Grace Stirs It Up

by Mary Casanova

  For my niece, Grace, who shares the same lovely name

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: A Backyard Walk

  Chapter 2: A Revolutionary Idea

  Chapter 3: The Name Game

  Chapter 4: The Great Escape

  Chapter 5: Dog in Training

  Chapter 6: The Sleepover

  Chapter 7: A Hundred Flyers

  Chapter 8: In the Doghouse

  Chapter 9: The Parents’ Meeting

  Chapter 10: The Delivery

  Chapter 11: Broken to Pieces

  Chapter 12: A Playdate

  Chapter 13: The Finish Line

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  Preview of Grace Makes It Great

  Copyright

  race, darlin’!” Mom’s singsongy voice drifted to my ears from somewhere nearby. “Someone needs you.”

  I forced one eye open, then the other, expecting to see my cousin’s bedroom back in Paris.

  But instead, on my sage-green rug, my suitcase waited to be unpacked. Beneath my print of two penguins with their heads entwined, my purple backpack hung on my desk chair. And from outside my screened window, a robin whistled brightly: cheeriup, cheerio, cheeriup…

  “Grace,” Mom called again from the bottom of the stairs.

  I found my voice. “Okay, I’m coming.”

  I slid out of bed, still in my travel clothes. I’d left Paris at 8:30 this morning and hadn’t slept a wink on the plane. After six hours of flying and an hour-long drive from Boston, I’d arrived home only to find that time had almost stood still. My bedroom clock had still said 10:00 in the morning, but my body thought it was late afternoon. It had felt so good to be home that I’d flopped down on my bed and slept.

  Now that I was waking up, I suddenly remembered, and a surge of energy zipped through me. “Bonbon!”

  I raced down the stairs and into the kitchen.

  Mom was stirring a pitcher of lemonade. “Hi, sleepyhead! You napped for almost two hours. Lunch soon.”

  Whining rose from the dog crate near the back door. I spun toward the little black nose pressed against the wire door. Bonbon looked up at me with her sweet black eyes, one framed by a pirate patch of dark fur. At last, at last—here in Bentwick, Massachusetts—she finally had a real home.

  “You’re really here,” I said, opening the crate and lifting her into my arms. She wiggled and squirmed with energy.

  “I think she needs to go out,” Mom said.

  I stepped into my flip-flops, grabbed the pink leash that Mom had bought for Bonbon, and set the dog on the kitchen floor. “Let’s go, pup!”

  Bonbon twisted and spun, but I managed to attach her leash to her new collar.

  “I hope she’s that excited for her vet appointment on Thursday,” Mom said, laughing. “I called this afternoon, and they can get her in for a quick checkup. And speaking of exciting news, Grandma and Grandpa invited us over for dinner tonight at six. They’re anxious to see us.”

  “Can I bring Bonbon along?”

  Mom shrugged. “Call and ask when you come back inside,” she suggested. “See what they say.”

  I nodded and then stepped out the back door into a warm, humid day. Bonbon darted left and right. Nose to the ground, she snuffled, snorted, and sniffed every inch of grass in our backyard, straining at her leash.

  Each time she pulled hard, I took a tiny dog treat from my pocket—just as Mom had suggested. Bonbon wasn’t used to walking on a leash, so we had to teach her not to tug.

  “Bonbon,” I said sweetly. “Come.”

  She turned, spotted my outstretched hand, and trotted a few steps back toward me.

  “Sit, Bonbon,” I said firmly. When she did, I praised her, and then said, “Let’s walk.” I held the treat in front of her nose and started walking again. She stayed close to my side for a few steps, so I gave her the treat. “Good girl!”

  And then we went back to exploring. Every time Bonbon strained, I repeated the treat lesson. I wished that I could let her run free in the yard, but there were gaps in the stone wall—gaps that Bonbon could easily escape through. So until Dad had a chance to put in gates, Bonbon would be exploring the yard on a leash.

  I don’t mind a little extra work, I thought, breathing in the sweet, earthy air. Though I had loved Paris and my time there with Mom, my cousin Sylvie, Uncle Bernard, Aunt Sophie, and their new baby, Lily, there was nothing like being home again.

  Within our stone wall, Mom’s flower gardens and rhubarb patch had survived our being gone. The hydrangea bush was a ball of blue blossoms. Roses and lilies bloomed in shades of red and yellow. Mom’s metal sculpture creations—a three-foot gnome and a heron standing on one leg—peered out from the flowers, as if welcoming me back.

  Yesterday, Paris. Today, home. Flying happened so fast that my brain couldn’t catch up.

  Bonbon nudged my foot with her wet nose. I reached down and scratched her under her chin. “We’re world travelers,” I said to her.

  I thought back to that first day in Paris when Sylvie and I had walked through the Luxembourg Gardens—the day that I’d first met Bonbon. Skittish and mistrustful, the little French bulldog had come close to us only because Sylvie had bread in her hand. Then I began setting food and water just outside my aunt and uncle’s pâtisserie, and eventually Bonbon started showing up for dinner every day. When she didn’t show up one day, I was heartsick, wondering what had happened to her.

  To my huge surprise, Mom had found Bonbon through the animal shelter and adopted her, and we flew her back to the States with us. “Since you’re the one who has been asking for a dog,” Mom had said on the plane, “she’ll be mostly your responsibility.”

  Okay with me!

  I headed for the end of our yard, where ivy spiraled up the trunks of towering maples and oaks, their leafy tops like massive green umbrellas. From their branches hung about a dozen birdhouses that Dad had made in every size, shape, and color.

  A gray squirrel swung from the blue, double-decker birdhouse. Head down, tail flicking angrily, it chattered and scolded us.

  In return, Bonbon yipped, barked, and bolted for the tree.

  “Bonbon, no!” I held on to her leash with both hands. But Bonbon pulled forward, and I tripped over my flip-flops and fell flat on my chest, my arms outstretched. “Oomph!”

  As I lay there, the squirrel disappeared into the neighbor’s yard. Bonbon stopped barking. She must have sensed that something had gone wrong. She wheeled around, whined, and licked my cheek.

  I laughed. “That didn’t go so well, did it?” I rose to my feet and brushed fresh grass clippings off my clothes. “Are you going to be a troublemaker?”

  In answer, Bonbon spun in an excited circle.

  Then I picked her up and let her look over the ledge of the stone wall. “Want to see?”

  Between our house and the Blackstone River beyond, mallards dipped and bobbed in the canal. “See that towpath alongside the canal?” I said to Bonbon. “It used to be where horses pulled barges loaded with cargo from the mills. You would have loved racing after those horses, wouldn’t you?”

  Her ears stood up nice and straight, as if she was really listening, so I continued.

  “See, some parts of the river are too shallow to get through, so a long time ago, they made the canal,” I explained. “But now, you and I can use those towpaths for walking.”

  Bonbon wiggled, as if bored, but I held her more tightly so that she wouldn’t fall. To our right, a bike rider approached on the path.

  “And you see that silver-and-orange bike coming this way? That boy riding it is my brother, Josh.”

  Josh spotted us
and waved as he crossed the nearest small bridge to our side of the canal. Though Dad and Josh had picked us up from the airport, we still had so much catching up to do.

  I put Bonbon down, and then we dashed around the side of the house and met Josh on the driveway.

  “Hi!” I said as he rolled his bike into the garage.

  “Hey, sis,” he said, tossing his head to send his bangs out of his eyes. “Thought you were going to sleep all day.”

  “She almost did,” Dad said, looking up from his workbench in the garage. “But if you need sleep, you need sleep. Right, Grace?”

  “Yeah, especially if my body thinks it’s six hours later than it really is.” I smothered a yawn.

  Josh said, “Y’know, studies show teens really do need more sleep to be at their best. So at fourteen, I should probably be sleeping till noon on weekends, don’t you think?”

  “Seems you’re at your best, Josh, when you’re busy,” Dad said. “Sleep may not have that much to do with it.”

  Josh grinned. “Yeah. True.” As if to prove the point, he reached for a wrench, which meant he was about to start tinkering with his bike.

  I led Bonbon through the garage door back into the kitchen, suddenly remembering that I needed to call Grandma. I couldn’t wait for her to meet Bonbon!

  hen late afternoon rolled around, Josh biked off ahead of us to Grandma and Grandpa’s house. With Mom and Dad just behind me, I walked Bonbon on a leash along the towpath into the heart of town. I had a pocketful of treats and gave one to Bonbon every so often to try to keep her by my side.

  To our left, the evening sun turned the Blackstone into a flowing river of gold. It was a different kind of gilding than at the Palace of Versailles, which I had visited in France just a few days ago, but our river town had a beauty all its own.

  When we reached First Street, we turned right and headed uphill. Bonbon stopped to sniff at every lamppost and flower garden, but I didn’t mind. Everything was new to her here, and thankfully, she was no longer roaming the streets of Paris looking for something to eat and somewhere to sleep.

  We passed a few shops and restaurants, including Da Vinci’s, my favorite Italian restaurant. At the next corner, we all glanced through the window of First Street Family Bakery, my grandparents’ bakery business. The sign in the dark window read “Closed,” as it always did by late afternoon.

  At the end of the block, we crossed the railroad tracks near the depot. A crowd of tourists waited to board the restored diesel train, used for sightseeing trips through Blackstone Valley.

  To think only yesterday, I was a tourist, too—in Paris.

  It felt strange to be back home only to have my best friends, Ella and Maddy, gone. We’d been in touch online when I was in Paris, but now they were at Maddy’s family cabin in the Berkshires, the mountains in western Massachusetts.

  Mom seemed to read my mind. As we passed the public library, housed in an old steeple-topped white church, she asked, “When do your friends get back, Grace?”

  I glanced over my shoulder. She and Dad followed behind me, holding hands. I guess they’d missed each other, too.

  “Late tonight,” I replied. “I can’t wait to show them Bonbon. We’re going to meet up tomorrow afternoon, I think.”

  Bonbon’s ears perked up at the sound of her name, and she trotted a little faster up the hill. Houses stood shoulder to shoulder here, a few dating back over two hundred years to the time of the American Industrial Revolution. Others were brand-new, but you could hardly tell. They had the same wooden shutters and cobblestone walkways.

  At last, we reached the familiar brick house with dormers and cranberry trim. Grandma was waiting for us on the landing, and she wrapped me up in a hug.

  “Oh, your little dog! Grace, she’s almost as cute as you!” Grandma reached down to pet Bonbon, but my dog backed away to the end of her leash.

  “She’s shy at first,” I explained. “It takes her a little time to warm up to people.”

  “That’s fine,” Grandma said, opening the door wide. “Sometimes I’m slow to warm up to people, too.”

  In the pale blue living room with cherry furniture and an Oriental rug, Grandpa popped up from his easy chair, set his book on the coffee table, and greeted me and Mom. “Welcome home, girls!”

  I smiled. I guess even though she’s a fifth-grade teacher, Mom will always be his “girl.”

  “So how do people greet each other in Par-ee?” Grandpa asked.

  I thought of the first day I’d stepped into the apartment in Paris, a little bewildered by the kissing-on-each-cheek thing. And I’d bonked Sylvie’s nose, which hadn’t been the best way to get to know each other.

  Grandpa had done lots of traveling when he served in the navy, so I guessed he already knew the answer to his question, but I explained anyway. “People in France kiss on the cheek, both sides, but only if you’re a close friend or family. Otherwise, you just shake hands.”

  “So how do I rank, Grace?” Grandpa asked.

  I stood on my tiptoes, breathed in his smell of spice and soap, and kissed him on each cheek.

  “Phew!” he said, with mock relief. “I guess I’m family.”

  Then Mom gave him a hug. “Hey, Dad,” she said. “It’s so good to see you!”

  Soon we were all sitting in the small backyard, overlooking the river below. The picnic table was covered with dishes of green beans, cucumbers, corn on the cob, fruit salad, and barbecued chicken hot off the grill.

  Grandma and Grandpa filled us in on what Mom and I had missed while we were away: a runaway horse at the Fourth of July parade, the closing of a gift shop on Main Street, and the opening of a big shoe store at the mall.

  Mom and I answered questions about our trip, but no words could come close to summing it up.

  “We loved our visit to Versailles,” Mom said.

  “We did!” I added. “That’s where an angry mob stormed the palace at the start of the French Revolution.”

  Grandpa leaned in. “That was a very different kind of revolution from what happened right here in Blackstone Valley,” he said. “The American Industrial Revolution.”

  I’d heard Grandpa give this talk before, so I knew what was coming.

  “The Slater Mill in Blackstone Valley was the first water-powered cotton-spinning factory in the whole United States,” Grandpa began, settling back into his chair. “Before that, farmwork started and stopped with the rising and setting of the sun. But with that first factory, workers were governed by the factory bell. It was all about speed and efficiency. And after the Slater Mill was built, more and more mills sprang up here in New England.”

  Even if Grandpa had told us this story eighty million times already, I didn’t mind.

  I jumped, though, when a whistle sounded and the sightseeing train started chugging in our direction, pulling six train cars. We all watched and waited for the train to pass.

  From behind the windows of the dining car, tourists young and old waved at us. We waved back as the train crossed the narrow tracks high above the river below.

  “‘Course,” Grandpa continued with a nod at the passing train, “with the Industrial Revolution came the need for transportation. Before trains came along, they needed to move heavy cargo between the mills and the port by boat. But they couldn’t get large boats down the river.”

  “So is that why they built the canal and towpaths?” Josh asked, playing along. I knew that Josh already knew the answer—he was just humoring Grandpa.

  But Grandpa took the bait. He nodded. “That’s right. In the early eighteen hundreds, they built the Blackstone Canal. Did you know that a barge on that canal could haul up to thirty-five tons of cargo pulled along the towpath by only two horses?”

  “Hmm…I’d heard that somewhere,” said Dad, scratching his chin.

  Mom shot him a look.

  “But the barges were slow,” Grandpa continued. “And that’s why trains were so revolutionary.”

  Before he could get t
oo far on the history of trains, Mom spoke up. “By the way, Grace has come up with a pretty revolutionary idea of her own.”

  “Oh, let’s hear!” Grandma met my eyes and lifted her red glasses to the top of her gray hair, as if to see me better. But I knew the real reason was that her bifocals—no matter how stylish—sometimes gave her trouble.

  Despite my feeling tired, a tiny spark of energy ignited within me. “Well, all summer I’ve been thinking about starting a business with my friends. Since I love baking, I kept coming back to that idea. But to make it stand out and be really unique, I finally thought, why not give it a French twist?”

  “Wonderful,” Grandma said.

  Grandpa nodded his approval, too. “It’s always good to try and look at things differently.”

  It felt so good to be together again with family, but now that I was talking about starting a business with my friends, I needed to see them, too. Why did Ella and Maddy have to be away when I was finally back? I rested my chin on my folded arms.

  The three of us had had a blast together last summer. A whole week at Lake Liberty in the Berkshires. A whole week of swimming, kayaking, and sleeping on the screened porch. And I’d missed it this year.

  While I was away, I’d tried to keep in touch with my friends through my travel blog, and I hoped, hoped, hoped that things hadn’t changed between us. It was August fourth. We still had almost a month of vacation left, and I was excited to pick up where we’d left off. Now that Ella and Maddy had given up on their dog-walking business, I couldn’t wait to tell them about my great idea for a French baking business we could start together!

  But what if they didn’t like it?

  “Grace, you’re drooping,” Dad said.

  Startled out of my thoughts, I looked up. “Huh?”

  “You look like a plant that needs water,” Grandma said. “Or a girl who needs sleep.”

  “Jet lag,” Mom said. “It’s catching up with me, too.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s only seven thirty,” she said, “but my body thinks it’s one thirty in the morning. Way past my bedtime.” She yawned. “What about you, Grace?”

  Yawning is contagious.