A Dash of Trouble

by Anna Meriano

  “The fifteen-years thing is silly, anyway, since we won’t be fifteen for another three months,” Belén added.

  “And everyone keeps saying that practicing without supervision is dangerous,” Alma said, flipping her pink-and-blue bangs with a toss of her head.

  “But Tía Paloma is too strict. We barely get to do any cool spells, and nothing has even blown up or anything. I would personally like a little more danger and a little less memorizing incantations,” Belén complained.

  “Also,” Alma added, “Abuela says you’re a natural, Leo.”

  “So yay,” Belén said.

  “Now everyone knows,” said Alma.

  “Which is better,” said Belén.

  The twins looked at each other and nodded. Leo waited a minute to make sure they were really finished—sometimes when Alma and Belén both talked, they could go on for hours without letting anyone else get a word in. Right now Leo didn’t find her sisters’ chatter annoying, though. Relief and excitement coursed through her. Alma and Belén didn’t think she was too little.

  “Not everyone,” she reminded them. “Mamá doesn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t know what?” Mamá appeared in the doorway, and Leo almost fell off her stool. “Don’t tell me my sweet little girls are up to something.”

  “No, Mamá,” Alma said smoothly. “We were just saying that you don’t know much about hair dye. We learned about it online.”

  “Oh, you two.” Mamá sighed. “Leo, while I appreciate your beautiful sisters’ unique sense of style, I think you’re a little young to dye your hair any cartoon colors, okay, ’jita?”

  “Okay, Mamá.” Leo laughed at the thought of her frizzy hair popping out of her head in a cotton-candy-colored swirl, but her stomach did a tiny guilty somersault. She wasn’t going to dye her hair, but she was doing lots of other things Mamá thought she was too young for. Luckily, before Leo could feel too bad, the green plastic egg timer rang out and everyone got distracted taking the cookies out of the oven.

  “These look delicious.” Mamá smiled. “I’m so glad you picked this recipe, Leo. I missed my abuelita’s cookies more than I realized.”

  Behind Mamá’s back, Belén winked. Leo pushed down the last of her guilt and smiled. She didn’t feel great keeping secrets from Mamá, but she felt a lot better than when her sisters were keeping secrets from her.

  CHAPTER 14

  LOVE BITE

  Leo’s whole body bubbled like a boiling pot when she and Caroline fell into their seats after school. Only one long bus ride stood between her and her first big spell.

  “Did you get everything?” Leo asked, even though Caroline had flashed thumbs-up signs from her desk all afternoon. A thumbs-up wasn’t good enough—Leo wanted definite proof that everything was going according to plan.

  “I got everything. . . .” Caroline stared at the ground, twisting her bracelet and bitting her lip. She didn’t seem nearly as excited as Leo felt. “I couldn’t get him to sign his name in cursive, because he always forgets how to make r’s, but I got it in print.”

  The bus finally reached Leo’s stop, and Leo and Caroline walked to the Logroño house. Caroline scratched Señor Gato’s chin when he hopped up on the couch to greet her. “It feels like forever since I’ve been over, but everything’s the same.”

  “Hello, girls.” Daddy hurried out of the living room with a handful of papers in one hand and a pen tucked behind his ear. His dark hair stuck straight up, and he ran his free hand through it to make it puff even worse. “I’m having a little bit of a problem with some—well, never mind. Isabel’s at the bakery with Mamá and Alma and Belén. Marisol is out with someone, doing something, until sometime tonight.” He sighed. “Very nice to have you over, Caroline.” He tried to shake her hand while balancing a full stack of papers.

  “Daddy.” Leo covered her face with her hands. “You’re being weird.”

  “Et tu, Leo? Is my last baby turning into a surly teenager? Well, it had to happen sooner or later, I suppose. Have a good time, you two.” He sighed one more time and then returned to the office.

  Leo led Caroline through the dining room, a little relieved that the rest of her family wasn’t home acting nosy and silly. Besides, they needed the kitchen to themselves if they didn’t want to get caught.

  “Wow.” Caroline beamed. “I forgot how awesome your kitchen is.” Leo watched her friend’s eyes scan all the mixers and blenders and eggbeaters lined up along the counter, the cookie sheets and cake tins that didn’t fit in cupboards stacked on top of the refrigerator.

  “It is awesome,” Leo agreed. “Now let’s get baking.”

  MORDIDAS DE AMOR

  UNA MORDIDA D9E ESTAS GALLETAS DELICIOSAS LLENARÁ AL CORAZÓN DEL SUJETO CON CARIÑO

  INGREDIENTES

  2 tazas harina

  1 taza de azúcar blanca

  ¼ taza de melaza

  ¾ taza de manteca

  1 cucharada de jengibre molido

  1 cucharadita de canela

  1 huevo

  2 cucharaditas de bicarbonato

  ½ cucharadita de sal

  ¼ taza de agua

  1 prenda u objeto querido del sujeto

  1 pestaña del sujeto

  la firma del sujeto

  1 pestaña de la persona que el sujeto debe amar

  la firma de la personal que el sujeto debe amar

  Leo scanned the recipe one last time before running to set the oven to preheat, and then she put water on the stove top to boil Brent’s sweatshirt. This was the trickiest part of the recipe—not because it was hard to do, but because it was the most likely to get them caught. Daddy might not notice a scrap of autographed paper being slipped into a bowl of batter, but he would definitely notice sweatshirt soup! They had to stay on alert, and they had to act fast.

  “Okay, so now I need an eyelash from you, and your autograph too,” Leo said, holding out her hand.

  “Leo . . . ,” Caroline said, “what if this isn’t a good idea?”

  “What do you mean?” Leo froze. “You’re here. We already started.”

  Caroline was staring at the book, her fingers tracing the hearts at the top of the page. “I don’t want to force him to like me.” She twisted her bracelet at top speed. “This was a bad idea. We should call it off.”

  “But . . .” Leo felt disappointment well in her stomach at the thought of abandoning her first real spell. She couldn’t quit now. Caroline was probably just nervous, like Leo got before school pageants. She just needed some reassurance. “We’re not going to force him,” she continued. “We’re just giving your friendship a little tiny jump start. Adding some affection to sweeten his personality.”

  “That’s not how the spell works.” Caroline pointed to the book. “You put in who you want them to love, and then they love that person. That’s not a jump start, that’s a hijack.”

  “Well . . . what if . . .” An idea was forming at the back of Leo’s brain. “What if the spell didn’t work like that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Leo waited while the idea bubbled into shape. “What if we took you out of the spell?” The idea grew, and Leo’s excitement grew with it. “We don’t want to force him to like you, but we could make these cookies just encourage him to feel more affection in general. It’ll work out the same, because you’re already such good friends. I’m sure that just a little bit of love is all he needs to apologize, and then you can be friends again.”

  Caroline chewed her bottom lip.

  “No signature from you, and no eyelash. We’ll just leave that part blank. Extra cariño for whoever he already cares about, which is you.”

  “Is that okay? You think it will work?”

  If Leo had been perfectly honest, she would have admitted that she wasn’t really sure. If she had been perfectly honest, she would have mentioned Marisol’s warning about experimenting with recipes, and how dangerous spells could be. But even though Leo did remember Marisol’s warning, i
t was Isabel’s encouragement and Alma and Belén’s eagerness that came to her mind. If Isabel could experiment and create her own spells, then Leo could, too. Like Isabel said, it was the feeling that mattered most.

  “Yes!”

  Once the Brent water was ready (and the sweatshirt hung over a chair to dry), Leo started the real baking. She showed Caroline how to find what they needed in the pantry, and how to scrape the excess off the top of the measuring cups without packing down the flour too much. Caroline had a helpful knack for remembering the details of the recipe without needing to look at it over and over, so Leo could keep the spell book hidden under a large overturned frying pan while they worked. Leo and Caroline laughed when they had to add three drops of the boiled Brent-flavored water into the mixing bowl, but they couldn’t resist tasting the spicy dough once it sat round and sticky and finished in the bowl.

  “Okay,” Leo said, “I have to do more magic now. Will you check the doors?”

  When Caroline signaled that the coast was clear, Leo took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Holding Brent’s stolen eyelash in one hand and his written name in the other, Leo plunged both hands into the dough.

  “Brent Bayman,” she whispered, and she thought about Brent with his mouth full of sweet bread, his smile when he told Caroline that he would talk to her later. She remembered the time in second grade when Brent and his mom had come into the bakery to buy a birthday flan, and his little sister had thrown a fit about wanting a real cake, and Brent had distracted her with silly faces while his mom explained to Mamá about the little girl’s celiac disease. Leo didn’t know Brent well, but she liked what she knew. Up until recently, at least. It wasn’t hard to find enough sweet thoughts to fill the cookies up. Leo’s hands tingled inside the dough, like they had fallen asleep.

  “Did it work?” Caroline asked when Leo pulled her hands free. “I didn’t see anything.”

  “It . . .” Leo hesitated. She had only done magic a few times, and she wasn’t sure if it was supposed to look like anything special. But she had felt it. “It worked,” she said finally, more because she didn’t want Caroline to doubt her than because she was doubt-free herself. “And this is the part where we would add your name and your eyelash, but we aren’t doing that. So now we just need to shape them and bake them.”

  They had fun rolling bite-sized balls of dough and lining them up on the baking pan. Leo even made a few heart-shaped cookies, just to see if they would hold their shape while they baked. She thought about making a pig-shaped cookie but decided it was best not to risk it.

  They’d halved the recipe but still had enough dough to fill a whole tray—twelve cookies in all. It was a lot to give to one person, but Leo didn’t want to eat any of the cookies herself without knowing what effect the Brent-specific magic could have on someone who wasn’t Brent. While the cookies baked, Leo and Caroline raced through their math homework, and then Caroline helped Leo with their social studies worksheet. Halfway through it, the timer rang. The smell of baking cookies already infused the kitchen, but opening the oven door let an even stronger cloud of warm spicy freshness into the air. Leo was sure she smelled magic too. She hopped up and down until she had to stop to carefully remove the hot tray from the oven with a potholder. The cookies were going to work—she could feel it.

  “Looks like I came just in time.” Daddy walked into the kitchen as Leo used a spatula to transfer the cookies two at a time onto the shiny cooling rack. “You girls didn’t make too much of a mess, did you?” He reached for one of the still-hot cookies from behind Leo’s back.

  “Don’t eat that!”

  Daddy dropped the cookie, startled. Leo immediately wished she hadn’t screamed, but she was afraid that the magic cookies might cast their spell on Daddy.

  “Sorry,” Leo said quickly. “We just—we need enough to give to all the people. In the club.”

  “The club?” Daddy raised an eyebrow. “What club is that?”

  Leo opened her mouth, exactly like a goldfish and nothing like a criminal mastermind, but luckily Caroline spoke up.

  “It’s just a club for snacking.” She bit her lip and tugged on a braid. “At lunch, we take turns bringing fun snacks. We had it at my school in Houston—I thought maybe I could start it here. That’s why I asked Leo to make these cookies.”

  Leo quickly put on a smile and nodded like she had known about the snack club all along. Daddy smiled and reached around Leo’s shoulder for a hug she knew she didn’t deserve.

  “I think that’s a great idea, Caroline. I hope you girls are making sure to include everyone. You could have made a bigger batch if you were worried about having enough.”

  “Oh, we are including people.” Caroline nodded. “Everyone who wanted, at least. But hopefully after this week, even more people will join.”

  Leo hid her laughter by moving the rest of the cookies to the rack. Caroline might be the greatest actress ever.

  “If they get a whiff of these cookies, I can’t imagine anyone turning you down,” Daddy said. “Well, I guess I’ll have to sacrifice my own rumbling stomach for the good of the snack club.” He stared longingly at the cookies but walked toward the door.

  “Daddy.” Leo stopped him before he left.

  “Mm-hm?”

  “They’re the same recipe we made yesterday. The leftovers are in the cookie jar. You can have as many of those ones as you want.”

  “Now that’s what I like to hear.” Daddy pulled the head off the teddy bear cookie jar that sat on the windowsill year-round in spite of its Christmas sweater. He fished out three of yesterday’s cookies, two of which he offered to Leo and Caroline. “Cheers, girls.”

  They each took a bite.

  “Like I said.” Daddy gave a happy sigh. “Your club will explode with members after they taste these cookies. You girls are destined for success.”

  Even though the club wasn’t a real club, even though it was just a sneaky lie between sneaky friends, Leo hoped he was right.

  CHAPTER 15

  FRIENDS AND FAMILY

  After some debate, Leo and Caroline decided to leave three cookies in Brent’s locker. They didn’t want to risk him sharing with anyone, but they were afraid that one tiny cookie wouldn’t be enough.

  Leo wrapped up the cookies using the clear plastic bags and golden twist ties that Mamá kept at home, even though they were really for bakery products. Caroline wrote a mysterious note (“Hope you have a sweet day!”) in curly cursive that didn’t look anything like her normal handwriting. The rest of the cookies Leo hid in a big Ziploc bag under her bed until she could ask Alma and Belén’s advice on what to do with them. She didn’t want to toss them—Mamá hated wasted food—but she wasn’t sure they were safe to leave lying around. If Alma and Belén didn’t know, maybe Abuela would.

  At lunch on Wednesday, Caroline asked for permission to go to the library to check out a book for a made-up project. Leo ripped crumbs off the fresh fluffy bread of her sandwich, barely able to sit still knowing that Caroline was sneaking down the sixth-grade hall to tape the cookies to Brent’s locker door. Leo tapped her foot under the long gray lunch table and shifted on the attached plastic stool. What would happen if Caroline got caught? What was taking so long?

  “Is everything okay?”

  Leo jumped. Mai Nguyen frowned at her, head tilted like Señor Gato when he caught Leo staring at him.

  “Oh, yeah, everything’s fine,” Leo said after a pause.

  “Where’s Caroline?” Tricia tilted her head at the empty seat beside Leo.

  “She’s . . .” Leo had planned to say “at the library,” but she didn’t have to, because at that moment, Caroline pulled open the cafeteria door and flashed Leo a thumbs-up from behind Tricia’s and Mai’s backs. “She’s right there.”

  The girls turned, and Leo sighed and dropped her handful of crumbs so that she could take her first real bite out of her ham sandwich. Caroline grinned as she sat down and pulled her lunch bag out of her backpack. “Mi
ssion accomplished,” she whispered to Leo.

  “Oh, good.” Tricia flashed a smile at Caroline. “We were afraid you were going to miss lunch because of those gross boys again.”

  Mai nodded. “We wanted to tell you that we think what they did was horrible. Boys are jerks.”

  “Oh.” Caroline blushed deep red. “Thanks.” She shifted on her cafeteria stool.

  “We also wanted to say welcome back.” Mai smiled. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay. I’m good. I’ve been hanging out with Leo. She’s teaching me how to bake.”

  “Wow!” Tricia took a big bite out of her tuna sandwich and scattered crumbs as she talked. “That is so cool. Leo’s family makes the best bread in the whole state, probably. You must be an expert baker, right, Leo?”

  Leo ducked her head and smiled into her lunch box. She didn’t know Tricia was so into the bakery. Leo liked Mai and Tricia, but she never knew what to say to them. The two girls had been best friends with each other all through elementary school, and they fit together like matching salt and pepper shakers.

  “I always get my birthday cake from your bakery,” Mai added. “I saw you working at the Day of the Dead festival, but you were talking to your sister and you didn’t see me.” Mai stopped and looked embarrassed.

  “I’m sorry,” Leo said. “I would have said hi if I’d seen you. I guess I was just a little . . .”

  “Distracted,” Mai said. “We know.” She and Tricia shared a smile.

  “You’re always in your own world,” Tricia said with a nod.

  “Yeah, but Leo’s world is way cooler,” Caroline said.

  “I want to hang out there,” Tricia said.

  “You should let us in sometime.” Mai smiled at Leo.

  Leo dropped her head. She had always thought that she had problems making friends because it was such a difficult thing to do; she had never considered that there might be friends to be had if she had just looked a little harder.

  “I want to learn some baking too,” Tricia said. “It sounds awesome.”

  “It is awesome.” Caroline raised her head a little and smiled. “Actually . . . we were talking about doing a thing where . . .” Her eyes flickered to Leo. “Where we all take turns making cookies and bringing them for everyone to eat. Like a club. A snack club. If you two would be . . . I don’t know, interested in that.”