by Tara Dairman
Come on now, she told herself. Parm didn’t shy away from her opponents on the soccer field; Sandy was gearing up for a third gross foods match with Jonah even though he’d lost the first two. And Charissa wasn’t afraid of anybody. Couldn’t Gladys draw on a little bit of their courage, too?
She turned to the principal’s door, squared her shoulders, and marched in.
Elaine was on her feet, her fierce demeanor not quite able to make up for her blotchy face.
“Ah, Gladys—I see that you’ve already seen the newspaper,” Dr. Sloane said.
Gladys realized that her copy of the paper was still clutched in her left hand. She let her grip relax and laid the copy down on the principal’s desk. Then she cleared her throat and looked straight at Dr. Sloane, ignoring Elaine as best she could. “I just wanted to say, Dr. Sloane, that helping the soccer team with their bake sale was my idea, and mine alone. If I’d realized that it was against the rules, I never would have offered, and I really hope that you won’t penalize them for my mistake.”
Dr. Sloane shook her head. “It’s not against any rule, Gladys; Elaine’s article was quite exaggerated. Now, if you’d done all the work for them and let them take the credit, that would be a problem, but if you just offered help of your own free will, no one’s going to fault you for that.”
Gladys let out a huge sigh of relief. Dr. Sloane, though, wasn’t finished. “Of course, in the future I hope that you’ll consider actually joining some clubs here rather than simply helping with fund-raising without gaining the benefits of membership. Does that sound fair?”
Membership in a bunch of clubs sounded more like a burden to Gladys than a benefit, but she nodded anyway.
“And as for the article . . .” Dr. Sloane continued. “Elaine tells me that it was something she drafted for her own amusement, and that she never meant to publish it for a wide readership. Elaine, do you have something that you’d like to add?”
Dr. Sloane looked pointedly at Elaine, whose bloodshot gaze turned upon Gladys. “I’m sorry that I sent the wrong file to the printer yesterday,” Elaine said robotically. “I’ll be more careful in the future.”
Wrong file, my foot, Gladys thought. Thanks to her work with the Standard, she knew how much time and effort went into newspaper layout every day; it really wasn’t possible to accidentally stick in a major story and picture.
Thinking about the Standard, though, reminded Gladys that she had much bigger secrets to protect than the fact that she’d helped out with a middleschool bake sale. If she could get “Investigative Reporter” Elaine de la Vega on her good side—or, at least, off her bad side—she should probably do it.
“I accept your apology,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Very good,” Dr. Sloane said. “I’m glad to see you girls are both being mature about this. Now, Gladys, Elaine assures me she’ll print a retraction in the paper’s next issue, so I believe we’re finished here. You can both go back to class.”
Gladys shot out the door before Elaine had even reached for the strap of her messenger bag. Soon enough, she was lost in the crowd of students making their way to first period, and she didn’t look back. In fact, she was wondering how hard it would be to avoid coming face-to-face with Elaine de la Vega ever again.
Chapter 17
BAKED GOODS AND BRAINS
“SO IS IT REALLY TRUE?”
Joanna Rodriguez, one of Gladys’s old classmates from East Dumpsford Elementary, was waiting for her in first-period science. She had a copy of the newspaper in her hand.
Great. Dr. Sloane may have made Elaine promise to print a retraction, but until then, the story was still out there for everyone to read.
“What, that I’m a giant rule-breaker?” Gladys couldn’t help but snarl.
Joanna’s big brown eyes widened. “What? No, not that part. The part where it says you designed the whole bake sale—and that you’d be willing to help other clubs with theirs.”
“Oh.” Gladys felt sheepish now for having snapped at her. “Uh, sure. Why?”
The bell rang just then, and their teacher barked at Joanna to take her seat. She did, but the moment his back was turned, a tiny folded-up note landed on Gladys’s desk.
She snatched it up and shoved it into her pocket, caution winning out over curiosity—she’d already had enough brushes with serious trouble that morning.
When class ended, Gladys took the note with her and read it on the way to gym: I’m in Art Club, and we’d love to have you help us plan our fund-raiser! We meet on Fridays. Come this week!—JoRo
An invitation to join another club? That was the last thing Gladys had expected to result from this debacle. But as it turned out, Joanna’s invitation was only the first of many.
In the gym locker room, two girls Gladys had never talked to before asked if she had ever thought about running cross-country. Gladys was sure they must be pranking her, until one mentioned that the team hoped to raise money with a bake sale.
Then, at lunchtime, Gladys didn’t even need to make a special effort to avoid Elaine de la Vega, because a small group was waiting for her at her regular lunch table. Charissa’s friend Rolanda was one of them, and she spoke first.
“Hey, Gladys—how are you?” She shot Gladys a gleaming-toothed grin and tossed her tiny braids over her shoulder. “So, I’m in Drama Club now, and I was wondering if you might consider trying out for the fall musical. We’d really love to have you in the cast! And to raise money for new costumes, we were thinking of holding a bake—”
“Hey, Gladys, I’m Jason Mitty.” Before Rolanda could finish, a boy pushed past her, his hand outstretched. “Newly elected president of the Chess Club. Have you ever played?”
Gladys shook her head.
“Well, no worries—we can teach you! Beginners are always welcome. And hey, let me get your opinion on something: chess-piece candies. How hard would they be to make? Because we were thinking, for our bake sale—”
At this, a lanky, freckled girl stepped in front of him. “Forget all of them,” she insisted. “I’m Shayla Brown. Your buddy Charissa is already a Mathlete—why don’t you join us, too? Unlike these jokers, we want you for your brain, not just your baking expertise. Although, I’ve got to say, some sort of brain-shaped baked good would be pretty fitting for our sale . . .”
Gladys was starting to feel smothered by all the attention—but at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit triumphant. Elaine had clearly meant to sabotage her reputation with that article, but it turned out she had advertised Gladys’s baking skills much more effectively than Gladys could have done on her own. And with the cooking restrictions still firmly in place at her house, these clubs might be her only chance to get back into the kitchen regularly!
“Okay,” she told the kids clustered around her. “I’ll join.”
“Wait—which one?” Rolanda asked. “Which club do you pick?”
“I pick all of them,” Gladys said simply.
“But . . .” Shayla gaped at her like a bigmouthed fish. “But Mathletes is a big commitment!”
“Yeah, and so is Chess Club!” Jason said. “We meet once a week after school, and then there are tournaments—”
“Shh!” Rolanda hissed at them both. “If Gladys says she wants to join all of our clubs, then she can join them. She obviously knows how much she can handle.” She shot Gladys another grin. “Drama meets after school today in the auditorium. We’ll see you at two-thirty.”
“Chess Club’s next meeting is Thursday in the music annex,” Jason said.
“And Mathletes meets tomorrow in Mrs. Vicole’s classroom,” Shayla said. “See you then?”
“Sure,” Gladys said, but as the three club leaders walked away, she felt a twinge of apprehension. In less than five minutes, she’d somehow managed to commit herself to an extracurricular agenda that rivaled Charissa’s. H
adn’t she told her friend that was a bad idea?
When Gladys saw Charissa again in French that afternoon, she started to doubt her decision even more. Charissa was already looking fried—and not in a crispy, appealing way. There were bags under her eyes, her normally glowing skin was sallow, and her knuckles were white as she clutched a small notebook, muttering about that evening’s schedule. “After the bell, Student Leadership Council. If that lets out early, switch to French Club.”
French Club! Gladys knew she had forgotten something important when she’d committed to going to Drama Club that afternoon. She groaned. She had told Rolanda she would be there; she supposed she’d just have to pick up with French Club next week.
Charissa, meanwhile, was still talking to herself. “Pickup at four and straight on to ballet. Dinner at six. Homework at seven. Science quiz tomorrow—don’t forget to study . . .”
Gladys hated to interrupt, but back at camp, Charissa had made Gladys promise to let her know when her next restaurant-reviewing trip was scheduled. “Hey, Charissa,” she whispered, “want to come with me on Saturday to a Salvadoran restaurant in Queens?”
Charissa paused in her schedule recitation and turned to Gladys, her weary eyes brightening momentarily. “Yeah!” she said. “Awesome! Is Parm coming, too?”
“Oh—um, no,” Gladys said. “It’ll just be you, me, and Aunt Lydia.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Was Gladys imagining it, or did Charissa sound a little sad about that?
“Just let me know what time I need to be ready,” she said, “and I’ll put it in my planner.” She flipped open her small notebook, and Gladys saw an elaborate, color-coded schedule. “I’ll label it in green—that’s the color I reserve for fun.” At first glance, Gladys didn’t notice any other “fun” slots reserved for the month of September.
After class—and after apologizing to Madame Goldstein—Gladys proceeded to the Drama Club meeting as promised. There she learned, thankfully, that you could be a member without having to perform onstage, and she quickly signed up to paint scenery instead. Although she wasn’t really confident that her painting skills were any better than her acting ones, she figured that job held less potential for public humiliation. And who knew—maybe she would even pick up some skills at an Art Club meeting that would help her.
Once the crew sign-ups were done and the audition schedule was announced, the Drama Club adviser, Mr. Hollon, asked everybody to huddle up onstage so they could brainstorm ideas for their fund-raiser bake sale the next week. As Gladys climbed the stage steps, she couldn’t help but think back to the last time she’d stood up there, after Hamilton’s presentation. She wondered whether he had gotten her e-mail yet.
The brainstorming part of the meeting was by far the most fun for Gladys; it seemed that everyone had read the article in the Telegraph, and they automatically looked to her for guidance. In the end, they took her suggestion of baking a variation on black-and-white iced cookies featuring the traditional comedy and tragedy masks of Greek drama. Icing the cookies properly would take some work, but when Gladys passed a sign-up sheet around, almost twenty kids volunteered to meet her the next Monday evening at Rolanda’s house to bake.
That night at the dinner table, Gladys’s parents were thrilled to hear that she had joined some new clubs—though she conveniently left out the detail that she’d be running all their bake sales.
“Well, I have some good news, too,” her mom announced as she served herself more of the pasta bolognaise Aunt Lydia had prepared. “I finally got ahold of the owner of the Pathetti’s Pies property, and he’s going to give me the listing.”
“That’s great!” Gladys’s dad crowed, and Aunt Lydia and Gladys added their congratulations, too.
“Yes, well, don’t get too excited yet,” her mom said. “I don’t think it’s going to be easy to find a new tenant.”
Gladys’s dad reached for the cheese. “Why not?”
“The interior needs a lot of work,” her mom said. “New paint job, new light fixtures, and so on, but Bob doesn’t want to take care of any of those details. Whoever leases the space is going to need to do a lot of work on their own.” She sighed.
“At least you got the listing, Jen,” Aunt Lydia piped up. “That’s something!”
“Thanks,” her mom said. “Well, if you hear any customers at Mr. Eng’s talking about wanting to lease a dilapidated former pizzeria, make sure you give them my card.” She laughed. “And you too, Gladys—keep your ears open at all those club meetings. You never know where a lead might come from!”
Gladys had reserved the next day with her parents for kitchen access, and she was planning, at long last, to try her hand at some Salvadoran specialties. After dinner, she made some preparations, like setting a pot of beans out on the counter with water to soak and retrieving a shoulder of pork from the freezer to thaw overnight. Before she left for school the next morning, she would set it up in the slow cooker with liquid and spices so that when she got home, she’d have pulled pork ready to stuff into her pupusa dough.
Finally, before she went to bed, Gladys checked her e-mail, but there was no response yet from Hamilton. Maybe my note hasn’t been forwarded to him yet, she told herself, and attempted to put it out of her mind. Instead, she DumpChatted with Sandy and asked if he and his mom would like to come over for pupusas the following night. At first, Sandy was excited because the word pupusa—like barfi—sounded a little disgusting in English. But even when Gladys told him it was just a stuffed cornmeal pancake, he agreed to come try it.
Chapter 18
PUPUSA PERFECTION
GLADYS WAS LUCKY THAT MRS. ANDERSON had volunteered to bring dessert, because she arrived home the next day much later than she’d anticipated. Despite having Charissa in her corner, getting the Mathletes to settle on a bake sale concept had been much harder than it had been with the Drama Club.
Finally, after learning that Shayla’s parents had just bought a new deep fryer, Gladys had had an idea. In her research about Cuban food for her upcoming review, she’d been looking at recipes for buñuelos, a sort of doughnut made with yucca flour and licorice-y anise flavoring. In Cuba, they were made twisted into figure eights, but why couldn’t they be shaped like any number? The idea of number-shaped doughnuts was a hit, and Shayla promised that everyone could come to her house to make them once a bake sale date had been secured.
Despite her late start on the Salvadoran dinner at home, Gladys’s pupusas came out well. The pancakes proved harder to stuff with meat, beans, and cheese than she’d expected, and several of them developed leaky cracks as she griddled them. But she was able to cover up those imperfections with curtido—a slightly fermented cabbage-and-carrot condiment that was traditionally eaten with pupusas in El Salvador—and nobody at the table seemed to notice.
“Really wonderful dinner, Gladys,” Mrs. Anderson said after polishing off her third pupusa. “But I have to ask, what brought this recipe to your attention? Do you subscribe to an international cooking newsletter? If so, I’d love the link.”
Gladys blinked nervously. Only Sandy and Aunt Lydia knew the true reason for Gladys’s sudden interest in Salvadoran cooking—and for now, she wanted to keep it that way.
“Well, we’ll be doing the history of the Americas in seventh grade this year,” she said, thinking fast, “so I thought it would be cool to try cuisines from some other countries.” And really, there was nothing false about that—Gladys was always happy to learn about new cuisines.
Mrs. Anderson, though, seemed impressed. “How conscientious of you! Sandy could stand to take a page out of your book.” She beamed at Gladys, then gave Sandy a gentle nudge. He didn’t look up from his plate, where he was busy arranging his curtido into a wild multicolored mop of hair on top of his round white pupusa. The pancake already had eyeholes that were oozing refried beans, and a jack-o’-lantern grin.
Mrs. Anders
on nudged him again, and this time his head snapped up.
“Whuh?” he said. “Time for dessert?”
Gladys tried to hold in her giggles.
Sandy’s mom sighed, but a minute later she brought out the plate of pumpkin bars she had baked that day. Gladys grabbed one. She definitely needed more sustenance if she was going to make it through the rest of her busy week.
• • •
By the time Gladys, Aunt Lydia, and Charissa headed into the city on the train that Saturday, Gladys was ready for a break. After school on Thursday, Jason Mitty had insisted on cramming chess rules into her already overstuffed brain, and she’d spent Friday afternoon trying—and failing—to explain to the Art Club why recreating Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker out of marzipan was not the best idea for their bake sale. Then she had stayed up late helping her aunt prepare for her first trade show.
Charissa was exhausted as well from her own extracurricular commitments, so it was left to Aunt Lydia to rally the troops. “Dried meats! In styles from all around the world!” she cried, waving a catalog in the girls’ faces. “Oh, I hardly know which booth to head to first. Montana-made elk jerky? Chineseinspired yak-meat floss? Look, there’ll even be horse-meat snack bites ‘in the traditional Mongolian style’!”
“Horse?” Charissa’s half-closed, violet-shaded eyes snapped open, and she grabbed the catalog. “Oh, gross! I ride horses every Thursday!” She turned to Gladys, a pleading look in her eye. “Let’s steer clear of that booth, okay?”
“Sure,” Gladys said, but when her friend’s eyelids closed again, Gladys whispered to her aunt, “Try to grab me a few of those horse-meat bites for Sandy, okay?”
Aunt Lydia winked. “I’ll do my best.”
The trade show was set up on the floor of a convention center, a cavernous indoor space filled with booths advertising their wares. Colorful banners flew high above tables, some of them showing pictures of the different animals that supplied their meats. Gladys, Charissa, and Lydia all paused to take in the sheer amount of colors, scents, and sounds that surrounded them. Then Aunt Lydia busted out the spreadsheet she and Gladys had made the night before, and they started off down one of the aisles.