by Anna Wilson
‘But what if MY mum goes bonkers doolally round the twist?’ I asked. ‘She wasn’t exactly chuffed to bits when she caught me cooking scrambled eggs with butter and cream. She said, “I’ve heard of cravings, but this is ridiculous,” and, “Not even I was that expensive to feed when I was expecting,” and other things of an outraged and rather angry nature. And I can hardly even have the good excuse of Honey being pregnant this time. PLUS if Mum finds we are cooking dog food, she will then find out the dogs are coming to the party and she will definitely then try to Put a Stop to It.’
‘Summer,’ Molly said, in a patient-but-really-impatient tone of speaking. ‘Your mum was cross last time because you used very expensive ingredients and you finished all the eggs in the house and did not replace them; whereas we have saved some of our budget for the dogs, remember? So we can always get more ingredients on our shopping trip this afternoon. And your mum is out at work today and actually quite a lot of the time, whereas mine is not, so we can cook while your mum is not here and she will not notice if we tidy up. Plus your mum is not as fussy about the pristine-ness of her kitchen as my mum is.’
‘Humpf,’ I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say, because as usual Molly was one hundred and ten per cent right about everything. I did not quite like what she was INSINUATING about Mum not being as fussy. It sounded as though she was hinting that my mum was not as clean and tidy as hers. But then, on second thoughts, Molly’s mum was the kind of mum who does not like you to sit on the sofa for at least two days after she has cleaned it in case you make a dent in the poofed-up cushions. Maybe it was better to have a slightly more chaotic and untidy mum after all.
‘Well,’ I said eventually. ‘I suppose you are right. It is my sister’s party, and it was my amazing idea to have the pooches come along too, so it is only fair that I get to organize the cooking at my house.’
Aha! I thought that was a rather clever way of me IMPOSING a bit of control on the situation. I made a mental note to try and remember such intelligent and crafty TACTICS in the future.
Molly did look ever so slightly dumbfounded and bamboozled. But I could tell that she was just really desperate to start the cooking, and she knew she could not do it at her house, so she did not argue about who had had what amazing idea. Instead she said, ‘That’s settled then. So, let’s look at those recipes.’
We took the laptop into the kitchen and put it on the table, and Molly said she would read out the ingredients while I climbed up on to the work surface so that I could get to Eye Level with the cupboards.
‘Let’s start with the doggy hamburgers,’ Molly suggested. ‘They look like they’d be really easy to make.’
‘OK,’ I said, looking down. ‘What do we need?’
Molly peered at the computer screen. ‘Vegetable oil,’ she read out.
I pushed the botdes and packages around until I caught sight of a yellowish plastic bottle. ‘Check!’ I said.
Molly reached for her notebook and wrote ‘vegetable oil’ in it and then put a big tick beside it.
‘Molly,’ I said. ‘Why are you writing it down and then ticking it off? It is obvious we already have it, so there is no need to go to all that palaver.’
Molly pursed her lips and shook her head at me. ‘It is important to know we have all Bases Covered,’ she said. ‘We don’t want to go all the way to the supermarket and then come back and find we should have got something ESSENTIAL, in other words something we absolutely cannot do without.’
I raised my eyes to the high heavens.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘What next?’
‘Boiled eggs,’ she said. ‘Two.’
I put my hands on my hips. ‘Well obviously we do not keep a cupboard load of boiled eggs!’ I cried. ‘What nonsense.’
Molly tutted. ‘You are being loonitistical,’ she said. ‘You just need two fresh eggs and then you boil them, you numpty!’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well Mum keeps eggs in the fridge, so why don’t you have a look seeing as I am up here?’
Molly opened the fridge. ‘Only four eggs there. We had better put eggs on the list then, in case your mum freaks.’ She looked up at me. ‘Like last time,’ she added, sniggering a bit.
‘Molly, shut the door properly,’ I snapped. ‘Honey is ultra-talented at getting in there otherwise.’ I shuddered as I remembered the CARNAGE, in other words mega-disastrous mess, she had made the last time she had managed to break and enter the fridge.
Molly went back to reading out from the recipe and I went back to rummaging, and we ended up with a list that looked like this:
The only other things we needed were porridge oats and the vegetable oil, both of which Mum had in the cupboards. No one in our family has ever actually eaten porridge, thankfully. In fact, it was only there because April used it to make her own gunky face pack which was a horrid grey mixture she used to leave in the fridge and which smelt terrible.
Mum will probably be only too glad to have the oats used up instead of leaving them to clutter up the cupboard, I told myself.
But in actual fact I could not get rid of the sinking feeling that Mum was not going to be very glad about any of the details of this latest Molly Cook-style Masterful Plan.
hen we got back from the supermarket, it was already getting late. Mum was due back from work at six, so we had to crack on with the cooking right away.
‘It says we need to fry the mince first,’ Molly said.
‘Easy!’ I said cheerily. I had done that before when Mum let me help make Bolognese. I poured a small dollop of vegetable oil into a frying pan, carefully tipped the meat in and then stirred it with a wooden spoon.
‘Right, now we need to let it cool so we can mix it with the other stuff,’ I said. ‘Hang on, we need to boil the eggs. You do that, Molly, while I get those beans and carrots out and see what the recipe says to do with them.’
The recipe said the veg had to be chopped up ‘finely’. I did not know what ‘chopping veg finely’ meant. I thought it might mean that you had to do it like a chef would do; you know, the kind of chef who only cooks Fine Food, but seeing as I was not that sort of a cook and could only really manage things like toast and scrambled eggs on my own without Mum’s SUPERVISION (in other words without her helping me) I did not think I could do this ‘finely’. Molly was busy timing the eggs as apparently it was important to make sure they boiled for the exact amount of time that was correct for boiling eggs. I did not want to distractivate her, so instead of worrying about how to chop the veg, I decided to put the beans and carrots in the one saucepan to save washing up, and then get out the hand-whizzer-food-processory thing that I had seen Mum use. Using an APPLIANCE, in other words a machine, will be a super-speedy way of chopping and will be quite professionalist too, I thought.
I plugged it in, put the blade bit into the saucepan full of veg and pressed the ON button.
Unfortunately the result was not at all chef-like or professionalistic in any way. In fact, you could say that the carrots and the beans reacted very badly to the whole experience. They did a sort of a . They leaped out of the saucepan and flew into the air. And some of them got stuck to the ceiling and walls.
‘Waaah!’ I screamed, jumping back.
‘Summerwhadareyoudooooing?’ Molly screamed, dropping the eggs she was trying carefully to extractivate from the saucepan. At least they were hard boiled, so the yolks could not run all over the place.
‘I don’t know!’ I shouted. ‘Honey – don’t—!’
Honey had Taken Advantage of the Culinary Chaos (in other words, my disastrous cooking) to help herself to a litte pre-party tasting session.
Which means that she rushed over and gobbled up the eggs and any bits of veg that had fallen to the floor. Actually, she did not hoover up the veg with any particular enthusiasm.
‘Look at the time!’ Molly gasped. ‘We must hurry and clear this lot up and start again before your mum gets home and—’
‘Before I get home and what exa
ctly?’
Mum had got home. And early too, I noticed, glancing at the clock.
Molly in mid-actual-sentence and I went into Full-On Quivering and Quaking Mode. In some ways we were quite lucky because Honey had finished clearing up the eggs (although she was not much use at dealing with the mess that had sprayed down on to the floor and the lower-level kitchen cupboards and the ceiling). But in other ways, we were not lucky at all.
‘SUMMER!’ Mum actually bellowed. I do not think I have seen her that angry ever. In my entire life. Not even the time that Honey got into the fridge and ate everything in it . . .
‘I – er – I’m – s-s-s-sorry,’ I whispered. I looked at Molly for support, but she was shaking her head furiously at me and backing away towards the door.
Mum had done a good job of Barring the Exit, though. In other words, she was standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips, her nostrils doing their thing they do when she is beside herself, in other words, furious. She was not going to let Molly escape in a million years.
‘WHAT kind of a dog’s breakfast is this?’ Mum said, in a low and dangerous tone which was actually more frightening than her bellowing voice. I was struck dumb by how she knew already that we were cooking for the dogs, even though it was not true to say it was for breakfast.
‘Please, sorry, er . . . sorry,’ said Molly in an un-Molly-like babbling fashion. ‘We were making some food for the party.’
‘Really,’ Mum said, with one eyebrow very much arched. ‘Well, I am sorry, but I think if there is going to be any food made for this party, I think I will be making it. Otherwise I doubt I shall be left with a house to live in.’
I gasped and stared at Molly with my eyes boggling out of their sockets. Mum could not do that! She could not take over!
‘NO!’ I cried. ‘I mean, you can’t do that, you are too vastly busy and Run Off Your Feet with work-type things and looking after me! Molly and I will clear up this mess and start again tomorrow.’
‘Well you’re right about one thing,’ Mum said, folding her arms in a Decisive manner. ‘You can certainly clear this lot up. Right now. But after that, you and Molly can be in charge of decorations, and I will be in charge of everything else.’
This was a total and utter Disaster Area. On a scale of one to a hundred of possible disasters, we had hit about two thousand.
‘I think we will have to talk to Nick,’ I told Molly once we had cleaned up and cleared off. ‘Custard was going to be our Decoy for getting April to the party in the first place, and now if we are not going to have pooches there at all, how is that going to work?’
‘Oooh no,’ said Molly, shaking her head. ‘There is no way we are giving up on the pooch party idea.’
‘But Molly—!’
‘Listen,’ said my Bestest Friend, looking the most determined I have ever seen her. ‘I never thought I would say this, but I am hatching a Masterly Plan which involves someone who I would not usually in a million trillion gazillion light years even CONSIDER asking to help us, but as you know, Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures, and this is about as desperate as we are ever likely to be . . .’ She paused for dramatical effect and then said with a big sigh: ‘Frank Gritter.’
‘What about him?’ I asked.
‘Frank Gritter,’ Molly repeated. ‘Though I do actually DETEST having to admit it, he was a huge help with the dog walking, and he does want to come to the party.’
I was utterly flabberboozled by this bonkers suggestion. Frank could be a good laugh and it Could Not Be Denied that he knew a lot about dogs, but . . .
‘BUT . . . ASK FRANK TO COOK??!!’ I shouted. ‘Are you INSANE?’
‘Possibly,’ said Molly. ‘But I am also desperate. Aren’t you?’
What could I say to that?
I had expected Frank to laugh in our faces and say something along the lines of the fact that he would prefer to dress in a tutu and pirouette across the football pitch in front of all his mates rather than help a couple of GIRLS do some cooking for a party. But, as has happened a few times in the past, now I come to think of it, Frank did in fact totally surprise me and , in other words he was utterly marvellous.
‘Cook dog food? Wicked!’ he said, when we had explained, quite sheepishly, about how everything had gone wrong. ‘We can do it at my place, no worries,’ he said.
‘But, er, won’t your mum mind?’ I asked. ‘I mean, it might be a bit messy.’
‘Nah,’ said Frank. ‘I love cooking. Mum lets me cook a load of stuff in the holidays when I’m a bit bored or whatever.’
‘A right little Masterchef,’ said Molly, but very very under her breath. She knew that Frank was our Only Hope, after all.
‘Bring the ingredients round this afternoon and we’ll sort it. And you can keep the food at mine until the party, so no one needs to find out,’ he added, giving me one of his huge and intensively annoying winks. I replied by giving him a smile that was more like a cringe-some wince and said, ‘Thank you, Frank.’
We walked most of the way back to our houses in silence.
As I said goodbye to Molly, I said, ‘I think I will be glad when this party is over.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed. Then she said, ‘Well at least everything is now more or less sorted. All we have to do now is decorate the house, lay the tables with the food on the day and wait for the guests to arrive. Surely nothing else could possibly go wrong?’
s I walked round the corner to my own house, I felt relaxed for the first time in days. In other words I finally could no longer feel a room full of butterflies fluttering around inside my tummy and I did not feel sick and nervous and anxious at the thought of the party. In fact I actually skipped along the pavement and was singing to myself by the time I got to our driveway.
‘Hello!’ I shouted, as I let myself in. ‘Anybody hom—’
A strange noise interrupted me in mid-flow of shouting. ‘Waaaah!’
Cheese and Toast came hurtling down the hall, ears flat, and fur all spiked up, howling as if someone had set fire to their tails. Honey was in Hot Pursuit, but when she saw me she skidded to a halt and wrapped herself round my legs, whining and whimpering. I was more than a tiny bit freaked out.
‘Waaaaah!’ There was that awful shrieking again.
What in all the earth was going on?
‘Mum?’ I asked, in a hesitatingly and questioning type of way. It did not actually sound a bit like Mum, but who else could it be . . . ? I thought about following the example of Cheese and Toast and scarpering back outside but then I heard:
‘Booo hoooo! He’s at it agaaaaaaain!’
Oh. My. Goodness. Dearie. Me. It was April.
Thank goodness I had not barged in and shouted out stuff about the party, I thought. Then I realized that that was probably the least of my worries, as April’s crying had gone Up A Notch, in other words it was in the realm of wailing now.
‘I read his texts!’ she said, looking up as I came through the door.
April was sitting at the kitchen table, a mammoth mound of wet and crumpled tissues next to her. Her head was in her hands, her normally shiny and ultra-groomed hair was messier than the messiest bird’s nest (which is probably a bit unfair to birds, but you get the picture) and her make-up was smeared in an alarmingly clownish fashion all over her face. This did not bode well. She looked like the Creature from the Swampy Lagoon.
‘April?’ I said quietly. I hovered near the door in case I needed to make a quick getaway. When April was like this she was Mad, Bad and Dangerous to know. In fact, even when she wasn’t like this she was Mad, Bad and Dangerous to know, but the Swampy Lagoon look meant she was likely to be even Madder and Badder.
‘How could he do this to me? We haven’t been married a year yet!’ she continued.
‘Is Mum here?’ I asked, still making sure I was keeping a Safe Distance. I noticed poor Honey was COWERING under the table. I wished I could actually join her down there instead of in this dangerous war zone of sobbing and waili
ng and nose-blowing.
April chewed at one of her ultra-long and perfectly manicured nails and bit it right off. Gross. And a waste of time given the amount of hours she DEVOTED to filing and painting them. But I didn’t say that out loud. I was quite frightened of the Wild Look on my sister’s face. As well as the black mascara tears running down her cheeks, she had an insane and crazy sparkle in her eyes as if she was plotting something unpleasant.
‘He’d better watch out when he comes home tonight!’ she hissed, picking up a mobile phone from under the yucky mound of tissues. Oh dear, she WAS plotting something unpleasant.
‘April,’ I said, quietly and soothingly in the way that people do on the telly when they are talking to with a gun or to a particularly wild animal. ‘April, put the phone down and listen to me.’ I took one slow step nearer the hissing spitting creature before me.
April did a weird snarl and actually bared her teeth at me. I decided she must be having some kind of Hysterical Nervous Breakdown. I jumped out of the way and decided to Hold My Position by the door in case something truly unpredictable happened.
‘Why don’t you give me the phone and I’ll make us a nice cup of tea,’ I said. I was eyeing the kettle, thinking that I could just about edge my way round the room to it without her being able to lash out and hit me in any way, as long as I squished myself up against the cupboards.
She gave a half-snarl that was not as scary as the one before and then her face crumpled and more black swampy tears fell gloopily down her pink cheeks and she sobbed, ‘That would be ni-i-ice.’ She ended with a hiccup, and that was when I stopped feeling scared and started feeling sorry for her. She was, after all, my Big Sis whom I had actually come to rather miss having around the place, and she obviously was really upset. I stopped thinking at that point and just Acted on my Instincts, in other words I rushed up to her and gave her a hug.