Ms. Bancroft frowned. “Fill me in.”
Piper quickly told Ms. Bancroft about the surprise challenge practice fiasco over the weekend—the one-handed cooking, the baby food, and the Bunsen burner. Though Piper was still depressed about how the challenge had turned out, the other club members didn’t seem as bothered by it. Her friends kept cutting in, adding details and humor to the story. Hearing their take on the whole thing helped cheer her up a bit.
“I love that Finley pulled the frog into the kitchen on a skateboard!” Ruby said, giggling. “She acted like it was a dog on a leash.”
“Ms. Bancroft, there were mounds of baby food pea goop everywhere!” Zahra laughed. “Piper’s kitchen looked like a Jackson Pollock painting.” The other girls looked confused, so Zahra explained, “He’s an artist who threw paint at his canvases.”
“It wasn’t just the kitchen that looked like a splotchy canvas; my socks were covered in sweet potato!” Mari added.
“We should have had Chip come in to lick it up,” Milla said. “It took forever to clean the kitchen after I knocked everything over.”
Piper nodded. “The whole thing felt a little too much like The Princess and the Frog, Ms. B. Everything was going along just fine, then—poof!—a frog appears and makes a mess of everything.”
Ms. Bancroft laughed along with the rest of the group. “It sounds like you got some good practice overcoming obstacles. A real-life application of this week’s journal assignment,” she pointed out. “Do you feel more prepared for the competition?”
Piper’s smile faded. “Not really,” she admitted. After a long pause, she said, “Honestly, what really bothers me is that I kind of panicked under all that pressure. I lost my cool, and that’s when everything fell apart. I’m nervous I’m going to choke when the Kitchen Wizard starts throwing surprise challenges at me. I’m pretty sure I’m a good cook and a great food scientist. And I know I want to win. But what if that’s not enough?”
“No,” Ruby said forcefully. “You’ve got this.”
“Something all of you should always remember is that confidence is an important part of achieving your dreams,” Ms. Bancroft said. “You’re driven, you’re obviously very talented, and you know what you want. It makes sense that you’re nervous. But, Piper, you and I—and the rest of the Daring Dreamers—know you deserve this opportunity. I’m sure you also know you’ll do a wonderful job.”
Piper shrugged, trying to muster up a smile. “Usually, I feel like I can do just about anything I put my mind to if I work hard enough. But lately—” She cut herself off, shaking her head. She didn’t need to broadcast her failures. That wasn’t going to solve anything. “Never mind.”
Ms. Bancroft said softly, “What else is bothering you?”
“We’re here to help,” Milla offered.
Piper tugged at a loose piece of thread on her hat. She looked around at the circle of friends, who were all waiting for her to say something. “I just…” She took a deep breath. Where to start? she thought. She opened her mouth, and everything spilled out. “I’m failing math, even though I’m working really hard to get caught up,” she began. “I’m afraid I’m going to screw up in front of the whole world on television,” she added quickly. “My dad is looking for a full-time job, and one of the companies he’s interviewing at is in Chicago. I don’t want to move.”
“Wait,” Milla said, stopping her. “What?”
Piper shrugged, then briefly told the group about the conversation she’d overheard between her parents the night before.
“So you might move?” Mariana said. She glanced at Milla, who looked like she was close to tears after hearing this news. Zahra, who was sitting next to Milla, draped an arm across her shoulders and squeezed.
Piper threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but now I feel like I have to win The Future of Food! Ten thousand dollars is enough money that maybe my dad wouldn’t have to find a full-time job right away. And he for sure wouldn’t have to hurry up and take one in Chicago. Right?” As soon as she said all this aloud, Piper felt her stomach unknot, just the slightest bit. It did feel good to talk about her worries, even if no one could help her fix anything.
Ms. Bancroft nodded. “I can see why you might feel the money would be a big help,” she said. “It is a large prize. But you’re putting too much pressure on yourself. I can’t speak for your parents, but I feel fairly certain they wouldn’t want you worrying about your family’s finances. You have a lot of other things going on.” She paused. “What’s this about math? That’s one place where I can assist you.”
Piper hung her head. “It’s nothing,” she muttered. “I’ll figure it out if I just keep working on it. Spelling, too. I obviously just need to study harder, and I’ll be fine.”
“No, that’s not true,” Milla said forcefully. Everyone turned to look at her. Milla was usually fairly soft-spoken, but she suddenly sounded a lot like Ruby. “You are being one hundred percent Piper right now. You can’t do everything on your own! If you’re having trouble with math, you have to ask for help. You know that. Staring at your math problems without understanding anything is not going to help you solve them.” She shook her head. “Even Tiana figured out that she had to ask for help—from a trumpet-playing alligator and a firefly, no less. You could have asked me. I’m great at math, remember?” She crossed her arms and waited for Piper to respond.
Piper blinked and let out a big sigh. Then she unzipped her backpack, pulled out the failed math quiz, and handed it to Milla. With a tiny shrug, she whispered, “Help?”
Milla
One of the things I’ve always loved about Belle is her kindness and compassion toward others. She looked past the Beast’s scary outside to find his warm heart.
I often worry about how people will react to my scar when they meet me. So, like Belle, I try to go out of my way to be kind and treat everyone with respect, with the hope that others will see past the marks on my face and get to know me as a person. Sometimes you can’t see what’s going on with people on the inside (how someone looks usually has nothing to do with what’s going on under the surface of their skin). You never know what kinds of things people are dealing with in their personal lives.
Like Piper these past few weeks! I really wish she had told me she was having so much trouble in school. I can’t believe she’s fallen so far behind. She always makes it seem like everything is totally fine, but it’s not. And I’m sad she didn’t feel like she could talk to me about it. I thought we were best friends and could talk about anything, but I guess she felt like she had to hide her problems from me. Same goes for her dad’s job interview in Chicago. I wish she had told me about all the things she’s been worrying about so I could have been there for her.
You asked us to talk about one of our greatest fears in our journals this week, and here’s one of mine: that Piper will move! She’s been my best friend since we started elementary school, and she’s one of the only people who really, truly knows me. Other than my moms, she’s the only person who I’ve ever felt comfortable opening up to. Piper has always been able to bring out the brave and fearless version of me that I usually only write about in my stories (like at the fifth-grade overnight)! Having her there with me made that big adventure a lot less scary. I don’t know what I’d do without her in my life every day.
For a little while, I guess I was feeling kind of mad at her for not telling me about her dad’s job stuff and her school troubles. But now I’m just sad and afraid. I don’t know what I can do other than be here to support her and help her when she needs me. I guess I’ll remind her that she can always tell me the truth, and I’ll never judge her, no matter what. I’m pretty sure Belle would tell me that’s what friends are for.
“How did your interview go today?” Piper asked her dad on Wednesday afternoon, trying to sound casual. Deep down, she couldn’t help hoping it had gone terribly.
She had peeked at the calendar on his desk that morning and noticed that he’d had a video call scheduled with the company in Chicago.
“It went really well,” her dad said, settling onto a stool at the kitchen counter. “I’m excited about possibly doing more work with them.”
“Oh,” Piper said. She waited to see if he would say more. Was he ever going to tell her, Finley, and Dan that he was interviewing for a job in Chicago? She glared at her dad, but he didn’t notice. He was too busy looking down at his phone, probably shopping for new houses in a new city or Googling “ways to ruin your kids’ lives.” Or something like that.
Once again, Piper reassured herself that it was totally fair that she was hiding her horrible math quiz from her parents. After all, they were keeping a massive secret from her! Somehow she had managed to squeak by with only four wrong on that week’s spelling test, so at least she didn’t have to hide a second test from them.
“Whaddya working on?” her dad asked, finally glancing up from his phone.
“I’m making cookies,” Piper said grumpily. “I’ve been trying to figure out how different fats affect the shape, texture, and crunch level in baked goods.”
“I’d be happy to evaluate the results,” her dad said, rubbing his belly. “That is a job I can truly say I’m qualified for.” He waggled his eyebrows and gave her a goofy grin.
Piper refused to smile back. She just stirred and stewed. “We’ll see how far I get. I need to start dinner soon.”
“You want any help?” her dad offered. “I finished up my work for the day.”
“Nope,” Piper said stiffly. “I’m on it.” For the past week, Piper had cooked dinner for her family every single night—partly because the kitchen was always a disaster from her experiments-in-progress, but also partly because her dad had been working a lot more than usual. Between preparing for his interviews and another big project deadline, he had been working late into the evening most nights.
Piper didn’t mind spending extra time in the kitchen. It was great practice. But the past week had given her a pretty good idea of how things would be if both her parents were working full-time—busy and chaotic. Between her brother’s sports practices, her sister’s dance classes, their volunteer shifts at Helping Hands, and both of her parents being at work from eight in the morning until six at night, their life was going to be really nutty. Piper felt ready to step up and take on more responsibility around the house, but it was still hard to think about things changing.
“Do you have homework?” her dad asked. “I don’t want you spending more time in the kitchen if it’s keeping you from your schoolwork.”
“A little,” Piper muttered.
“When Dan was in fifth grade, he had at least a half an hour of math homework each night. Seems like they’re going easier on you this year,” he noted.
“I’m not Dan,” Piper snapped.
“Whoa,” her dad said, his eyes widening. “That’s not what I meant.”
“If you expect me to be just like him,” Piper grumbled, “you’re going to be disappointed.” Piper’s dad rapped on the counter with his knuckles.
“Piper…” He waited for her to look at him. “I do not expect you to be just like Dan. You know that, right?”
“I’m never going to be as smart as him. No matter how hard I work and how much time I spend on my homework, Dan will always be the smart and sporty one.” She crossed her arms defiantly. “Finley will always be the funny, adorable one. I’ll always be the messy middle one.”
Her dad laughed, but Piper didn’t find what she’d said all that funny. She was being serious! Piper glared down at her bowl as she mixed the cookie dough. She glanced up at her dad briefly, her mouth set in a scowl. Her dad finally realized she wasn’t laughing along and said gently, “You’re different kids. You came packaged with different skills.”
“And obviously my skills aren’t math related,” Piper snapped. She and Milla had spent some time working on math problems during recess that day. But no matter how many times or different ways Milla explained things to her, Piper just couldn’t seem to get it. Milla kept reminding her to take it slow—telling her that it wasn’t a race—but Piper hated taking things slow. She was a slow reader, a slow writer, and now she was supposed to go slow in math, too? It wasn’t fair; slow was boring! “I’m never going to get straight As, no matter how hard I work.”
Her dad shook his head. “We don’t expect you to get straight As. Your mom and I just want you to put in your best effort. You know that, don’t you, Piper?”
“I guess,” Piper grumbled.
As if on cue, smarty-pants Dan sauntered into the kitchen, slapping his sweaty soccer shin guards on the counter. Then he peeled off his stinky jersey and tossed that on the counter as well. He grabbed an apple out of the fridge and took a big spoonful of cookie dough out of one of Piper’s bowls.
“Ahem,” Piper said, flicking Dan’s shin guards onto the floor. “Keep your stench out of my lab.”
Dan grinned at her, lifted his arm, and waved his armpit in front of her face.
“You’re totally disgusting,” Piper said, swatting at him. At least Dan wasn’t perfect in every way, she told herself.
* * *
—
Later that night, after the dinner dishes had been washed and Piper had shared the results of her cookie experiment with her family (everyone agreed that the batch made with coconut oil was the tastiest and most interesting), she settled in at the dining room table to work on her math. Again.
Finley slid into the seat beside her and began drawing a picture of a scientist in a lab. Piper was happy to see that the scientist looked an awful lot like her! Piper’s parents were both reading in the living room, but Dan was lurking around the dining room table, watching her.
“What?” Piper asked after it was clear Dan wasn’t going anywhere.
“Can I help?” Dan asked quietly. “I’m pretty good at math.”
“I know you are,” Piper said. “We all know you are.”
Dan sighed and rolled his eyes. “Let me help you,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder. Piper could tell he was speaking softly so their parents wouldn’t hear him. Speaking even more quietly, he said, “If Mom and Dad find out about the failed quiz you’re hiding from them, there’s no way they’re going to let you go on The Future of Food.”
Piper gaped at him. “How—” she began. “How do you know about that?”
“I saw it the other night.” He tapped his temple. “I see things. And I’m your brother, and I don’t want you to screw this up for yourself.”
“Ribbit,” Finley bellowed.
Piper considered his offer. Dan was a math genius. He was annoyingly brilliant at every subject. It seemed she was…well, not.
Dan plopped into the seat across from her. He looked her straight in the eye and said, “I’ll make you a deal. I help you come up with strategies for your word problem unit, and in exchange, you bake me and the soccer team cookies every day for a week. And when you win The Future of Food, you buy me a new soccer bag with part of the money you win. Deal?”
Piper laughed. “When I win?” she asked. “I think you mean if I win.”
“Nope,” Dan said. “I mean when.”
Piper appreciated the offer—and her brother’s compliment. She didn’t want to take help, but it seemed like she didn’t have much of a choice. Sometimes, getting a little help was the only way to succeed. “Deal.”
“Here’s the thing you have to remember,” Dan said softly. “You’ve never been bad at math. You’re obviously good with numbers and calculations if you can follow and make up your own recipes. There’s precision in science and cooking, right?” He propped his elbows on the table and fixed Piper with a serious look. Then he went on, “Math is a lot like science—it’s going to take you some time and practice to figure out the for
mula that works for you. We’ll look at your homework a few different ways. We can break it down, step by step, and see where you’re running into problems. Like an experiment.”
When he put it that way, Piper suddenly felt hopeful. “An experiment? You can do experiments with math?”
“There’s no one way to look at equations,” Dan assured her. “We’ll find the way that works for you. I promise.”
The week leading up to Piper’s appearance on The Future of Food flew by. She and Dan worked on her math together every night. Dan hung out with Piper in the kitchen while she tested different recipes and techniques, and together they had come up with a game where Piper was required to solve a math problem correctly in order to win her next ingredient or tool. (Finley helped out by swiping tools and ingredients. Then she presented them game-show-style when Piper got a correct answer.) It felt a little like the Kitchen Wizard’s surprise challenges, so Piper actually stopped dreading their tutoring sessions. She didn’t enjoy taking orders and advice from her brother, but their time together wasn’t as awful as she had expected.
Though her parents still hadn’t said anything about her dad’s interviews with the Chicago company, Piper knew he was still talking to them about the job. She had seen another call with the same company written down in his calendar. Her dad’s desk was out in the open for anyone to see, so Piper had figured snooping a little wasn’t technically wrong.
One night, after Finley had gone to bed, Piper decided to tell her brother about the Chicago interviews. She figured talking the situation out with Dan might help. The two of them discussed it, and Dan agreed that Piper winning a $10,000 prize would probably be a big help. He was sure it would be enough money so their dad could wait to find a job closer to home. Now Piper felt even more pressure to win.
Because she knew the prize money would mean a lot to her family, Piper had turned into a nervous wreck. “I hate to say it, but prepping for The Future of Food is starting to feel like doing math homework,” she confessed to Dan on Thursday night, two days before the big event. “It seems like no matter how hard I practice, I’ll never be completely ready. What if I screw up?”
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