The boys dressed in their black-and-white–checked chef’s pants and pulled on their jackets. Beneath the jacket Alfie wore the same shirt he was wearing the day he arrived.
“Still no luggage?” Jacques asked as Alfie buttoned up the jacket.
“No,” Alfie said, not looking him in the eye. “Guess not.”
“You should probably tell Madame Rousseau,” Jacques said. “Maybe she can call the airline or something.”
“Yeah,” agreed Andre. “It’s strange that nothing has shown up after two days.”
After another crazy-yummy breakfast at the café next door, the students put on their chef’s hats and headed out for one of the many markets just a few blocks away. Despite the fact that it was ridiculously early, Emilia bounced along with her girlfriends, laughing and talking. She was dressed once again in a put-together outfit no doubt loaned from each of the three girls. If they stayed much longer, she’d probably start wearing a beret.
The Rue Poncelet market was near the Arc de Triomphe. This market was dedicated to rows of lush, colorful vegetables and fruits—everything was so shiny and colorful that Alfie couldn’t believe it was real. Artichokes, radishes, and figs—items he’d heard of but never tasted—and fresh herbs like parsley and dill that he’d only ever seen in jars in his mom’s spice cabinet were all neatly lined up in the stalls along the street. The market was a couple of streets long. It was more organized than the one in Naples, but the food was just as beautiful. Parisians browsed the selections and the stores behind the stalls for the best ingredients of the day.
The instructors had given each student a small allowance to buy ingredients for the upcoming dinner competition, and it was up to the students to properly budget their money.
Alfie, Jacques, Andre, and Madeline eyed the foods they passed, picking up different pieces of produce to find the perfect freshness.
Alfie eyed Emilia and her team, who were laughing and pointing at a display of some very strange-looking fish.
“Everything all right?” Monsieur DuBois asked, suddenly by Alfie’s side.
Seeing the instructor, Alfie’s teammates scampered away. Traitors, he thought, leaving me alone with DuBois.
“Yes,” Alfie said. “Just checking things out.”
“You know, when I think back to the day you arrived,” he said, “I don’t remember seeing you or your sister carrying any luggage. You do have luggage, correct?”
Alfie realized he’d have to repeat Emilia’s fib to cover his tracks. “The airline lost our luggage, but I’m sure they’ll deliver it . . . soon.”
“Tell Madame Rousseau,” Monsieur DuBois said. “She’ll get you and your sister toothbrushes and such until it arrives. I hope you’re enjoying our school. Learning lots?”
“Yes,” Alfie said, nervous under the chef’s scrutiny.
“How did you and your sister learn about the school all the way in the States?”
“Um, through the Internet,” Alfie said, picking up a bunch of carrots and then putting it back. Where were fresh raspberries when you needed them to escape from your crazy instructor?
“I only ask,” Monsieur DuBois continued, “because we never did find your names on our registration list. Perhaps you should give us your parents’ phone number so that we have it on file like we do for the other students.”
“Okay,” Alfie said. “It’s just that, I’m not sure they can be reached right now, is all.”
“Still, Madame Rousseau and I will feel better having that number. And since the airline lost your luggage, I want your parents to know that you are being cared for.”
Alfie finally came upon a stall selling raspberries. He took the first basketful he saw and quickly paid for it. “I have everything we need. Can we go back to my team?”
Monsieur DuBois looked at him carefully. “Yes, I suppose. Just don’t forget about that phone number. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Alfie said.
As they all walked back to the school, Alfie knew he had two options: stay in Paris and try to win the competition but run the risk of being found out by Monsieur DuBois, or take Emilia straight to the café and get themselves home.
He knew what he had to do.
Alfie just couldn’t help himself. He had to win.
It may have been a petty thing, but when a competition was put before him he had to win it—even if he wasn’t sure he actually could do that something, which in this case was make a raspberry charlotte. Plus, he told himself, he wanted to do something nice for Emilia. She wanted to stay here in Paris so badly. Who was he to deny her the great experience of being in one of the world’s most sophisticated cities?
Once they were all back in the kitchen, Madame Rousseau began the day’s lesson. She demonstrated how to make crepes, which were kind of like really thin pancakes. They were also sort of like burritos, because you could fill them with stuff—anything from ham, eggs, and cheese to chocolate hazelnut spread—then roll them up.
Once Madame Rousseau showed everyone how to swirl the batter around in the pan and the hard part of flipping it over, each student got a chance to make one. They even got to choose which items to fill their crepes with. Everyone laughed as they tried flipping the crepe over—Emilia’s hit the side of the pan and slid down onto her foot, and Andre flipped his so high it almost touched the ceiling. Alfie concentrated on his flip and did it perfectly on the first try, letting out an intense little “YES!” He filled his crepe with bananas and chocolate sauce and whipped cream that did not come from a squirt can.
Finally, the students were allowed to begin the preparations for their dinners. They broke into their teams, separating on either side of the kitchen.
“Okay!” Jacques began. “Let’s get started. Alfie, you sure you’re okay with the cake?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Alfie said as took his raspberries from the refrigerator. He poured them out into a bowl.
“Alfredo.”
Alfie turned to see Monsieur DuBois.
“Before you begin, could you please give me your parents’ number? I want to give them a call right away and let them know you and your sister are okay, especially with what’s happened with your luggage.” He held out a pen and paper.
With his teammates watching, Alfie took the paper and wrote down his parents’ number. Only he accidentally-on-purpose wrote one digit wrong.
Soon the class was in the full swing of preparations. Jacques seasoned the meat, Madeline diced her vegetables, and Andre began the long task of making puff pastry from scratch. It involved rolling out the dough, folding it, and then refrigerating it for half an hour at a time, then repeating these steps seven more times.
For his part, Alfie was determined to follow every excruciating step of the raspberry-charlotte recipe Jacques had given him: baking the cake, making the sauce, letting it all cool, putting it together, and letting the cake refrigerate for hours. It would take a while, and he needed to pay close attention to each step, but Alfie was determined to get it all right.
“Jacques said this is his dad’s recipe,” Alfie said to Madeline as he worked. “You guys keep mentioning him. Does he cook, too, or something?”
“Well, of course,” Madeline said. When Alfie gave her a curious look, she said, “His father is Jean-Luc Laurent.”
“Okaaaay,” Alfie said, confused.
“He’s a really famous chef. He’s won awards and cooked for kings and queens and celebrities,” she said. “It’s kind of a big deal that he gave you his father’s recipe. If that thing comes out right,” she said, “we’ll win for sure.”
“No pressure, huh?”
Madeline smiled. “We’re all here to help.”
Not long after, Alfie’s cake was out of the oven, his sauce was off the stove, and they were both cooling on the counter. Andre’s pastry was back in the refrigerator, setting. “I guess I can
understand wanting to be the best,” Alfie said.
Soon, the instructors called the students to dinner.
“Finally. I’m starving,” Andre said. “Ugh, my pastry. It still needs one more roll out.”
“I still have to put my cake together,” Alfie said. “Want me to finish it for you?”
“Absolutely not!” Andre said. He thought for a moment. “But I am so hungry. Maybe just this once.”
“No problem,” Alfie said. Ha! If Coach Schrader could see me now, he thought, being such a team player and all.
“I’ll ask Marcel if I can stay behind to finish up,” Alfie said.
“Thanks, Alfie,” Andre said.
Once he cleared it with Marcel and told Emilia that he was hanging behind, Alfie set to work finishing his cake while keeping an eye on the time so that he could also complete Andre’s pastry.
Once everything was done he had to make room in the already-stuffed refrigerator. After lots of moving things out and aside and in and back out again, Alfie was exhausted from the day. As he left the kitchen for the evening, he even forgot to turn off the lights.
The next morning, Alfie and the boys walked bleary-eyed down the stairs for breakfast. On the second-floor landing, they heard a piercing scream.
The boys rushed down toward the voice as Lardon the cat raced upstairs faster than they’d ever seen him go.
In the kitchen, they found a horrifying sight, which the other team—including Emilia—had already discovered.
“Our food!” gasped Jacques.
When Alfie had moved the dishes around to make room in the refrigerator, he’d accidentally left a few things out on the counter overnight. Andre’s pastry dough, for one, sat there looking brown and squishy. Natalie’s cake was a pile of crumbs, and Jacques’s container of meat set in his marinade had fallen to the floor and broken open. Along the floor, identifying paw prints led the way out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Lardon had been there, licking and stepping in everything.
“My dish,” Jacques said, picking up the beautiful steak he’d so carefully chosen at the market. “Who did this? How did this happen?”
“Someone left some of our stuff out on the counter overnight,” Natalie said. Her arms were crossed tightly across her body—she looked wound up and ready for a fight.
“Who was the last one to leave the kitchen last night?” Emilia asked.
Andre looked at Alfie, waiting for him to answer.
“I, uh,” Alfie began, “I stayed late to help finish some things.”
Emilia looked at him the way their mom did when she was angry at him. He hated that look.
“Finish what things?” Natalie asked.
“My cake,” Alfie answered.
Natalie looked inside the refrigerator. “Good news. Your cake is in perfect shape. Mine is ruined. Half our team’s dishes are ruined!”
“I didn’t mean to,” Alfie said. “I’m sorry.”
Alfie saw Jacques’s accusing face and Emilia’s disappointment, Andre’s frustration, and Madeline’s confusion, all aimed right at him. He couldn’t remember a time when he felt worse.
“We can fix it,” Alfie said to the team. “Maybe if we start now . . .”
“You know it takes all day,” Andre said. “There’s no time.”
“We’re disqualified,” Jacques said. “There’s no time to remake our food and no food to remake it with. It’s over.” Alfie thought he heard a quiver in his voice, which made him feel even worse.
“Come on, guys,” Madeline said. “We can’t give up so easily. Where’s your sense of fight?”
Claudette, Natalie, and the others looked at one another. “If you want my opinion,” Natalie said, “then I say I’m sorry, but it’s a competition. Every man for himself.”
“He’s my brother,” Emilia said. “I can’t just pretend like he doesn’t need help.”
“But your own team needs help,” Natalie said.
Claudette said, “Maybe Emilia’s right. Besides, I want to win because my food is better, not because they don’t have enough. Come on, Nat. Most of our dishes are okay, but all of theirs are pretty much ruined.”
Natalie thought it over. “I don’t know. I still think we should each make our own meals, but I guess since you’re the captain, you can decide.”
“Then I decide to help,” Claudette said. “If Jacques’s team agrees. What do you say?”
For a moment, the team didn’t say anything. Finally, Jacques spoke up. “My father always says that you have to be flexible in the kitchen because something can always go wrong. I guess this is what he means. Let’s do it.”
The team captains shook on it. Alfie felt relieved that the competition was going on. Natalie, on the other hand, looked pretty annoyed. Alfie wondered if he’d feel the same way if he were in her place.
“Let’s make the best meal the instructors have ever tasted,” said Claudette.
“This will be as much fun as competing,” Madeline said.
“But let’s not tell the instructors,” Claudette said. “You should never tell your guests the hardships you have to endure to prepare their meals.”
“Agreed,” Jacques said.
Everyone gathered around the prep tables and started the process of replanning the meals. Everyone piled their extra, unused ingredients onto the prep table to figure out who could use which scraps.
“How about a ratatouille for the main dish?” Andre said, looking at the donated ingredients from the girls.
“Okay,” Jacques said. “I guess I can try.”
“I need to redo my soup, but I can try something new,” Madeline said. “Andre, we need something new to do with the sausages since the pastry is mush.”
“I have an idea,” Jacques said. “Why don’t you have sausage with chutney? I have a great recipe that has a little curry, some mango—it’s really good. Want to try it?”
“Yeah, I could make that work,” Andre said.
“Good thinking,” Madeline said. “We just need a few ingredients from the market.”
“Alfie, since your dish is safe why don’t you go while we sort out the rest?” Jacques said.
“Okay,” Alfie agreed.
“I’ll go with you,” Madeline offered. “I’ll tell Marcel what’s happening. He’ll keep it a secret from the instructors for us.”
“Good idea,” Alfie said. “The last thing we need is a missing-persons alert.”
Madeline giggled, but Alfie’s own words gave him pause—Monsieur DuBois probably knew by now that the phone number Alfie gave him yesterday was wrong. He’d just have to deal with one crisis at a time. For now, nothing was more important than making sure his friends had a fair shot at serving the best meals of their lives.
As they left the school, Alfie had another idea.
“Have you ever heard of the Rue Marche market?” he asked Madeline. It was the market Zia had mentioned at home. He couldn’t believe he remembered the name.
“Sure,” she said. “My grandmother used to take me there when I’d visit her as a kid. It’s not far from here. Should we go?”
“Yeah, let’s try it. Maybe it’ll have some different things that’ll inspire us.”
That was one reason to try the market, but the other reason was Zia. Going there just might help give their dishes that little bit of magic they needed before being served to a great Parisian chef.
As Madeline led the way he said, “Thanks for not being mad at me. I feel pretty dumb about what I did.”
“Why should I be mad? It was an easy mistake,” she said. “You were just so focused on making a great cake and it had been a long day.”
Alfie knew she was just being nice. “Uh-huh, sure. But leaving food out is more like a stupid mistake.”
“We’ve all done it before,” she said, finally cracking a smile.<
br />
“Yeah, right.”
Once they’d gotten everything they needed, they headed back to the school. Alfie even impressed Madeline by leading the way.
The kitchen was in full swing when they walked in. Emilia helped Andre with his chutney while Claudette helped with the ratatouille and Natalie put the finishing touches on her team’s dishes, including roasted chicken and carrots, garlic mushrooms, and mini quiche starters.
“Thirty minutes left!” called Jacques, and everyone moved in a mad scramble to finish before time was called. Everything was going according to plan—the food tasted great, and all the dishes were almost finished. Alfie couldn’t believe they’d pulled it off—but they had!
Until Monsieur DuBois appeared in the kitchen’s doorway.
“Alfredo and Emilia Bertolizzi!”
All movement in the kitchen came to a complete stop.
“I need to see you both in my office immediately!”
Alfie felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. It was finally over. They were busted. What was going to happen to them? One look at his sister’s face and Alfie knew she was as scared as he was.
Alfie put down the spoon he’d been using to drizzle raspberry sauce over the top of the finished cake. He and Emilia started toward the door.
“Monsieur DuBois!” said Madame Rousseau just behind him in the doorway. “He’s here! Chef Orleans has arrived!”
Monsieur DuBois turned quickly from the students. “Already? Has he asked for me yet? Did you seat him in the parlor? Did you offer him a drink?”
“Yes, yes, yes!” Madame Rousseau said.
“Get this kitchen in order!” he said to the students. “It’s time for the dinner!” He dashed off so quickly to meet the guest of honor that he actually tripped over his own feet, making the students giggle.
“He ran out of here like his pants were on fire,” Madeline said with a laugh.
It was controlled chaos as they prepped their dishes. Every part of every dish was carefully arranged on the platters, just like they’d learned to do in class. All the students had tasted the food and knew it would impress everyone. The only thing they couldn’t taste was Alfie’s cake, since it had to be cut and served at the table.
Paris! #2 Page 5