the bad news,” Mrs. Eaton added. She glanced over at Bonbon’s empty crate. “The kitchen will need to be inspected by the public health department. And in licensed residential kitchens, pets need to be kept out of the preparation and storage areas at all times.”
My chest tightened as I felt the bad news close in on me like a giant vise. “But Bonbon lives here,” I said, my voice coming out wobbly.
Mom gave my shoulder another squeeze. “Don’t worry, Grace. Nobody is making Bonbon move out.” Then she turned to Mrs. Eaton. “Thanks for doing all this research for the girls. It’s clear that there are a lot of rules to follow in order to start a ‘real’ business. You’ve given us lots to think about.”
Mrs. Eaton nodded. I could tell she felt bad about delivering the not-so-good part of all this news.
“But what are we going to do?” I blurted.
“We’re all going to take a deep breath and sit with this information over the weekend,” Mom said. “I, for one, am a little too tired to figure it all out right now. Let’s discuss this later. Should we talk on Sunday?” She glanced wearily at Maddy’s mom.
“Sounds good,” Mrs. Eaton replied. “I need to run back to the antique shop, but I wanted to share what I’d found out.” She gave us all an encouraging smile. “I know there are some tough hurdles, girls, but if you’re really serious about this business, you’ll find a way over them.”
Mom walked Mrs. Eaton out of the kitchen. They talked quietly together by the front door for several minutes.
My friends and I looked at one another, eyes wide. I glanced at the tartelette shells and then back at my friends again.
“What are we going to do, Grace?” Ella asked in a small voice.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. I sat down at the desk and studied the computer screen. Our thirteen orders were staring me in the face. Could we fill them? Would we even be able to keep our business going?
When Mom returned, she gave us a sympathetic look before slipping on her rubber garden shoes at the back door. Whenever she is stressed, she works outside with her plants. “Don’t worry, girls,” she said confidently. “I’m sure we’ll find a solution.” Then, with gardening gloves in hand, she stepped out into the backyard.
I turned back to the computer. Suddenly, Mom was shouting. “Oh no! Zulu! Bonbon! No! Get out of there. Not my mums!”
“Uh-oh,” Maddy said, racing to the bay window.
I didn’t even want to look.
Suddenly, everything was tumbling together and gathering speed. Between a big order to fill, the bad news about our business, a report due Monday for Mr. Bauer, and Bonbon and Zulu digging where they shouldn’t, I felt overwhelmed.
Help!
That night, I tossed and turned so much that I almost rolled Bonbon off the bed. What were we going to do? I couldn’t ban Bonbon from the kitchen. That’s where we kept her crate! Even if we could pay the extra fees for running a residential baking business, we’d need to find another kitchen for baking—a kitchen without Bonbon. But where?
We couldn’t use Ella’s house. She had three little brothers—triplets—who were a tornado in motion. Her dad was around most days because he still hadn’t found a new job. We needed an adult like him nearby when we baked, but not a whole swirling family. I doubted that Mr. and Mrs. Petronia would say yes.
And there was Maddy’s house. It was decorated like something out of a design magazine. I just couldn’t imagine her parents letting us mess up their shiny kitchen every day. Plus both her parents were always at their antique shop. Without an adult to help, we weren’t allowed around hot ovens or stove tops. Without an adult, we weren’t even allowed to go online to check our website for new orders.
When I woke at 7:14, I knew only one thing: I had to talk with Grandma and Grandpa. They’d been there for me from the start, encouraging me to do what I love. They’d been in business for many years. Maybe they could help me find a way through this new maze of problems.
I sat up and kissed the top of Bonbon’s head. Then I jumped out of bed, and she followed at my heels downstairs to the kitchen.
With a puff of steam, the coffeemaker finished brewing. Dad stood at the stove, flipping French toast with a spatula. Mom sat at the kitchen table, correcting papers.
“Morning,” I called over my shoulder as I let Bonbon outside. While Bonbon sniffed around the yard, I scanned yesterday’s damage from the deck.
Mom’s garden of mums had lost half its flowers. The red wheelbarrow sat beside the flower bed, piled with wilted flowers of burgundy, gold, and amber, their roots exposed and dried out. Bonbon and Zulu had turned digging into a competition. I’d been so busy in the kitchen that I’d failed to check on them in time to stop them. I had promised Mom I’d buy and replant more mums, but she’d waved away my offer, saying, “Grace, thanks, but you have plenty to do.”
I clapped my hands together, and Bonbon dashed up the steps to my feet. “Good girl,” I said.
When we stepped back inside, I told Mom and Dad that I needed to see my grandparents. “With everything Mrs. Eaton had to say, I want to go ask Grandma and Grandpa for some advice. Can I go over right now and talk with them?”
“After you eat,” said Dad, setting plates of French toast on the table beside maple syrup, butter, and glasses of orange juice.
“And remember,” Mom said, “it’s Saturday morning. They’ll have lots of customers.”
“I know.” I’d helped out at the bakery a lot on weekends and knew that mornings were usually the busiest times.
I ate fast, threw on clothes, and pedaled down to First Street as quickly as I could.
Fortunately, when I stepped inside, there weren’t any customers at the counter. I was instantly met by the delicious smells of baked cinnamon and caramel rolls, doughnuts, cakes, and fresh bread. I breathed it all in and smiled.
From behind the swinging door to the kitchen came the sound of guitar strumming—one of Grandpa’s country-western stations.
“Ah, here’s the sweetest thing in the bakery!” Grandma said, leaving the counter and meeting me on the other side. She gave me a hug with an extra squeeze and then looked into my eyes. “I can tell that your busy mind is working on something this morning, Grace.”
I laughed. “You know me better than anyone, Grandma.”
“What brings you over so early today?” she asked.
I took in a deep breath. “I wanted to talk with you and Grandpa. It’s about business.”
“Sounds serious.” Grandma brushed her feathered bangs back from the edge of her red glasses. “Well, let’s go hunt him down. You’re making me very curious.”
We stepped into the kitchen filled with white tiles and stainless steel. Wearing a white apron, Grandpa was busy pulling baking sheets lined with round golden loaves from the ovens. “They’re old,” Grandpa always said of the two ovens with six rotating shelves. “But we’re keeping ’em. They just don’t make ovens today like they used to!”
“Darling, Grace needs to talk with us,” Grandma called to him.
“Hey-ya, Grace!” he said, turning around and smiling at me. “You’re up and at ’em early today.”
I poured out my woes about Mrs. Eaton’s news, the huge fees we faced licensing our home baking business, and how Bonbon would be banned forever from the kitchen. “Can you imagine that?” I said. “I mean, I wouldn’t even be able to bring Bonbon through the kitchen to let her out in the backyard.”
“You’re a business owner now, Grace,” Grandma sympathized. “You have to follow the rules.”
It was a compliment to have my business taken seriously, but that didn’t make the rules any less frustrating. “Thanks…I guess,” I mumbled.
“Running a business is a big responsibility, Grace,” Grandpa added. “Not only do you have to follow health-department rules, but you need to try to be responsible in other ways, too. For instance, in the early days of industry, folks didn’t think much about their trash, and that led to pollution. It took the past few decades and lots of work to clean up the Blackstone River. So all business owners need to follow environmental rules now, too.” He pointed toward the recycling bins and the stacks of flattened boxes near the back door. “That’s why we separate our trash and recycle all that we can.”
I nodded at Grandpa’s words, but inside, I was struggling. It was funny to think that the small baking business my friends and I had started might need to follow some of the same rules as this big kitchen. I gazed at the long counters, wide sinks, large mixers, and well-worn baking equipment, and I sighed. “I just wish my friends and I had a real bakery kitchen like this one to use instead of one of our parents’ kitchens.”
And then a big and really great idea struck.
“Um, I need to ask you two a serious question,” I whispered.
“We’re all ears,” Grandpa said.
I inhaled, looked Grandma and Grandpa in the eyes, and asked, “Is there any possible way that we could use your kitchen—I mean during afternoons and evenings, when you’re not as busy? We have lots of new orders coming in, and pretty soon we might not have a place to bake. Could La Petite Pâtisserie work here?”
“Goodness,” Grandma said, looking around the kitchen as if with new eyes.
My words came out in a rush then. I explained that Maddy and Ella and I could come here after school, pull out our recipes and supplies, and fill our orders.
Grandma and Grandpa listened but said nothing.
“Plus,” I said, as if adding a big bonus to my argument, “Mom could have her kitchen back. And she really needs that. It could all work out!” I gave my grandparents my most confident smile and waited for them to respond.
My stomach twisted as I wondered what they would say.
Grandma and Grandpa shared a conversation through their eyes.
My heart beat faster.
“Oh, I just don’t know.” Grandma gave a slow shake of her head. “First, we’d have to look into guidelines regarding a shared business. And second—” She looked at Grandpa for a long time without saying anything. “Well,” she finally said. “Sharing this bakery kitchen just isn’t a simple decision right now.”
My heart started to sink, but I buoyed it back up. “Grandma, I promise we wouldn’t be any trouble. We’d be really careful, and we’d clean up after ourselves, and we’d all be very, very, very responsible.”
She kissed the top of my head. “I know you’d do your best, Grace. You always do.”
“Tell you what,” Grandpa said. “We’ll look into it—see if it’s something we can try, at least for a while. In the meantime, you girls will need to find an adult who could be here with you after hours, when we’ve gone home.”
An adult who would be with us every moment? It was one thing to have Mom and Dad on call at home if we needed them, but another to have an adult who would stay with us the whole time we were working. That kind of person would be hard to find.
But then I thought of another possibility. “How about Josh?” I suggested.
Grandpa shook his head. “Josh is only fourteen. It’s gotta be an adult. No exceptions.” He turned to the loaves, loosened them from their pans, and set them to cool on a wire rack.
“How about Mom?” I asked, but even as I said it, I knew the answer.
Grandma smiled. “Grace, your mother is not your Aunt Sophie. She’s spent her life trying to get away from the bakery business. It’s just not her thing. Plus she has her hands full teaching, don’t you agree?”
I nodded. My mind was spinning, trying to come up with a solution. “Dad doesn’t get home until after five,” I said, thinking aloud. “That’s just not early enough to help us out here on weekdays. And he’s always doing projects around the house on the weekends, so I don’t think he’d have time to help us.” My hope began to dwindle.
When the bakery’s entry door chimed, Grandma said, “Well, you keep thinking about it, Grace.” Then she left to help a customer.
“I will,” I said. I glanced at the kitchen clock above the sinks. It was almost nine. “I have to run, Grandpa. My friends and I have orders to fill, and we start in a few minutes.”
“Proud of you, Grace,” Grandpa said as I gave him a hug good-bye. “I know you’re in a hurry, but you haven’t branded a loaf in a long time. Maybe that would help you feel better.” He nodded toward a rack filled with rising loaves of bread. I knew exactly what he meant, and suddenly my spirits rose, too.
I washed my hands, sprinkled flour lightly on the counter, and grabbed a small chunk of dough from the mixer. Then I quickly rolled out a small ball, used a knife to cut out the letter G, and carefully added it to the top of a round loaf of bread. When the bread came out of the oven, my letter would be part of it, branding it as my own.
“Thanks, Grandpa,” I said with a smile. “This way I’ll be sure to get my very own loaf.” Somehow, working with the dough had cheered me up. “Now I’ve got to get back to my business.”
“Thatta girl,” he said and waved me off. “Better get going!”
hen I arrived home a few minutes late, my friends were already in my kitchen wearing their aprons and adding ingredients to a mixing bowl.
Maddy
rolled her eyes and gave me an exaggerated scolding. “Grace, this is why we have everything on a calendar—so people know when to show up.”
I glanced at the clock. It was 9:06.
Maddy cracked up. “I’m kidding, Grace. We’re fine. Your mom let us in and told us that you went to ask your grandparents for some advice. So?”
“So…” I announced grandly, “they might let us use their bakery kitchen!”
Ella and Maddy shrieked in response.
“That would be awesome,” Ella said. “A real bakery kitchen!”
Maddy agreed. “What a great idea.”
“It’s not for sure,” I quickly added, “because they have to check into more rules, but they said we should think about finding an adult who would be there with us while we work.”
I glanced out the bay window at Mom, who was replanting more mums after the dog-digging disaster. “I don’t want to ask my mom,” I said. “By the time she gets done teaching, she’s ready to go home and start dinner—not start supervising us at the bakery.”
“My parents are talking about expanding their shop hours,” Maddy said. “They both work so much already. If they keep the store open longer, I might as well move in over here.”
“Wait,” Ella said. “I know! My dad! Until the right job comes along, he might like helping us. He has the time. I could ask, right?”
A thrum of energy went through me. “Your dad? Oh, Ella, that would be perfect! Can you call and ask right now?”
She shook her head. “He’s at a karate demonstration with the three E’s.” The three E’s were Ella’s triplet brothers, named Ernie, Eddy, and Eino.
“Could you text him?” I asked. I didn’t want to be pushy, but the sooner we had a plan in place, the sooner I could breathe again.
“Sure!” Ella took out her phone and tapped a quick message to her dad.
I wanted to stare at Ella’s phone and will her father to respond quickly, but we had to turn back to our orders, which were staring at us from the computer screen. It was hard to know how to manage so much work at once. We had to get organized.
Grace Makes It Great Page 2
