Potion Problems

by Cindy Callaghan

  If I had a secret club, Tricia and Maria would HAVE TO be in it with me. This book is for them with great appreciation for our oh so many years of eating dessert first and living life with lots of spice!

  1

  It All Starts with a Problemo

  Question: Why was I, Kelly Quinn, jumping on the bed late at night, over and over again? Was it: Exercise? A relaxation technique? A way to digest my dinner?

  Answer: None of the above.

  There was a very special book—a Secret Recipe Book—that I kept hidden in the tiles above my bed. And the only way to access it was this jumping situation.

  I jumped again and reached into the ceiling for the Secret Recipe Book like I had so many times before.

  Except this time, it wasn’t there.

  I texted my besties, Hannah Hernandez and Darbie O’Brien immediately.

  Do either of you have it?

  It? Darbie texted back, followed immediately after by, The pox? Before I could reply, she added, Small Pox or Chicken Pox? I was almost ready to send my response when a third text came in from her: Doesn’t matter. I don’t have either.

  Hannah wrote, The Book, Darb. You took it home with you last night.

  Guilty, Darbie wrote. It’s right—

  Right where? I wrote. At this point I was sweating. This was no ordinary book.

  She didn’t respond for too many seconds. . . .

  A few weeks ago, on the last day of summer vacation, Darbie and Hannah and I found the Secret Recipe Book hidden in my attic.

  Who am I? Kelly Quinn, seventh grader, average/mediocre soccer player, and lover of all things cooking.

  What’s the Secret Recipe Book? It’s a bunch of handwritten recipes taped within the pages of an old World Book Encyclopedia, Volume T. With the Book, we formed a secret cooking club and made the recipes, which called for some pretty unusual ingredients that we could only get from one local store: La Cocina.

  Weird things happened to the people who ate the food (a.k.a. potions), and also to us. Seems that potioning someone comes with a price, like a payback. It’s called the Law of Returns. So any time we make a potion, the person who adds the special ingredient gets a Return, which is bad luck.

  Darbie? I wrote again.

  She returned, Problemo.

  Problemos with the Secret Recipe Book were not good.

  2

  The Darbie Decimal System

  I paced around my kitchen later that evening. Darbie sat on a bar stool, more interested in stirring a yogurt with a pretzel stick than in answering Hannah’s questions.

  “Where did you leave it?” Hannah asked.

  “In my house.”

  “That’s good. Good start,” Hannah said. “Now, can you be more specific?”

  “In my room.”

  Hannah blew her bangs out of her face and took the yogurt away from Darbie, who instantly pouted. I knew from experience that taking food from Darbie was the opposite of what you should do to get her cooperation—her mind didn’t work without a constant infusion of sugar. Actually, it sometimes didn’t work even with the influx of sugar.

  “Here, Darbie.” I handed her a family-size bag of peanut M&M’s after reaching in and taking a few out for myself.

  Darbie’s pout reversed. “Thanks, Kell. You know me so well.” She took a handful from the bag, plucked out the orange ones, and put the others back in.

  “Do you have to touch them all?” Hannah asked.

  I stood between them, facing Darbie, and asked her, “Where in your room?”

  She popped an orange M&M and looked up into her brain for details. “On my collection stack. You know it’s as tall as me?”

  “That’s the pile where you store stuff you’ve found but don’t have any place to put, right?”

  “Yet,” she explained. “I don’t have a place to put it yet, but I will once everything is cataloged and sorted. You’ve heard of the Dewey decimal system? I’m going to make my own—the Darbie decimal system. But that’s just a working title, and there won’t be any decimals or math. Whatcha think?”

  Hannah tried to get her back on track. “But the Book wasn’t on or in your pile this morning?”

  “Definitely not. I checked.” Darbie chomped on more M&M’s. “In fact, now that I think about it, the Secret Recipe Book wasn’t the only thing missing, because the pile was quite a bit shorter than me this morning. Or maybe I got a lot taller overnight. You know, like a growth spurt.”

  “I don’t think those happen overnight,” I said.

  There was a knock on the back door, which was not so much a knock, but more an angry bang that we all recognized.

  “Ugh,” Darbie said.

  I went to the door, but, before opening it, said to the girls, “Not a word about the Book. You know how she is.”

  Our neighbor and frenemy, Charlotte, stepped inside without bothering with hello. “You keep all of your guests waiting outside like that, Kelly Quinn?”

  “You’re not exactly a guest,” I said. “You’re a neighbor.”

  “And uninvited,” Hannah added.

  “Now who’s not being neighborly?” Charlotte propped her hands on her hips. “Is this a meeting of the secret cooking club?”

  Charlotte had recently found out about the club and thought it was the funniest thing in the world. Then she told everyone about it. So much for secret.

  Hannah asked, “Does it look like we’re cooking?”

  Charlotte must not have felt like mocking us at this moment, which was rare. Instead she said, “I’m here on official student council business. I’m collecting gently used books for the annual book drive, and I’ve come to pick up what you have. I stress gently, not like the ones we got from Darbie’s house.”

  “That’s what was missing from my pile! My books!”

  “The books,” I confirmed.

  “The Book,” Hannah said.

  “My mom donated the book,” Darbie whispered.

  “Is there an echo in here?” Charlotte asked. “Most of the books from Darbie’s house were in such bad shape we had to put them straight into recycling. I hope the Quinns can step up the quality.”

  I moved to the door and opened it. “I’ll bring some over later.” Charlotte didn’t move toward the door. I added, “Later today.”

  Charlotte looked at Darbie, who was sorting M&M’s and eating only orange ones.

  “You know they all taste the same.”

  “Not true,” Darbie said. “Watch.” She got one of each color M&M and set them on the kitchen counter, then she slipped a cloth napkin from under a bowl of fruit. “Blindfold me, Kell.”

  I tied the napkin around her head so she couldn’t see.

  “Wait.” She lifted it and peered at Charlotte. “A bet?”

  “Oh, for sure,” Charlotte said. “If you can name all the colors by taste, I’ll let you be captain at the next soccer practice. And if you can’t—”

  “Deal!” Darbie pulled the napkin back down and stuck out her hand.

  I put in a yellow.

  Darbie ate it.

  Next I handed her blue, then red, green, brown, and orange.

  When she was done, she lifted the blindfold.

  Charlotte’s hands found her hips again. “Exactly the same, aren’t they?”

  Darbie said, “First yellow, then blue, red, green, brown, and orange.” To me she said, “You saved the best for last. Thanks, Kell.”

  “No way. Oh come on.” She looked at me. “Kelly Samantha Quinn, you cheated.” The only person besides Charlotte who has ever used my middle name is my mother, because it’s the same as hers. Charlotte didn’t have a reason except to irritate me. “Darbie knew what order you were putting those M&M’s in.”

  “I did not,
” Darbie said. “And I resent the implication that I can’t tell the difference between the taste of M&M’s.”

  Charlotte moved toward the door. “I’ll show myself out.”

  “Oh, one more thing,” I said. “I’m just curious, because we have tons of old newspapers to get rid of, what do you do with your recycling?”

  “We put it in the Dumpster behind Sam’s iScream, like everyone else in town.”

  “Right,” I said. “Well, we’re going there later today to drop the newspapers, so we could bring your recycling over at the same time. You know, to be neighborly.”

  “That’s so kind of you, Kelly. I’ll tell my mom you’re coming to get it.” She went to close the door, but then reopened it and stuck her head back in. “Oh, but if you’re looking for a World Book Encyclopedia with a Secret Recipe Book inside, you won’t find it there. No, I’m keeping that for myself. Ta, girls.” She pulled the door shut and gave a wiggly-fingered wave through the window, a devilish grin on her face.

  “Problemo,” Darbie said.

  “Mucho,” Hannah said.

  “Grande,” I agreed.

  3

  A Little Hypnosis, Anyone?

  What we can do?” I asked.

  “What if she makes something?” Hannah asked.

  “We’d be frogs, for sure. She would turn us into frogs before she did anything else,” Darbie said. “I know how her evil mind works, and that’s what she’d do first.”

  “I agree,” I said. “But she hasn’t yet, so she must just want to hold it for ransom, right?”

  “Fat chance,” Hannah said.

  Honk.

  “That’s my mom,” Darbie said.

  Honk.

  “And there’s my dad,” Hannah said.

  I said, “Think about how we’ll get that book back, and we’ll make a plan on the bus tomorrow morning.”

  “You know, if you want me to think, I’m going to need . . .” Darbie nodded at the bag of M&M’s.

  “Fine.” I handed it to her. “Take it with you.”

  “Thanks, Kell. I’ll bring back the non-orange ones.”

  “That’s okay. They’re all yours.”

  * * *

  The next morning, I ran to catch the bus, got on and wiggled myself into a seat between Hannah and Darbie, and caught my breath.

  “Running late?” Hannah asked.

  “I stopped at Mrs. Silvers’s house to scoop the poop.”

  “Is she still complaining about that?” Darbie asked.

  Mrs. Silvers was our neighbor across the street. She had been ridiculously mean until she got her knee replaced. We even referred to her as “the witch.” But since the surgery, she’s like a whole new person.

  “No,” I said. “I just wanted to. I think she’s changed, and I want to help her out, even if it isn’t from my dog.”

  “You and her are like . . . BFFs now?” Hannah asked.

  “We’re getting along better than ever, actually. She even gave me this.” I showed them the flyer for the Felice Foudini Recipe Challenge. Felice Foudini is this amazing TV chef. I was on her show once when I was a kid. She probably doesn’t remember me, but I’ll never forget.

  “Mrs. Silvers loved my chili that I entered into the cook-off so much that she thinks I should send the recipe to this.”

  “Are you going to?” Hannah asked me.

  “Maybe, but I can only think of one thing right now—the Book. Did you guys come up with any ideas to get it back?”

  Darbie held up a lanyard from the chili festival with a red poker chip duct-taped to it and grimaced.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A medallion. We’ll hypnotize Charlotte, and she’ll have no choice but to lead us right to the Book.”

  “It’s a poker chip,” Hannah said. “And we don’t know anything about hypnosis.”

  “No,” I said. “But I bet we know someone who does.”

  “Señora Perez?” Hannah asked.

  We’d learned that Señora Perez, owner of the local Mexican cooking store, La Cocina, was one of the three original authors of the Book. Ever since we found out about the book, she had been sort of our unofficial “potion advisor.” La Cocina was also the only place that stocked the special ingredients we need—Señora P always made sure she had what we needed.

  Charlotte called to us from the back of the bus. “What’s all that whispering, girls? Talking about secret recipes? Oh, do you have potion problems?”

  Misty, Charlotte’s sidekick, high-fived Charlotte and said, “Good one!”

  We ignored them. It wasn’t easy, but we did it so often, we’d gotten good at it.

  “Let’s go see Señora super speedy,” Darbie said.

  Hannah and I nodded.

  “We’ll run over right after soccer practice,” I said.

  “Unless we’re frogs by then,” Darbie said. “In which case we’ll hop.”

  4

  Just Add Facial Warts

  I knew something was wrong the moment I sat down in Family and Consumer Sciences class, or F&CS, which is what we used to call Home Ec. There was no recipe. Mr. Douglass ALWAYS sets out a recipe in the kitchen areas so we can get started right away.

  Darbie was a little late: messy hair, mismatched outfit. Pretty normal for Darbie. She took one look at me and said, “Kell, you look like someone just Rollerbladed over your favorite sandwich. Ha! Remember the time I did that and you got so mad? Your face was all, like, blahh!” She made a silly face.

  I didn’t answer her, even though I remembered the time.

  “ ’Member?” she asked again.

  “There’s no recipe,” I said.

  Hannah, wearing a trendy new top that I wanted to borrow immediately, returned from taking an exploratory lap around the F&CS classroom. It wasn’t a classroom, exactly. It consisted of six separate kitchen areas—a counter with space to chop, a sink, a stove on top of an oven, a microwave, and a bowl with some random ingredients. Our bowl had an avocado, a banana, an apple, and a bunch of carrots with green stems still attached. There was a seventh area in the front of the room where Mr. Douglass taught and demonstrated.

  “I checked with everyone,” she said. “They don’t know what’s going on. No one has recipes.”

  “What do you think’s happening?” I asked.

  Darbie shrugged. “I dunno. I was still trying to remember what kind of sandwich it was.”

  Hannah brushed her bangs out of her face. “Should I ask what she’s talking about?”

  “Probably not.” I knew rehashing the Rollerblading-over-the-sandwich thing would annoy Hannah.

  At that moment I overheard Charlotte in kitchen area number two saying, “He probably got fired.”

  I was about to throw an overripe avocado at her when Mr. Douglass dragged himself into the classroom.

  He clapped twice, like he always does to get the class’s attention. Usually his claps are loud and filled with enthusiasm for what he’s about to tell us, but today they were sad, slow, unexcited claps.

  He sighed loudly.

  We waited for him to speak.

  “I have,” he started, “some very bad news. About as bad as news can get.” He sighed again. “I have just come from a school board budget meeting, where we discussed . . .” He closed his eyes, lowered his head, and rolled his hands out for us to finish his sentence.

  “The budget?” we chanted together.

  “Duh,” said Charlotte, twirling one of her perfect blond curls around her index finger.

  “That’s right. As it does every year, the district discusses budget cuts. The board has decided that to meet its budget, it will eliminate our Family and Consumer Sciences program, which they said was . . .” He dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief that was folded like a flower and tucked into the front pocket of his shirt. “Obsolete.”

  Obsolete? Obsolete?!

  Hands popped up.

  Whispering started.

  “I said it before, and I’ll say it ag
ain,” he continued. “Cooking is an art. We need to use these tangles of emotions to improve our craft. Your assignment for today is to improvise. Use the ingredients in the pantry and fridge to make the saddest dish—dinner or dessert—that you can. Out of the depths of sadness and despair blooms the . . . the . . .” He buried his nose in his hanky and left the room without telling us what blooms.

  “This is terrible,” I said.

  “As bummerino as a stinkfest convention,” Darbie said.

  I overheard Charlotte say, “Who cares?”

  I grabbed a frying pan and headed toward kitchen area two, but Hannah stopped me. “Don’t start anything,” she said. “Let’s just cook. What’s the saddest thing you can make?”

  “I don’t know. Cooking makes me happy, not sad.”

  “How about onions?” asked Darbie. “They make me cry. We can add broccoli to it. There isn’t anything more depressing than a green vegetable. How about brussels sprouts? Even the name sounds depressing, like someone sprouted fingerlike tentacles all over her body.”

  “What can you do with that, Kell?” Hannah asked.

  “I guess we could caramelize the onions and shred the sprouts. Maybe add some pine nuts.”

  “And yesterday’s coffee grounds, and stinky cheese,” suggested Darbie.

  Hannah said, “We’re going for sad, not food poisoning.”

  “You’d be sad if you were stinkier than all the other cheeses.”

  Darbie had a point.

  “We could add Gorgonzola,” I said. “It’s both stinky and tasty. And Mr. Douglass always has some.”

  “That sounds downright dismal,” Darbie said. “I’d be unhappy if I were called Gorgonzola.”

  Hannah agreed. “I’m mopey just thinking about it.”

  “Then maybe we should toss in just a few bloodred cranberries to liven it up,” I suggested. “We don’t want anyone getting too depressed.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Hannah went to the front of the F&CS room to shop around for the items that we needed. Stinky cheeses and pine nuts weren’t popular items, probably because no one knew how to cook with them, so they were easy to find. But the onions were in high demand.