Midsummer's Mayhem

by Rajani LaRocca

  I was glad I hadn’t eaten it myself. I hated bitter chocolate except as a garnish. “Love you, Dad. Have a great run.”

  Dad shook his head as if to clear it. “Love you, too, Mimi Mouse. I’ll be back soon. ” He kissed me on the forehead and jogged out the door to the yard.

  I went into the kitchen to do some culinary research.

  Later, I was perched on the porch swing with three different cookbooks open, when I heard familiar footsteps.

  “That was fast,” I said. “How was your run?”

  “Exactly what I needed.” Dad started to do some stretches.

  “DADDY!” Jules raced to him from the driveway. She nearly knocked him over as she grabbed him in a ferocious embrace.

  “Whoa, take it easy,” Dad said with a laugh. “How’s my soccer star?”

  “Great! How was the festival in Texas?” Jules asked.

  “Oh! Yes, the Dallas Beer and Barbecue Festival, with top local chefs. It was excellent, really excellent,” Dad said.

  “Awesome, Dad. I’m going to set the table for dinner. I’m starving!” Jules gave him a quick peck on the cheek and ran into the house, hauling her sports bags to the mudroom.

  I turned to Dad.

  “I thought you’d gone to Houston.”

  “Yes?”

  “You just said Dallas.”

  “I . . .” Dad stared at me. “In any case, I was in Texas, and there was a lot of big food, and I’m going to write all about it.” He rubbed his neck. “I should go unpack now.” He stood still for a moment, looking confused. Riya glided across the yard, floated over to Dad, and presented the top of her head to be kissed without bothering to take her earbuds out.

  “Paul!” Mom said. Her long black hair was up in a frizzy bun, and she balanced a stack of pizza boxes and several grocery bags. “So glad you’re finally home.”

  “You couldn’t be gladder than I am, honey.” He took the bags from her and kissed her.

  Mom smiled. “I worked like crazy all day, drove these two to soccer and dance, and managed to grab a few groceries before I picked them up again. I am so looking forward to this dinner.”

  “I’m really hungry, too,” Dad said.

  “Then let’s get inside and eat right away,” Mom said. She went into the house.

  I picked up my cookbooks and held the back door open for Dad.

  Everyone was distracted at dinner that night. Henry kept glancing at the script in his lap and muttering lines to himself. Riya wouldn’t stop tapping on her phone, and Jules wouldn’t stop glaring at Riya.

  “Sangita,” Dad asked Mom, “can you pass me another slice?” He was already on his fourth slice of pizza, and I wasn’t even halfway through my first.

  Mom leaned over to put a slice of pepperoni on Dad’s plate, but not before looking at her phone, which buzzed repeatedly with work emails. “How was your trip?” she asked.

  Dad stopped stuffing his face for a second. “It was great, but I’m so glad to be home. What’s going on with everyone?” He shoved the rest of the slice into his mouth and reached for a fifth. He usually only ate two.

  I wanted to tell Dad all about the While Away. “I went—”

  “I need to have all my lines memorized for tomorrow,” Henry said.

  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream, right?” Dad asked. “It’s my favorite Shakespeare play. The course of true love never did run smooth, and so on. What part are you playing?”

  “Puck.” Henry raised his eyebrows. “Don’t you remember? I found out before you left.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Tomorrow I’ve got to whip the other girls into shape for the big number,” said Riya, her almond-shaped eyes growing expressively large. “We’ve got to be in perfect sync, or it’ll look terrible. And I need to work on the leaps in my solo.” Riya’s big dance performance was coming up in a couple of weeks.

  “And I’ve got soccer practice again,” Jules said. “We’re gearing up for our game against Bridgeton. We’ve got to beat them this time.”

  My siblings chattered away about their plans as I slowly chewed my slice of pizza. There’s a new café in town, I rehearsed in my head. And there’s a contest . . .

  Mom turned to me. “How about you, Mimi? I don’t want you to be bored tomorrow. Do you want to have a friend over? Maddy? How about Victoria?”

  I shook my head. “Maddy’s on vacation out west, and Victoria’s at camp for a month.”

  “I ran into Carmela Jones the other day, and she said Kiera would love to have you over.”

  I froze. That definitely didn’t sound like something Kiera would say. And it sure didn’t sound like something I would want to do. I didn’t need to spend time with someone who said my hair looked like a bird’s nest and made fun of my favorite purple-and-black sneakers. Especially without Emma around to defend me. “I don’t know,” I said, hoping Mom would forget all about it.

  “Our new neighbors moved in,” Jules interjected. “Cole is so sweet.”

  “He’s sweet all right,” Riya said. “Next time, don’t ruin everything with your stupid soccer ball. And try putting on some makeup once in a while.”

  “As if you want to help me.” Jules glared at her. “You always manage to sink your claws into everyone.”

  “I don’t like Cole,” Riya said, lifting her chin. “Not like like.”

  Jules clenched her fists. “Like I believe that. Is he already texting you?”

  “Girls, please,” Mom said.

  Maybe I could give Mrs. T my entry without anyone else needing to know. But I really wanted to share my excitement.

  Dad looked up. “Did the new neighbors move in?”

  Hadn’t Henry and Jules already told him that?

  Mom nodded. “Isabelle Clark and her son, Cole.” She addressed all of us. “Guys, I’ve got to put in a full day’s work tomorrow, even though it’s Sunday. The website launch is coming up, so I won’t be able to relax until July.” She scrolled through the messages on her phone and set it down again.

  We’d been through this before. Mom did software consulting and had to work around the clock before big deadlines.

  “We know,” Henry said. “We can help out with laundry and meals.”

  “I can make dessert every night,” I volunteered. It would be good practice for the contest.

  “If you do that, I think I’m going to have deadlines more often,” Mom said with a smile.

  “Between work and rehearsals, I won’t have much time to help,” said Riya. “I’ve got to have some time to chill out so I can dance my best. There’s a rumor that a professor from the New York College of Performing Arts will be coming to my recital!”

  “Don’t try to get out of helping.” Jules scowled at Riya. “I’m one hundred percent focused this summer, so I can keep up my streak of no missed penalty kicks. But I can still help fold the laundry.” Jules tapped on the table in a complicated rhythm. In addition to being a soccer star, she played drums of every type, from a standard drum set to the tabla and even African drums.

  “Little Miss Perfect,” sneered Riya.

  “Look who’s talking!” said Jules.

  “Girls, please,” said Mom with exasperation before glancing at her phone again.

  Riya and Jules were momentarily shamed into silence, and I jumped at the chance to finally tell everyone about my plans. “So I went to that new bakery in town today, the While Away Café,” I blurted.

  “Great name. How was it?” asked Dad. He plopped another slice of pizza onto his plate. Was he really going for slice number six? Or was he on seven by now?

  “I liked it,” I said. My heart thumped so loudly I was sure everyone could hear it. “And I got to meet the owner. They’re—they’re having a kids’ baking contest this summer.”

  “That sounds like fun,” said Mom.

  “You’re a shoo-in to win, Mimi Mouse,” Henry said.

  “I don’t know,” Riya said in her Oldest Sister voice. “Baking is über-popular with k
ids these days.”

  “Never mind her. Even Cole loved your brownies,” said Jules as Riya rolled her eyes. “When is the contest?”

  I swallowed. “Contestants have a few weeks to bring something in from home, and the top entries win a ‘Golden Leaf’ that gets them into the second round.”

  “How many kids will get a Golden Leaf?” asked Riya.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. I hadn’t even asked!

  “And then what happens?” Henry asked as he lifted the lids on all the empty pizza boxes. “Hey! Who ate all the pizza? I only got two slices, and I’m still hungry.”

  Everyone looked confused. Dad didn’t bat an eye as he finished his last few bites.

  “Have some more salad,” said Mom, passing the bowl.

  “Rounds two and three of the contest will be on . . . Mrs. T said . . . when is Midsummer’s Eve?”

  “June twenty-third,” Henry said. “My play opens that night. In ancient times, people believed all kinds of magical creatures came out on Midsummer’s Eve, so it’s the perfect time for a play about fairies.”

  “Your play is about fairies?” Jules asked.

  “Kind of. It’s about a fight between the king and queen of the fairies, and the havoc it causes for a bunch of unsuspecting mortals.”

  “One of our numbers is a fairy dance,” said Riya, fluttering her arms like she had wings. “You won’t believe the gorgeous costumes.”

  I had nothing against fairies, but I’d been discussing baking. “Mom. The contest. Can I enter?”

  Mom’s phone buzzed again. “I don’t see why not,” she said distractedly.

  “Dad, will you help me figure out a new recipe that will wow everyone?”

  “Absolutely,” Dad said, grabbing Riya’s discarded crusts from her plate and munching on one. “In fact, why don’t you get started now?”

  I stood. “Want to help?” I could tell him about everything—the mysterious song, the bizarre bird, the funny waitress, the grape cupcake—while we baked.

  “Not now, Mimi Mouse. I’d better jump in the shower. But I’d be happy to give you my opinion on the finished product.” He stood and stretched. “I’m famished, and something sweet will hit the spot.”

  I wondered how Dad could possibly be hungry after eating almost an entire pizza by himself.

  For a split second, Dad’s face looked strange. It had something to do with his eyes, but I couldn’t figure out what. I blinked and looked again. His eyes looked normal—a warm brown, the color of good medium-roast coffee, as he always liked to say. Just like mine.

  I went into the kitchen and baked sixty peanut butter cookies with sea salt.

  By the end of the night, Dad had eaten forty-nine of them.

  CHAPTER 4

  PRACTICE DOESN'T MAKE PERFECT

  I jumped out of bed the second my eyes opened the next morning. The song from the woods echoed in my head, and I was sure I’d dreamed about it. But baking came first. I couldn’t wait to get to work making something for Mrs. T.

  I’d already told Mrs. T about Puffy Fay’s Mischief and Magic, so I picked two other cookbooks instead and thumbed my way through them as I quickly ate a bowl of cereal. Chocolate chip cookies? Too simple. Angel food cake? Too insubstantial. Brownies? Too common. And how did any of them relate to leaves?

  An hour later I paced the kitchen floor with the worst case of baker’s block I’d ever had. I couldn’t think of a single thing to make that wasn’t boring or didn’t make sense with a “leaf” theme. Or both.

  Dad came into the kitchen and slathered butter on a slice of bread.

  “Don’t you want to toast it first?” I asked.

  He stuffed a slice into his mouth. “It’s fine,” he mumbled with his mouth full. “I’m going to snarf these down before my breakfast meeting.”

  “But it’s Sunday. I thought you could help me decide what to bake for the contest.”

  “Sorry, honey, I’ve got to run,” said Dad. He gulped down a glass of orange juice and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Maybe later, then?”

  “Oh, Mimi Mouse. I’ve got a lunch meeting, too, and then an interview over coffee. Maybe after dinner?” He left the room with a mile-high stack of bread.

  I sighed, disappointed. I hadn’t expected Dad to be so busy after coming back from his trip. Thinking a change of scenery might help, I grabbed the latest Bon Baking magazine and plodded to the living room. I trudged past the grand piano, plopped myself down on the squashy blue sofa, and tossed the magazine onto the coffee table. The lead article was called “Ode to the Summer: Put Summer’s Bounty into Your Baking.” But it just discussed using lots of berries.

  I flopped against the sofa cushion. “How am I supposed to bake something related to leaves?”

  “If music be the food of love, play on,” Henry said as he walked into the room with a stack of papers. “Can I help?”

  I blew a stray strand of hair out of my eyes. “Unless you’ve suddenly acquired magical pastry skills, I don’t see how.”

  “I know I don’t bake, but I’m not completely useless. We can make a trade—I’ll help you think of ideas for the contest, and you help me run lines for my play. Please?”

  I couldn’t say no to Henry. He’s always busy, but never too busy to lend me a taste bud. He can be dramatic, but unlike Jules and Riya, he’s not completely self-involved. And he doesn’t just demand things—he asks. If he were a baked treat, he’d be a seven-layer bar—the perfect combination of sweet and salty, exotic coconut and homey caramel, and supported by a good, strong, buttery shortbread crust.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s start with the play. I can’t deal with thinking about recipes right now.”

  He handed me his stack of paper. “I’m Puck, the mischievous fairy lieutenant serving King Oberon,” he said. “You can be all the other parts. You start off as a fairy who works for Titania, the fairy queen.”

  I scanned the script. “Wow, I can barely understand this. Do I have to read it all?”

  “No, just read your first line and then the last line or two before mine.”

  “I guess I can do that.”

  “Great. Remember, you’re a fairy. Try to act lighthearted and spritely, okay? I think I have the whole thing memorized. . . . Here goes.” He stood up, cleared his throat, and looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “How now, spirit! Whither wander you?”

  We made our way through the beginning, which was basically all about the king and queen of the fairies having a big fight. Henry recited all his lines perfectly, of course, and probably would have gone through the whole scene without stopping. But then I read:

  “For Oberon is passing fell and wrath,

  Because that she as her attendant hath

  A lovely boy, stolen from an Indian king;

  She never had so sweet a changeling.”

  “So Queen Titania and King Oberon are fighting over a boy?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” Henry said, sitting next to me. He didn’t seem to care that I’d stopped halfway through the scene. “He’s human, the son of one of Titania’s followers.”

  “What’s a changeling?” I asked.

  “A child that’s taken from our world and raised by the fairies, who usually leave a fairy child in its place.”

  “Well, that’s creepy,” I said. “And in the play, he’s Indian?” I started to giggle. “You’d better watch out the next time you’re in the woods. Half-Indian is close enough. The fairies might be after you!”

  Henry tossed a throw pillow at me, and I ducked. “Keep going,” he said.

  We went back and forth again for a while. I couldn’t make any sense out of most of it, but Henry seemed happy.

  “That’s the end of my part in the scene. Want to go on, or take a break?” he asked.

  “Break, please. So I didn’t really get what was happening. What’s Puck’s deal?”

  “Puck works for King Oberon. Oberon tells Puck to find a flower that makes people fall in love
with whoever happens to be in front of them. Then to embarrass Queen Titania, they make her fall in love with a donkey-headed man.”

  I snorted. “What about Titania? Is she mean, too?”

  “I’m not sure she’s any better than Oberon. But Titania won’t give up the changeling boy because she promised to take care of him after his mother died.”

  “Does the boy have a big part in the play?”

  “No, he never even appears. They don’t mention him much after the beginning. It’s like after a while they forget why they were fighting and only know they’re angry.”

  They sounded a lot like Jules and Riya. “But why did Shakespeare make up a story about fairies?”

  “My English teacher told us that tales about fairies and other magical creatures go way back before Shakespeare. People have always thought there was magic in the forests.”

  “I can see why,” I said, looking out the window to the woods. “When Emma and I were out there, we used to tell each other stories about creatures who lived under mushrooms or flew like dragonflies. The woods make me feel like I’m miles away from the real world, and anything could happen. And recently I’ve been hearing this song coming from there. It’s kind of familiar, like . . .”

  Like it was an old friend, calling to me. I almost said the words out loud, but I didn’t want Henry to think I was crazy.

  Henry wasn’t listening. “Have you noticed cell phones don’t work in the woods?” he asked absently. “That makes me feel far from civilization.”

  I shrugged. He must have forgotten that I didn’t have a cell phone. “Anyway, I’ve never seen any fairies out there. It’s too bad—I bet they’d be fun.”

  “Maybe they’re hard to see,” Henry said, chuckling. He stood and rubbed his hands together. “Now for some baking inspiration before we do my next scene. Maybe music can help get you unstuck. Are you game?”

  “I’ll try anything.” We both moved over to the piano, where Henry played a simple melody.

  “Wish I could play like you,” I said, watching his hands fly over the keys. Unlike the rest of my family, I had no musical talent whatsoever. When I’d tried the clarinet in fourth grade, I’d squawked like a cranky goose.