Just Add Magic

by Cindy Callaghan

Charlotte stopped and said very loudly (on purpose), “SECRET COOKING CLUB! Hey, everyone! Kelly Quinn and her friends have a SECRET COOKING CLUB! Hahahaha!” She laughed all the way to the boys’ table, Misty on her heels.

  They wiggled themselves into seats next to Frankie and Tony, laughing the whole time. After setting their trays down, they high-tenned across the table.

  Darbie sank into her chair. My fist tightened around my fork until my knuckles were white. “Sorry,” she said. The remaining Twinkie found its way into her cheeks.

  My face was consumed by a red blush, and my eyes were coated with a heavy glaze of fog. I blinked and cleared them just enough to see Frankie and Tony looking my way. They weren’t laughing.

  7

  Shoobedoobedoowhop

  Charlotte called to me as I raced ahead of her off the bus, “Where are you going in such a hurry, Kelly Quinn?”

  I continued to hustle home, not answering.

  Everyone wanted to be Charlotte’s friend. She always had the best toys and clothes. What people didn’t know was that the idea of hanging out with Charlotte was always better than actually hanging out with her.

  It all started in third grade. Charlotte and I decided to jump rope. We tied one end around a tree and I turned and turned for her until my arm felt like it was going to drop off at the shoulder.

  I wanted to jump, but she wouldn’t give me my chance.

  Then Darbie asked if she could play too. “No, Freckle Juice. Go away,” Charlotte said. And Darbie cried. Charlotte said to her, “Go play with the kindergarteners, you baby.”

  That’s when Hannah came over and also wanted to play.

  Charlotte (who was jumping this whole time) laughed and said to Hannah, “You’re too tall. We can’t turn the rope high enough to get it over your head.”

  I said, “This would be better with more kids.”

  She said, “Shut up, Kelly Quinn. My mom says I have to be best friends with you because you live next door. But, she didn’t say anything about those two losers.”

  That was the moment she became my rival.

  She has been my rival ever since then—and has gotten worse (please refer back to ninth birthday party). I tried to convince myself that a relationship with her builds character. That’s what my dad would say about doing things you don’t like, and he knew what he was talking about because my mom always makes him do things that he didnt’t like.

  “I’m talking to you, Kelly Quinn.” She always used my last name as though I might not know I was the Kelly she was beckoning. I quickly walked toward home so I could get ready for the club’s first meeting.

  “Are you heading to your secret club?”

  My face got hot, and I clenched my hands. She was just evil. It took all my strength, but I ignored her.

  Darbie and Hannah arrived on time. Hannah on foot, Darbie on Rollerblades.

  “How did you do?” Mom asked.

  Darbie looked at her watch before untying her Rollerblades. “Seven minutes, fifty-eight seconds,” she said. It took Darbie about eight minutes to skate from her house to mine and she was always trying to make it faster.

  We ditched Mom and secluded ourselves in my bedroom. Darbie flopped onto my flowered comforter and checked out the new posters on the walls. “Where did you get all these?” she asked.

  “I joined the Felice Foudini fan club and sent in ten dollars. They sent me back a big envelope of pictures. I love this one,” I said, pointing at the poster of a layered cake designed by Felice. Each layer was a different color hinting at its flavor. “I can only imagine what one perfect bite of that tastes like,” I said. “See this light brown layer? I think that’s cappuccino. I imagine the dark brown one is Swiss chocolate, the creamy colored layer is French vanilla, and this golden one is a really moist carrot cake. And the last layer is a thick whipped cream spread.”

  Darbie asked, “Did you just make that up?”

  “Yeah. I was lying in bed staring at it, and that’s what I imagined it was.”

  Hannah said, “I think I gained a pound just listening.”

  Darbie rolled her eyes. “Pounds, schmounds.”

  Bud came running into my room wearing Dad’s work boots, a bicycle helmet, a Batman cape, and a snorkel in his mouth. He sang “The Wheels on the Bus” as loud as he could.

  “MOM! TELL BUD TO GET OUT OF MY ROOM!”

  “Maybe there’s a recipe to make little brothers disappear,” Darbie said under her breath.

  “Now, that would be awesome,” Hannah said.

  Bud started jumping on my bed. “MooOOM!”

  My mother came rushing in with a paper shopping bag over her arm. “Kelly Quinn, please don’t yell like that unless someone is bleeding.” She waved the bag at Bud and said, “You, scoot. Play downstairs.”

  Bud left, still singing at the top of his lungs.

  “And don’t come back!” I yelled after him. The little rat turned around and stuck out his tongue.

  Mom hung around. I cleared my throat, signaling her to leave. “Oh,” she said, getting the hint. She scurried outside my bedroom door, picked something up, and scurried back in. It was a shopping bag from The Kitchen Sink, a fancy cooking supply store at the mall. “I thought that members of a real cooking club, secret or not, should have matching aprons!” She took four aprons out of the bag. They were long and covered with tomatoes.

  “Why do you have an extra one?” Hannah asked, sweeping her hair into a ponytail holder.

  “I thought this one could be mine,” Mom said.

  “Mom, you said you’d leave us alone.” I couldn’t believe I had to remind her of this.

  “Oh, I’m just kidding. I’ll hang this on a hook in the pantry in case you ever invite someone else to join your club.” The bag made a crunching sound when she put the apron in it. “Hey, I saw Charlotte walking home from the bus stop. Maybe she’d like to come over and join you girls.”

  The sideways glance I gave her reminded her of how I feel about Charlotte Barney.

  “Oh, all right. Call me if you need help. And make sure you use the special oven mitts that go high up your arms, and don’t lick the spoon if it’s touched raw meat or egg, and be very, very careful if you chop anything. I don’t want to send anyone home with nine fingers. And be careful—”

  “Mom,” I interrupted. “We get it.”

  “Okay, okay, okay.” She pulled the door shut behind herself.

  “I thought she’d never leave,” I said.

  Hannah was admiring her apron. “You have to admit, Kell, these are very Primetime Food TV.”

  Darbie asked, “You aren’t seriously thinking of inviting Charlotte, are you?”

  “No way!” I said. “Let’s get the first meeting of our secret cooking club called to order. This means we can’t tell anybody.”

  “Why does it have to be a secret?” Hannah asked. “I mean, we’re in seventh grade now. Isn’t that a little silly?”

  I was really surprised and a little hurt to hear Hannah say that.

  Hannah continued, “It’s not like we’re doing anything illegal. Are we?”

  “Well,” I said. “One reason is that it’s a good thing if Charlotte doesn’t know.”

  “Weren’t you in the cafeteria today?” Hannah balked. “Everyone knows!”

  “But they don’t need to know any more. Especially Charlotte! She’ll ruin everything. Do I need to remind you of the surprise party catastrophe?” I spared them from hearing me whine about the event again.

  “And . . .” I reached under my bed and whipped out the Secret Recipe Book. “The club is secret because we’re going to use recipes from this book.”

  “But that book is cursed. Remember?” Darbie asked.

  “You think that’s possible?” I replied.

  Hannah dotted gloss on her lips. “No. It’s not possible.”

  Darbie said, “But the warnings. What were they?”

  I reminded her. “‘Beware of the Law of Returns,’ and the thing Señora
Perez said—‘You get what you deserve.’”

  Darbie said, “Well, something beginning with ‘Beware’ usually indicates that you’re supposed to watch out, like ‘Beware of Attack Dog.’ If you go on that property, the dog will eat you.”

  “I think you’re taking it a little too seriously,” Hannah said. “The paper in the Book could’ve been anything. I’m always sticking all kinds of papers in my books. And Señora Perez is a strange old lady. I wouldn’t worry about something she said.”

  “What do you think?” I asked Darbie.

  “Well, I guess it’s okay. And if not, we’ll have an exciting story to tell—if we’re still alive. But if we don’t start cooking soon, you’ll have to beware of me,” Darbie said. “because I’m starvin’ like Marvin, amigas.”

  “First,” I said, “I was thinking we need a secret handshake. Maybe something like this.” I showed them a grip I’d made up. It ended with high fives. The girls tried it, although Hannah blew her bangs out of her face the whole time, signaling to me that she was bored or annoyed. In this instance, maybe she was both.

  “I like that,” Darbie said. She and Hannah did it again.

  Hannah said, “Okay, I’ve got it. So now can we decide what we’re going to make, or do we need a password, too?”

  “Great idea,” I said.

  “I was only kidding.” Hannah blew her bangs again.

  Darbie asked, “How about ‘shoobedoobedoowhop’?”

  Hannah didn’t seem to care.

  “Fine. Shoobedoobedoowhop it is,” I said.

  “So.” I flipped through the Book. “I’ve checked out this book, and something you guys said earlier gave me an idea.” I turned to a page and pointed to Keeps ’Em Quiet Cobbler. There was a note at the bottom of the page: Stopped the gallo from his early morning cockle, ip.

  “What’s gallo?” Darbie asked.

  Hannah answered, “That’s Spanish for ‘rooster.’”

  I asked, “What’s ip?’

  “I don’t know. But I don’t think it matters,” Hannah said. “You can still tell what the note means: Stopped the rooster from its cockle. It’s nonsense, Kell.”

  I said, “Maybe not. We were talking about someone who is loud and annoying”—Darbie’s eyebrows lifted like she knew what I was about to say—“and how we would want to shut him up. You know what I’m thinking?”

  Darbie asked, “You think if we make this cobbler and feed it to Bud that he’ll shut up?”

  I shrugged my shoulders in an “I dunno but it’s worth a try” kind of way.

  “I’m game,” Darbie said.

  I pointed on the page to a strange ingredient, aged vetivert stems. “I have them in here.” I found it in the bag of items I’d bought from La Cocina.

  We looked closely at the bottle. The glass was so thick, it distorted the contents. They looked wavy, like they were under water. I pulled hard at the cork in the top. It made a distinctive popping sound when it was freed from the bottle. I took out a few stems. I smelled them, but they were odorless.

  “What do you think it is?” Kelly asked.

  “Looks like plant stems,” Hannah offered.

  “Maybe we should look it up before we try to feed it to my little brother. He’s a pain in the rumpus, but we don’t want to kill him.”

  Darbie, the Queen of Google, clicked on my desktop until she found “vetivert.” “It says here that it’s a tall grass whose roots and leaves are often used in alternative healing. What’s alternative healing?”

  I said, “That’s like when you don’t go to the doctor or use regular medicine. Instead you take vitamins and use natural stuff to help you feel better or to prevent getting sick.”

  Hannah looked at me, puzzled. “How do you know that?”

  “My aunt is into some of that stuff,” I explained. “She’s a vegetarian, she does yoga every day, and she doesn’t shave her legs. When we go to her house she makes my family meditate. My dad falls asleep. Worst of all, she doesn’t have a TV. Could you imagine life without The Pastry Quartet, Don’t Let This Happen to Your Kitchen, or Fab Food with Felice Foudini?”

  “And now back to reality,” Hannah said. “From that description, it doesn’t look like this spice will kill your brother. But if it does, and we’re accused of murder, I was never here. Got it?”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Got it,” said Darbie. “Kell, if we go to juvie, will you be my roommate?”

  “You know it!”

  “Cool.”

  “All right,” I said. “Cobbler it is. We just got some apples from Mrs. Silvers. I had one for lunch and it was really awesome.”

  “You got them from Mrs. Silvers, the witch?” Darbie asked.

  “Yes. But seriously, they’re delish. So I guess we’re all set,” I said, heading out the door. “Come on Shoobedoobedoowhops. Let’s go cook.”

  8

  Cobbler

  Question: What do you get when you combine an annoying little brother with a secret cooking club?

  Answer: A taste-tester.

  Outfitted in our new aprons, we spread out the kitchen tools and started peeling apples.

  BANG! CRASH! CLANG! Pots and pans clanged outside the kitchen. Bud was marching around, in and out of the kitchen, banging on pots like drums. He yelled as loud as he could, “Kelly is smelly and so are her friends!”

  CLANG! CLINK! CRASH!

  Darbie picked up a banana, peeled it, and took a bite. “Kelly Quinn, I might stick this up his nose if he doesn’t zip his pie hole.”

  CRASH! “Kelly is smelly! And her friends stink too!”

  “Let’s get to work and see if this cobbler really does keep ’em quiet,” I said. Then I yelled, “MOOOOooom!”

  My mom called into the kitchen. “Mister, you’re going to Time Out!” We heard Bud drag the pans across the hard wood floor to the Time-Out chair.

  Hannah took her hands off her ears. “Thank goodness.”

  I pushed preheat on the oven and cracked open the World Book Encyclopedia, Volume T. Carefully, I turned each worn page until I got to the cobbler. I dragged my finger over the handwritten recipe. “I wonder who wrote this,” I said.

  Neither of the girls answered, giving me a minute to wonder about the recipe book’s writer. The windows steamed up from the heat growing in the kitchen. I cracked one open. I felt a cool breeze and noticed dark clouds rolling in. Suddenly I felt like Darbie, Hannah, and I weren’t the only ones in my kitchen—I had the bizarre feeling that whoever wrote the Book was there with us. The thought gave me a chill.

  “What do we need, Kell?” Darbie asked.

  Hannah’s pink-nail-polished index finger brushed along the ingredient list. She called out the items while Darbie pulled them out of the pantry and set them on the countertop. Hannah concluded with, “And aged vetivert stems.”

  I took the little bottle from my apron pocket and set it on the countertop.

  The girls sliced apples, measured, and stirred. I fluffed together the flour, sugar, and softened butter with a fork.

  Darbie added the vetivert. I thought maybe the mixture would bubble over or explode or turn a psychedelic color, but it looked like ordinary apple goop. Actually, it looked like rich, delectable apple goop. It was cinnamonny brown and looked delicious next to the creamy flour-sugar-butter mixture. I imagined what it was going to look like hot and bubbly from the oven.

  Darbie poured the apple goop into a pan.

  Hannah sprinkled the flour-sugar-butter mixture I’d made atop the goop. “This looks awesome,” she said.

  I slid the pan into the oven, wearing huge heat-resistant gloves. Soon the kitchen filled with wonderful apple smells. At the same time, the skyline became covered with gray clouds. We turned on the oven’s interior light and watched the cobbler bake, like we were watching TV.

  “I’m freaking out a little about soccer tryouts this year,” Darbie said, staring at the oven.

  “You’ll be fine,” Hannah said.

&nbs
p; “That’s easy for you to say. You’re in great shape from swimming all summer and you were one of the best players on the team last year,” Darbie said. “If you haven’t noticed,” she added, “I’m not the most coordinated person in the world.”

  “Just try your best and work really hard. Coach Richards likes that,” Hannah said.

  My mind was in the hot oven, in the sizzling pan, in the sugary mixture gurgling over the rim, and in the drops that dropped onto the bottom of the oven. “Who do you think wrote it?” I asked.

  “What?” Hannah asked.

  “The Book.”

  The girls didn’t have an answer. I was deep in thought about it when there was a knock at the back door. I looked out and saw a blond head. If I looked a little closer, I might have found little red horns under the curly locks.

  “Argh,” Darbie groaned when she saw Charlotte. When we didn’t move toward the door, Hannah opened it. Charlotte pushed past her and into the kitchen. I subtly took a dishcloth and tossed it over the encyclopedia.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  Charlotte scanned the kitchen. Her nose lifted slightly. “Wait a minute. Is this is your silly little secret club?” she asked with a laugh and a snort.

  “WHAT do you want?” I asked again impatiently.

  “I brought this letter. It came to our house. It’s for your mom, from a reunion company in Massachusetts. Probably her high school reunion.”

  “Thanks for bringing it,” I said as I escorted her to the back door. “I’ll make sure my mom gets it.” I practically shoved her onto the driveway.

  “You’re so rude, Kelly Quinn.”

  Darbie said, real sarcastically, “Thanks for coming. Been great seeing you. Have a super night. Always a pleasure.”

  Charlotte snapped, “This club is so stupid, and I don’t know what you’re making, but it smells terrible because you’re a terrible cook, Kelly Quinn. And I hope you and your mom lose the chili contest again this year.”

  I slammed the door.

  “Grrr. She is so MEAN,” I said.

  “Just ignore her,” Hannah said. “She’s probably jealous that we didn’t invite her.”

  I said, “Why would she want—” Beep! Beep! Beep! The oven timer went off.