Grace Makes It Great

by Mary Casanova

  I took a deep breath. “Maybe…” I said, “but she won’t have time to help with it like she did during the summer.”

  “Wait!” Ella finally joined in. “My dad might be able to help us with that. Let’s ask him this afternoon.”

  Yes!

  And with that, another good idea was launched.

  When we asked Mr. P. what he thought of our blog idea, he was sitting on a stool in the bakery kitchen, sampling one of our new mocha macarons. “Mmm, this really is delicious,” he said, wiping the crumbs from his lap.

  “Dad!” Ella sighed impatiently. “What do you think of the blog?”

  Mr. P. nodded enthusiastically. “I think a blog is a fine idea. I’d be happy to help supervise it—as long as you girls write the posts and take the photos. You’re the experts, after all.” He winked.

  “Oh, good!” I said.

  Ella grinned. “Thanks, Dad.”

  Maddy pulled out her cell phone. “Mr. P., would you hold up a mocha macaron and smile, please?”

  Click!

  “It can be for one of our first postings,” she said excitedly.

  And then I was off and running, too. “Yes! But first we should write a post introducing our business. I can start working on the blog this weekend.”

  I was suddenly filled with a fizzy burst of energy. I hadn’t touched my blog since getting back from Paris, but it would be fun to start it up again—especially if it could help our business!

  Mr. P. chuckled and shook his head. “Together,” he said, “you girls sure are an awesome force.”

  I felt my cheeks flush. “Not without you, Mr. P.,” I said. “Without you here helping us, we’d be without a place to work.”

  Mr. P. smiled and glanced away, as if he was a little embarrassed. “Oh, I’m quite happy to help,” he said. “I mean, while I can.”

  Those last few words stung a little. I wished Mr. P. could stay on and work with us forever. I felt wishful. But I knew Ella’s dad needed a real job, one that would come with a paycheck. And that meant when a real job came along, he definitely would have to take it—and leave us to find another adult chaperone for LPP. I couldn’t imagine anyone who would be more fun and helpful in the bakery than Mr. P. He wasn’t even gone yet, but already I felt wistful.

  To get our blog up and running, my first post was an introduction to our business. I shared a photo of Bonbon, our mascot, sitting next to our bakery cart. Along with the photo, I wrote:

  Do you know why Bonbon is the mascot for La Petite Pâtisserie? Here are five good reasons:

  1. She’s adorable!

  2. She’s named after the popular French candy—the bonbon—which is strong (hard) on the outside and sweet on the inside.

  3. She’s a French bulldog.

  4. She’s from France. When I was learning French baking at my aunt and uncle’s pâtisserie in Paris, this little stray showed up needing food and water—and a home.

  5. I flew home with Bonbon AND the idea of starting a French baking business with my friends!

  My next entry was about what we were baking—and what we were botching. Sometimes mistakes could be the most fun things to write about!

  When the dishes pile up at the bakery, we use a dishwasher. But yesterday, when we were all tired, somebody made a mistake. Instead of using dishwasher detergent, she put in dish soap. Dish soap makes suds—lots and lots of suds. We all knew something was wrong when the suds started spilling out from the dishwasher door and across the floor! Now we have the cleanest bakery floor in the world. Oh, and the somebody who made the mistake? It’s a secret.

  My friends and I fell into a nice rhythm in my grandparents’ kitchen. When we met up at the bakery, we were all business—I mean, pretty much. We always played French music to get us in the mood to bake. Though we talked and laughed as we worked, we had orders to fill and deliver, and we had to stay focused.

  Our weekday afternoons were short. We had to work fast so that we could each get home for dinner and finish our homework. On Saturdays, though, we had more time. We started at noon—or even earlier if we had big orders to fill.

  With the help of Mr. P. and his van, deliveries became much easier—especially now that the weather was turning colder.

  And Grandma and Grandpa were a huge help, too. They usually lingered for a while after we arrived to answer questions or offer advice. But sometimes, at the end of their own long workdays, they looked so tired. I hoped they didn’t feel like they had to stick around. I loved it when they helped us, but Mr. P. was there if we needed anything.

  One day, when we got to the bakery after school and Grandma looked especially worn out, I asked my friends if we could skip baking. “Grandma and Grandpa will go home early if we’re not here,” I explained.

  “That’s okay with me,” Ella said.

  Maddy nodded in agreement. “We can make a run to the Kitchen Shop to buy more supplies.”

  “We’re almost out of our little boxes,” Ella added.

  But when my grandparents heard where we were going, Grandma stopped us at the door. “If you’re in a pinch or you need something special that you can only get from Mr. Hammond, then going to the Kitchen Shop makes sense,” Grandma explained. “But you’re paying retail prices there. When you’re in business, you need to buy in bulk—or buy lots of supplies at one time—so that you can pay wholesale prices.”

  “Let me guess,” Ella said. “Wholesale is cheaper?”

  Grandpa nodded. “Often half the price of what you pay at retail prices.”

  “That’s right,” Grandma agreed. “Wholesale means you’ll be cutting your costs in half. Let me put it this way: Mr. Hammond buys products at wholesale prices and then charges the retail price.”

  “Is that against the law?” I asked.

  Mr. P. chuckled as he opened his laptop to check for orders. “It’s not illegal,” he said. “If you’re buying a lot of something, companies are willing to sell it to you for less. It’s how business is done.”

  Grandma nodded as she walked over to a metal cabinet and pulled out a thick catalogue. “There’s no reason why you can’t order from the wholesaler we use,” she said, handing me the catalogue.

  As I flipped through the pages, I saw that they were filled with packaging of all shapes and sizes. It was much cheaper than what we were paying at the Kitchen Shop.

  We were learning so much from my grandparents! I only hoped they were getting something out of our being there, too.

  One afternoon, while we were looking at other online baking blogs for ideas, I pointed to the screen. “A baking contest? I wonder what that’s all about?”

  Mr. P. clicked on the contest posting. Up popped information about a regional baking contest.

  “It’s sponsored by the Massachusetts School of Cooking,” Ella said, scanning the screen. “It looks like it’s just for kids here in Massachusetts.”

  I read the details. They were looking for an original recipe by a baker under the age of fifteen. The top winner would receive…

  “Whoa!” I said, reading aloud now. “One thousand dollars?”

  Ella said, “That’s huge!”

  “Definitely,” Maddy said. “We should come up with a recipe! When’s the deadline?”

  Ella pointed at the screen. “November eleventh,” she read. “That’s only two weeks away!”

  I felt a flood of energy at the thought of experimenting with a new recipe. But we’d have to get started right away. With schoolwork, a Halloween costume to make, orders to fill, and trying to keep our blog up-to-date, I didn’t really have a lot of extra time for the contest.

  But then Mr. P. tapped the screen. “Uh-oh. Looks like you girls can’t enter as LPP,” he pointed out. “It says they accept only one submission form: ‘One baker, one recipe.’”

  Maddy sighed and slumped down into a chair.

  Just as quickly as my own enthusiasm had bubbled up, it petered out and my shoulders sagged. I shrugged and turned away to hide my disappoin
tment.

  It was time to clean up, so I grabbed the broom and dustpan. As I swept the flour dust into tidy little piles on the linoleum floor, I tried to convince myself that we didn’t really have time for the contest anyway. But even though I had plenty of work to do, my mind was thinking about creating an award-winning recipe.

  n Friday morning—October 30th—I wrapped the box I’d spray-painted silver in a huge black plastic bag and got a ride to school with Mom. Even though I’d told her about our class’s robot project, with hopes that I’d hook her into coming up with fun costumes for her own class, she didn’t seem to take the bait.

  “Have fun today,” she said, as I awkwardly lifted the bagged box from the trunk.

  I tried to smile, but I knew that after today, Ella and Maddy would be disappointed once again that they weren’t in Mr. Bauer’s class, too.

  Mr. Bauer taped paper over the window of our classroom door so that no one would pass by and see us putting on our robot costumes. Some of my classmates had gone all out by adding legs and arms made out of plastic or cardboard tubes.

  As I pulled my silver box up over my skirt, Mr. Bauer said, “Hey, Grace, it looks like you’re a special kind of robot. Tell us about it.”

  I pulled one of Grandpa’s white baker’s hats onto my head and then glanced down at all the things I’d glued or taped onto my robot body: a wooden spoon, a spatula, a set of measuring spoons, two different-size whisks, plus a booklet of recipes I’d printed out and made into a mini cookbook.

  “I’m Bistro, the baking robot,” I announced. I was actually pretty proud of my costume. I’d taken Josh’s advice and really made it my own.

  “Clever!” Mr. Bauer’s smile was big and wide. Then he turned to the class and said, “Robots come in many forms and with countless functions.”

  After we each had a chance to say a little something about the robot costumes we’d created, we lined up at the door.

  “Bentwick Elementary, here we come!” announced Captain Bauer.

  Just as we had rehearsed, we entered the hall and began making robot noises:

  “Zip, zip, zip! Zip, zip, zip!”

  “Ticka-ticka-ticka-ticka…Choo!”

  “Ping! Ping! Ping!”

  “Pop, pop, poppa, pop. Pop, pop, poppa, pop.”

  “Zee-bop. Zee-bop.”

  We walked slowly, pausing by each classroom until the teachers and their students came out to see what we were doing.

  Soon the halls echoed with laughing and clapping.

  “Go, robots!” somebody called out.

  We circled the school, making our way slowly back toward our classroom. But just as we neared my mom’s classroom, Mr. Bauer held up his hand.

  We robots fell silent.

  Suddenly we heard the sounds of gurgling water and birdcalls.

  Mr. Bauer pointed to the open door leading to my mom’s classroom. Mom was standing at the door with a huge smile on her face. She waved us inside.

  As we filed into the classroom, I was stunned. The room had been completely transformed into a tropical garden. Paper murals stretched around the walls, covered with paintings of green trees, plants, and flowers. Near the door, a fountain that I recognized from Mom’s summer garden at home spurted water down a series of fake rocks into a pool below. All around the room, real plants sprouted from large containers.

  The birdsong we heard matched a group of colorful birds in flight on the computerized whiteboard. And in the middle of the room, Mom’s students—all dressed in green shirts, skirts, and pants—sat around a shimmery blue lake on the floor, pretending to fish. Then, at my mom’s instruction, they began to whistle like birds. My mom had turned her classroom into something magical in her very own way.

  As I rounded the room, Ella and Maddy smiled and waved at me, and I beamed back.

  When all of us robots had walked around Mom’s classroom, Mr. Bauer raised his arm like a conductor and then started us off down the hall again, making our robot music. I’d never had so much fun at school before!

  That day at lunch, I couldn’t wait to join Ella and Maddy at their table. “I loved your robot!” Ella said, inching over on the bench to make room.

  “A baking robot!” Maddy added. “I should have guessed!”

  “And I loved your tropical classroom!” I said. “It was a surprise—just like you thought, Ella.”

  Maddy beamed. “I had such a blast painting the murals,” she said proudly.

  “We’re keeping it tropical all of next week, too,” Ella added with excitement.

  In that moment, I was certain of this: Ella and Maddy were having just as much fun in my mom’s class as I was in Mr. Bauer’s class. Mom was as creative as Mr. Bauer, just in a different way.

  On the first Saturday in November, before my grandparents left the bakery, Grandpa waved me out of the kitchen and toward the bakery counter. “Grace? Can you come visit with us for a second?”

  I nodded and then called to Mr. P. and my friends, “Be right back.” I left them dancing to a French pop song as they filled Mr. P.’s van with boxes for delivery.

  Grandma stepped out from behind the counter to give me a quick hug. She tilted her head at me and smiled, but there was sad or serious—or both—behind her eyes. I wondered what could be bothering her.

  “We want you and your family to come over tonight for dinner,” Grandma said. “We have something to talk about.”

  “Um…okay,” I said quietly.

  Then Grandma glanced away, as if unable to meet my eyes—as if what she and Grandpa needed to talk about with us was really serious. My stomach fluttered. Now I was definitely worried.

  Grandpa rested his hand on my shoulder, but instead of feeling warm and comforting, it felt heavy. “It’s about the business,” he added. “There’s a problem—”

  Just then, Mr. P. popped his head through the swinging door. “The van’s loaded up, Grace. We’re ready to go.”

  I looked back at Grandma and Grandpa. What was the problem with the business?

  “Go ahead. Make your deliveries,” Grandpa said, squeezing my shoulder.

  “Are you sure?” I asked. I felt torn. I needed to go, but I wanted to know what was going on with First Street Family Bakery.

  “Yes,” Grandma said. “We’ll talk tonight.”

  Then, almost as if in slow motion, Grandma turned the sign on the front door to “Closed” and gave me a small wave good-bye. When she and Grandpa stepped outside, a dried leaf fell on Grandpa’s head of white hair. He brushed it away wearily and locked the front door. I stood planted, watching them disappear.

  There’s a problem.

  Were my friends and I becoming a burden to my grandparents? Were we going to be kicked out of our baking space?

  I forced myself to go back to the kitchen. The others had just finished cleaning up.

  “Let’s go!” Ella said.

  Maddy and I climbed into the middle seat, and Ella sat in front by her dad. As we pulled away from the bakery, Maddy started singing “Frère Jacques.” I did my best to join in, even though my throat felt tight.

  “Where to first?” Mr. P. asked.

  Ella read off the first customer address from the list we’d printed from our website. Yesterday, we’d mapped out the route, and today—smooth as silk—all we had to do was drive to each location and deliver the orders.

  I could only hope the “talk” Grandma and Grandpa planned for tonight would go as smoothly. But the twisted knot between my ribs told me otherwise.

  When we returned to the bakery, Ella and Mr. P. told us they had an announcement. I braced myself. Had Mr. P. found a new job? I didn’t think I could handle that news and bad news from Grandma and Grandpa all in one day.

  But it wasn’t bad news.

  “It’s payday again,” Ella announced with a grin, holding up her business notebook. “Last month, we made more money than we spent!”

  “Really?” I said, exhaling with relief. I still couldn’t believe we were getting
paid to do something that was so much fun. And honestly, I’d been too busy lately to think about making money.

  “Cool!” Maddy said.

  Ella had a check for Mr. P. to reimburse him for gas, a check for Mom and Dad to start paying back what we owed them, and a check for Grandpa and Grandma. “Grace, will you make sure they get this?”

  I looked at the check. “Fifty dollars? I wish we could give them more. They’ve been so good to us.”

  Mr. P. swept his arm toward the counters and ovens. “That’s for sure. This space is perfect.”

  “With the way business is going, we should be able to pay them more before long,” Ella added.

  “Okay,” I said, folding the check carefully. As I tucked it into my pocket, I thought about the looks on my grandparents’ faces. My business was doing so well. What was happening with their business?

  Maddy started to put away her own check, but then paused, “Did you take money out for taxes and supplies?” she asked Ella.

  Ella nodded. “Yup. Dad helped me figure out what we needed to save for taxes. After that, I took out a third for supplies, and the other two thirds we can save or spend.”

  We’d agreed early on that we would reinvest some of our money back into supplies for the business, save some for our dream trip to Paris, and then spend the rest on whatever we wanted. “The three S’s, right, Ella?” I said. “Supplies, Save, and Spend.”

  “Very good, Miss Thomas,” Ella said in a teacherly voice. She was joking, but the truth was, she was really good at this math and money stuff.

  “If business keeps going this well, I’ll be able to buy my own printer soon!” Maddy exclaimed. She had been using her parents’ printer to create all of our labels and pamphlets, but it was an older model. She’d been talking about getting a new one for weeks now.

  “I’m going clothes shopping this weekend!” Ella added.

  “I might pay to take an online French course,” I said quietly, but then I paused. If Grandma and Grandpa were kicking us out of the bakery, we might not be able to do any of this. No printer. No clothes shopping. No online French course. No dream trip to Paris. How would I break that to my friends?