We made a couple of variations, like a kiwi strawberry glaze and a pineapple glaze with strawberries on top. I even let Jesse put a strawberry nasturtium pizza on the menu. While we were working on all that, Hattie went on a spy mission and found out the following things:
Ellie and her mom were making strawberry smoothies. They looked pretty good and they even had a green smoothie. Grandma said she was going to buy one. I said no way. She said, “Meg. I’m buying one. Maybe I’ll get ideas.”
Zoe and her dad were making strawberry sliders. They were having issues with texture.
Cooper and Mr. Bailey made strawberry shakes. Hattie said it smelled like brownies, though, so there could be some kind of brownie strawberry shake combo, which was a very smart idea.
Ellie and Tamara Hansen were making strawberry doughnuts—delicious! Tough competition, but they were in last place, so I wasn’t too worried.
And Diego and Dan were making taffy. So many kinds of strawberry taffy. I tried not to care. Hattie nudged me. “I guess Grandma was right about that one. We would have been in trouble if we tried to compete with them.”
I nodded. “I guess.”
“Ten minutes!” Dawn Allerton yelled.
“Ten minutes?” Grandma cried.
“We’re ready,” Jesse said. “Don’t panic.” And it was true. We had pizza dough balls ready to be rolled out. We had gallons of strawberry sauce prepared. We had marshmallows and mascarpone divided in containers.
Dawn Allerton and Keoni came around to each truck. “Don’t forget, people, competitors must wear a strawberry mask at all times so no one knows who is selling what food. We want this to be anonymous. A true test of your skills.”
“What?” Grandma said. It was the first time I’d heard her object to doing something weird.
“You have to be in disguise, Ms. Stokes,” Dawn Allerton said.
She handed them to Grandma, giant strawberry-shaped masks.
“You really expect us to wear these all night? It’s a hundred degrees in here.”
“No pain, no gain, Ms. Stokes. Also, and you’ll enjoy this one, if you choose to leave the truck for the bathroom or to take a break in our participant tent, you must put on a strawberry poncho along with the mask to disguise your identity.” She handed us three gigantic strawberry-decorated plastic ponchos.
“Really?” Grandma laughed.
“It’s not funny,” Dawn Allerton said.
“It’s kind of funny.”
“Shh, Grandma,” I hissed. Dawn turned and went to the next truck.
“Do you they think these ponchos will confuse people? When they see Dan in one and me in one, they won’t be able to guess who is who?”
She had a point. “Who cares,” I said. “Just put it on.”
“Oh, I will. Don’t want to break Allerton’s rules.”
We all put on our masks.
Jesse Pizza started giggling.
“Do we look good?” Grandma asked.
“You look good,” he said. “So good.”
And we went back to pizza preparation.
It was happening! We were making dessert pizza! It was delicious! Grandma and I weren’t fighting! Jesse Pizza was actually a good pizza artist! Everything was how it was supposed to be.
At the stroke of six, Dawn clanged a gigantic gong signaling the start of the food truck round-up.
The crowd was huge. Bigger than the balloon festival.
People were already lining up and taking pictures at our photo booth.
This was going to be the best night.
Dawn got on the microphone. “Welcome, to the Strawberry Ambassador Competition Food Truck Round-Up. All proceeds from your purchases tonight will go to the various charities you see advertised here tonight and will help these young future leaders advance in the competition.”
Everyone clapped.
“We hope you will be generous and open with your wallets and your hearts. Have a fabulous evening, and let the eating commence!” Dawn said.
Everyone cheered.
Then the pizza oven broke.
47
Broken Dreams
It broke.
It stopped working.
There were no flames inside the oven.
None.
It broke.
“Jesse!” I said. “What do we do? What do we do?”
Jesse said, “Don’t worry. This happens all the time.”
He tried to fire it up again. Nothing.
He tried again. Nothing.
A third time. No.
“Can you just light it manually?” I asked, sweat pouring down my strawberry face. “Like throw a match in there?”
“Uh, no,” he said, looking at me like I was crazy. “Don’t worry. I got this.”
Meanwhile, there was a line at our truck across the parking lot and clear to the grass. Hattie and Grandma were taking orders.
“Strawberry Marshmallow Surprise!”
“Kiwi Pineapple!”
“Chocolate Supreme!” That was a new one I made up at the last minute, and it was pretty good.
I gave Grandma slices from the experiment pizzas we’d already made, my hands shaking.
Soon we ran out. No more pizzas. Nothing.
“Another Strawberry Marshmallow Surprise!” Grandma yelled.
“Jesse,” I said. “Can you fix it? Please fix it. Can you fix it?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “It’s worse than usual.”
Worse than usual?
Worse than usual?
My whole life flashed before my eyes.
“Kiwi Pineapple!” Hattie called.
He looked at me. “Maybe I should’ve gotten it looked at before this.”
WHAT?????????????
I staggered over to Grandma and Hattie. “Hey,” I whispered, between shouts of orders they were taking. There was a crowd gathering waiting for their pizza by the picnic tables. “Psst,” I hissed. Grandma looked at me. “The oven is broken. Stop the orders.”
“What?”
“The oven,” I said, nodding toward Jesse. I could barely breathe.
“The oven is broken?” Hattie said so loud that people at the window heard.
“The pizza oven is broken!” someone yelled.
“No pizza here!” someone else yelled.
“Wait! No!” I shouted. “We’re fixing it.”
Jesse was pulling it apart. Screws and metal and all kinds of pieces lay on the floor of the truck.
Me, Grandma, and Hattie looked at each other in strawberry masks.
“We’re doomed,” Hattie said.
I felt dizzy. What did we do?
I waited for Grandma to tell us how to save this.
She grasped my hand. “What do you think, Meg?”
“What?”
“What should we do?”
She was asking me.
Me.
I swallowed hard.
People were starting to leave. I couldn’t let her down. I couldn’t let our team down. I couldn’t let Great Grandpa Jack down.
“Grandma, will you distract the customers? Keep them entertained? I’ll figure it out.”
She nodded. “Of course I will. You can do this, Meg. I know you can.”
“Go Meg,” Hattie said.
My heart swelled. This was it. This is what a true strawberry champion did. This is what all the preparation was for. A true strawberry champion was resilient. They worked hard. They rose to the occasion. I knew it. Hattie knew it. Grandma knew it. This was my moment.
I threw on the strawberry poncho and ran out of the food truck.
I wove through the crowd looking for Dawn Allerton. There were so many people. Some w
ould step aside for the frenzied strawberry, others had to be told.
I couldn’t find her.
“Dawn Allerton!” I yelled. “Dawn Allerton?”
I ran to Grandma’s monster truck and climbed up on the back. “Dawn Allerton!” I screamed.
Then I saw her. She was eating a doughnut and holding a bag of taffy! Was that fair?
Whatever. I ran to her. “Dawn. It’s me.”
“Don’t reveal yourself.”
“Oh my gosh. Fine. I’m the strawberry selling pizza,” I said.
She took a bite of doughnut. It looked delicious. “Proceed,” she said.
“Well, Jesse Pizza’s pizza oven is broken, so we can’t cook our pizza.”
“Is that a tongue twister?” she laughed.
“No! I’m not joking. It’s broken! You have to do something. We can’t make our food!”
She considered this. “It’s completely broken?”
“Yes!” I cried. “Please!” I cried. “Can we join with another truck, can we use someone else’s oven? What can we do?”
She studied me for a minute, considering.
Then she said, “I’m really sorry about this, but I don’t think it would be fair to let you join another team. You picked the truck; you get whatever comes with it.” She handed me a taffy and walked away.
48
Last Ditch
She walked away. I stood there in disbelief. She just walked away.
So I ran.
I ran back to the truck.
I got out a griddle from the back.
I ran it to our dining area. The crowd was getting smaller, but Grandma was out in a strawberry poncho and mask standing on a table singing.
She really was.
She was singing “Easy Street” from Annie, and she was good. People were laughing and taking video and pictures.
“Is that a Broadway star or something?” someone asked. “Who is that?”
I have to admit, my grandma was pretty rad even if she was out of control and my sworn enemy and got me into this whole mess in the first place.
I ran to the other picnic table and set down the griddle. I saw Dad in the crowd. He was smiling at his mom and singing along. He knew who we were, of course. There was no disguising Miss Hannigan.
I ran to the food truck, sweating like crazy. “Jesse! Do you have an extension cord?”
“What?”
“An extension cord?”
He sat on the floor still trying to fix the dumb oven. Hattie was telling people that pizzas were going to be ready in no time and please don’t leave and if they wanted, they could enjoy the singing strawberry.
“Why do you need an extension cord?”
“DO YOU HAVE ONE?!” I yelled. Jesse froze. I inspired true terror in him, which was what I was trying to do. This was an emergency. Then he said, “Uh, yeah.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I understand. Maybe your food is passion fruit.”
“It probably is,” I said.
He found an extension cord.
“Bring the pizzas that were ready to cook and all the ingredients and everything outside, both of you,” I said. I know I was bossing everyone, but a lot was on the line. I was going to save this challenge no matter what.
I ran out with the extension cord and plugged in the griddle.
Then I got another griddle from the truck.
“Where’s the pizza?” someone yelled.
“Coming!” I yelled back as I ran through the crowd, griddle over my head.
When I got back, Jesse and Hattie were standing at the table each holding a pizza. Grandma was now singing a song about a matchmaker.
“You’re going to cook them on the griddle?” Jesse asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“That won’t work,” he said.
“It will work.”
He shook his head and I didn’t care. I didn’t care. It was going to work.
I plugged in both griddles, turned them on, and waited for them to heat up while surveying the damage.
Diego’s truck had tons of people. All of the trucks had hundreds of people, including ours, but they were leaving us. They were leaving! I had to fix this!!!
I put the first pizza on.
Hattie and Jesse stood there watching. “It’s the toppings that will be the issue,” Jesse said.
And it was true. The bottom of the crust cooked but the marshmallows on top didn’t melt a bit.
I had to do my best. I had to. Maybe a raw marshmallow on a burned crust with strawberry sauce would taste good?
I handed a slice to a lady who was waiting.
“Here you go, ma’am,” I said, breathing in my own hot breath in the mask.
“Is it supposed to look like this?” she asked. We both looked at it.
“Yes,” I said. “That’s our signature pizza look.”
She looked over her glasses at me. “And you can cook it on a griddle? That’s okay?”
“It’s great.”
She took a bite.
I grimaced as she did it, but she couldn’t see my face.
“It’s not bad,” she said to her boyfriend or friend or whatever they were.
Be still, my heart! Be. Still. My. Heart!
She took another bite and then covered her mouth.
In disgust? In love?
“What’s wrong, babe?” the guy said.
She spit it on the asphalt.
I gasped. I mean, was that necessary? She had to spit it? The line of people that had formed behind her were all witnesses to her expectorate—that means spit.
“It’s raw,” she said. “I want my money back.”
Oh no. Oh no no no.
“Maybe take another bite.”
“No way,” she said.
“I’ll do it,” her boyfriend said.
That did not go well.
“Money back,” he said.
Everyone wanted their money back.
“Just wait!” I cried.
A man said, “This is very unprofessional.”
Someone else said, “Waste of time.”
Another said, “Dessert pizzas aren’t good anyway.”
I looked at Jesse to see if he wanted to gloat.
“I liked them, Meg,” he said. “I really did.”
Hattie and Jesse started giving people back their money.
I looked at Grandma, who was still on the table singing. She was singing even though there was hardly anyone left in the area.
She was not giving up. I was not giving up. I was not!
I put another pizza on the griddle. “This one is going to be delicious!” I yelled to nobody.
It was not delicious.
I tried something else. I smashed some pizza dough with a few marshmallows and a handful of strawberries and made a kind of marshmallow flatbread and cooked it on the grill. I convinced a group of kids to buy it.
No one else would even look at it.
“Please! It’s delicious!” I yelled.
Nothing.
I sold an old couple some strawberry stuffed marshmallows that I made that weren’t too bad. I think they felt sorry for me.
Grandma stopped singing.
She stopped.
And the silence was deafening. I mean, it wasn’t silent. There were hundreds of people laughing and talking and enjoying all the other food trucks. But when Grandma stopped singing, it meant something.
She and Hattie and Jesse sat at the picnic tables. Two strawberries and a chef.
I kept going, tears blurring my eyes. I made strawberry dog biscuits. People had dogs. They needed to feed their dogs. Dog biscuits. Dog biscuits!
“Strawberry Doggie Food!” I yelled. “Strawberry Doggie Food!”
“Flour isn’t great for dogs,” Jesse said.
I kept yelling. “Strawberry Doggie Food!”
No dog lovers lined up. Not one.
I finally sold them to Lin.
“Jesse says they aren’t great for dogs,” I told her, when I was bagging up all twenty I had made.
“Oh, these aren’t for my dog,” she said, popping one in her mouth like a true second in command and best friend.
And then it was all over.
The entire dining area, photo booth and all, was empty.
They went to buy doughnuts and taffy and burgers and shakes.
Hattie took off her strawberry disguise and I thought Dawn would come get mad, but no one cared what we did. We were nobodies. We were failures.
I tried to breathe. Breathe, Meg. Breathe. You can fix this. You can figure this out. You can do this.
And then I really started to cry.
I pulled off my dumb mask and wiped my stupid face and I cried. I cried and cried.
Grandma walked over.
“Hey, sister.” She put her arms around me. “Hey. Hey there.” And she hugged me, one strawberry to another.
Grandma didn’t let go. She held me.
“Is the war over?” she asked.
“I think everything is over,” I whispered.
* * *
—
Meg 0, Grandma 0
49
White Flag
At home, I lay on my bed in the dark.
Someone knocked on the door.
I rolled over and pulled the pillow over my head.
“Meg?” It was Mom.
“Please leave me alone,” I whispered.
“Meg?” she said again. She didn’t hear me.
“Please leave me alone,” I said again.
She paused for a minute and then I heard her walk away.
I thought maybe I would climb out the window. It was late at night. Everything was dark but I knew if I went out the window and ran, I could get to the lake, I could get in a canoe, I could row away. Maybe the fox and the bird would come along. Maybe I belonged out there with them.
The War with Grandma Page 17