by Coco Simon
Then my phone beeped, and I got a text from my mom.
Grandma’s here!
“I’ve got to go see my grandma,” I told Keiko and Ken. “Feel free to stop by in a few minutes. I just want to say hi to her alone first.”
I jogged off, trying not to think about how gross the two lovebirds were. Grandma Sasaki—my mom’s mom—lived an hour away from the cultural center, but in the opposite direction from us. So when we visited her, it took more than two hours. I hated that she lived so far away! But it wasn’t as far as Tokyo, so I guess I couldn’t complain.
Mom and Grandma were waiting for me by the yakitori stand. Grandma was at least four inches shorter than my mom. I would never tell her this, but I kind of thought she had shrunk. In old pictures she looked like she was taller. She had curly gray hair framing her round face. She was in her early seventies, but she also had more energy than most other people I knew. She loved to wear jogging suits in bright colors, and today she was wearing a bright blue one.
“Grandma, you surprised us!” I cried. “I didn’t know you were coming to the festival today.”
“I decided at the last minute to take the drive,” she replied. “I missed you all.” Then she looked around, smiling. “And I also ran out of food in my refrigerator.” I laughed at her joke. Grandma’s fridge was always stocked with the important food groups—like whipped cream and strawberries and everything yummy that you could imagine. She opened her arms and gave me a hug. “My little Tamiko! You grew since I last saw you!”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I think my hair is giving me some extra inches today.”
“Well, you are as tall as I am now,” she said. “And soon you will be taller. Come, show me what’s good to eat today!”
She linked her arm with mine, and we walked across the grass. She asked me questions about school, and I asked her how her cat was doing.
“She is always trying to eat my food!” Grandma Sasaki said, and she laughed. “Sometimes I shoo her away. But sometimes I make her a little plate. It makes her so happy.”
There were a lot of awesome things about Grandma Sasaki, but the most awesome thing was that she was always smiling, and always positive about things.
“Look at you two!” Grandma said as Keiko and Ken joined us. “Everyone is getting so tall. And, Keiko, I love your colorful dress. Maybe I can borrow it sometime.”
Keiko laughed. “Sure, anytime!”
I held out my phone. “Family squad selfie!” I said, and we all gathered around Grandma for a picture.
“You kids and your phones,” she said. “You can’t live without them.”
“Nope,” I agreed.
Grandma Sasaki kissed me. “Go have fun with your friends, Tamiko,” she said. “I am coming for a long visit to your house soon.”
“Yay!” I said, and I hugged her. Then I headed off with Keiko and Ken. We spent the rest of the afternoon tasting more food and walking around, and when we got tired, we hung out under our favorite tree. At around four o’clock I got a text from my mom saying to meet her at the car.
“See you both at the next festival,” I said.
Keiko and Ken looked at each other sadly. They lived too far away to see each other in between festivals. So it would be a while before they saw each other again.
“The next festival is, like, six weeks away,” Keiko said, making a sad face.
“It will go fast,” Ken said.
I rolled my eyes. “Later,” I said, and headed to the parking lot.
“Did you have fun?” Mom asked as I walked up to the car.
I nodded. “Sure.”
Kai rubbed his belly. “I ate so much! I had two of those ice cream taiyaki. They were awesome!”
“Right?” I said, climbing into the car.
“Somebody should open up a taiyaki shop in Bayville,” Kai remarked. “I bet there’s a real market for it there.”
That was when it hit me. Like a bolt of lightning!
Mrs. S. owned an ice cream shop. She could serve ice cream taiyaki! She’d be the only one doing it for miles and miles!
“Kai, you are a genius,” I said.
On the ride home I did something very strange for my standards: I didn’t listen to music. I researched the ice cream taiyaki phenomenon on my phone. But I also kept my headphones in my ears, just so that my parents wouldn’t bug me (which they did anyway).
When we got home, I started printing out some of the articles I’d found. I couldn’t wait for our Sprinkle Sunday the next day.
I just knew that Mrs. S. was going to love my idea!
CHAPTER SEVEN
OR NOT SO MUCH
The next morning I was running around with my paper-clipped printouts about taiyaki when Kai stopped me.
“What is that?” he asked.
“I’m going to tell Mrs. S. that she needs to start serving taiyaki at the shop,” I said.
Kai took the papers from me. He put his hand on his chin. “Hmmm.”
“Hmmm what?” I asked. “Yesterday you said an ice cream taiyaki shop would do great in this town.”
“I did,” he admitted. “But you can’t just jump into something like this. You need to look at spending trends to find out if it’s something the community wants. And you also need to see if you have the right equipment and materials to make this. You also need to do a business plan—profit and loss, expected sales. You can’t just hand Mrs. S. a bunch of Internet articles. Look, you’re going to need to cite credible sources in your market research, Miko.”
I pulled my articles away from Kai. He was such a know-it-all sometimes.
“We can worry about that later,” I said. “I just need to convince Mrs. S. that it’s a good idea.”
Kai shrugged. “Well, if I were making a business pitch, I’d at least put all my papers in a folder or something.”
I didn’t answer him, but I knew he was right. So I went back to my bedroom. I scrounged up a folder from my craft closet—a pink sparkly one. Then I cut out a photo of a happy-looking woman biting into an ice cream taiyaki and pasted it to the front of the folder. It was perfect!
I was so excited to talk to Mrs. S. that I had Dad drop me off at the store at twelve thirty, fifteen minutes earlier than I needed to be there. When I got in, Allie and Mrs. S. were working behind the counter. I glanced at the menu board and saw UNICORN SUNDAE listed, and I felt like cheering. That was a good sign!
“Hey, Allie! Hey, Mrs. S.!” I said cheerfully.
“Hi, Tamiko,” Allie said, handing a milkshake across the counter to a customer.
“Tamiko, it’s nice to see you here early,” Mrs. S. said. “But you don’t have to come here before your shift, you know. I can’t pay you for the extra time.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I just came to talk to you about something.” I held out the folder.
Mrs. S. wiped her hands on a towel and took it from me. “What’s this?”
“It’s all the rage in New York City,” I said. “Taiyaki is a traditional Japanese dessert. It tastes like a pancake. But you can put ice cream on top of it! It would be perfect for the shop!”
Allie walked up to her mom and looked over her shoulder as Mrs. S. flipped through the articles. I tapped my foot with excitement.
“So, the cakes are made to order?” Mrs. S. asked.
“Usually,” I replied. “Or the same day, at least. It’s best when the cakes are warm.”
“That would be impossible!” Allie said, before Mrs. S. could say anything. “You would need an extra person to make the cakes.”
“Well, it’s just the same as when you do the mix-ins,” I said. “Instead of mixing stuff into ice cream, you’d be pouring the batter into the machine. And then you just wait until they’re cooked and put ice cream on top. The batter could be made in advance, though.”
“The machine is a problem too,” Allie said. “First, we don’t have one. And I bet it gets really hot, right?”
I nodded.
Allie made a gesture with her hand. “Well, just look around! This is an ice cream shop! Everything has to stay cold.”
“But that’s not true,” I said. “There’s hot chocolate sauce that we serve. Plus, the machine doesn’t have to be next to the ice cream. Taiyaki is just something to sell that would make a lot of dough,” I argued, hoping she’d appreciate the pun, but I already knew that Allie was totally against the idea.
“Where would it go? This is a tiny shop,” Allie said.
I looked at Mrs. S.
“Allie makes some good points,” she said. “And also, it looks like the taiyaki machines are pretty expensive.”
“You can get cheap ones online, but if you want the professional ones, they can be a lot of money,” I admitted. “But I was thinking maybe we could save our tips and put them toward a machine! I’d put my tips toward that.”
Sierra was walking into the shop.
“Put our tips toward what?” she asked.
“Tamiko has another Tamiko idea,” Allie said.
Now, that made me angry with Allie all over again. First of all, it was a good idea. And what did she mean by “another Tamiko idea”? The way she’d said it was kind of mean. I would have asked her, but I was still trying to impress Mrs. S.
“I’ll think about it,” Mrs. S. said, in a tone of voice that meant she was just saying that to be nice. “Thanks for the idea. I always like to think of new things. It’s probably not viable now, but you never know about what we can do in the future.” My heart sank. She kept the folder at least.
Then she changed the subject. “Tamiko, Allie told me it got a little crazy last week. So maybe you can also make some of the simple orders, like the cups and cones, and leave Allie to the mix-ins, shakes, and sundaes. How does that sound?”
“It sounds great,” I said. “I offered to help last week, but Allie wanted to handle it on her own.”
“That’s my Allie,” Mrs. S. said with a smile. “But I think it will work better with you working as a team, especially during the rush.”
I nodded. “Got it!” I glanced at Allie, but she wouldn’t meet my eye.
“Great,” Mrs. S. said. She took off her apron. “And, Tamiko, you can be in charge of crushing the cookies and candy for the mix-ins when it’s slow. I’m going into the back to do some paperwork. Let me know if you need me!”
Sierra took her place in front of the register. I noticed that the crushed cookies were about to run out, so I went behind the counter, washed my hands, and got to work crushing up the cookies. There were several cookie-crushing methods, but Mrs. S.’s preferred method was to put the cookies into a plastic bag, seal it, and crush them with a rolling pin.
I got to work on a bag of chocolate cookies, watching them go from cookies to crushed crumbs. Crushed, just like my dreams, I thought.
Then the bell on the door tinkled, and a man walked up to the counter. I put down the rolling pin.
“How can I help you?” I asked.
“Hmm. I’m not sure,” he replied. “I’m not sure what flavor to try. What do you recommend?”
“Vanilla,” I replied. I didn’t bother to try to convince him to order something more exciting. What was the point?
He raised his eyebrows but didn’t argue. “Okay. One small vanilla sugar cone, please.”
“Coming right up,” I said with absolutely no joy in my voice. I made him the cone, handed it to him, and then went back to crushing cookies. The man paid Sierra, and the bell jingled as he left.
“You’re not yourself today, Tamiko,” Sierra said. “What about the Sprinkle Sundays sisters? Are we going to do a Sunday selfie later?”
“We could,” I said, and I looked at Allie. “Unless you think it’s a Tamiko idea.”
Allie sighed. “Oh, Tamiko, I didn’t mean it like that!” she said. She turned to Sierra. “Tamiko has an idea that we should make these Japanese cakes in the shop, and they look cool and everything, but I just don’t see how it could work.” She looked back at me. “But I didn’t mean it in a bad way. You have good ideas, Tamiko. The unicorn sundae is a huge hit. Mom has been selling them all week.”
“That wasn’t even my idea,” I pointed out. “It was MacKenzie’s.”
“Yes, but you’re the one whose idea it was to sell them in the shop,” Allie said. Then her face lit up, like she’d gotten an idea. “I know. Why don’t we make a sundae and take a picture of it and put it on SuperSnap?”
“Are we allowed to do that?” I asked. “Isn’t that wasting ice cream?”
“It’s not wasting if we’re using it for marketing,” she said, brushing off my dig. “Besides, we can share it when we’re done with the marketing, so it won’t go to waste.”
Marketing! I started feeling a little better. Allie was saying exactly the right things, and I knew she must have felt bad about—well, everything.
“Okay. Let’s make an extra pretty one,” I said. “Which means extra sprinkles.”
The after-lunch crowd hadn’t started yet, so we had time to make the perfect unicorn sundae. Two perfectly round, equal scoops of pink and blue ice cream. A luscious mountain of fluffy whipped cream. An artful scatter of mini-marshmallows and sprinkles—lots of sprinkles.
“Now, that looks too pretty to eat!” Sierra said.
“That is definitely going into our bellies,” I promised. “But first, a photo.”
I moved the sundae to one of the tables and got a few shots with my phone. Allie and Sierra did the same.
“It’s too bad your mom doesn’t have a SuperSnap account for the shop yet,” I said.
“I’m working on her,” Allie promised. “In the meantime we’ll just have to count on hashtags.”
“Hashtag unicorn?” Sierra suggested.
“That’s good,” I said. “But we also need something to let people know about the shop. So local people will find it.”
“Hashtag Bayville Beach?” Allie asked.
“Brilliant!” I cried.
All three of us posted the photo with #Unicorn #IceCream #BayvilleBeach #UnicornSundae. I wanted the three of us to take a unicorn selfie, but then customers started pouring through the door.
“Sprinkle Sundays sisters, activate!” I said, and we hurried to our positions behind the counter.
“I’ll put the sundae in the freezer, for later!” Allie promised.
Yes, I was still stinging from my crushing defeat. But I was glad to be having fun with my friends again—until Grumpy Guy came up to the counter.
I will never know his real name. I will forever refer to him as Grumpy Guy. And trust me, Grumpy Guy was not as adorable as those viral grumpy animals on social media. Not in any way, shape, or form.
Grumpy Guy walked up to the counter and stared at the menu.
“What’s the difference between a small, a medium, and a large sundae?” he asked.
I picked up the three different cups and showed him.
“Which one is the small?” he asked.
“Uh, the smallest one,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll have a small butterscotch sundae with vanilla ice cream, walnuts, and a cherry on top.”
“Would you like whipped cream on that?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“And what about sprinkles?” I asked.
He made a face. “No sprinkles. I hate sprinkles.”
That was when I knew for sure that he had no soul. Who hated sprinkles?
I wrote down the order on my little green pad and passed it to Allie. Then I took the next order from a woman with two little kids. As I handed that order to Allie, she gave me the finished sundae. I checked it against the order I had written down. Vanilla ice cream, butterscotch sauce, walnuts, cherry, whipped cream. Perfect!
I handed it to Grumpy Guy. “Here you go, sir,” I said.
“This has whipped cream,” he said, passing it back to me. “I said no whipped cream.”
“Um, you said yes to whipped cream,” I said.
“You did. I wrote it down,” I said. I showed him the order on the pad.
“Well, you wrote it down wrong,” he said.
I looked at Allie.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll make another one.”
It was a shame, because there was no way to take whipped cream off a sundae. It just didn’t work like that. But I started to stress out. Would Allie be mad at me like when I’d dropped the sundae? I walked over to her.
“You heard him say he wanted whipped cream, right?” I whispered.
She nodded. “It’s okay,” she said. “My mom says she gets customers like this all the time. It’s part of doing business.” She squeezed my hand, which made me feel a little better.
Allie made another sundae, and I handed it to Grumpy Guy. He was impatiently tapping his fingers on the counter.
“How’s this?” I asked.
“Is this a small?” he said. “It looks like a medium. Don’t charge me for a medium.”
“It is definitely a small,” I said. “It just looks big because we are very generous with our ingredients here. Nothing but the best for our customers!”
I gave him the biggest, fakest smile I could manage.
Grumpy Guy humphed and then paid for his sundae. He didn’t put a dime in the tip jar. And then he sat at a table forever using the shop’s free Wi-Fi.
I understood that bad customers were the price of doing business. But the problem was, I was starting to think that maybe I didn’t want to be in business anymore!
CHAPTER EIGHT
TUESDAY TROUBLES
My ponytail swung back and forth as I ran down the wooded path, being chased by twelve other girls.
They will never catch me! I told myself as I pressed on, running faster and faster.
No, I was not starring in a horror movie. It was Tuesday afternoon, and I was running a race as a member of the MLK cross-country team.
Do not get the wrong idea. I never used to love running. I didn’t even like it very much. My favorite sport was softball—duh. But softball season didn’t start until April, and if I were to sit around all fall, waiting for the season to start, I’d never be able to steal bases or run to catch pop-up balls.