Daring Dreamers Club #2

by Erin Soderberg

  Copyright © 2019 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto, in conjunction with Disney Enterprises, Inc.

  Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  rhcbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Name: Soderberg, Erin, author.

  Title: Piper cooks up a plan / by Erin Soderberg.

  Description: New York: Random House, [2019] | Series: Daring Dreamers Club; 2

  Summary: Part-chef, part-scientist, Piper dreams of competing on her favorite cooking show and with the help of the rest of the Daring Dreamers Club, Milla, Zahra, Mariana, and Ruby, she is prepared to win.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018014757 | ISBN 978-0-7364-3944-2 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-0-7364-8265-3 (lib. bdg.) | ISBN 978-0-7364-3945-9 (ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Cooking—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Clubs—Fiction. | Reality television programs—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.S685257 Pip 2019 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  Ebook ISBN 9780736439459

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

  v5.4

  a

  For my editor, Rachel Poloski—your cheerful and encouraging personality make it so much fun to write stories for you!

  —E.S.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Meet the Daring Dreamers

  1. Cooking Up Chaos

  2. Daring Dreamers

  Piper

  3. Math Mess

  4. Helping Hands

  Zahra

  5. Surprise Challenges

  6. Baby Food Blues

  Mariana

  7. School Slump

  Milla

  8. Fat Tests and Math Experiments

  9. Practice Makes Not-Quite-Perfect

  10. Recipe for Winning

  11. The Future of Food

  Piper

  12. The Kitchen Wizard

  13. Zombie Apocalypse

  14. Zombie-Proof Pod

  Ruby

  15. The Golden Spatula Goes To…

  Piper

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from Milla Takes Charge

  Piper Andelman’s experiment was going exactly as planned…until the smoke alarm went off.

  Beeeeeeep!

  Beeeeeeep!

  Beeeeeeep!

  Piper pressed oven mitts over her ears, trying to block out the awful sound. “Nothing to worry about!” she hollered, even though her family probably couldn’t hear her over the loud beeping. “Just a little smoke, but I’ll have it cleared out in a sec.”

  Moving quickly, Piper slid a charred, smoking beaker away from the heat. She was turning off her hot plate when her dad, Jeremy, raced into the kitchen. He glanced around, grabbed a rolled-up newspaper off the counter, and fanned it under the wailing smoke detector. Piper flung open a window and waited for the smoke to clear.

  In the midst of all the excitement, Piper’s little sister, Finley, bounced around the kitchen, trying to capture everything on video with their dad’s phone.

  Piper’s dad dropped the newspaper as soon as the smoke alarm stopped screaming. The silence was a welcome relief. “Things going well in here?” he asked in an even voice.

  “All good,” Piper said. She stood in front of her makeshift lab, holding her arms out wide to try to hide the chaos on the counter. Science was messy, but sometimes it was hard for parents to understand that. Especially when science took over the kitchen right before dinnertime.

  Piper’s dad peered around her, raising his eyebrows when he spotted the scorched beaker and a countertop covered in sticky blue blobs. Nestled among the blobs was a mixing bowl filled with rising bread dough. A roasting pan full of chopped carrots, potatoes, and fresh herbs was prepared to go into the oven.

  “It’s all good. Really,” Piper repeated with a smile. She sighed and added, “Dinner will be ready as soon as Mom gets home from work. I just got bored while I was waiting for the bread dough to rise, so I decided to play around a little bit. I’m testing how temperature and cooking time impact the texture of hard candy.”

  “Uh-huh,” her dad said, folding his arms over his chest. “And what did you discover?”

  Piper glanced at the still-smoldering beaker and shrugged. “I formed my hypothesis and have started conducting tests to see if I’m right. But I can’t share the results, since I haven’t finished my experiment. A true scientist doesn’t trust a hunch, Dad. You know I’ve gotta prove it first.”

  Finley climbed onto the counter, balancing on all fours like a cat. She plucked one of the blue blobs and popped it into her mouth. The feisty six-year-old smacked her lips together as she sucked on the slightly chewy candy.

  “Meow is helping,” Finley told their dad. “Meow is the taste tester and the camera lady! Meow!” Finley was going through an animal phase. For the past week, she had been starting and finishing most of her sentences with a loud meow. Piper had decided this was an improvement over her sheep phase, when she would only say “Baaaa.”

  “I see,” their dad said, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. With a nod at the counter, he said, “Thanks for cooking tonight.” He raked a hand through his short brown hair. His checkered shirt was misbuttoned, and his glasses were smudged with fingerprints.

  Piper glanced at her own messy outfit through equally smudged glasses. There were sugary stains all over her apron, and she could feel her floppy knit panda hat sliding off one side of her head. It was no wonder people said she reminded them of her dad.

  “Have you both finished your homework?” Dad asked.

  Piper took a deep breath but didn’t answer. In Finley’s kindergarten world, homework was a daily coloring sheet or alphabet worksheet. Fun and games, mostly. In fifth grade, homework was the pits.

  When Piper wasn’t using math for science experiments or measuring recipes, she found it a total chore—and a bore. Worksheets took the fun out of math, and the word problems they had been working on for the past month were all so ridiculous. The questions never related to real-world problems, and the answers never made sense if you really thought about them. Piper had tried to point this out, but her teacher, Mr. Mohan, didn’t seem to want to hear it. The worst part was, it was extra hard for Piper to follow the math when there was so much reading involved.

  Reading and writing had always been a challenge for Piper, because of her dyslexia. Math seemed to take her a little longer than most people, as a result of how her mind worked. Even still, she’d never had too much trouble keeping up in math class before. But because of all the word problems they had been doing lately, Piper had started to seriously fall behind in math. And it seemed that the further behind she fell, the harder her assignments and quizzes had gotten. Since her homework was never easy or fun, she could come up with a million other things she would rather be doing.

  “I’ll do my homework after dinner,” Piper promised. “You know I need a brain break after school.”

  “Okay,” her dad said, nodding. “I’ll be in my office if
you need me. This deadline is killing me.” He strolled out of the kitchen, trusting that Piper would clean up after herself. She always did. Well, usually. Or maybe it was more like sometimes. But she’d noticed that her dad seemed extra stressed out about work recently, so she would definitely clean up today. She wanted to stay on his good side.

  Piper’s dad worked from home as a graphic designer, so his “office” was just a desk in the corner of the living room. Whenever he was working on a big project, Piper offered to make the family dinner. She loved to cook, so this was one of her favorite ways to help out. Piper wasn’t the smartest or most athletic Andelman (that title went to her older brother, Dan), nor was she the cutest or funniest (Finley), so Piper worked hard to try to impress her parents in other ways.

  Even though making family dinners was never as exciting as any of her other food-science experiments, Piper knew that every chance she got to fool around in the kitchen was an opportunity to learn something new. She considered herself part scientist, part chef. To Piper, the words “kitchen” and “lab” meant the same thing. After all, cooking was its own kind of science.

  When Piper was baking or boiling something, she knew it was important to use the right ingredients, the correct amounts, the right temperatures, and the proper amount of time—just like any other kind of science experiment. If she got the mix wrong, dinner would be a bust…or blow up. (Dinner had only blown up once, and it was a very messy lesson learned!)

  As soon as their dad had returned to the living room, Piper grabbed the phone out of her sister’s sticky hands. “Let’s see what you got,” she said, hitting play on the video. Both girls giggled as they watched the footage of Piper’s candy experiment. The smoke alarm was a nice touch. It gave the video some extra character.

  Piper wasn’t at all bothered by the fact that her experiment had gone up in smoke. In fact, she was pleased. Mistakes—in both science and cooking—taught you something, and often led to unexpected discoveries. Food science was all about testing things and adjusting to find the right mix for your experiment. You could get different results every time and it was no big deal…unlike math, where making mistakes just led to a wrong answer.

  “Do you think you have enough for your audition video meow?” Finley asked, popping a slice of carrot into her mouth. She made a face as she pulled a sprig of rosemary out of her mouth. “Icky prickly herbs,” she said, spitting the carrot into the sink.

  “Yeah,” Piper said, nodding. “I should have more than enough. Thanks for helping, Fin.” She washed her hands and pushed the rest of her equipment to the side while she finished preparing dinner. As she formed balls of dough into dinner rolls, she thought about how she would put her video together.

  For the past few weeks, Piper had been working on an audition video for her favorite television cooking competition, The Future of Food. The TV show was touring around the country, searching for the most inventive kid cooks in America. Piper was thrilled when she found out they would be filming an upcoming episode in a nearby town. She had always wanted a chance to try out for the show!

  The Future of Food was different from most cooking shows, because kids were expected to use creativity and innovation in the kitchen, instead of just cooking big, fancy meals in a traditional way. Each week, the show had a different theme. Sometimes, contestants were asked to cook or bake using unusual cutting-edge gadgets. Other times, the host of the show introduced a crazy, out-there theme. Once, The Future of Food contestants had to cook without using any electronic tools at all. Another time, contestants were told that they lived in a future that only had potatoes and cows—so they could only use potato, dairy, and beef products in their dishes. One of Piper’s favorite episodes required contestants to cook in a space suit, using only freeze-dried astronaut food.

  Each week, three lucky and talented kid cooks were invited to compete in The Future of Food’s kitchen. The winner earned a $10,000 cash prize!

  Being on a show like The Future of Food was one of Piper’s big dreams, and she had every intention of making it come true. But even more importantly, she intended to win. Then she could finally prove to her family that she was the best at something, too.

  “They picked me!” Piper blurted out, unable to keep her secret a moment longer. She had been waiting all day to share her huge news with the other four members of the Daring Dreamers Club. Now that their Tuesday advisory group meeting was officially in session, Piper bounced around Ms. Bancroft’s classroom waving a piece of paper in the air. “I’m in! I’m going to be on The Future of Food!”

  She held the sheet of paper in front of her nose and announced, “We got an email this morning that says, ‘Congratulations, Piper Andelman!’ That’s me! ‘Based on the quality and creativity of your audition video, we would like to invite you to participate in an upcoming episode of The Future of Food!’ ” Piper twisted a lock of her hair and looked around. “Then it goes on and on with a whole bunch of details about dates and times, where I go for filming, and stuff like that. Can you believe it?”

  “This is so exciting!” Milla Bannister-Cook said, squeezing her best friend tight. Sweet, adventure-loving Milla had been friends with Piper for years, so she knew just how much an opportunity like this meant to her. “When do they film the episode?”

  “In less than three weeks,” Piper told her friends and Ms. Bancroft. “I have a zillion things to do to get ready. I’m going to be cooking so much the next few weeks!”

  “We’ll help you!” Ruby Fawcett said, speaking on behalf of everyone. Ruby was the smallest member of the Daring Dreamers Club, but she had the biggest voice. In fact, Ruby and her twin brother, Henry, were two of the most outspoken—and sporty—members of the fifth-grade class at Walter Roy Elementary. Loyal, clever, tell-it-like-it-is Ruby was the kind of person everyone wanted on their team. “What can we do to make sure you’re ready to win?”

  “I can be a taste tester or a sous-chef, if you want,” Mariana Sanchez offered with a shy smile. Though Mari was quiet, she was also one of the most fearless people Piper had ever met. She loved trying new things, and she was good at almost everything she tried. “I’m not a picky eater, and I’m pretty good at chopping. My abuela loves to cook, and she’s taught me stuff. She makes the most amazing chicken mole you’ve ever eaten.”

  “You know Chip will happily eat any scraps that aren’t fit for human consumption,” Milla said, laughing. Chocolate Chip was Milla’s pet pig, and he loved snacking on Piper’s creations—even the yucky, failed experiments. “I probably won’t be much help with tasting, but I’d be happy to help with cleanup duties.” Milla was allergic to nuts and dairy, so she had to be careful about what she ate.

  “Can I help you figure out your outfit for the show?” Zahra Sharif asked. Hardworking, independent Zahra loved designing clothes, as well as making mosaics and painting, in her free time. She was the most artistic member of the Daring Dreamers Club. “We have to find something for you to wear that’s going to really pop on TV. And I would love to help you come up with some fun ideas for plating your food. Your dishes need to look creative and appealing if you want to win, right?”

  The offers of help were shouted out, voices layering on top of voices, as everyone grew more and more excited about Piper’s television debut. The Daring Dreamers Club had only been around since the first week of fifth grade, when the five girls were assigned to the same fifth-grade advisory group at school. But in that short time, Piper, Milla, Ruby, Zahra, and Mariana had already grown very close.

  Their school’s principal had started the advisory groups to help fifth graders prepare for the independence of middle school. Every fifth grader was put in a small group made up of peers and a teacher-advisor. During their twice-weekly meetings, these groups talked about issues and challenges, goals and dreams.

  Piper’s group had been lucky enough to get Ms. Bancroft, the school’s new music teacher, as their advisor. Ms
. B was one of the most unique and inspiring women any of them had ever met. She loved encouraging her group to dream big and reach for the stars—which is why the girls had named themselves the Daring Dreamers Club.

  Piper couldn’t quite believe one of her big dreams was already coming true—and to make the dream even sweeter, she was going to win! “Guess what?” she said, smiling wider. “I get enough visitor passes that all of you will be able to come watch the show being filmed!” Everyone cheered.

  Ms. Bancroft spoke for the first time that meeting. “I think I must be a little out of the loop…,” she said. “What exactly is The Future of Food? Some sort of television show, I’m assuming?”

  Ruby’s mouth gaped open. “You haven’t seen it, Ms. B?”

  Ms. Bancroft shrugged. “I’m more of a movie buff. And frankly, cooking isn’t my strong suit. I’m a canned-soup-and-takeout kind of chef.”

  Piper groaned. “Whoa, whoa, whoa…You can’t cook?”

  “I didn’t say I can’t,” Ms. Bancroft said, laughing. “I just prefer not to. My kitchen experiments never end well.”

  “Okay, this could be a problem,” Piper said. One of the things that made The Future of Food fun was that the host—who called herself the Kitchen Wizard—loved surprise challenges. Contestants never got to just cook. There was always some sort of twist.

  Piper had watched every episode of The Future of Food and knew that the Kitchen Wizard sometimes even made contestants work with a friend or family member to create their dish. Piper wanted to be prepared for anything the show’s host might throw at her, so she had to make sure her audience members were ready, too! What if they were called up to cook with her?