by Lisa Graff
7. In a large bowl, cream the butter with an electric mixer fitted with clean beaters on medium speed until fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Reducing the speed on the mixer to low, gradually add the powdered sugar and beat until smooth, another 2 to 3 minutes. Add the cooled chocolate, sour cream, and pinch of salt, and beat to combine.
8. When the cakes are completely cooled, place one cake layer on a plate and spread marshmallow fluff on top. (If fluff is difficult to spread, microwave it in a microwave-safe bowl for 10 to 20 seconds and stir.) Place the second cake layer on top and frost the whole cake with chocolate frosting. Decorate with graham crackers, cracker crumbs, or mini marshmallows as desired.
8
Will
WILL’S MOTHER LIKED TO SAY THAT WILL HAD A TALENT FOR getting lost. But in all his six years, Willard Asher had never once been lost. How could he be lost when he always knew exactly where he was?
At that very moment, for example, Will was inside the walls of the Ashers’ apartment building, navigating with the help of an outmoded dumbwaiter that probably no one but him knew existed anymore.
“Today’s the day,” he told his ferret, Sally, as he tugged at the dumbwaiter’s chain, hand over hand, pulling the two of them slowly down through the walls of the building. He was always careful to keep a close eye on Sally when they went exploring. She had an unfortunate habit of running off, usually to hide something shiny she’d discovered. Sally loved to hide shiny things. “We’re going to find an adventure today, I just know it.”
In reply, Sally snuggled tighter against his neck and chattered out a click-click-clack.
Will and Sally searched for adventure together nearly every day. They knew exactly what adventure looked like because of the storybooks Will read. Giants. Monsters. Cake. That was what the knights in the storybooks always found on their adventures.
Well, Will had added the cake part himself, but it really did belong in any good adventure.
Will pulled himself all the way down to the first floor, then all the way back up to the twelfth. He passed Mrs. Castillo’s apartment on the eleventh floor, heard her brushing her teeth. He passed the Sansonis on floor ten, listened awhile to the game show they were watching on TV. And he passed old Mr. Watkins on the ninth floor, heard him hollering about gum in the elevator. At every stop, Will nudged his face into the cracks of the mostly plastered-up wall to see what he could see.
No adventure.
Slowly, Will made his way back to the twelfth floor and squeezed out from behind the wardrobe in Marigold’s bedroom.
That was when he heard the noise. Although it was less of a noise and more of a flip-you-on-your-head-pound-your-pancreas-to-pudding sort of tumult. The crash shook the whole floor, the whole apartment. It had come from the living room, where Zane had been reading.
Will and Sally reached the living room at the same moment as Marigold. “What was that noise?” she asked. “What happ—”
At first Will didn’t understand what could possibly make his sister freeze in the middle of a sentence like that. At first, all Will noticed was Zane, sitting silently in the armchair, his face white with terror, his eyes round and unblinking.
And then, of course, Will noticed the rest of it.
Where just minutes earlier there had been a living room wall with a wide window, now there was nothing. Only swirls of fog. Zane sat before the enormous gaping hole, clutching the chair’s armrests so tightly, his knuckles were purple. A small black bird flew past and, just for a moment, nipped at the knitted doily on the back of Zane’s chair.
Sally hopped down from Will’s shoulder and scurried across the floor to the edge where the wall had been. “Sally!” Will cried as he followed her, picking his way across the rubble. “Careful!” He scooped her up.
“What happened?” This time Marigold managed to get out a full sentence.
Will dropped to his belly for a closer look, his nose dangling over the edge as he gazed down, down, down into the fog. “It looks like . . .” he said slowly, not quite sure he believed his own eyes, “. . . a hot air balloon.”
Click-click-clack. Sally seemed to agree. It was a hot air balloon, smashed to bits on the sidewalk twelve stories below. The basket was crumbled, the red-and-blue striped bag ripped and deflated. The passengers were nowhere to be seen. Cars were honking, a passerby with a ruined bag of groceries was cursing at the sky. But as far as Will could make out, nothing had been damaged besides the Ashers’ living room wall.
It wasn’t quite an adventure, but it sure was something.
9
Toby
SOMETHING HAD HAPPENED ON THE HIGHWAY, THAT’S WHAT they were saying on the radio. A hiker had fainted or fallen or some such thing, which had caused several fender benders, backing up traffic for miles. Which was why Toby now found himself turning unfamiliar corners in the fog.
Toby had been making the same run to the airport every day for over a decade, purchasing the cast-off luggage that no one had come to claim so that the contents might be resold at the Emporium. And every one of those days, from dawn to dusk, had been more or less the same. Far from grand but not too horrible, either, like a pebble underneath your sock that’s not quite large enough to bother removing.
Today, it seemed, was different. Toby had never had such a huge haul from an airport run before. And there had even been one of those old powder blue suitcases, a St. Anthony’s, which ought to make the old man happy. (That would be a sight, Toby thought to himself.) Toby had settled the St. Anthony’s next to him in the passenger’s seat of his truck for safekeeping.
And that’s where it should have stayed, except that, while Toby was turning another corner into the gray fog, the suitcase tumbled to the floor of the truck. Toby reached over to tug it back onto the seat, his eyes drifting from the road for just one moment.
Which, as it happened, was just long enough.
Toby slammed on his brakes. Standing not ten inches from his front bumper was a pixie of a girl with crow-black hair. In her hand was a plate of cake, her fork frozen halfway to her face as she stared at Toby through the windshield. A young woman, tall and thin, rushed over and grabbed the girl by the shoulders. “Cady!” she cried. “Are you okay?”
Toby was parked in the middle of a damp green lawn. Another little girl, much younger than the first, sat in front of a deck of cards at a picnic table covered with a polka-dot cloth, a friendly looking couple beside her. In the distance, Toby could just make out the hazy outline of the sign on the lawn’s edge.
MISS MALLORY’S HOME FOR LOST GIRLS
“I’m . . . I’m fine,” the girl told the woman, who must have been Miss Mallory herself. “I . . .” The girl blinked. “He just appeared.” With the tines of her fork she gestured to Toby through the windshield. “Right out of the fog.”
Toby felt his face flush as he studied the girl standing before him. Could it possibly . . . ? He shook his head clear of wild thoughts, quickly unbuckled his seat belt, and leapt from the truck. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I don’t know what happened.”
When Miss Mallory first opened her mouth to respond, Toby was certain she was going to shout at him, and he wouldn’t have blamed her. But to his surprise, she seemed to change her mind. With one hand clutched to her chest, she gave him a sharp nod.
“Would you like to join us for some cake?” she asked, taking the black-haired girl’s hand in her own. “We’d be happy to have you.”
“I . . .” Toby began, his head turned halfway toward his truck. The engine was still running. “I don’t know if I . . .”
“Oh, please do!” the girl—Cady—said. “I made the cake myself. It’s delicious.”
And at that, Toby smiled. It was a real and true smile, the kind he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. “Of course I will,” he replied. He turned off his truck and took a seat at the picn
ic table near the front door, nestled between a bed of petunias on the left and a bed of pansies on the right. Miss Mallory handed him a plate of cake. Each crumb looked moist and rich and heavenly. “I’m Jennifer Mallory,” she introduced herself.
“Toby Darlington,” he replied.
Which was only partly a lie.
“Do you have a Talent?” the younger girl asked him from the far end of the table. “Mine’s licking envelopes. I can do twenty in eight seconds, no paper cuts.”
“Amy, dear, don’t talk with your mouth full,” the woman who must have been Amy’s mother admonished. “And we don’t ask people about their Talents. It’s rude.”
“It’s okay,” Toby replied. “I don’t have a Talent,” he told Amy. “I’m Fair.”
Which was absolutely a lie.
Across the table, Toby noticed Cady studying him carefully. He felt for a moment that she was looking right through him, right to the very depths of who he was. Toby wasn’t entirely certain that anyone had ever looked at him that way before. “Is everything all right?” he asked her kindly, raising the fork to his mouth.
“Oh, I was just trying to see what kind of cake you are,” Cady replied, offering an embarrassed little grin before taking a small nibble of cinnamon cake herself.
Toby raised an eyebrow. “What kind of cake I am?”
“Your perfect cake,” she said by way of explanation. “Usually I can tell as soon as I meet someone. Like, Amy’s mom there is a pineapple upside-down cake, and her dad is a sour cream coffee cake with a crumbly blueberry center.” (Here Amy’s father raised his polka-dot cup of milk in the air and cheered, as though to confirm that this was indeed his perfect cake.) “But with you”—Cady closed her eyes—“for some reason it’s a little harder.”
Toby shifted in his seat. “Well, I . . .”
Cady popped her eyes open. “I guess I’ll just have to think on it some more,” she said. And the way her face lit up, she looked a bit like a baby bird who’d just discovered there was sunlight in the world.
Toby took another, bigger bite of cake, and began to settle into himself. Somehow, in this place, he felt happier, calmer, than he had in quite some time. As though perhaps the pebble in his shoe had managed to work its own way out.
It was a very nice sort of feeling.
He was finishing up his last bite of cake when Miss Mallory leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Just let me know when you’re ready to fill out the paperwork,” she told him. “I’ll be so sorry to let her go, but . . .” Her gaze drifted across the table to Cady, giggling with Amy as they slapped playing cards down on the polka-dot cloth, and she set her hand over her heart again. “I can’t say I didn’t feel you coming.”
Toby swallowed. “Sorry?” he said.
Miss Mallory turned her focus back to him. “That is why you came, isn’t it?” she asked. “To adopt Cady?”
Toby felt the oddest sensation then, as though every emotion he’d ever had—happiness, sadness, worry, surprise—was colliding inside his body, battling to see which one of them might win. It was not so different from the sensation he’d felt once long ago, in that tiny village in Africa, when he’d been a very different man. For just one second, Toby was sure that his face had betrayed him, but he managed to shift everything back in place just in time.
“You do want to adopt her, don’t you?” Miss Mallory asked, studying him carefully.
Across the table, Cady laughed again, slapping down another card. And in that moment, Toby knew. He’d give anything to be a father again.
“I’d love to adopt Cady,” he said.
And that—that—was not at all a lie.
One Week Later . . .
V’s Mystery Fudge Cake
a cake that contains a delicious secret at its center
FOR THE CAKE:
1 1/3 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
4 tbsp butter (1/2 stick), at room temperature (plus extra for greasing the muffin tins)
1/3 cup granulated sugar (plus extra for preparing the muffin tins)
3 large eggs, at room temperature
FOR THE TOPPING:
powdered sugar (optional)
1. Preheat oven to 400°F. Grease the bottoms and sides of six cups of a standard muffin tin with butter. Sprinkle the inside of the six buttered tins with granulated sugar, and tap to distribute it evenly.
2. In a double boiler or a heatproof bowl fitted into a saucepan of simmering water, carefully melt the chocolate chips over low heat, stirring often. Remove from heat and allow to cool, about 10 to 15 minutes.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and cocoa powder. Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, cream the butter and granulated sugar with an electric mixer, on medium speed, until light and fluffy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5. With a spoon or spatula, gradually stir the flour mixture into the batter until just combined. Do not overmix. Stir in the cooled melted chocolate and combine, again being careful not to overmix.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared muffin tins. Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until the tops of the cakes no longer jiggle when shaken lightly. Let the cakes stand 10 minutes in the tin before turning out onto serving plates. Dust with powdered sugar if desired. Recipe makes 6 mini mystery fudge cakes with deliciously gooey middles. Best served warm.
10
Cady
CADY HAD ONLY EVER DREAMED THAT THIS DAY WOULD COME—the seventh and final day of her trial period with a new family. But here she was, one week in with Toby. And everything was going swimmingly. Well, maybe not swimmingly, but . . . fine. Far from grand, but not horrible, either.
Truth be told, Toby didn’t talk much. Reserved, Miss Mallory would have called him—like a table at a fancy restaurant where only a select few could sit and chat. And that made it difficult to get to know him, to figure out what might make their new little family go from fine to magnificent. But Cady had a secret weapon. That very morning, while Toby was off on his airport run, Cady had baked him a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. She wasn’t entirely sure if it was Toby’s perfect cake, but it was worth a try. She could smell it now, sweet and luscious and minutes from ready, as she searched for wildflowers between the Emporium’s cracked porch slats.
The good news was that Miss Mallory had not yet come to retrieve Cady from her new home, as she’d done with all of Cady’s previous trial families. And if Cady could hang on just a few hours more, then that very night, at the Fifty-Third Sunshine Bakers of America Annual Cake Bakeoff, Miss Mallory would officially declare whether or not Cady and Toby were a perfect match for each other. Whether Cady could finally have her own Adoption Day party and bake her own cake.
It was a big day indeed, and not just because it was the first time Cady had ever managed to use both of her guest tickets for the bakeoff. Cady tried to soothe the ache she felt in her chest, dull and worrying, whenever she thought too hard about leaving Miss Mallory and the orphanage for good. A worrying ache seemed a small price to pay for a perfect family.
As Cady plucked a yellow dandelion from a mess of weeds outside the Emporium’s front door, Mrs. Asher’s dusty red hatchback pulled to a stop in the driveway (the only car there beside the Owner’s). Cady raced to greet her.
“Hello, there, sweetie,” Mrs. Asher said, tucking the red whatever-it-was that she’d been knitting under one arm. She gave Cady a quick hug and hurried to the other side of the car to open the passenger’s door. “Cady, this is V.” Cady took a long look at the woman sitting in the passenger’s seat, staring through the windshield at the Emporium. She was a mystery fudge cake, Cady was sure of it—a circular chocolate cake with a gooey chocolate center hidden insi
de it. “She doesn’t talk. Take this bag, will you? Thanks.”
“Do you need help getting her settled?” Cady asked, taking the bag of groceries Mrs. Asher handed her.
“I think we’ll be okay,” Mrs. Asher said. “You wouldn’t happen to know where my children are, would you?”
“Marigold’s practicing oboe”—Cady flicked an elbow toward an upstairs window, from which faint, stilted notes of music had been puttering for the last several minutes—“but I don’t know about Zane and Will.”
“Well, at least I can count on one of my children to do what she’s supposed to.” Mrs. Asher tugged a duffel bag out of the backseat. “You haven’t seen my hairpin, by any chance?”
“Your hairpin?” Cady asked, finally realizing what it was about Mrs. Asher that seemed so different this morning. With her brown curls strewn wildly about her face, instead of tightly up in a bun the way they’d been all week, Mrs. Asher somehow looked a decade older. (Although perhaps, Cady thought, that had more to do with the whole moving-to-a-lost-luggage-store-with-three-children-while-her-husband-found-a-summer-job-in-New-Jersey-to-pay-for-the-repairs-to-their-apartment-from-a-rogue-hot-air-balloon-attack situation.) “I haven’t seen it,” Cady told her. “Sorry.”
“I’ve never misplaced the thing. Not once in eleven years. But I guess with all the commotion this week I must’ve . . .” She sniffed the air. “Are you baking a cake?” Cady nodded. “It smells delicious. Marigold loved the one you made her, you know.”
Cady smiled. She’d baked Marigold a lime pound cake the day the Ashers had moved in last week, and the girls had been fast friends ever since.
In the passenger’s seat, V finally seemed to snap out of her trance. She held the duffel bag while Mrs. Asher helped her with her seat belt.