Trouble's Brewing (Stirring Up Trouble)

by Alexander, Juli

  Theoretically Martin was probably more formal than Finn. So why did it strike me as too intimate for Mom to be calling him that? Martin sounded older than Finn. I didn’t want my mother to forget that Finn looked to all the world like a teenager. And I didn’t want her to forget he’d been a wrinkly old man a few months ago.

  I know they were both probably lonely. They didn’t have much of a social life, either one of them. I got the need for a friend thing. I wasn’t so sure it was healthy for Mom. Mom hadn’t been dating, and she had been utterly betrayed by my father. Finn wasn’t ugly. Finn was sadly approaching beautiful. My mother could develop feelings for him. Glancing at them working busily on the Thanksgiving desserts, I wasn’t sure she hadn’t already started thinking of Finn in a dangerous way. My mother was too vulnerable. I didn’t want her dating the potions master, but I didn’t want her getting her heart broken either.

  One thing was for sure. I had to find my mother a date. An age-appropriate date. I could enlist Milo’s help. He would understand, and I could tell him the full story. Jake would help too, and he wouldn’t be suspicious about my motives. He’d think I wanted my mother to find love. A totally normal thing for a teenage girl to do. I could put Camille on it too. Not Anya though. She might spill it to my mother, and my mother could not know.

  “We have a few more minutes of cooking, Zoe. Then you and Martin can get to work.”

  “Did you guys make anything for dinner tonight?” I asked, looking around the kitchen.

  “Oh no,” my mother said. “I got so caught up in Thanksgiving that I didn’t buy groceries for tonight.”

  “Oh dear,” Finn said. “I’m afraid tonight’s meal didn’t occur to me either.”

  “I guess we can eat something frozen. Or order pizza. Again.” For the first time ever, I did not want any pizza.

  Mom set down the knife and went to the freezer. “I don’t even know what’s in here at this point.” She rummaged around for a few minutes. Then she pulled out a frozen bag of ravioli. “Oh look! You love these.” She shut the freezer and moved to the pantry cabinet. “If we have some sauce, we’re in business.” She held up a jar of spaghetti sauce. “I can make a salad. A pretty good salad since we just chopped up every vegetable known to man.”

  My stomach growled with happiness. I did love Mom’s ravioli. “Do we have cheese to melt on top.”

  Mom laughed. “I have five different cheeses.”

  “I’m starving,” I said. “Can we have dinner early?”

  “Sure. If it’s okay with Martin. Can you take a dinner break and eat with us?”

  “I would like nothing more.”

  My mother beamed at him. “Wonderful.”

  Uh oh. Was I already too late? Maybe I was overreacting. Yesterday, she’d been sick as a dog and had sported a rooster comb. Maybe she’s excited to be back to normal.

  “In fact,” Finn said. “We can work at the dining room table. We’re not brewing anything today.”

  “Then I’ll get to work on the ravioli as soon as I get these pies in the oven.”

  “Do we get pie for dessert?”

  “Only if it doesn’t do well.”

  I made a face.

  “Don’t hope that my pies are losers!”

  “I won’t.” Maybe. Probably. Possibly.

  “Fine,” Mom said. “We’ll cut one for dessert.”

  Yes! I was going to get a real dinner and some pie.

  “Shall we adjourn to the dining room, Zoe?”

  “Certainly,” I said. I grabbed a bottle of water and a can of soda for myself. I had stayed up too late working on the paper, and I didn’t want to fade during the lesson. I needed caffeine plus hydration. “You want anything?”

  Finn paused. “I suppose a bottle of water would do.”

  I reached for one and handed it to Finn.

  Chapter Ten

  “You were going to tell me about yesterday,” I reminded him after we sat down at the table.

  “Yes, I was,” he said. “Yesterday’s mishap was fascinating. I’d never seen that particular result before. I believe that your brewing skills resulted in a particularly powerful potion, albeit not the potion you were going for. You must have managed to bring that potion off the heat at precisely the right moment. The immediate addition to the soup and the rapid administration to your mother also played a role. Why do you think the result was the rooster comb?”

  I’d been thinking about this. “The chicken soup? I’m glad she didn’t end up with chicken wings or a beak.”

  “Agreed,” he said. “Your mother was fortunate in the manifestation of the potion, whether she realized it at the time, or not. I believe that yesterday’s mishap may yield some important information once we study it.”

  “Like what?”

  “Let’s say you need an ingredient that you don’t have. Could you brew yesterday’s potion, and administer it in some related substance? If you were out of cat’s whiskers, could you fine-tune the potion to give you the cat’s whiskers?”

  “By ‘give’ you mean make you grow some cat’s whiskers on your own face? Yuck.”

  “What if you needed the cat’s whiskers to save your boyfriend’s dog?”

  “I didn’t remember telling you about that.”

  “I did my homework, Zoe.”

  “Mom told you. But yes, I see your point. I would have given that a try for Indiana. If I had to. But I have easy access to cats.”

  Finn shook his head. “Then think of another potion ingredient. One that is rare.”

  “What if you end up with the chicken wings and don’t have the arms you need to brew the potion?”

  “Exactly! You would never do this alone. And not until it’s further tested.”

  “Wouldn’t you be taking a big risk? Even if it were tested.”

  “Yes. You’d have to keep in mind that line we talked about the other day.”

  Uh oh. Back to “the line” and ethics.

  “Your mother mentioned your restraint this weekend in regards to the unicorn horn substitution. She indicated that you completed your schoolwork and assisted her without any complaints that you had no time for the experiments. Do you recall our conversation about crossing the line and obsessively pursuing experiments?”

  “Sure,” I said fully expecting some praise.

  “I am impressed with your self-control this weekend, but I’d like to see if you can take it a step further.”

  “A step further?” This did not sound good.

  “Your mother and I discussed asking you to forego experimentation until the Thanksgiving holiday is over.”

  What? “You mean until Friday?”

  “We mean until Monday.”

  “But I’ve shown restraint. You just said I have.”

  “Indeed, Zoe. This isn’t meant as a punishment, but rather a—”

  “Test!”

  “I was going to say character-building exercise.”

  Part of me wanted to throw a fit. A loud, messy yelling and screaming fit. The other part reminded me that Dr. Finnegan could put a stop to my potion substitutions any time he wanted. He could go much further. He could take my powers.

  “Monday,” I choked out, “sounds lovely.”

  By the time Mom brought in the ravioli and salad, I had lost my appetite. I helped bring in the plates and napkins, and when I saw Mom and Finn digging in, I realized I couldn’t exactly go wrong by eating some.

  Thanksgiving holiday should have been amazing. I had time for Milo and Jake. I had time to relax and not do any schoolwork. I had time for brewing potions and checking on my limestone theory. Time… but not permission.

  The cheesy, yumminess of the ravioli distracted me somewhat. Mom’s salad tasted great too. I glanced up at Finn and my mother. They were talking about some movie I’d never seen. If something was in black and white, I automatically flipped the channel. I figured I didn’t need to be conversant in the history of cinema when I was a science guru and a potions genius. How
many times had they watched this movie? As Mom and Finn chattered on about the ancient history of cinema, I revisited my earlier concerns. I had to spend part of the holidays brainstorming “the mom situation.”

  The clink of wine glasses as my tutor and mother toasted something or other drew me back to the dinner table. The Mom Situation had jumped to priority number one. Finn had replaced my father in the kitchen and at the dinner table. I had to make sure it stopped there.

  “I’m sure it’s nothing like that, Zoe,” Milo said later on the phone. “They are two adults spending time together.”

  I filled him in on the potion disaster from Sunday, Mom’s sickness, the two times I’d caught them in the kitchen cooking.

  “Oh,” Milo said.

  “It’s probably nothing, right?”

  “Probably.”

  “Well I have to stop it before it becomes something. Will you help?”

  “I’ll help you figure out a plan, but I’m not doing anything that will hurt your mother.”

  “I would never hurt my mother.”

  “Zoe, what if Dr. Finnegan is the right guy for her.”

  “He can’t be! He’s nineteen.”

  “What if all of this happened for a reason, and it’s their fate to be together. What if he is her true love? Her perfect match?”

  “First, that’s crazy talk. And second, you reread the Twilight series, didn’t you?”

  “No. Mom and I watched the movies over the weekend.”

  I snorted. “He isn’t her true love. And even if he is, it is not acceptable.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Milo, you really don’t think they are meant to be together, do you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. Because my dad is already dating my boyfriend’s mother. I don’t know if I can stand it if my life gets any more complicated.”

  “I’ll be there tomorrow, and we’ll come up with a plan.”

  “I’m glad you’re coming.”

  “Me too.”

  At school, my homeroom teacher took roll and then put in a DVD of High School Musical. The boos were deafening. After a few minutes, Mrs. Hale slipped out with her purse. We’d all seen her sneaking smokes outside the nearest exit door, so she wasn’t fooling any of us.

  “Come on,” Jake said, picking up his backpack and the Eragon book he had with him again. “Let’s move to the back.”

  There were enough empty seats that we found two together. We each sat in a desk, and then Jake reached over and scooted mine closer to his. “Much better,” he said.

  I was so glad I came to school today.

  Jake took my hand in his, and we held hands right there at school in front of everyone.

  Ten minutes later, Mrs. Hale hadn’t come back, so one of the guys got up and swapped out The Hangover for High School Musical. The room quieted down fast as everyone got engrossed in the Vegas debauchery. Jake put his arm around me, and I leaned my head against him. Heaven.

  When Mrs. Hale walked back in, Jake and I scooted apart some. She started going through some papers in the front of the room. I could tell the moment she realized the movie didn’t sound right. She cocked her head and listened. Then she rolled her eyes, stood, and left the room again.

  My classmates high-fived each other to celebrate, and we spent a couple hours watching the movie. Jake put his arm back around me and planted a quick kiss on my cheek. Now this was how school should be every day. I savored the glory of the moment as my eyes wandered to Jake’s backpack and to his treasured book. As my gaze ran over the gold lettering down the side of the blue spine, I realized that I knew exactly what to get Jake for Christmas.

  Tiffany and Chris got up and walked out the door. Not a big surprise. They were dating and neither one liked to follow rules. I guess Mrs. Hale was sitting in the hall because when the movie ended and we all started talking, she came back in.

  “Looks like you’re ready for the sequel,” she said.

  The class cheered thinking she meant Hangover 2, but when she started the next DVD, it was, of course, High School Musical 2. Personally, I didn’t mind it. The Hangover was kind of gross.

  I had just started to get absorbed in the movie when she left and somebody stuck in Bridesmaids. I hadn’t seen this, and it looked promising.

  At eleven, the office lady came over the intercom. “Mrs. Hale.”

  We all looked at each other. Then one of the guys jumped up to turn down the movie.

  “Mrs. Hale.”

  “Ye-es,” one of the guys said in a good imitation of her voice.

  “Send Jason Pawley to the office please to check out.”

  “Thank you,” the guy said.

  Jason stood up and got his things together.

  Since almost everybody checked out a little early on a day like today, our class repeated this exercise ten more times. When the guy who could fake Mrs. Hale’s voice finally got the call, we were pretty much left with the “good kids.”

  Uh oh. I couldn’t handle the pressure.

  The mood of the classroom changed from celebration to a timid discomfort.

  “Maybe we should find Mrs. Hale,” Jake suggested.

  The six girls and one guy who were left with us turned to stare at Jake with hero worship.

  “C’mon, you can help me.”

  I was pretty sure he could handle it, but I followed him out the door. We immediately spotted Mrs. Hale, sitting outside Mrs. Choo’s room, where the two teachers were talking to each other.

  They didn’t see us, so Jake pulled me down the other hall.

  “What are you doing?” I asked suppressing a giggle.

  “I wanted to do one thing while we still have privacy.”

  “What?” I asked.

  He answered by leaning down to kiss me. Not a peck on the cheek, but a full-on kiss that for two minutes made my brain fog and my heartbeat race.

  He moved from my mouth to place a tender kiss on my forehead. Then we stood there, arms wrapped around each other, holding on to the moment.

  “Can you breathe yet?” he asked.

  “Not really,” I admitted.

  “We should get Mrs. Hale.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Twenty more seconds,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  He squeezed me tight. Then he said, “Let’s go.”

  We moved apart and walked around the corner, no longer even holding hands. I wasn’t capable of normal speech yet, so I let Jake do the talking.

  “Mrs. Hale, I think we need you back in the classroom. The office keeps calling.”

  Mrs. Hale gave him a quizzical look. “I thought you guys had that handled.”

  “We did,” Jake said. “But now we don’t.”

  Mrs. Hale seemed to understand perfectly. She stood and said goodbye to Mrs. Choo. Then she walked back to the room with us.

  Bridesmaids was still playing. Mrs. Hale walked over and ejected the disk. “Anybody want to claim this?”

  No one did.

  She glanced down at the disk and smiled. “I know what I’ll be doing tonight.”

  When the bell finally rang, Jake and I walked out together. Sheree was picking both of us up so my mother could finish up her housework.

  Suddenly, I was assaulted by an excitable Anya.

  “Guess who’s invited to hear Brice’s band play on the Saturday before Christmas!”

  Tough one. “You?”

  Jake pointed to his mother’s car at the curb and left us to talk.

  “Yes!” She squealed. “My parents are going out of town though so I have to stay with you.”

  Seriously? “I’m not sure, Anya.”

  “Don’t be silly. Your parents won’t care.”

  They probably wouldn’t. “Two nights? They’ll be back on Sunday?”

  “Yes! Thank you!” She jumped up and down.

  Yay, I thought.

  When I caught up to Jake at the car, things got awkward. Jake opened the door
for me to sit in the front. Of course, I didn’t want to sit in the front. I wanted to sit in the back. But Jake had to be polite by giving me the front, and I had to pretend to like it.

  “Your father tells me that you’re going to have a full house for Thanksgiving. Your friend Milo’s family. And even your chemistry tutor. That’s very nice of Annie to invite him.”

  I could feel Jake tense in the back seat. Okay, I couldn’t feel it, but I knew it was happening. I had told him about Milo’s visit, and he had been really good about it.

  “Yeah, um. Finn didn’t have anywhere else to go.” Finn was the guest of honor and the reason for Milo’s visit. Then I threw in a boldfaced lie. “I’m pretty sure his girlfriend is coming too.”

  Sheree had moved on. “Your mother says she can spare you by five tomorrow so we’ll eat at six.”

  What was I supposed to say to that? “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “You are welcome to bring Milo if you’d like.”

  “Thank you. Can I let you know?”

  “Of course.”

  I wasn’t sure I could handle Milo and Jake and my dad and Sheree for a prolonged holiday dinner. Jake and Milo had done okay at Halloween, but Thanksgiving dinners could be intense.

  Sheree dropped me off, and I rushed into the house to find my mother.

  “When are they going to get here?”

  “I’m not sure. Last word was that they’d be here around two. How was school?”

  “Fine. We watched The Hangover and Bridesmaids.”

  “Very funny, Zoe. I know they only let you see PG movies.”

  “Really? Well don’t see The Hangover. You would hate it.”

  “Quit being silly, Zoe. I need your help.”

  “Whatever.” I sat on the couch, and Jasmine jumped up next to me. I petted her, and she purred. She’d disappear once the company arrived. Jasmine had issues with people.

  “I invited Martin to dinner tonight. That way he can get to know everyone, and they can get all the hero worship out of the way. Then tomorrow can be relaxed and friendly.”