Potion Problems

by Cindy Callaghan

  8

  Allow Me to Introduce LLJ

  Mr. Douglass’s iPod was plugged into a speaker and blasted some pop songs for the whole cafeteria kitchen to hear.

  “The girls are here!” he said when we entered.

  Frankie and Tony walked in behind us. “So are we.”

  A grunt that could’ve been “Me too” came from near the walk-in freezer. It was LLJ. Based on her frosty eyelashes, I thought she might’ve slept in there last night.

  I had a Moon Honey drop—the antidote for any potion—in my pocket for Tony. I didn’t want to give it to him, because I liked the attention I was getting from him, but I knew that I had to because I couldn’t deal with the guilt. Usually we think of all kinds of clever ways to give people a Moon Honey drop without them knowing, but I didn’t think I needed to go to those extremes with Tony.

  I took out two candies. “Want one?”

  He took it and popped it right into his mouth. I pretended to do the same, but I saved it. Our supply was limited, and with La Cocina closed, I didn’t know when we were going to be able to restock. I wondered, would he like me for real? I crossed my fingers, even though I didn’t think those good-luck things worked.

  “We have three hours till lunch. I’ve made a schedule,” Hannah said. “We need to get the slow cookers going first.”

  “How many do we have?” I asked.

  LLJ disappeared into a walk-in pantry and returned bear-hugging large electric pots. “Five,” she said with a low, gruff, scratchy voice.

  “Super,” I said. Everyone took a pot, and I directed them through the recipe for Slowpoke Cooker Fettuccine. Tony needed some extra help, so I showed him how to level off a teaspoon of black pepper. As I measured, his hand touched mine. There was a little spark or a tingle or a shiver, I think. Wasn’t there? Maybe it was just me.

  Once the cookers were going, Hannah said, “Next up is cake.”

  We made the batter and baked twelve velvety red-carpet cakes. While they baked, we prepped large pans of Veggie Enchi-la-di-das, which prompted Darbie to show everyone her dance.

  Hannah showed us the voting process she’d designed. She’d labeled shoe boxes—one for each dish. Every kid would get a taste of all four dishes and one ticket. They’d drop their ticket into the box for the dish they liked best. Simple.

  When the cakes were cool enough, I demonstrated how everyone should ice the cakes, and set them to work on the others. I checked their work and saw LLJ bent over the cake I’d just finished.

  What was she doing?

  “Hey!” I called to her.

  She stepped away, and I saw that she’d added red food coloring to the icing and, using a decorating bag with a metal tip, had made a dainty lattice pattern over top of the white icing. It was really pretty, and looked like Mrs. Silvers’s lace doilies.

  “I meant to say, Hey that looks nice,” I backtracked.

  “Wow,” Darbie whispered to me. “Do you think she learned that in prison?” Darbie isn’t a good whisperer.

  LLJ asked, “Why does everyone assume I’ve been to prison?”

  Never one to hold back, Darbie explained. “Well, that’s the legend. When you leave here, you go check in with your parole officer.”

  She frowned. “That’s what everyone thinks?”

  Darbie nodded. “Yeah. You kinda have a vibe that’s . . . well . . . that’s scary.”

  I shoved a chunk of cake that had broken off the side of the pan into her mouth to shush her.

  “I don’t know where that vibe is coming from,” LLJ said as she twisted her thick neck from left to right, making an awful cracking sound.

  “So you’re not out on parole?” Frankie asked. “Isn’t this job part of your community service?”

  “No. I’m a chef, so I cook here.”

  “So the legend is wrong.” Darbie was dumbfounded with the concept of a legend, a.k.a. rumor, being wrong.

  “ ’Fraid so. When I leave here, I meet my bowling team on Mondays and Wednesdays, and on Thursdays I tap-dance.” She clicked her toes and heels and sang, “En-chi-la-di-das!”

  Darbie whispered to Hannah, too loudly again, “She stole my song.”

  Hannah nudged her. “Shh.”

  “The icing looks really nice,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” To Darbie, she said, “You’re not.”

  When LLJ turned to finish the lattice, Darbie stuck out her tongue.

  My phone chirped with a text. “My mom is here with the chili I made last night. She’s backing up the minivan by the kitchen door right now.”

  “We’ll get it,” Frankie said, and he and Tony went to the kitchen doors to get the chili. Mom had kept it warm all morning, so it was all ready to go.

  Mr. Douglass clapped his hands and stood on an overturned milk crate. “I just want to say thank you.” He sniffed back tears of joy. “I don’t think there has ever been a group of students this dedicated to the culinary arts.” He probably would’ve said more, but luckily, he was too broken up to continue.

  LLJ said, “Okay. No more mushy gushy. On with the show. People will be coming in soon.”

  Our classmates started piling into the cafeteria, jostling for a place in line. A few of the usual teachers who did lunch duty were there too.

  Everyone left the line with four small plates on their tray with our dishes. Hannah gave out tickets, while my new friend LLJ watched over the boxes to prevent any monkey business.

  Mrs. Eagle, the school librarian known for her ultrasonic hearing—seriously, she could hear things that happened in rooms she wasn’t even in—came bustling over. She pretty much knew everything that happened at Alfred Nobel.

  “Great job, everyone.” She videotaped the whole event for the school website.

  Charlotte Barney sidled up to the cafeteria line and grabbed a bottle of water. Tony handed her a bowl of fettuccine. “No thank you, Tony Rusamano,” she said. “When I heard about this . . . this . . . nonsense, I packed my own lunch today. I don’t trust this crew one bit. I know exactly what they’re up to—”

  Coach interrupted, “You’re holding up the line, Barney. If you don’t want any, just move along so the rest of us can get ours.”

  Charlotte harrumphed and did as Coach said.

  Coach Richards took two bowls of fettuccine and two plates of enchiladas. “I’m taking hers.” I sensed Coach, who was usually all about celery and apples, had an extra big appetite from watching us train so hard.

  * * *

  When lunch was over, Darbie, Hannah, the Rusamanos, and I sat at a cafeteria table and counted the votes. I sat next to Tony looking for any sign or spark. There was none.

  “It’s close,” Hannah said. “But Slowpoke Cooker Fettuccine won!”

  Darbie called to Mr. Douglass, who’d started cleaning up the cafeteria, “Did you hear that? Fettuccine took the gold!”

  “Oh, gold is one of my favorite colors!”

  LLJ heaved up a tub of dirty dishes and rested it on her head. “I like me some periwinkle myself. Good color. Hey, how about you boys bring those pots into the kitchen and start ’em soaking?”

  “You got it, LLJ,” Frankie said. He nudged Tony in the arm, pushing him right into me. “Come on, slugger.”

  The boys headed toward the kitchen while Darbie and Hannah cleaned up the tickets and shoe boxes. I took a nibble of my plate of fettuccine. It was good, but would it be good enough?

  “What’s wrong, Kell?” Hannah asked.

  “I can do better,” I said. “This sauce. It needs to be even better to win. Different. Felice Foudini is going to get recipes from all over the country. Mine needs to really stand out.”

  “How are you going to make it different?” she asked. “New and exciting?”

  “I’m not gonna jump on something new and trendy, anyone can do that. I think I need something old . . . something tried-and-true that I can reinvent.”

  “There were more cookbooks in your attic, you know,” Darbi
e said. “I saw them when we were cleaning up there, but I didn’t touch them, because they remind me of homework.”

  “I’ll scour through them tonight,” I said. “I’ll find something that everyone has forgotten about.”

  “Look what’s coming,” I mumbled when I saw Charlotte Barney enter the caf. Then I eyed my backpack, in which sat the Book.

  “Ugh!” Darbie said loud enough to be rude.

  “I don’t like you, either, Darbie O’Brien,” Charlotte said. “I want you to know that I’ve been watching you three. And I know everything. Everything.”

  We waited for the threat that inevitably had to follow a statement like that. Charlotte had to want something. And did she ever.

  9

  New Members to the Secret Cooking Club?

  Wearing yellow rubber gloves, we scrubbed the pots in the cafeteria’s colossal sinks.

  I said to Mr. Douglass, “We can finish things here.” By “we” I meant me, Darb, and Hannah. Charlotte went back to class after dropping the bomb that she wanted to be in the secret cooking club, or else. . . . And the boys were sweeping and wiping tables in the eating area of the cafeteria.

  “Really? You mean it? Because I would give anything to elevate my feet and relax with a eucalyptus tea.”

  “You totally should,” I said. “Thanks so much for all your help today.”

  “You are very welcome.” Mr. Douglass filled a mug with hot water and asked LLJ, “Care to join me?”

  “Eucalyptus? Heck yeah. I love that junk. Relaxes me.”

  “And thanks to you, too, LLJ,” I added.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Darbie and Hannah chimed in.

  Darbie added, “Sorry I thought you’d been a criminal.”

  LLJ said, “It’s okay.”

  When they’d gone, Darbie asked, “Why did you get rid of those extra cleaning hands? This is going to take us forever.”

  “Because we have work to do. About Charlotte. And we can’t have them around while we search the Book for an idea.”

  “What about them?” Hannah indicated the boys, who were sorting the steaming-hot silverware as it came out of the dishwasher.

  Darbie asked, “Are we gonna let them in it—the club? You know, initiate them? I’m talking the handshake, knock, password, the whole enchi-la-di-da?”

  “Maybe we can just let them hang out without all the fixin’s.” I added, “That can be for just us, as the founders.”

  “I like it,” Darbie said. “They can be like our interns and do all the boring work.”

  “Good plan. Let’s stick a pin in it and invite them when the time is right,” I said.

  “Ahem.” We glanced over and saw Ralph French, a sixth grader who had walked in while we were talking.

  Darbie got right in his face and asked him, “How much did you hear?”

  Ralphie’s knees quaked. “Something about interns. That’s all. I swear.”

  Darbie pointed to the bag he was carrying. “What’s that?”

  “Dunno. I was just asked to deliver it.”

  Darbie took it. “You were never here. You never saw us,” she said to him. “Now go away.” Ralph took off.

  “Was that totally necessary?” Hannah asked. “He nearly peed.”

  “We need to be careful,” Darbie said, and opened the bag. “Looks like a little bottle of perfume, maybe.” She pulled the cork out of a small, blue-tinted bottle and dabbed it behind her ear. “Ew. Sticky.” She licked her finger. “But sweet.”

  I took the bottle and read the label. “Cedronian agave,” I said. “I can add this to our dwindling stock of ingredients. With La Cocina closed, we don’t have much to work with to hex Charlotte.”

  “What should we do?” Darbie asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I have to comb through the Book, but we need her to forget what she knows and about the evidence she has, or else we’ll have to give her what she wants—to be in the club.”

  “I don’t know why she would even want that,” Hannah said.

  “Because she knows we would hate it, and she lives to make us miserable,” I said.

  “Kell, for the official record, let me say this: The only way Charlotte Barney can join this club is over my dead body,” Darbie said.

  “Dead body?” Frankie asked as he and Tony walked over.

  “Sorry, you don’t have security clearance to know about that,” Darbie said. “Maybe when you’re initiated.”

  It wasn’t uncommon for Frankie and Tony to have no idea what Darbie was talking about, so the bizarre answer didn’t faze them. “Our work here is done,” Frankie said. “We’re gonna hang out in LLJ’s favorite spot in the fridge and eat cheese sticks so that we don’t have to go to geometry.”

  “You are? That sounds like fun.” Darbie was clearly looking for an invitation that didn’t come.

  When the walk-in refrigerator door closed, I crinkled my brows and thought carefully.

  “What’s wrong, Kell?” Hannah asked.

  “Señora P is in Mexico and couldn’t have sent this,” I said. “So if she didn’t send that agave . . . who did?”

  10

  Memory Maker Potion Part One

  With the boys tucked away in the fridge, we were in the clear to study the Book for something that would, as Darbie said, “Fix Charlotte good.”

  “See this?” Hannah asked. “Dumplings of Doom.”

  “Doom is a little intimidating,” I said.

  Darbie said, “But let’s remember it, in case things get dire.”

  Then I saw something exciting. “Look at this one.” I pointed to Memory Maker. “It’s a three-part recipe.”

  “We haven’t had one of those before,” Hannah said.

  “Part one is Eraser Lollipops, and guess what ingredient it needs,” Darbie said.

  “Cedronian agave,” I said.

  “How coincidental is that?” Darbie asked.

  “Too coincidental,” Hannah said.

  I summarized. “Someone’s helping us.”

  Darbie said, “Guess whose initials are next to the lollipops.”

  “KE?” I asked.

  “Yup,” she said.

  Hannah looked at the clock. “What are we waiting for? If we make it now, we can bring lollipops to soccer.”

  Darbie asked, “And hex the whole team?”

  “No way,” Hannah said. “We’ll add the agave to just one.”

  * * *

  I stirred the sticky agave solution with a toothpick. “Who’s going to add it?” I asked. “I don’t think I can afford a Return until I finish the Felice Foudini Recipe Challenge. One of you guys has to take one for the team.”

  Darbie and Hannah looked at each other.

  “Not it!” Hannah said.

  “Wait. I didn’t know we were racing to Not It,” Darbie said.

  “We were,” Hannah said. “It’s a game that never turns off.”

  “Fine,” Darbie said. “I’ll do it. But the next one goes to an intern.”

  I patted her on the back. “Thanks, Darb. You know this is important.”

  Darbie sneered as she let the gooey drops of blue agave drip into one of the Eraser Lollipops. “I like the idea of potioning that bully.”

  “That’s the attitude,” I said.

  * * *

  The lollipops were finished just as the end-of-the-day bell rang. Hannah put the agave back in the paper bag and put it into her front pocket. “I’m gonna borrow this for a little something to help with the Coach Richards problem.”

  “There’s a Coach Richards problem?” Frankie asked as he emerged from the fridge.

  Tony rubbed his hands up and down his arms to warm up.

  Darbie said, “The Groundhogs’ coach is hounding him that they’re going to beat us.”

  Hannah said, “The two have always been rivals, but it’s reached a whole new level.”

  “Well, good luck with that,” Frankie said, and headed out of the kitchen. “I’m going home to binge-watch seaso
n three of Turd Wars.”

  “See you later,” Tony said through his chattering teeth. He was so cute when he was cold. “I’m going to my locker, then hang out and watch your game.”

  Once they were gone, I reminded Darbie, “Don’t forget you have a Return coming for the pops.” Then to Hannah, I said, “And you will too, if you potion Coach. I’ll draw good deeds for both of you as soon as I get home tonight, and maybe if you start on them pronto, the Return won’t have much time to get you.”

  Good deeds came from a pretty box covered with tapestry that Señora P gave us. A deed ends a Return.

  “Sounds like a plan, Stan,” Darbie said. “Now let’s give the pop to that schlop. By ‘schlop,’ I mean Charlotte.”

  “We totally understood that,” I said.

  Hannah pulled a ribbon out of her ponytail and tied it to one pop stick. “This one is for Charlotte. The others have regular sugar for everyone else.”

  “You’re a genius, Hannah-Honolulu.”

  11

  Kicking Some Groundhog Butt

  We changed into our soccer uniforms. Darbie walked around the locker room handing out lollipops to everyone. “Here you go, fellow ANtS! Here are high-protein, vegan, energy pops to lead us to victory.”

  “So good for you,” Hannah said, taking one herself and sucking on it. “Mmmmm.”

  “I want one.” Misty popped one in her mouth. “Actually, I’ll take two.”

  “Only one per customer,” Darbie said.

  I figured she wanted it for Charlotte but that Charlotte was too embarrassed to ask for it herself. I said, “Oh, Darbie, can’t you make an exception? She loves your pops. Take it as a compliment.”

  Darbie narrowed her eyes at Misty and said, “Just this once.” Then she handed Misty the pop with the red ribbon.

  Misty slid the ribbon off and kept it and gave the pop to Charlotte.

  “Don’t look at her,” I said to Darbie and Hannah. “Just stand here and act like we don’t care if Charlotte eats that pop or not. Keep pretending that we’re talking.”

  Hannah said, “We are talking.”

  “Good thing,” Darbie said, “because she would totally know if we weren’t.”