Stars So Sweet

by Tara Dairman

  “Nah,” Sandy said. “Between the dragon fruit and the durian, fruit hasn’t done much for me this year. I’m basically boycotting it now.”

  “Way to stick it to the fruit,” she said.

  Still, Sandy was in a good mood. As he’d explained on the train, the dried meats she had brought him had gone a long way to reestablishing his “gross cred” that week at school. Jonah’s entry for that round of their competition had been chocolate-covered bacon, a combination he had vastly underestimated. “Everyone actually thought it was good,” Sandy explained. “Even Jonah kind of liked it, I could tell. So he’s still beating me two rounds to one, but I’ve got the momentum now. If I can just find one more really awesomely disgusting thing to bring in to school, I might be able to win the title for good!”

  “We’ll come up with something,” Gladys assured him.

  Aunt Lydia made sure that they were set up comfortably in some plush chairs in the hotel lobby before she entered the ballroom where the dried-fruit vendors were displaying their wares.

  “Okay, here we go!” Sandy spent a few minutes hacking into the hotel’s Wi-Fi, and then they navigated straight to the website for Pisco Pisco, their destination for that evening. Luckily, the menu on the website had a lot of pictures.

  “Cool. What’s that one?” Sandy asked. “It looks like a big plateful of raw fish.”

  “It’s not exactly raw, but it’s not cooked,” Gladys said, recalling the bit of research she’d been able to squeeze in on Monday. “Ceviche is a popular dish along Peru’s coast. The fish is marinated in an acidic solution, which cures it but doesn’t cook it.”

  “Excellent,” Sandy murmured. “Okay, that one’s definitely a possible candidate for a gross food. Do you think they’d pack it in a doggy bag for me?” He scrolled down. “Whoa—that drink is purple!”

  The drink was labeled CHICHA MORADA, so Gladys opened a new tab to do some research about it. It turned out to be a sweet beverage made from purple corn, plus some fruits and spices.

  “It’s sweet?” Sandy asked. “Then I bet I’ll like it. Gross points, zero, but a growing boy does need his sugar.” He tapped on the screen to return to the restaurant’s menu, but when the next picture filled the screen, he let out a yelp. “What is that??”

  Gladys looked at the tablet. The picture looked like a roasted rodent on a plate; its head was still on, and you could see its crispy little ears and everything. There was just one word on the screen beneath it: CUY.

  Quickly, Gladys did another search, which resulted in several even more horrifying pictures popping up on the screen.

  Sandy’s eyes were wide with shock, and Gladys suddenly thought of her friend’s beloved Edward and Dennis Hopper. Sandy did have some limits when it came to eating meat that might be a close relative of one of his pets. Would cuy be too rabbit-like for him to swallow?

  “Look,” she said, “this website says that cuy is basically the national dish of Peru . . . but you don’t have to eat it. I mean, I probably have to at least try it for my review, but if it freaks you out too much—”

  “Freaks me out? Are you kidding?” Sandy turned to her, his wide eyes now sparkling with mischief. “Gatsby, this is the best thing ever! Who’s even gonna remember the durian when they see me eat a rat?”

  “Guinea pig,” Gladys corrected him. “It looks like cuy is guinea pig.”

  That information seemed to give Sandy a moment of pause, but soon enough, he shook it off. “Even better,” he declared. “So hey, do you think it’ll come out looking like this on the plate? All . . . whole and everything?!”

  “Um, I guess so,” Gladys said. Actually, she didn’t think she would mind if it looked a tiny bit less like a guinea pig when it arrived on her plate, but she supposed if you were going to be a meat-eater, it was only fair that you should at least occasionally have to look your dinner in its face.

  For the rest of the time they spent waiting for Aunt Lydia, the cuy was all Sandy could talk about.

  Finally, a subway ride later, they were seated at the restaurant and being served their appetizers. In addition to the ceviche, Gladys had wanted to try a couple of traditional potato dishes: papas rellenas, which were stuffed with meat and deep-fried, and papas a la huancaina, which were cooked in a creamy, cheesy sauce. Taking care to save room in her stomach for all that was to come, Gladys only took a few bites, as did Aunt Lydia, who was already “so stuffed with fruit I feel like a Christmas pie.” Sandy, though, was more than happy to vacuum up the rest, “to clear space for the main event.”

  More dishes came out, and Gladys began to take notes on how Peruvian cuisine was different from Salvadoran and Cuban—which was the whole point of her multi-restaurant series. Finally, the dish they had been waiting for arrived at their table, the whole cuy on it split and splayed out like a much tinier version of a roasted pig.

  Aunt Lydia sat up straighter. “Now that looks interesting!”

  Gladys reached into her lobster for her tablet. “You want me to take a video?” she asked Sandy. “You know, that you can show your classmates?”

  To her surprise, he shook his head. In fact, he was looking a little hesitant now. “Uh . . .” he said. “Why don’t you go first, Gatsby? I mean, you should get to taste it while it’s . . . you know . . . hot and everything.”

  His voice cracked on the last word. Gladys turned to Aunt Lydia, who nodded encouragingly. It looked like it was all on her to get this cuy-eating party started.

  “Okay,” she said, “anyone who doesn’t want to see this, avert your eyes.” Then, with a deep breath, Gladys grabbed her sharp knife and sawed off one of the cuy’s legs. It’s just like eating a chicken drumstick, she told herself as she raised the small joint to her lips. Like a tiny little chicken drumstick. She took a bite.

  She chewed—then chewed some more. The meat was tougher than she’d expected. You just have to get one bite down, she told herself. Just this one bite. Finally, with a small shudder, she swallowed.

  “Whoa,” Sandy said softly. “So that’s how a professional does it. Gatsby, I’m inspired!” Reaching forward, he cut off another leg for himself, and Aunt Lydia followed.

  “Excuse me,” Gladys said. “I . . . um . . . have to go make some notes.” Then she ran off to the bathroom with her journal before she had to watch the others bite into their meat.

  When she got back to the table, Sandy was tossing a bare bone down onto his plate and accepting a take-out box from the waiter. “I assume you’re done with this, right?” he asked Gladys, pointing to the rest of the cuy. She nodded, and then, in one fell swoop, Sandy lifted the guinea pig up off its platter and dumped it into the Styrofoam clamshell. “Then you don’t mind if I take it in with me for lunch on Monday, do you? Jonah’s gonna freak out when he sees me take a bite out of this thing . . . especially if I start with the face!”

  Gladys could only imagine what Parm would say in this situation. She was happy when Sandy snapped the lid into place so that she didn’t have to look at the cuy anymore. Soon enough, her appetite returned and she was able to sample some of the lomo saltado, whose plain old beef thankfully had no skin, bones, or claws, and was stir-fried to tender perfection.

  The next day, as part of her review for the New York Standard Dining section, G. Gatsby e-mailed her editor the following words:

  Cuy is a favorite traditional food of many Peruvians. With its thick-skinned, rubbery texture and gamey flavor, it seems unlikely to win a lot of American fans, though it is certainly a novelty. If you order it, you may find yourself in a game of chicken with your dining companions over who is brave enough to taste it first . . . and those who do partake may find themselves wishing that they had actually ordered the chicken instead.

  Chapter 22

  ONE FISH FRIED

  WHEN ELAINE ONCE AGAIN FAILED TO make an appearance at lunch on Monday, Gladys had to reconsider her plan to confront
the girl. After all, Elaine hadn’t showed up at her last bake sale, and hadn’t bothered her in over a week. Maybe she’d decided to give up whatever vendetta she had against Gladys.

  But then, when she remembered the article Elaine had written about her in the Telegraph—and the threat she’d made about keeping an eye on Gladys going forward—her resolve steeled again. Elaine was probably trying to trick Gladys into thinking she’d given up, while really she was lying low like a snake in the grass, waiting for her next opportunity to strike. And Gladys refused to remain on the defensive.

  But that didn’t mean she wasn’t nervous as she approached the Media Room door after school. Pulling Elaine aside at lunchtime or at a bake sale was one thing, but now Gladys was about to walk into a meeting of the club Elaine was in charge of. She’d be on Elaine’s turf, surrounded by Elaine’s friends. The thought was almost enough to make Gladys turn tail and run in the other direction.

  Instead, she took a deep breath and stroked her lobster’s fuzzy strap for comfort. Then, drawing up every last ounce of resolve she had, she opened the Media Room door.

  The room was crowded with equipment—computers, scanners, and printers took up just about every inch of table space—but the one thing it was not crowded with was people. In fact, there was only one other person in the room: Elaine de la Vega, typing away at a computer with her back to the entrance.

  Gladys cleared her throat, and Elaine swiveled around in her chair.

  “Uh, hi,” Gladys said. “I thought there was a newspaper meeting here today. Is it canceled?”

  “You’re here to join the newspaper?” Elaine asked. Her expression was incredulous.

  Gladys shook her head. “Actually, I just came here to talk to you. I thought I might be interrupting your meeting, but I guess you moved it?”

  Elaine glanced around the room, quiet except for the low hum of machines. “Clearly, you’re not interrupting anything.”

  Gladys had really lucked out—she wouldn’t have to make a scene after all. “Can I sit down?” she asked.

  Elaine shrugged. “It’s a free country.”

  Gladys pulled a swivel chair out from one of the other computer stations and dropped her backpack to the floor. She sat down, and her voice shook slightly as she said the words she’d been practicing in her head all week. “I wanted to talk to you because it’s pretty clear that you hate me. What’s not clear to me, though, is why.” It was a hard thing for her to say, but an honest one. The question was, would Elaine be honest in return?

  Elaine stared at Gladys for a long moment. “I don’t hate you,” she said finally. “But what I do hate is watching someone with talent waste their potential on activities they clearly have no interest in.”

  Gladys frowned. “Is this about the bake sales?”

  Elaine gave her a withering look. “Of course it’s about the bake sales. I discovered you on the first day of school, writing that opinion piece about school lunches. I told you you’d make an excellent addition to the newspaper staff, but you said you were too busy to write for the Telegraph. Then you turned around and joined every other club under the sun, and even wasted your time helping clubs you weren’t in! I don’t get it, Gladys.” Now Elaine’s voice wavered. “Did someone warn you to stay away from me or something?”

  Gladys had never thought about things this way—had never considered that Elaine’s feelings might have been hurt by her decision to join all those other clubs. “But why would you care that much if one person chooses not to join the paper?” Gladys said. “You must have a huge staff of writers to manage already.”

  Elaine snorted. “Look around you, Gladys. I have no staff. The meeting didn’t get moved to another day—this is the meeting. It’s just that nobody ever shows up.”

  Gladys could hardly believe what she was hearing. “What?”

  “The DTMS Telegraph is just me,” Elaine said. “I mean, a few seventh-graders showed up for the first meeting of the year, but none of them came back. And all the eighth-graders who were on the paper staff last year quit. It’s not me who hates you. It’s everyone at this school who hates me.”

  “That can’t be true,” Gladys said—but, now that she thought about it, she realized she had never actually seen Elaine hanging out with anyone else at DTMS.

  “It is true, and I’m used to it,” Elaine spat. “When I saw you sitting alone, writing in that journal, I thought you might be different—might be a worthy partner. But you turned out to be just like everybody else.”

  Gladys picked her lobster backpack up off the floor. “Do you remember this?” she asked. “You made a comment about it at orientation. It upset me. That was why I didn’t want to join your paper—well, that, and because you read my private writing over my shoulder instead of asking first. Maybe if you didn’t do stuff like that, people wouldn’t have such a bad first impression of you.”

  “I have strong opinions,” Elaine retorted. “I’m forceful and decisive. That’s what makes me a good leader.”

  “Yeah, but it’s hard to be a leader if you can’t inspire anyone to follow you.”

  Elaine glanced around the empty Media Room. “I guess that’s true.” She sighed. “My big hope was to produce a really incredible first issue—and then, when everyone saw how great the paper was, they’d want to join. What I really wanted was to have high-quality color photos, but the paper doesn’t have the budget for color printing.” She looked up at Gladys. “I don’t know why I’m even telling you this.”

  “If you need more money for color printing, why don’t you hold a fund-raiser?” Gladys asked.

  “I’m no baker,” Elaine said. “And even if I was, where would I find the time? Producing an entire newspaper is a lot of work for one person. I even got special permission from Dr. Sloane to spend my lunch periods in here working, but I’m still behind schedule.”

  So that was why Elaine had been absent from the cafeteria last week. “Look,” Gladys said. “My own schedule should be clearing up next week. If you need some help—”

  But Elaine cut her off. “Thanks, Gladys, but I’m not gonna sell your pity cookies. No offense.”

  Gladys bristled at this, but then decided to let it go. Elaine clearly still had some work to do on her people skills—but she had been honest with Gladys, and that was all Gladys had wanted. Their conversation had gone about as well as she could have hoped.

  “Okay,” she said, “but I’m not sure that a bake sale would be the best fund-raising fit for the paper, anyway. It would make more sense to come up with something that would provide a steady stream of income for the Telegraph going forward.”

  The scowl disappeared from Elaine’s face, and she leaned forward in her seat. “All right, I’m listening.”

  Gladys leaned in, too. “Why don’t you sell advertising space instead? You could get ads from local businesses . . . and you could even ask clubs to pay to advertise their meeting days, too. That bulletin board outside the cafeteria is getting pretty crowded—it’s hard to keep track of which group meets when.”

  Elaine cocked her head to one side, considering. “That’s actually not a terrible idea.”

  Gladys figured that was the closest to a compliment she was going to get from this girl. “I’m glad I could help.” She rose to her feet. “All right, I’d better let you get back to work. Oh, and if you need some photos of the Mathletes bake sale for an article or something, Charissa Bentley has some on her phone.”

  “Good to know,” Elaine said. Gladys was two steps from the door when Elaine spoke again. “And Gladys . . .”

  Gladys turned back to her.

  Elaine’s cheeks colored, but she continued to speak anyway. “I really am sorry about that article about you. I let my resentment eclipse my commitment to responsible journalism, and that’s not okay.”

  “Thanks for saying that,” Gladys said quietly.

 
They both stood there awkwardly for a moment, then Gladys stepped forward and offered her hand. Elaine took it, and they shook.

  “Good luck with the new edition,” Gladys said. “I look forward to reading it.”

  When she reached her locker, Gladys unzipped one of her lobster’s claw pockets and pulled out Ms. Quincy’s green pen. She then pulled out her page of honest thoughts and reread the first paragraph.

  Plus, there’s Elaine de la Vega. Why does she hate me so much? I wish I could figure that out.

  Gladys drew a thin line through those words.

  One fish fried. Four more to go.

  Chapter 23

  THE MACARONS OF PEACE

  SANDY WAS WAITING ON GLADYS’S front stoop when she got home. “I did it!” he cried. “Operation Eat the Rodent’s Face Off was a success!”

  “Really?!” Disgusted as she was by the name he had given his mission, Gladys was thrilled to hear Sandy’s good news. “Tell me everything!”

  Sandy beamed as Gladys took a seat next to him. “Jonah had no chance! Though what he brought in was actually kind of cool. It was this little pill made from a berry from West Africa, and taking it makes sour foods taste really sweet for about half an hour. So after he took it, he ate a lemon—the flesh and everything—and then drank a whole cupful of vinegar.”

  “A cup of vinegar?” Gladys’s stomach gave a lurch. “That is pretty gross.” The berry sounded fascinating, though—she’d definitely have to do more research on it.

  “It was nasty,” Sandy agreed, “so he did get some points. Just not as many as me. I mean, I ate the cuy in front of everyone without taking any sort of cheaty pill first! Xavier Martin was so disgusted, he had to run to the nurse’s office to puke.” Sandy beamed at this accomplishment.

  “Well, if that’s the test, then it sounds like you passed with flying colors,” Gladys said.

  “I’ll be known as Rat-Boy forever,” Sandy said proudly. “Already a legend at St. Joe’s! Though I couldn’t have done it without you, Gatsby. Thanks again for all the help. You can totally claim the title of Rat-Girl if you want.”