by Barrie Summy
“Ya wanna get wristbands?” Josh points to the sign.
I glance at the price. Good thing my dad gave me spending money. “Sure.”
“We gotta ride the Giant Dipper. The roller coaster,” he says. “It’s famous from being in radio contests. Like, whoever stayed on longest won a car or a load of money.”
After buying wristbands, we head straight to the roller coaster. Next thing I know, we’re in a teal-colored car, clackety-clacking along faded wooden tracks. Suddenly, we shoot into darkness. With a jolt, we’re wrenched back into blinding sunlight, climbing up, up, up. We teeter at the top. We plunge. I scream. Bashed around the car, my bones rattle. I grit my teeth. My head slams against the headrest. I scream again. Bruises are popping up all over my body.
We lurch to a stop. I carefully clamber out, straightening my spine, massaging my hip.
By far, that’s the jerkiest, roughest, most painful roller coaster I’ve ever ridden. I literally hurt everywhere. To the point I need Extra Strength Tylenol.
I was thrown against Josh Morton thirteen times.
“Let’s go again,” I say.
After, like, three rides on the Giant Dipper, which translates into thirty-nine collisions with Josh, he says, rubbing his elbow, “Wanna try our luck at the midway games?”
“Yeah.” One more ride on that roller coaster, and I’ll probably have a concussion. And you know what? Chilling with Josh in San Diego isn’t feeling weird anymore. It’s feeling fun.
Josh’s eyes light up in front of Down the Clown. Holding out some money, he says, “I’ll take a bucket of balls.”
The carney plunks the bucket on the counter. “Good luck.”
Josh grabs a ball, squeezes it, rolls it around in the palm of his hand. He raises an arm, squints—and wham!
One clown head is down for the count.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
Three more clown heads bite the dust.
“Wow,” I say. “You’re awesome.”
“Thanks.” Josh lowers his arm. His blue eyes sparkle at me. “Water polo.”
He raises his arm again.
More whams. More flattened clown heads. A crowd gathers behind us. “That guy hasn’t missed yet.” “He’s incredible.” “What an arm.”
I turn and smile at Josh’s admirers. “He plays water polo.”
You know you’ve found an awesome guy when you’re walking around Belmont Park clutching five stuffed Shamus. Other girls eye me with envy.
We pass a game called Coconut Climb. I tug on Josh’s arm. “That looks interesting.”
He says, “Go for it.”
And I do. The carney straps me into a harness. I kick off my sandals, wipe my hands on my capris, and get a foothold at the bottom of the plastic palm-tree trunk. I scramble to the top like a mountain goat, smack the red button, then rappel down.
“Cool.” Josh’s eyes are all wide and impressed.
I scale the fake tree a bunch more times and win five inflatable monkeys for Josh. Climbing the pear tree in my backyard has turned me into a Coconut Climb champion.
We’re such big winners, I’m surprised the park doesn’t ask us to leave. In order to give other people a chance.
Somehow, amid all the Shamus and monkeys, Josh grabs my hand and pulls me over to the churro cart. We’re laughing and juggling prizes and sharing a giant churro and a jumbo frozen lemonade. My hand is tingling from where it made contact with his hand.
Josh sips from the straw, then hands me the cup.
As the freezing-cold slush slides down my throat, a thought slides into my brain. Belmont Park is an important and life-altering experience. Because now I have a first-date connection with Josh Morton. And he has one with me.
I’m slurping on the lemonade, feeling it all icy on my tongue, sharing Josh’s straw, thinking how it’s the best, most perfect first date.
And then an unpleasant thing happens. And that unpleasant thing is named Amber.
It’s around three o’clock, and Junie and I are at the restaurant, chilling on the sidewalk, toe-poking the rubbery tar between two squares. Behind us is an unlit On the Bay sign with wavy blue letters. We’re feeling pretty confident because there’s two of us.
We continue dissecting my date with Josh.
“I still can’t believe Amber picked you up a whole hour early,” Junie says.
“I was so bummed,” I say. “I just know Josh was planning to hold my hand again.” I explain in Junie terms. “Mathematically speaking, we’d been there for two hours and he held my hand once. If we’d stayed another two hours, he’d definitely have held my hand at least one more time.”
“Makes sense,” she says. “So, when are you getting together again?”
“He’s gonna call me Thursday. Tomorrow he’s gotta do family stuff with his aunt and cousins.”
A guy and a girl, both tall and skinny, with long, stringy dirty-blond hair and matching Santana High School T-shirts, show up. Can you say twins? Anyway, he plunks down onto the curb, legs sticking out into the street and head bobbing to his iPod. She paces, pressing buttons on her iPod, adjusting her earbuds, checking her watch.
“Allons-y! Allons-y! Hurry! Hurry!” A short, paunchy man with a majorly receding hairline scuttles toward us, the tails of his white chef’s coat billowing out behind him. He unlocks and whips open the front door, then waves us over with a stubby arm.
The mysterious Chef L’Oeuf has arrived.
The girl pockets her iPod and scurries to the door, while the guy folds in his legs, rubs a knee, then slowly lifts himself to a stand.
Junie and I fall into line behind him, acting all nonchalant, like one of the gang, like it’s just another day at the office. Meanwhile, my stomach is tied up and scared.
As they file past the chef, he says, “Bonjour, Lindsey. Lindsey, get zee net for your hairs. Bonjour, Luke.”
He stops-signs me with his hand. “I am Chef L’Oeuf. Who are yooou?” His accent’s all Inspector Clouseau from The Pink Panther.
“Oh.” And before the thought that I shouldn’t give my real name is even fully formed, I pop out with, “Céline Dion.”
“Céline Dion?” His eyebrows shoot up with surprise. “Like zee singer?”
“Uh, yeah. Kinda. But we’re not related.” I grab Junie’s hand. “We’re here to get credit for a career project at school. Our teacher probably called you. The Ruler? I mean, Miss Paulson? I mean, Mrs. Baldwin?” I am so thinking on my feet.
“No, no one of zeez names called me,” he says. “But yooou are interested in zee food industry, Céline?”
“Sure.” In the sense that I’ve eaten in lots of restaurants.
Grinning at me like I’m his new pet poodle, the chef pats my head and backs up so that I can squeeze past his belly. “Ah, ma petite Céline Dion.”
Okay. I’m in.
“And yooou are who?” Chef L’Oeuf says to Junie.
She’s not as quick-thinking as me. “Junie Carter. I’m doing the same career project as, uh, Céline.”
We follow Luke and Lindsey across the foyer, through the dining area, to a swinging door. The whole way I can hear the chef’s shoes clicking behind me, like he’s some sort of cooking general.
I push through the door. We’re in a long, narrow kitchen with a sharp, clean antiseptic smell. On one wall, copper-bottomed pots and utensils hang above the stoves. The opposite wall is a huge fridge with shiny stainless-steel doors. On either side of the fridge, there’s a tile counter with loads of drawers under it and loads of cupboards above it.
Lindsey marches over to a drawer and yanks out a hairnet. Holding the elastic tight at her forehead, she stretches the net over the rest of her head. Then she starts poking in every single stray hair strand. This girl means serious business.
When she’s satisfied with the hairnet, she zooms to another drawer and hauls out a bunch of ceramic bowls. The whole time, she’s zinging little sideways glances at the chef to check if he’s watching her.
Ch
ef L’Oeuf says, “Where are zee others?”
Luke thumbs down his iPod’s volume. “Surf’s up, dude.” He shakes his head. “Bummer for me. With a broke board.”
Frowning, the chef lets loose a torrent of French vowels and consonants. I pick out “California” and “imbeciles.” I’m pretty sure it’s the whole work-ethic lecture. My dad can blast off a killer one in English.
Lindsey unhooks a skillet the size of the Grand Canyon and clatters it onto a stove top.
“Avec l’amour, Lindsey.” Chef L’Oeuf tsks. “Wiz love. Zees is why you are not yet successful wiz your special dish. You must create wiz love.”
She stiffens.
He turns to me and purses his lips, pushing them in and out like they’re doing exercises. Then he hums some Céline Dion. Finally, he snaps his fingers. “Meringue.”
Meringue? What’s he talking about? My chest is tight like a Lycra T-shirt.
Eyes still on me, Chef L’Oeuf says, “Lindsey, get Céline started. I have zee good feeling about her as zee meringue sous-chef. Zee very good feeling. Oui. Oui.”
Yikes. One look at Lindsey, and I can see she definitely doesn’t have “zee good feeling” about me. And excuse my culinary ignorance, but isn’t meringue a dance with a lot of hip action?
The chef considers Junie. “Zee silverware. You can polish.”
Junie’s face falls.
When she passes me, I whisper in her ear, “Remember, this isn’t a real job. We’re here to investigate.” As the meringue sous-chef, I can afford to be generous.
“Luke.” The chef head-gestures to the back door. “Let us carry in the mesabs.”
They leave.
“What are mesabs?” I ask.
Lindsey looks up from where she’s hunched over a deep drawer, hugging a huge glass bowl to her chest. “Wicker tables.” Her legs all bowed with the effort, she staggers over to me and deposits the bowl on the counter. “There’s stools to go with them too. Covered with monkey fur.”
“Yuck.”
“Yuck?” Lindsey makes a face at me like I’ve sprouted an extra head. “You’re like my brother. You just don’t get Chef L’Oeuf.” Now she’s slapping down measuring cups and a grinder next to the bowl. “Chef L’Oeuf is a brilliant artist. He’s creating the most perfect African evening ever.”
My heart thumps wildly like a bunch of bongo drums. I gulp. “And, uh, what’s the main meat dish?”
Junie stops polishing mid spoon.
“Céline.” Lindsey hmpfs. “Only Chef L’Oeuf has the big picture. I just need to get my part under control.”
“Which is what?” Besides being nutcase extraordinaire.
“Injera. It’s an edible tablecloth made of a sourdough pancake bread. You tear a piece off and wrap your food in it. Like mini burritos.”
“Sounds . . . interesting.”
“Yeah, if I could just nail it.” Lindsey’s eyes well up. “It’s really, really tricky. Especially because we don’t have the right kind of flour in America.” She blinks back tears.
That’s a lot of emotion for an edible tablecloth.
“I don’t want to let Chef L’Oeuf down.” She sniffs. “I have to wow him so he’ll sign me up as one of his specials. You know, the sous-chefs he flies in the night before.”
The sous-chefs he flies in the night before? Does this secret club include rhino cooks?
“What’s the deal with the meringue?” I ask. “As in, what is the stuff?”
“It’s for lemon-meringue pie. The chef must serve it. It’s in every restaurant in South Africa.”
Ahhh. I get it. Meringue is that fluffy whitish-beigish junk on the top of lemon-meringue pies.
“The big problem is getting it to peak,” Lindsey says.
Are we talking mountain climbing or baking?
“No one’s been able to get it to stiffen properly. Chef L’Oeuf thinks we might be too close to the ocean.” Lindsey crosses her arms. “But he obviously thinks you’re the special meringue girl.” Her eyes flash jealousy at me.
I nod big, pretending like it’s majorly exciting. I’m so not the meringue girl. I’m a Fearless Rhino Warrior, here to determine if Chef L’Oeuf plans to serve rhino meat. And then my mom, my grandpa, Junie and me will shut him down.
Junie drops a handful of forks.
“Careful. You need to polish with love,” Lindsey says.
I catch Junie’s eye and wink. She winks back. I’m so digging team sleuthing with her.
Lindsey jets from drawer to drawer and cupboard to cupboard, gathering items for my station. Cream of tartar. Sugar. Eggs.
“I better get to know my way around the kitchen,” I say. “You don’t need to keep getting my stuff out. Not with the injera-tablecloth thing to deal with.”
Her jaw drops in surprise. She’s so used to being a peon. “Works for me.” She moves back to her own station and plunges her arms into a bowl of flour.
“Lindsey?” I give her a thumb’s-up. “Your tablecloth’ll be a hit.”
With a hint of a smile on her face, she drips water into her mixture.
“Hey, Junie.” With my hand, I mime talking.
She gives me the thumb’s-up, grabs a bunch of silverware and her polishing rag and goes over to Lindsey. “How’d you get into cooking? Was it through your high school?”
So, where to start snooping? I walk to one end of the kitchen and start pulling out drawers. Nothing but kitchen junk. In fact, looking around, I can see there’s a lot of kitchen junk in this kitchen.
I’m on my hands and knees, holding my breath against a moldy, mildewy smell, peering under the sink, when I find it. An old, battered leather briefcase with a dog-eared tag around the handle: ANDRÉ L’OEUF.
I poke my head out for a peek at Lindsey. She’s kneading away, pounding the life out of a hunk of dough. In between whacks, she chats with Junie. No Chef L’Oeuf or Luke either. They’re still playing moving men.
The coast is clear.
Back under the sink, I squeeze the ancient, tarnished clasp, and the briefcase accordion-opens. I start leafing through the loose papers. In the first section, there’s a bunch of newspaper articles with Chef L’Oeuf’s name in the headlines, and another chef’s name too, Chef Poulet. Unfortunately, the articles are in French. At least, I think it’s French. There’s a bunch of accent marks.
I hit pay dirt with the last article which is, yay, in civilized English. I scan it.
Basically, Chef Poulet, from some place called Brussels, wants to topple Chef L’Oeuf from king of the culinary heap. Chef Poulet comes from a way-rich family and has oodles of money and says he can create theme evenings even more extravagant and exotic than Chef L’Oeuf’s. And Chef Poulet is opening his own exclusive restaurant in Paris. Chef L’Oeuf says he’s opening his own Parisian restaurant too. Some people in the restaurant world question where he’s scoring the money. Then Chef L’Oeuf brags about how incredible this year’s theme dinner will be.
By the end of the article, I’m feeling proud and sick at the same time. I’m proud because I discovered important stuff. Motive stuff. An African theme evening with rhino meat would so work for Chef L’Oeuf, who needs bags of money. I feel sick at the thought of people eating rhino meat.
I stuff the article in the briefcase and put everything back the way I found it. In the nick of time.
Charging through the swinging door, Chef L’Oeuf yells, “You are imbecile. You are surfing idiot.”
Luke slouches through the door.
No mesabs in sight.
“Grab many of zee dish towels!” the chef shouts. “You will protect zee table corners wiz zeez.”
I back out fast from under the sink, bumping my head on a pipe. “Ouch!”
The chef barks at me, “What are yooou doing?”
Teeth clamped together, I ignore the throbbing head pain and give my best suck-up smile. “Just familiarizing myself with the kitchen.” I nod like I’m cool and in control. Meanwhile, sweat’s running down my sides
. “Getting in the groove so I can whip up meringue with love. And I’m feeling it. Feeling the love.”
“Vraiment?” He crosses his arms over his big belly. “Really?” He stares at me, trying to decide how much of my act is for real.
I hum a little Céline, then wiggle my fingertips in the air. “I’m feeling very meringue-y.”
“Vite, vite, quick, quick.” He helps me to my feet. “To the counter. You must make zee meringue.”
I scamper to my station.
“As for you,” he says to Luke, “you are useless wiz the skinny door, knocking off a corner of a mesab. Now you will carry every table and every furry stool through the wide front door.”
Luke groans.
“Joonie, you help him.”
“Yes, sir,” Junie says. If there are any additional clues to be found, she’ll find them.
I can’t wait to tell her about the article.
Straight-armed, Chef L’Oeuf points. “Go! Both of you!”
Luke shuffles out. Junie follows. There’s a spring in her step. She’s glad to be off polishing duty and on to an activity that calls for brains.
Lindsey keeps on wrestling with her dough.
I pop open the egg carton and gasp. The eggs have all turned brown.
At my side, Chef L’Oeuf says, “Beautiful, aren’t zey? Zee organic eggs will form zee high, fluffy peaks.”
I have truly entered a weird and wacky world. Where eggs are brown.
Next to me and practically right under a No Smoking sign, Chef L’Oeuf pulls a soft pack and a lighter from a secret pocket inside his chef’s jacket, then tweezers out a cigarette with his pointy-like-candy-corn teeth. With a quick flick, he lights his cigarette.
I guess my eyes are totally bugging out, because he says, all haughty, “I am ZEE Chef L’Oeuf, ma petite Céline. Zee rules do not apply.”
Wow. Stir that attitude in with the articles about how Friday’s dinner has to be over-the-top, and you have a recipe for rhino disaster.
Cigarette dangling from his lips, the chef picks up the grinder.
I cough. What a foul, disgusting odor, like burning rubber.