by Tara Dairman
They reached the playground, and Gladys’s classmates broke off into their cliques and headed for different areas. Even Parm, who played in a soccer league after school, had a small group to run drills or play two-on-two with during recess. She was at least polite enough to wave good-bye as she ran to the far field. Everyone else ignored Gladys, leaving her alone at her usual spot by the fence.
That’s okay, she told herself, pulling her journal and pencil out of her coat pocket. I really need the time to think of a good essay topic.
But it was hard to think of the future without thinking about food. Ever since she’d read her first Dining section, Gladys had known what she wanted to be when she grew up—the restaurant critic for the New York Standard. She would eat incredible meals all over New York City and write about them for millions of people to read. She would probably have to eat some bad meals, too, but at least then her reviews could help other people avoid eating the same awful things she had.
She couldn’t write about that for the contest, though. It definitely wouldn’t get her back into her parents’ good graces, and it would probably cause her classmates to upgrade her status from Weird Quiet Kid to Total Freak. She’d seen the way they’d made fun of Parm last year when she turned down a Sticky Meal at the end-of-year party. (Gladys had taken one for appearance’s sake, then slipped it into the trash when no one was looking.) What if the other kids found out that Gladys not only hated fast food, but also wanted to work for East Dumpsford’s least favorite newspaper when she grew up? That would be like icing on the Cake of Social Doom.
Chapter 7
SEVENTEEN WAYS TO COOK A CARROT
GLADYS’S MOM DROPPED HER OFF AT home that afternoon, warned her not to cook, and headed back to the office for a few more hours of work. Miraculously, Gladys’s parents had given her one more chance to prove that she could take care of herself. But they would be checking the kitchen carefully for signs that she was back to her old cooking habits . . . and if they found any, new punishments would be handed out, and an after-school babysitter would be called in.
Gladys settled in at her usual spot at the kitchen table and tried to attack her homework, but it was hard to concentrate. Everything around her felt like a reminder of the crème brûlée disaster: the singed countertop, the taped-over stove burners. Even the sunlight streaming in through the window seemed to say “Hey, remember when there were curtains here?”
And then there was the refrigerator door, where her parents had stuck up two lists:
APPROVED ACTIVITIES
Video games
Computer games
Watching TV (but no cooking shows!)
Reading (but not cookbooks!)
Bike riding
Hanging out at the mall
Snowball fighting
Microwaving (with supervision)
UNAPPROVED ACTIVITIES
Cooking
Using power tools
Anything else adults do that kids normally don’t
The kitchen was Gladys’s favorite room in the house, but this was all just too depressing. She headed upstairs to the window seat with her language arts notebook and stared outside, hoping for some inspiration for her essay. That’s when she noticed Sandy Anderson playing alone in his backyard. There was still a small pile of snow from a storm the week before, and he was scooping handfuls off the top, packing them into balls, and hurling them against the back of his house.
He seemed to be having fun. And snowball fighting was actually on her list of approved activities. Maybe if I try new things, Gladys thought, I’ll get new ideas. Before she knew it, her boots and coat were back on and she was outside in her own backyard.
Cautiously, she approached the low hedge that divided the Gatsbys’ property from the Andersons’. It was easy to see over, even for someone of Gladys’s height (or Sandy’s, who was a couple of inches shorter than Gladys). She kept hoping that Sandy would look up from his one-man snowball fight and notice her, and she tried to think of what to say when he did. But he was so focused that he didn’t even look up when Gladys was standing right next to the hedge.
“Hey!” Gladys finally called as Sandy wound up for another throw. “Think you can hit me?”
Sandy turned toward her, and a look of dread crossed his face. Instead of throwing the snowball in his hand, he turned and fled toward his back door without a word, the snow slipping out of his mitten and plopping onto the grass.
Unfortunately, Sandy’s mother was coming out the door just as Sandy was about to go in, and they collided with a smack. As they backed away from each other, Mrs. Anderson rubbing her elbow and Sandy muttering “Sorry, Mom,” Mrs. Anderson caught sight of Gladys standing near the hedge.
“Well, hello there, neighbor!” she called, waving. “Look, Sandy, it’s the girl from next door. Have you said hello to her?”
Mrs. Anderson beamed a warm smile in Gladys’s direction. She was a slightly plump lady with dark blond hair that fell in curls down her back, and today she was wearing a tie-dyed apron over a sweatshirt and a pair of stretchy yoga pants. She held a spatula in her hand.
“Hello,” Sandy mumbled in Gladys’s general direction without making eye contact. He still looked scared.
“Hi,” Gladys said awkwardly. Sandy’s behavior was very confusing, but she tried not to take it personally. Maybe he was just shy. Still, she found herself wishing that she had never come outside in the first place.
As Gladys stood there, wondering how long she would have to wait before she could make her escape, Mrs. Anderson got the worst idea in the world.
“I have the best idea in the world!” she said. “Sandy, why don’t you invite our neighbor over to play?”
Of course, Gladys had come outside hoping that Sandy might want to play, but having his mother tell him to ask was just too humiliating. Gladys was relieved when Sandy told his mom that he was ready to go inside.
“Then ask her to come in, too!” Mrs. Anderson replied. “That way I won’t have to listen to you complain about how bored you are without anyone to hang out with!”
“Um,” said Sandy. “Um . . .” It was clear that he saw no way out of the situation. Finally he looked at Gladys and said very quickly, “Doyouwannacomeover?”
Now Gladys had a choice to make: Go home for another solitary hour, or go next door with a kid who didn’t really want her there. Neither option seemed too appealing.
“Do you need to check with your parents first?” Mrs. Anderson asked.
“That’s okay,” Gladys replied. “They’re both at work ’til six.”
“Well, you’re very welcome at our house.”
Oh, what the heck, Gladys thought. At the very least, it would be a change of scenery. She stepped through a gap in the hedge and crossed over toward the Andersons’ back door.
The inside of their house was warm and smelled like chocolate. Gladys’s mouth watered.
“I just took some brownies out of the oven,” Mrs. Anderson said as she led Gladys and Sandy down a hallway. “So when you kids are hungry, you should come to the kitchen and have a snack!” She ushered them through a doorway and into a large room filled with toys and games. There was a brightly colored skateboard propped up against one wall, a squashy beanbag chair in the corner, a mini Ping-Pong table, and a mini pool table.
Still, neither Gladys nor Sandy was too happy when Mrs. Anderson instructed them to “have fun” and disappeared down the hallway. Gladys would have preferred to go with Mrs. Anderson, to have a look around her kitchen and sample one of her brownies, and Sandy’s face returned to looking terrified. They were standing near the doorway, eyeing each other, when a scuffling sound from the corner of the playroom made Gladys jump. She looked over to where the noise was coming from and saw a large wooden hutch with not one, but two eager-looking balls of fluff pressing their paws against the wire-mesh door.
“You have rabbits!” she cried. Gladys loved animals and had always wanted a pet. But because of her father’s allergies, anything with fur was out of the question—and it seemed to Gladys that all of the pets worth having had fur.
Unfortunately, the sight of Gladys’s excitement made Sandy more petrified, if this was even possible. In fact, he was starting to look downright panicky. Gladys wondered what she could do to calm him down. Maybe playing with the pets would do the trick. “What are their names?” she asked gently, approaching the rabbits’ hutch.
Sandy trailed after her. He cleared his throat a couple of times and finally managed to find his voice. “Um, this one’s Edward Hopper,” he squeaked, “and that one is his brother, Dennis.”
Gladys peered through the wire to get a good look at the rabbits. Edward was mostly white, but had perky black ears and thick black rims around his eyes, as if he’d gotten into Mrs. Anderson’s mascara. Dennis, on the other hand, was brown and had floppy ears. Dennis was also twice as big as Edward.
“Are you sure they’re brothers?” Gladys asked.
“Th-that’s what my mom says,” Sandy said shakily.
“Well,” Gladys said with a laugh, “don’t believe everything your parents tell you.”
Gladys could see immediately that this had been the wrong thing to say—Sandy looked very alarmed at the idea that a parent could possibly be wrong about anything.
After another incredibly long silence, Gladys finally asked, “Can I pet them?”
Sandy looked positively ill at this notion. “Um, they’re not supposed to come out of the cage,” he mumbled, looking away.
Just then, Mrs. Anderson reappeared in the doorway. “How are you kids doing?” she asked. “Sandy, why don’t you show Gladys that trick you’ve been working on with Edward Hopper? What, you haven’t even taken them out yet?” She strode toward the hutch and, in one motion, released the latch and swung open the wire door. “They’re usually out of the cage the moment he walks in the room!” she told Gladys. “Don’t be shy!” she whispered to Sandy. Then, closing the door so the rabbits couldn’t get out into the hallway, Mrs. Anderson left them alone together again.
Gladys looked at Sandy. She was trying to think of a way to ask why he had lied to her about the rabbits when he blurted, “I saw you at Mr. Eng’s grocery store!”
“What?” said Gladys.
“Don’t play dumb! I heard what you were asking him for!”
“I’ve asked Mr. Eng for a lot of things,” Gladys said truthfully. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
Sandy looked away. Edward Hopper had already shot out of the cage and was hopping around the room, but Dennis Hopper had only made it as far as Sandy’s feet. Sandy bent down and scooped him up. Dennis Hopper wriggled and kicked his legs, but Sandy was not letting go.
“Meat,” Sandy finally managed to whisper. “R-rabbit meat.”
Suddenly, it all made sense. A few months back, Gladys had found a recipe for a French dish called lapin à la cocotte in her cookbook Tender Is the Meat and asked Mr. Eng if he had any rabbit. He didn’t, but he told her he could order some if she really wanted it. When she found out how much it would cost, though, she told him not to bother and soon forgot about that recipe altogether.
Dennis Hopper continued to struggle, but Sandy held on tight. “I’ve seen you through the window, cooking in your kitchen,” he said, his voice more confident now, “making all sorts of weird . . . stews and things. Well, you’re not getting your hands on the Hoppers!”
As if on cue, Dennis gave a mighty kick and managed to free himself from Sandy’s grip, leaping to the floor. “Dennis!” Sandy cried, lurching after him, but Dennis had scampered off to join Edward in wedging himself between the beanbag chair and the wall at the far corner of the room.
Gladys couldn’t help herself—she laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Sandy asked sharply.
“You really thought that I would steal your rabbits? And cook them?” she said between giggles. “These aren’t even the kinds of rabbits people eat! I mean, look at Edward; he’s hardly got an ounce of meat on him!”
Sandy looked over at Edward, who was now trying to dig a hole in the beanbag chair with his tiny paws. “I don’t know,” he said. “I read that some people in South America eat guinea pigs, and Edward is bigger than a guinea pig.”
This was true, and Gladys began to wonder if Sandy might actually be smarter than she had given him credit for. She stopped laughing.
“Well,” she said huffily, “I would never cook someone’s pets. Besides,” she added with a sigh, “I’m not allowed to cook anymore—I’ve been banned from the kitchen.”
Sandy’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Really? How come?”
The story came gushing out of Gladys like milk spilling from a busted carton. “It was so unfair,” she concluded. “It could have happened to anyone! But now my parents say that if I’m caught even boiling water, I’ll be grounded for life.”
Gladys stared down at her salmon-hued sneakers, which looked like they were swimming on the surface of the shaggy blue carpet. She wasn’t sure why she’d just told this boy about the accident; maybe it felt okay because he didn’t go to her school.
“You set your curtains on fire?”
Gladys nodded miserably—but Sandy seemed to have the opposite reaction.
“Wow,” he said. “That’s so cool! Man, anyone at my school who did that would be a total celebrity!”
“They would?” Now Gladys wondered if Sandy went to a reform school.
Sandy grinned. “Maybe it’s ’cause my school is all boys. I guess girls can be more, uh, sensory about that kind of stuff.”
“Do you mean sensitive?” Gladys asked.
“Yeah, sensitive. Listen, do you want to try this computer program I just invented? It’s called Rabbit Race.”
“Sure!” Gladys followed him across the room and waited as the computer screen buzzed to life. Two boxy-looking rabbit icons appeared at the bottom—one fat and brown like Dennis, the other small and spotted like Edward.
“You have to get your guy through the maze to the carrot,” Sandy explained, pointing to the mess of lines on the screen and the orange stick at its center. “One of us can use the arrow keys and the other can use the mouse.”
“You made this game yourself?” Gladys asked.
“Well, my mom helped,” Sandy said. “She’s a computer programmer and works from home.”
“Still, that’s really impressive,” Gladys said, and she meant it.
Sandy shrugged. “It’s just what I like to do. But lately my mom’s started yelling at me to get off the computer and play outside and stuff. She says there’ll be plenty of time for programming when I’m older.”
Gladys nodded. “That sounds a lot like my parents.”
“So, do you wanna be Dennis or Edward?” Sandy asked. “I’ll let you pick since it’s your first time playing.”
Gladys chose Edward, who was controlled by the mouse, and soon her rabbit was racing through the maze onscreen. Dennis beat her to the carrot by just a few seconds, and his pixelated cottontail wagged triumphantly.
“Good job!” Gladys said.
Sandy’s ears turned a little red as he smiled. “Well, it’s not really a fair match. I did design the whole maze. Wanna play again?”
“Sure,” Gladys said, “but then after, maybe we can play with the real rabbits?”
“How about this: Rabbit Race, then we eat brownies, then real rabbits.”
“Deal!”
Gladys won the second round of Rabbit Race, though she thought Sandy may have taken a wrong turn on purpose. Then they trooped down the hall to the kitchen, where Mrs. Anderson was slicing brownies into thick squares.
The kitchen was a mess. Flour dusted the countertops, and the sink was bursting with batt
er-coated bowls and utensils. Cookbooks were stuffed haphazardly into a bookcase along the wall, many of their spines cracked from use.
It was the most beautiful room Gladys had ever seen.
“I’ve been experimenting with different flavors,” Mrs. Anderson said as she handed Gladys and Sandy each a brownie. “These are butterscotch-nutmeg. What do you think?”
“Thanksh, Mom,” Sandy said, his mouth already full. “Itsh aweshome.”
Gladys took a bite of her brownie, and a slew of flavors flooded her taste buds. The sweet, melty butterscotch offset the bitterness of the chocolate, and the hint of nutmeg gave the whole thing a kick. It was very tasty—but still, as Gladys swallowed, she felt like something was missing.
“Do you know that extra-fancy Vietnamese cinnamon Mr. Eng sells?” she blurted. “I think a touch of that in the batter would really help balance things out.”
Mrs. Anderson’s eyes widened in surprise, and even Sandy stopped chewing and gave Gladys a funny look.
“I mean, it’s terrific—thank you so much,” she mumbled.
But Mrs. Anderson was shaking her head now. “You know, I think you may be right!” She turned back to the counter and rummaged through the spice rack until she found the jar she wanted. “Now let’s see . . .” She sprinkled a bit of the cinnamon onto her half-eaten brownie and took another bite. “Yes, that’s perfect!” she cried. She turned back to Gladys. “How did you know?”
Gladys glanced over at Sandy. He pretended to wipe his chocolate-smeared mouth, but really drew his fingers across his lips in a zipping motion, as if to say, Your cooking secrets are safe with me.
“Oh, I just heard Mr. Eng talking about it at the store,” she said. “He said it would be good in any dessert.” Technically, that was true—she’d just left out the part where she’d experimented with the cinnamon herself in more than forty recipes.