Anna, Banana, and the Recipe for Disaster

by Anica Mrose Rissi

  Dad tied back the strings on his favorite apron, the one that says STIRRING UP TROUBLE across the front. “Get your apron on too,” he said. “And bring me that red cookbook off the shelf.” I opened the drawer with the aprons inside, and Banana nosed at the one she thought I should wear—yellow with pink frosted donuts all over. I put it on, and chose a purple polka-dotted dishcloth to tie around Banana’s neck, since we didn’t have a doggy apron for her to wear. It looked more like a cape than an apron on her, but Banana lifted her snout proudly and Dad said, “Perfect. But now rewash your hands, please.”

  I almost protested—Banana wasn’t dirty!—but she didn’t look offended. I soaped up and rinsed off quickly, fetched the red cookbook, and carried it over to the counter. “Look up snickerdoodles in the index,” Dad said. “It should be in alphabetical order.”

  I flipped to the back of the book, snickering at the cookie’s funny name, and found it listed under S. “Snickerdoodles, page 182,” I said. Banana swished her tail.

  “Great. Step two in baking is to make sure you have all the ingredients you’ll need, before you start measuring or mixing any of them. Want to read them off to me?” Dad said.

  “Butter, eggs, brown sugar, vanilla,” I read out loud. “Flour, cinnamon, salt . . .” Banana tipped her head to one side, as if asking a question. I was wondering the same thing. “Salt?” I said. “That’s weird. Do you think it’s a mistake?”

  Dad turned away from the cabinet, his arms full of ingredients. “Nope, not at all,” he said. He set the things down on the counter. “Most desserts have a little salt in them—it brings out the flavor, even in sweet things. Just make sure you don’t get the sugar and salt mixed up. That would not be delicious.”

  Banana stuck her tongue out. “Salty cookies, blech,” I agreed.

  “Ours won’t be salty,” Dad promised. “They’ll be cinnamon-y and sweet. Now let’s preheat the oven and butter these baking sheets, so the cookies won’t stick to them. Then we can take turns measuring and stirring.”

  I got out the measuring cups and spoons, and Dad showed me how to run the flat edge of a knife across the top of a full measuring cup—to “level it off,” he said, which means to scrape off the extra ingredients and make the measurement exact. Leveling off was Banana’s favorite part of baking. Her eyes got wide as she watched the extra flour and sugar tumble from the measuring cup, back into their original containers. She was ready to catch any food that might fall toward the floor.

  But despite Banana’s hopes, we didn’t drop any scraps. Dad cracked open the first egg and let me crack the second, and we mixed them with the butter, vanilla, and sugar, before adding the flour and spices. Soon I was rolling balls of cookie dough in a bowl of cinnamon sugar, to coat them with extra deliciousness, then lining them up on the baking sheets. I used two pot holders for safety and slid the first baking sheet into the oven.

  Dad set a timer, and Banana and I turned on the oven light and watched through the little window as the cookies baked and baked. The longer they were in there, the puffier they got, and the more delicious they smelled. I took a deep breath of the cinnamon-sugar air. I understood why Banana was drooling. I wished we could taste our cookies right now.

  After what felt like a million minutes, the timer finally buzzed and I jumped up to grab the pot holders. With Banana waiting a safe distance away, Dad opened the oven door and I reached in to pull out the crackle-topped cookies. I put the baking sheet down on the cooling rack and gave Dad a big grin. It was almost time to eat them!

  We lifted the second sheet of cookies out of the oven, then each chose one to try. I picked the one that looked most cinnamon-y.

  I took my first bite of the warm, soft cookie. A burst of flavor filled my mouth. “Mmm.”

  “You’re such a great helper. This might be the best batch of snickerdoodles I’ve ever made,” Dad said.

  I broke a piece off the one I’d been nibbling and gave a small taste to Banana. She licked her lips and agreed: The cookies had turned out perfectly.

  I wasn’t sad about missing out on the birthday party anymore—Banana and I had had too much fun baking with Dad for me to still be jealous about that. But I did wish I could share the yummy cookies I’d made with my friends.

  I looked into the mixing bowl. There was still a little bit of cookie dough left. “Can we use the rest of the dough to make three extra-special, extra-big cookies for Sadie, Isabel, and me to have at lunch tomorrow?” I asked. “Please?”

  Banana wagged her tail. She knew Sadie and Isabel would like that.

  “Sure,” Dad said. “That sounds like a sweet surprise.”

  Chapter Seven

  The Way the Cookie Crumbles

  The next morning I packed the three extra-special, extra-big snickerdoodles into my lunch bag, tucked the lunch bag into my backpack, and gave Banana three extra kisses on the nose before heading out the door to walk to school with Chuck.

  Chuck had some snickerdoodles in his bag too. They were meant for him to eat later on with his hot lunch, but as soon as we were out of sight of the house, Chuck took them out of his backpack and stuffed them in his face.

  “We’re not supposed to eat cookies for breakfast,” I told him.

  “I’m not! I had Gorilla Grams for breakfast,” he said with his mouth full. Crumbs flew in all directions as he talked. “This is my midmorning snack.”

  “It’s not midmorning,” I pointed out. “It isn’t even eight o’clock yet.”

  Chuck shrugged. “So at midmorning I’ll eat your cookies,” he said and reached for my backpack.

  “No way!” I slid my bag around to the front of my body to keep it away from Chuck’s grabby hands. I knew he probably wouldn’t really steal my cookies, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

  He stuck out his lower lip and held up his hands like pretend paws in a begging position. “You won’t share your cookies with a hungry wittle puppy?” he asked in his best sad-and-pitiful voice.

  I laughed. It wasn’t working. He’d been way more convincing as a robot. “Nope. They’re good though, aren’t they?”

  He dropped his paws and his pout. “I don’t remember. Let me taste one and I’ll tell you!”

  I rolled my eyes. I wasn’t falling for that trick.

  When we got to school, I found Sadie and Isabel out on the playground, swinging on the swings. I grabbed a swing next to them and kicked off against the ground. “How was the birthday party?” I asked.

  “So much fun!” Sadie said.

  “And tasty,” Isabel added. “We each got to decorate six mini-cupcakes, and there were all these different flavor stations with choices for what kind of cake and frosting, plus a million different toppings to choose from.”

  “The toppings were amazing.” Sadie pumped her legs to make her swing go higher. “There were mini-marshmallows and chocolate chips and crushed cookies and chopped-up candy bars, plus coconut and fruit and pretty much every color and shape of sprinkle you can think of.”

  “Don’t forget the sauces,” Isabel said.

  “Oh yeah! There were bottles of caramel, butterscotch, and chocolate sauce too.” Sadie licked her lips. “I made one with chocolate cake and chocolate frosting plus chocolate sprinkles, chocolate chips, and swirls of chocolate sauce on top. Monica’s mom called it chocolate supreme.”

  “Wow,” I said. “You guys made all that?” The cookies I’d made with Dad suddenly didn’t seem all that impressive.

  Isabel twisted in her swing. “We didn’t actually bake anything. The cakes and frostings were all premade. It was more like a decorating party than a baking party, really. I guess we won’t be going on The Batter-Up Bake-Off Show anytime soon.”

  “Oh well,” I said, but I was secretly relieved they hadn’t become master cupcake bakers without me. And now they’d be extra impressed by my cookies. I couldn’t wait to give them their snickerdoodle surprise. I wished it were lunchtime already.

  “I really like Monica,” Sadie said
. “She’s so funny and sophisticated. We should invite her to hang out with us sometime.”

  “Yeah! She’s awesome, right?” Isabel said. “She makes me laugh really hard.”

  My stomach did a little flip. Isabel laughed really hard when she was with us, too. We didn’t need Monica for that.

  I liked our threesome just the way it was. I didn’t want to add someone I didn’t know. But I knew it would sound grumpy and jealous to say so. “Sure,” I said instead.

  My friends didn’t seem to notice that my smile was fake.

  Chapter Eight

  More Than a Mouthful

  It was hard, but I kept the snickerdoodles a secret until lunchtime, so they could be a true surprise. When the bell rang, Sadie led the way to our favorite table in the cafeteria and plopped down in a seat next to the windows. Isabel and I put our lunches down and took the two seats across from her.

  “I’m as hungry as a hippo,” Sadie announced. We’d been playing Stop Hop at recess with Timothy and Justin, and by the end all our stomachs were growling. Sadie opened her lunchbox, took out each item, and arranged the food carefully in front of her. Even if she were eating her first meal in a week, Sadie would still be neat and organized about it.

  “I’m as hungry as a dinosaur,” Isabel said. She stabbed the straw into her juice box and a few red drops sprayed out onto the table. Sadie handed her a napkin.

  “Dinosaurs don’t get hungry! They’re extinct,” Sadie said.

  Isabel shrugged and took a giant sip from her straw. “Fine, then I’m as hungry as a dragon,” she said. She turned to me quickly, before Sadie could object again. “What about you, Anna?”

  “I’m as hungry as Banana,” I said. My friends laughed but I didn’t mind. “You’d be surprised how much she can eat,” I told them. Banana is just a little wiener dog, but she has a big appetite. She always gets excited about food.

  Sadie smiled around a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly. “Remember that kid at the party who dropped a cupcake in his soda and called it a cupcake float?” she asked. Isabel giggled and nodded, but I looked away. All day the conversation had kept coming back to Monica’s party this and Monica’s party that. The party was long over but I was still somehow getting left out of it. “Well, I’m so hungry, I would even eat that,” Sadie said. She took another bite of her sandwich.

  “You won’t have to eat a soggy cupcake,” I told her. “I brought you guys a special surprise for dessert.”

  Isabel clapped her hands together. “You did?”

  “Yup.” I pulled the three extra-big snickerdoodles out of my lunch bag. They were each in a separate baggie tied with a different color ribbon at the top. Banana had helped me choose the ribbons that morning. “They’re called snickerdoodles,” I said, handing Isabel the blue-ribbon one and Sadie the purple one. “I baked them yesterday.”

  “You made these? Wow,” Isabel said.

  Sadie looked impressed too. “When did you learn how to bake?” she asked.

  My chest filled with pride, like a marshmallow puffing up in the microwave, but I shrugged like it was no big deal. “Dad taught me how. They’re rolled in cinnamon-sugar,” I said. “But the secret ingredient in cookies is salt.”

  “You’re, like, an expert,” Isabel said. “This looks delicious.” She untied the ribbon and took her cookie out of its bag, not even finishing her sandwich first. She was just about to take a bite when Sadie started waving both arms at someone behind us.

  Isabel put the cookie down and turned to look. Her face lit up with a smile. “Monica!” she shouted. “Over here!”

  My stomach sank like an underbaked cake. Monica waved back to my two best friends and headed straight for our table.

  Chapter Nine

  Take a Bite

  “Hey, you guys,” Monica said as she came up behind me. She stuck her hand out over the middle of the table and she, Isabel, and Sadie did some kind of three-way high-five finger-wiggle move I had never seen before. My stomach sank even further. Since when did they have a secret handshake? “Hi, Anna,” she said, turning toward me like an afterthought.

  “Hi,” I replied. She didn’t try the finger-wiggle move on me. I wasn’t part of her sophisticated club.

  “How’s your baby panda?” she asked Isabel.

  “Roly-poly roo!” Isabel sang out, and she, Sadie, and Monica burst into giggles. I had no idea what they were talking about, but nobody filled me in on the joke.

  “Oooh, what’s that?” Monica asked. She pointed at the snickerdoodle that was sitting on the table in front of me.

  “Anna baked cookies!” Sadie held hers up for Monica to see. “They’re called snickerdoodles. Want a piece of mine?”

  “Sure,” Monica said.

  “No!” I shouted. I threw myself across the table, as fast and desperate as Banana leaping after a squirrel, to stop Sadie from breaking her cookie in half. Sadie froze and I realized all three of them were staring at me. My cheeks grew as hot as a preheated oven.

  I straightened. “I mean . . . no, don’t do that,” I said, being careful not to shout this time. Sadie and Isabel still looked startled. Monica just looked confused.

  The embarrassment spread from my cheeks to my ears. I knew I seemed really rude. But I’d made that cookie especially for Sadie. I didn’t want her giving Monica half of it. “I, uh, I’m not hungry anymore. So here, you can have mine instead.” I held out my own snickerdoodle for Monica to take.

  “Really? Thanks! That’s so nice of you,” she said.

  But I wasn’t being nice. I was wishing she would disappear and leave my friends alone. She had plenty of her own friends—a whole birthday party’s worth. Why did she need to take mine?

  I watched, feeling miserable, as she untied the orange ribbon and took a bite of my cookie. “Wow, these are good,” she said. “You really made them?” I nodded. My mouth watered, wishing for a taste of the cinnamon-y deliciousness, but there were no more cookies left for me.

  Monica took another bite. “You should make these for the bake sale,” she said.

  “What bake sale?” Isabel asked.

  “The one at the library this weekend. You all should come. It’s on Saturday afternoon.”

  Sadie perked right up. “That’s a great idea. We would totally win!”

  Monica laughed. “The bake sale isn’t a competition. It’s to raise money for the library, so they can buy more books for the children’s section.”

  “Oh. So then everybody wins,” Isabel said. “I love the library.”

  Sadie nodded. “Me too. We’ll definitely come, and we’ll make cookies for it. Do you want to bake with us on Saturday morning?” she asked Monica.

  Say no, say no, say no, say no, I thought. I didn’t want to be mean, but I also didn’t want to bake cookies with her. I barely knew this girl, yet somehow she and my best friends had a secret handshake and inside jokes. I didn’t want to include someone who made me feel so left out.

  “I’d love to,” Monica said, and my chest filled up with cement. “But I can’t.” The cement crumbled. “My troop is going early to help out with setup and stuff. But I’ll see you there. I’m excited that you’re coming!” She beamed at my friends and me and somehow I smiled back. “Thanks again for the cookie, Anna.” She waved and walked away.

  Isabel waved back. “Isn’t she great?”

  “Yeah. Great,” I echoed.

  I knew that friendship, like the bake sale, wasn’t really a competition. But I couldn’t help it: I wanted to win.

  Chapter Ten

  Chew on This

  We each begged our parents for permission that night, and by morning the plan was set: On Saturday, Isabel’s grandmother would drop her and Sadie off at my house before lunch. We would make snickerdoodles for the bake sale, with help from my dad, then he’d bring us to the library. When the bake sale was over, Sadie’s mom would pick us up and we would have a sleepover at her house. It was going to be the best weekend ever. Banana and I couldn’t wa
it.

  But when I got to school on Friday morning, I discovered what my Nana would call a hitch in the plans.

  “Monica says her troop is making strawberry lemonade for the bake sale tomorrow,” Isabel reported when I joined her and Sadie on the playground.

  “Yum. I love strawberry lemonade,” Sadie said. “I wonder if they’ll serve it with little umbrellas, like in the drinks at Monica’s party. Wasn’t that fancy?”

  I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t seen the fancy umbrellas, since I wasn’t invited to the party. And I was tired of hearing about Monica.

  “And she and her mom baked chocolate chip cookies to sell,” Isabel said. She dropped down from the monkey bars, landing on the ground beside me. “She said they put cinnamon in the batter to make it extra delicious.”

  I stared at her. “Monica put cinnamon in her cookies?”

  “Yup,” Isabel confirmed. I could tell she didn’t see what the problem was, but I couldn’t believe Monica had done that.

  “But . . . our cookies will have cinnamon in them. She knows that!” I said.

  “So?” Isabel said, but Sadie was frowning. She understood why I was upset.

  “We want our cookies to be special,” Sadie said. “What was that word of the day? The one that means one-of-a-kind?”

  “Unique,” I said.

  “Yeah. We want our cookies to be unique and also the most delicious. Then we’ll sell the most,” Sadie said.

  Isabel tilted her head, like Banana does when she has a question. “But Monica said the bake sale isn’t a competition. It’s about helping the library, not being the best.”

  “Yeah, but the better our cookies are, the more money the library gets. So really, it’s about both,” Sadie said. She tucked a few stray curls into her ponytail, and climbed up the jungle gym ladder.