Cooking Club Chaos!

by Veera Hiranandani

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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  Text copyright © 2015 by Veera Hiranandani. Illustrations copyright © 2015 by Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-698-41206-4

  Version_1

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  CHAPTER ONE

  Did you know my middle name is Gertrude, after my great-grandma Gertrude? That’s what the G stands for. My mom told me Great-Grandma Gertrude really liked to cook and eat, which makes sense, because I do, too. I even found out I’m a foodie, which is someone who loves to eat interesting foods. I don’t know if they called people foodies in the very old-fashioned days, though.

  Great-Grandma Gertrude grew up in Russia and made things like matzo ball soup (chicken soup with yummy balls made out of matzo stuff), kasha (it’s sort of like rice but browner), and knishes (mashed potatoes wrapped up all comfy in dough). She even made her own pickles and kept them in a barrel in her backyard.

  Mom always says Great-Grandma Gertrude could cook like nobody’s business. But if Great-Grandma Gertrude cooked like nobody’s business, how did anyone taste her food? Sometimes things adults say make no sense to me. Actually, there’s a lot that doesn’t make sense to me. I like making lists, so I thought I’d make a list of nonsensey things:

  Three weeks ago, Sage (one of my best friends) decided he didn’t like the hot lunch in the cafeteria because it was too boring (it is). But now he brings the same exact lunch from home every day. Isn’t that even more boring?

  Camille (my other best friend, who is from France) always wears fancy dresses. I think it might be because she’s French. But then she can’t hang on the monkey bars with me and Sage and that makes her sad. I don’t get why she won’t just wear pants.

  Mrs. B, my teacher and the best teacher ever, got new glasses that hang on a pretty chain around her neck. She used to wear her glasses a lot, but since she got the new ones I’ve NEVER seen her put them on her face. It’s a big mystery.

  I wonder if I’ll ever understand these things. But back to Sage. This is what he brings to lunch every day:

  A turkey sandwich: two pieces of turkey, two pieces of bread, and that’s it.

  A cheese stick (the really bendy kind).

  A bag of popcorn. (Sometimes when no one’s looking, he throws pieces of popcorn at somebody and then pretends he didn’t. But I always see him.)

  An apple (that he doesn’t eat at all).

  A box of juice (that he spills on his shirt every time he opens it).

  I think it’s a perfectly good lunch for one day, but not for the rest of your life. There’s just too much good food out there in the world.

  Yesterday at lunch while I was eating a salad I made myself (with black beans, corn, tomatoes, and cheddar cheese), and Camille was eating roast chicken with asparagus and a tiny loaf of bread with delicious cheese from a goat, I asked Sage if he was ever going to bring something different to lunch. He looked at me and blinked. “Why?” he said.

  “Don’t you get tired of eating the same thing every day?” I asked.

  “Why would I? It’s my favorite lunch,” he said.

  It was much worse than I thought. I know this sounds a little weird, but I just couldn’t help feeling sad about all the foods he might never eat. Sage didn’t like to share lunches with me or Camille, and lunchtime just wasn’t as fun when Sage ate the same thing every day. After school I thought about it and thought about it, but I could only come up with the first part of a plan to help Sage.

  It started by wearing a dress to school—my lucky purple one with white and green polka dots on it. I usually only wear dresses on picture day because Mom makes me. At breakfast, everyone noticed.

  “What’s the occasion?” Dad said, drinking his coffee.

  “Yeah,” my big sister, Molly, said. “Is it picture day?”

  “That’s what I was wondering,” Mom said. “Did I fill out the form? I don’t remember seeing one.”

  “Hold all of your horses,” I said, holding my fork up into the air. That’s what Dad always says when Molly or I get upset about something.

  Mom, Dad, and Molly looked at me.

  “Don’t worry, it’s part of my plan,” I said, and started eating my eggs again.

  “Oh, and what plan is that?” Mom asked, the corners of her mouth smiling in a nervous way.

  “Well, I’m afraid Sage is going to eat the same boring lunch for the rest of his life and it’s not going to be very fun for him or me. So if I wear a dress, then he won’t think it’s strange that I don’t want to hang on the monkey bars with him at recess. That way I can talk to Camille in private about what to do, because she always wears dresses,” I explained.

  “Well, that makes total sense,” Molly said, shaking her head, and went off to get her backpack.

  “Phoebe,” Dad said, putting on his jacket. “Why can’t Sage eat whatever lunch he likes?”

  “He can, but once a week, tops,” I said and crossed my arms.

  “Pheebs, just because you like all sorts of things doesn’t mean other people have to as well,” Dad said in an extra-nice way. He always does that when he wants to make sure I’ll listen.

  “Yes honey, you need to let Sage eat what he wants,” Mom said, nodding at Dad.

  “Okay,” I said and smiled weakly. But deep inside my stomach where my scrambled eggs were, I didn’t think it was okay. Camille would know what to do. She even liked to eat snails. I saw her do it with my own eyes when we went to France together.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Later that day on the playground, I waited for Sage to go off with his friend Will. I already told Sage that there would be no hanging on the monkey bars for me because of my dress.

  “You look nice, Phoebe,” Camille said to me as we looked for sparkly rocks. Camille always spotted the best ones. I liked to look for sparkly rocks almost as much as playing on the monkey bars.

  “Do I look French?” I asked, twirling around in my dress.

  Camille looked at me in a serious way. “Not really, but you should still wear more dresses. They look pretty on you.”

  “But then I can’t play on the monkey bars,” I said really slowly, hoping she would get that the more dresses you wear, the less you play on the monkey bars.

  “But I like dresses,” she said, staring at me with her big eyelashy eyes.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” I asked because she just wasn’t getting the whole dress/monkey bar thing.

&nb
sp; “Oh, yes,” Camille said, nodding fast. “I love secrets. Even more than dresses.”

  “Okay, but it’s a very secret kind of secret,” I said.

  She nodded extra hard and pressed her lips together.

  “I think Sage might have a terrible problem,” I said quietly.

  She gasped. “What? What’s wrong with him?”

  “Well, I think we can help if we do it fast,” I said.

  “Is he sick? Did he get in trouble?” she said in a worried voice. Camille can get worried very fast.

  “I think . . .” I paused and paced back and forth a little. “I think he’s going to spend his whole entire life eating the same lunch every day.”

  Camille let her breath out. “You scared me, Phoebe! That is not a terrible problem.” She looked a little mad and Camille usually doesn’t ever look mad.

  “You don’t think so? But you’re the least pickiest eater on the planet!” I yelled. “I’ve seen you eat ducks and snails and cheese with blue polka dots in it and buttery lettuce. You even told me you once ate rabbit stew. That’s crazy.”

  “There are things I don’t like,” she said, smoothing out her skirt even though it was already smooth.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said, shaking my head. “Tell me one thing you don’t like.”

  She thought for a second. “Raisins. I don’t like raisins.”

  “Well, that doesn’t count. Nobody really likes raisins.”

  “They don’t?” she asked, squinting her eyes.

  I thought about it a bit more. “Okay, forget about the raisins. Let’s just think of a plan, because if I have to watch Sage eat one more plain turkey sandwich, it’s going to make me too sad for him.”

  Camille nodded. “Okay, let’s think,” she said, sitting down on a bench. I sat down next to her and we thought until my head hurt a little.

  “I have an idea,” she said in her French-sounding movie-star voice. Camille was very good at ideas. “Sage needs to learn how to cook! Then he’ll like more foods.”

  It was true. I was always extra excited to eat something I helped cook.

  “Maybe we could start a club,” I said. “A cooking club. Then Sage will get to cook all sorts of foods and he’ll try new ones!” I’m pretty good at ideas, too.

  “Perfect!” Camille said, and we held each other’s hands and jumped up and down because that’s what best friends do when they’re excited about something.

  “Why are you guys so happy?” Sage said, coming over with Will.

  I told them about starting a cooking club while still holding Camille’s hands and jumping up and down, but of course I couldn’t tell him why we had this idea.

  “You guys could join,” Camille said, and looked at me in the secret part of her eye.

  Sage wrinkled his nose. “I don’t know. I’m not really into cooking.”

  I sighed at him and he shrugged and then I sighed one more time and he shrugged again. I was about to do the biggest sigh I could back at him, but Will interrupted us.

  “I like cooking. I’ll join!” he said.

  “Okay, good. At least someone is excited about our club,” I said, and gave Sage a big old eye roll just like Molly does to me when I’m doing things that annoy her.

  “Okay, fine,” Sage said, this time sighing at me. “I’ll join.” Then we all started jumping up and down and other kids asked us what was happening, so we told everyone about our idea.

  By the time we were back in class, lots of kids were talking about the club and asking if they could join.

  “I want to join!” said Grace Wong, leaning toward my desk.

  “Me too!” said Miguel Ruiz. “But what kind of club is it?” he asked.

  I took a very big breath at him and bonked my forehead with my hand. “You want to join but you don’t even know what it is?” I asked.

  “It’s a cooking club,” Charlotte Hempler chimed in. “But who’s going to do the cooking?”

  “Well everyone, I guess,” I said and looked at Camille. We hadn’t really thought about that part.

  “Where is it going to be?” Grace wanted to know.

  “Well, um, we still have to figure that out,” Camille said, starting to look a little worried again.

  Then more kids started asking more questions and more questions until I began to wonder if this was a good idea after all.

  “Hold all of your horses in here!” I yelled, and everyone stopped talking. “Only five people can join,” I blurted out. “That’s all we have room for, sorry.” I hoped that would quiet people down, but it just made everyone louder and kind of mad.

  “Whoa.” Mrs. B came over to me. “Everything okay, Phoebe?” She played with her glasses on her chain, but did not put them on.

  “Well,” I said. See, what’s great about Mrs. B is that she always listens in a very careful way, and doesn’t talk until you’re done talking. I wish all grown-ups did that. “Camille and I want to start a cooking club,” I said, looking at Camille. “But now everyone wants to join and we can’t fit all these people,” I said, pointing at all the kids in my class.

  “My, my, you had me a little scared there. But this seems like a fixable problem. Camille, do you agree with what Phoebe said?” Mrs. B asked.

  “Yes,” Camille said quietly. She didn’t like talking in front of bunches of people. Then this crazy thing happened:

  Mrs. B said, “Hmmm,” still fiddling with her glasses.

  She looked up like she was thinking really hard and said, “Huh.”

  The whole class got quiet because they were wondering what she would say after all her hmmm-ing and huh-ing.

  Then she said, “Let me check something,” and went to her desk and picked up a piece of paper and read it.

  Then she PUT ON HER NEW GLASSES for the first time and looked at the paper again!

  I knew something was special about this day. Maybe it was good luck.

  “Phoebe and Camille,” she said, taking her glasses off. “You’ve just given me a great idea.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  When I got home, I couldn’t wait to tell my family the big news.

  “Mom!” I yelled as soon as I got home. “Something happened!”

  Mom came running to the door extra fast.

  “What?” she said, a little out of breath. “What is it?”

  I puffed out my chest in a very proud way. “I invented a cooking class,” I said.

  Mom’s shoulders fell. “You scared me! I thought something bad happened.”

  I don’t know why, but I seemed to be scaring a lot of people today.

  “Well, at first I thought it was bad, but Mrs. B made it good,” I said.

  “What are you talking about?” Mom asked.

  “I think I might need a snack first. I’m running on fumes,” I said. I don’t know exactly what fumes are, but Mom always says that when she’s really tired or really hungry and I was both.

  “Okay, Pheebs,” Mom said, smiling. We went into the kitchen and she set to work making me one of her yummy snacks. Mom doesn’t cook a lot but she makes great snacks. This time it was cracker sandwiches with hummus, tomatoes, and cucumbers inside—creamy, salty, and crunchy all at once. “So we told Mrs. B about the club idea,” I finished telling her. “And she said a cooking class would be perfect for the after-school program. We can have five classes and a party at the end. We’ll learn about a different style of food in each class. Sage said his mom would probably like to teach an Indian cooking class. And Camille said her dad could teach a fancy French dessert class, but we don’t know who else can teach yet.”

  “Sounds like a great idea, Phoebe,” Mom said, giving me a big smile, but then her mouth turned into a straight line again. “Wait, are you doing this just because of what you said about Sage?” she asked.

  I
bit my lip. I was and I wasn’t. Even if the cooking club wasn’t part of the Sage plan, I’d still want to do it, but I knew if Mom and Dad thought I was just doing it for Sage, it probably wouldn’t happen.

  “Of course not,” I said, not quite looking at Mom’s face.

  “Phoebe,” Mom said. “Look at me.”

  I looked her right smack in the eye.

  “Are you?” she asked. “Tell me the truth.”

  I hated when Mom asked me to tell her the truth. It made me extra nervous. “At first, that was the reason, but now I just want to do it because it’ll be so much fun,” I told Mom, trying to give her a very not-nervous smile. And it was mostly all true, sort of.

  “It is a great idea,” she finally said. I looked away as fast as I could.

  “What’s a great idea?” Molly said, coming into the kitchen. She dropped her backpack at the door and sat on a stool next to me. I told her the whole story, except I left out the Sage part.

  “Cool,” Molly said. “Maybe Dad could do one,” she suggested.

  “You mean our dad?” I asked, my eyes big.

  “Why not?” Molly said, smiling.

  I didn’t even think about that. Dad and I did more cooking than Mom, but we just made stuff up together, or we followed recipes very carefully. Also, Dad was kind of messy in the kitchen.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Dad’s on a really busy schedule right now. I don’t know if he could get off work,” Mom said.

  “Then you could do one!” Molly said brightly to Mom. Mom worked at home, so she came to more school stuff.

  “Me?” Mom said with a surprised look on her face. “You know I’m not much of a cook, honey. Unless the kids want to learn how to heat up rotisserie chicken.”

  Molly looked up for a second and tapped her finger on her lips, which meant she was thinking extra hard. “Actually, you do cook one thing really well,” she finally said. “Matzo ball soup!”

  “Yeah, Mom!” I said. She did make yummy matzo ball soup a few times a year on the Jewish holidays. “See, you’re almost a good cook!” I said.