Claudia and the Recipe for Danger Read online

  She hung up. “I think we’re out of luck,” she said. She had this hopeless look on her face.

  “Why? You left a message. She’ll call back, won’t she?”

  “I just remembered that the last time we talked she told me she was going away for a couple of weeks, to visit an old friend,” Mary Anne said. “She may not even hear that message until after the contest is over.”

  “Oh, well,” I said, giving her a hug. I hate to see Mary Anne unhappy. “At least you tried.”

  By then, it was almost time for our BSC meeting, so we headed to my house, talking over other recipe possibilities as we walked. We’d narrowed it down to a fudge ripple cake or a raspberry double-walnut coffee cake by the time we arrived in my room. The other BSC members were already there.

  And, as it turned out, they were talking about the Battle of the Bakers. It seemed to be the only thing on everybody’s mind. For one thing, we were working hard on our day-care kids’ “restaurant,” to be held on the last day of the contest. But even more important, everybody was thinking over the sabotage and wondering about possible suspects. (I’m not the only one in the BSC who loves mysteries. We all adore them. And we’ve solved more than a couple!)

  I mentioned Grace again, but then I asked if anyone else had come up with a suspect.

  “I’ve been thinking it over,” Kristy said. “Mr. Kleinman sure has been making me suspicious. He’s always hanging around, checking up on what his daughter’s doing.”

  “So?” I asked. “So are Julie Liu’s parents.”

  “That’s true,” said Kristy. “But I think it’s just that they’d really like her to win. They don’t seem to skulk around the way Mr. Kleinman does. Anyway, I was so suspicious of him that I made a few calls, and guess what I found out?”

  We leaned forward.

  “He used to work for Mrs. Goode’s Cookware!” said Kristy triumphantly.

  “Uh-huh,” said Stacey. “That’s interesting, but not that interesting.”

  “It is when you know that he left because he was fired,” said Kristy. “I bet anything he’s what they call a ‘disgruntled ex-employee.’ He might do anything to see his daughter win and ‘show up’ the company.”

  We nodded thoughtfully, and then my clock switched over to five-thirty and Kristy called the meeting to order. “Let’s just keep an eye on Mr. Kleinman, okay? And on Grace, too, of course. Now, on to club business,” she said. “Should we plan our grocery shopping for the weekend? We want to make sure we have plenty of food on hand for our ‘restaurant.’ ”

  After that, the meeting sped by. There was so much to think about and do for the day-care center that for a little while I almost forgot about the sabotage. Almost — but not quite. I wouldn’t really be able to put it out of my mind until I knew I’d done everything I could to solve the mystery.

  “Are you finding everything you need, miss?”

  I turned around and saw a smiling, bald-headed clerk wearing a green apron.

  “Just about,” I answered. I checked the list in my hand. “Let’s see. I have the forty-watt lightbulb, the strapping tape, and the rubber plug for the bathroom sink. I guess all I’m missing is the ant poison.”

  “Right this way,” said the man, leading me down an aisle.

  I was at the hardware store in Stoneybrook. It was Friday, the day before the final weekend of the Battle of the Bakers. Since I didn’t have a sitting job that morning, my mom had asked me to run a few errands in town. I love shopping anytime, anywhere — even at hardware stores, so I didn’t mind.

  “Here we go, miss,” said the clerk, showing me the shelf where three different types of ant poison were displayed.

  “Which one is the strongest?” I asked. We had a big ant problem in the garage, and my mom was worried that they were going to start finding their way into the kitchen if we didn’t take care of them now.

  “People have had good luck with this one,” said the clerk, pointing to a brand packaged in a bright red box.

  “It looks deadly,” I said.

  “Oh, it is,” replied the clerk, with a chuckle. “All set, now? I’ll ring you up.” He headed toward the cash register, and I followed him.

  Suddenly, I had the strange feeling that somebody was following me. I looked behind me, but I didn’t see anybody, so I kept on walking.

  “I heard that,” somebody hissed in my ear.

  I jumped in surprise, turned, and found Grace standing next to me.

  “Hi, Grace,” I said.

  “Don’t ‘hi Grace’ me,” she said.

  “Huh?” I didn’t know what she was talking about.

  “I heard that whole conversation,” she said knowingly.

  “Conversation?”

  “About the ant poison. So tell me, whose cake are you going to put it in?”

  “Are you crazy?” I asked. “I’m not putting ant poison in anybody’s cake! It’s for our garage.”

  “Sure, sure,” said Grace. “All the same, I think I’ll warn the judges. This goes beyond sabotage. Somebody would really be sick if they ate ant poison, you know.”

  I shook my head. This was too much. By this time, the clerk who had helped me was already at the cash register, ringing up my stuff. I ran to him, paid him, and thanked him for helping me. When I turned to leave, Grace was still standing there. “I can’t believe you think I would poison somebody’s cake,” I told her.

  “Well, I wouldn’t have believed you would stoop as low as you did last Saturday,” she answered, “but you did, just to win some stupid cooking contest. You were the one who switched my cornstarch with baking soda, and you almost burned down the whole high school!”

  “I didn’t!” I cried. We had walked out of the store while we were arguing, and now we were standing on the sidewalk. “You’re just accusing me because you’re the one who messed up my cake on Saturday.”

  “What?” she asked. “I never went near your station.”

  Grace was staring me right in the eye as she said that, and when I saw the look on her face I knew she was telling the truth. “You didn’t, did you?” I said.

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I didn’t go near yours, either. And this,” I held up the hardware-store bag, “really is for the ants in the garage.”

  “But if it wasn’t you …” she began.

  “And it wasn’t you …” I said.

  “Who was it?” we asked together.

  Then, without saying a word, we walked to a bench together and sat down. Grace gave a half smile. “Sorry,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, too,” I said. Then we both started to talk at once.

  “Let’s work on this together!” Grace said.

  “Whoever’s doing it doesn’t want either of us to win,” I pointed out.

  “We need to make a list of clues,” said Grace.

  “And a list of suspects.”

  “Just like Nancy Drew,” said Grace. “I love those books.”

  “You do?” I asked. “So do I.” I grinned. I was finding out something interesting. Grace Blume could be a pretty decent person, once you took her away from Cokie. And it looked as if she might be a pretty decent detective, too.

  We sat on that bench and talked for a while. I filled her in on everything the BSC had discussed, including our suspicions about Mr. Kleinman. Soon, though, I realized that it might be a good idea to talk in a more private setting. “Hey, want to come over to my house?” I asked. “Or do you have other stuff to do?”

  “No, I was just picking up some batteries for my Walkman,” said Grace. “I can come.”

  * * *

  I know Mary Anne and Dawn were surprised when I called and asked them to come over and help Grace and me with our detective work.

  “Grace?” Mary Anne asked.

  “Grace Blume?” Dawn said. She was on the extension.

  “Right,” I said impatiently. “I’ll explain later. Just come on over. And if anyone else is free, can you call them?”

 
Soon we were gathered in my room: Grace and I, Mary Anne and Dawn, Kristy, and Jessi. (Mal was sitting for her sisters, and Stacey was sitting for Charlotte Johanssen.) I passed around some snacks I had rustled up from under my bed (Fritos), in my sock drawer (M&M’s), and behind the dictionary on my desk (Twizzlers). I had also found an unused notebook, and I was taking notes as we munched away and talked over what was happening at the baking contest, why it was happening, and who might be responsible.

  First, we tried to remember all the details of the crimes. Mary Anne and I figured out that whoever had sabotaged our cake on Saturday must have watched us closely and gone to our station when everybody on our team was away from it. There was only one time that had happened: Mary Anne was washing out a bowl in the locker room, Shea was fetching some water, and I was (I admit it) kind of flirting with the Cute Boy team at the next station. (I didn’t mean to flirt. It just happened that I needed a clean dishtowel, and they had one. Mickey Stone, the blond boy, has the sweetest smile.)

  Anyway, that’s when whoever it was must have switched flour for our baking soda. And the only evidence left was that smudged fingerprint.

  “It was a big fingerprint,” I told the others, as I munched on Fritos and made notes in my notebook.

  “That means it was probably an adult, not one of the other kids,” mused Grace. “And it was probably a man, since women have smaller hands.” I gave her an admiring look. She really was a good detective.

  “A man?” asked Kristy. “Like — like maybe Mr. Kleinman?” He was still her prime suspect. “I just think he has something important at stake in this contest,” she went on.

  “A lot of people do,” Grace said. “Like, what about that Mrs. Downey? I think she might just keel over and die if her ‘Precious’ doesn’t win!”

  We cracked up. But Grace was right. Mr. Kleinman wasn’t the only adult who cared about the outcome of the contest.

  We talked some more, about how somebody might have gotten to Logan’s team’s oven in order to change the setting; about who might have switched ingredients on Mari and Grace and caused the fire; even about what Jackie Rodowsky might have been up to both days.

  By the time Grace said she had to leave (which was when our BSC meeting was due to start), we hadn’t figured out anything for sure. But I felt as if I’d made a new friend.

  Later that night, Mary Anne called me to say that she still hadn’t heard from her grandmother. “What are we going to do, Claud?” she wailed.

  I tried to calm her down. “Maybe she’ll still call,” I said. “We don’t need the recipe until tomorrow afternoon. We have some time left.”

  I could tell that Mary Anne felt better by the time we hung up. But I didn’t. I called Shea to fill him in on what was happening, and then I stayed up late that night, working on another of my made-up recipes, just so we’d have something to bake in case Mary Anne’s grandmother didn’t call us in time. This time it was a plain, easy recipe that would be hard to botch: a yellow cake with chocolate frosting between the layers and white chocolate on the outside. But only the inside would be plain. The look of it would still be artistic. I planned to put a fancy design on top, made with dark chocolate. I worked on that design until I felt my eyelids drooping.

  When I finally climbed into bed, the design was finished. But I was still worried. I hoped Mary Anne’s grandmother would come through with that recipe, since it sounded like a winner. But even if she did, would we be able to bake it without somebody sabotaging our efforts? And what about Grace? Was she really as nice as she seemed? Or had we made a huge mistake in trusting her? For a while that afternoon I’d been able to forget that she was Cokie’s friend. But she was. And Cokie could never be trusted.

  I had a hard time shutting off my mind that night, but finally I fell asleep. Before I knew it, the sun was shining in my window. It was Saturday morning, and in a few hours my team would have its last chance to make the finals in the Battle of the Bakers.

  I was at the day-care center that morning, but I have to say that I can’t recall much of anything that went on. Kristy, Jessi, Dawn, and Mary Anne were there (Stacey, Shannon, and Mal had other sitting jobs), and I let them run the show. I was in charge of caring for the babies, and they both napped for a lot of the morning. While I watched over them, I brooded and worried and fretted about that afternoon’s round in the Battle of the Bakers.

  Would Mary Anne, Shea, and I have to make my recipe, or would Mary Anne’s grandmother come through at the last minute? If her grandmother did come through, would the recipe be any good? (It was hard to imagine how any cake could be as good as this one was supposed to be. I wondered if Mr. Spier’s memory was playing tricks on him.) What about ingredients? How were we supposed to know what to bring to the afternoon session? And — and what about sabotage? Even if we had the best recipe in the world, it could be ruined if we turned our backs for a second.

  There were a bunch of other things I was worried about, from whether I’d remembered to bring an extra set of pot holders (we’d needed them badly the weekend before) to what I could say to Mickey, on the Cute Boy team, that might let him know I liked him and wouldn’t mind a date. Anyway, I was so preoccupied with my own thoughts that I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to what was going on around me that morning. Later, when I read Jessi’s notes in the BSC notebook and talked to her and the others, I found out that it had been a pretty wild morning.

  First of all, we had a full house that morning. Every single child we thought might show up, did show up. They started to trickle in at about eight, soon after my friends and I had set things up, and they didn’t stop coming all morning. Emily was there, with her brother Tyler. Nichole and her brother Tyler were there, as well as Tyler’s twin Taylor. I spotted Morgan running around, and of course I was watching over her baby sister Dana. Kyle and Megan were on hand, and so were Carolyn and Marilyn, Charlotte, Kerry, and Hannie and Linny. Jamie was there (so was Lucy — she was with me), and so were Jackie, Archie, and Shea. The Rodowskys had even brought some cousins with them: Joseph, who was five, and Julie, who was three. They were visiting from Michigan.

  As I said, my babies napped for most of the morning, which was amazing, considering all the noise in that room. I don’t know how babies do it. I guess they can sleep through an earthquake. I saw Dana twitch once when Jackie let out a bunch of Tarzan yells, and I noticed that Lucy’s eyelids fluttered when Taylor and Tyler had a shoving match and knocked over a stack of folding chairs. But neither of them woke up, even later on when the kids started a marching band, organized by Kristy and Jessi.

  They started it toward the end of the morning, mainly because the kids seemed to have a ton of energy that had to be released. By then the restaurant was nearly ready for the next day, and the kids were “bouncing off the walls with excitement,” as Jessi said.

  Kristy and Jessi had another reason for organizing the marching band. They needed a distraction after what happened to the terrarium. They didn’t want the kids to focus on that. But I’m getting ahead of myself. I’ll go back and tell it the way Jessi told me.

  As usual, Kristy had come up with a plan for the day. She knew there would be a lot of kids on hand, and she also knew there was a lot to do if Kidz Kitchen was going to become a reality. So, as the kids drifted in that morning, Kristy separated them into three groups: chefs, waiter and waitresses, and management.

  The chefs — Emily, Morgan, Marilyn, Charlotte, Jamie, Kyle, and Jackie — were checking out ingredients and practicing how to put them together. Kristy and Dawn had spent a lot of time during the week figuring out good recipes that didn’t require cooking, refrigeration, or sharp knives. (That hadn’t been easy, even with the help of some kids’ cookbooks from the library. The Kidz Kitchen menu was going to be heavy on peanut butter.)

  The waiter and waitresses — Megan, Linny, Hannie, and Carolyn — were practicing taking orders. Mary Anne had visited an office supply store and found some restaurant order pads, and the kids were thr
illed with them. They were running around asking everyone in sight, “What can I bring you, sir?” and “Anything else, ma’am?” and scribbling on their pads.

  And the managers were making menus, figuring out prices, and setting up tables so that the restaurant would be ready to open the next day. Kristy helped Kerry and Big Tyler (as we were now calling him) shift chairs, while Jessi worked with Archie, Joseph, Julie, Taylor, and Little Tyler, who were drawing decorations on the menus she’d written up.

  Suddenly, just as Jessi was in the middle of helping Archie find a purple marker, she heard a loud crash. “What was that?” she asked, jumping to her feet. She scanned the room, but so many kids were running around that she couldn’t figure out what had happened.

  “Probably just those chefs,” said Kristy with a grin. She nodded toward the counter space where the kids were working. “I bet they’re throwing fruit around, or maybe Jackie dropped a tray or something.”

  “You must be right,” said Jessi. “We’ll let Dawn and Mary Anne deal with it.” She went back to hunting through the box of art supplies (I’d brought a ton of stuff), found the marker, and gave it to Archie so he could start decorating a menu.

  She was checking on the other kids in her group when she felt someone tugging on her sleeve. She turned to see Kyle looking up at her. “Hi,” she said.

  He didn’t respond to her smile. Instead, he pulled her aside. “Did you hear that crash before?” he asked in a low voice.

  Jessi nodded. “We couldn’t figure out what it was,” she said.

  Kyle hesitated. “It — it was the terrarium,” he murmured, looking down at his shoes. “Megan broke it. Then she put the whole mess into the cupboard.”

  Jessi put her hand over her mouth. “The terrarium!” she said with a groan. “Oh, no.”

  The terrarium was a beautiful one that belonged in the faculty lounge. It was in a large fish tank, and it was full of healthy, green plants. When we had set up the day-care center, we moved the terrarium from its place of honor on the windowsill behind the couch and put it on top of a waist-high cupboard around the corner from the main part of the lounge, where there was a row of hooks for teachers’ coats. We knew the kids would be attracted to it, and we were worried that it would be damaged if they played with it. Having it out of the way wasn’t enough for Kristy, though. She’d made a “don’t touch” rule and made sure all the kids understood that it was off limits. So far, they’d been pretty good about obeying.