Claudia and the Recipe for Danger Read online

  Jessi grabbed Kristy and told her what had happened. Then they asked Logan to keep an eye on their group, and checked out the damage.

  “Wow!” said Kristy, when they opened the cupboard door.

  “What a mess!” added Jessi. “And what a shame.”

  One shelf of the cupboard was covered with black, crumbly soil and already-wilting plants. The terrarium’s frame had come apart, and its plastic sides had collapsed. After a quick look, Kristy shut the door again. “Let’s leave this for a minute,” she said. “I want to find Megan and ask her what happened.”

  Jessi and Kristy headed back into the main room, but Megan was nowhere in sight. “Do you know where your sister is?” Jessi asked Kyle, who was making a peanut butter and apple sandwich.

  He shook his head. “Some kids went outside,” he said. “Maybe she went with them. I just hope she doesn’t run away.”

  Jessi and Kristy rushed outside and found Dawn supervising the waiter and waitresses, who had decided to practice in the courtyard. Jessi sighed with relief when she saw that Megan was in the group. She and Kristy took Megan back inside.

  “We just found out about the terrarium,” Kristy said as they walked toward the cupboard. “I’m sure it was a mistake, but you’re going to have to help us clean up the mess.”

  “What?” asked Megan. Jessi said later that she looked bewildered. “What terrarium?”

  “You know,” Jessi said gently. “The one you weren’t supposed to touch?” She pointed to the top of the cupboard where the terrarium usually sat.

  “I didn’t!” said Megan. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, Megan,” said Kristy with a sigh. She opened the cupboard door, and the three of them stared at the mess inside. “Don’t make it worse than it already is. Kyle told us what happened.”

  “Oh. Kyle,” said Megan. “He told you?”

  Jessi and Kristy nodded.

  “Well, I guess that’s it, then,” said Megan, looking downcast. “I confess. I did it. And I’ll help clean up, but can I just go to the bathroom first?”

  Jessi told me that Megan seemed surprisingly unemotional about her confession. But she and Kristy were so glad the confrontation was over that they just accepted it. They exchanged glances over Megan’s head, and Jessi could tell that she and Kristy were remembering what Kyle had said. If Megan went to the bathroom alone, she might run away.

  “Sure, you can go to the bathroom,” Kristy said. “I’ll come with you.”

  “And I’ll start cleaning up,” said Jessi.

  Kristy and Megan left, and Jessi started to pick carefully through the dirt, pulling out plants that might be saved.

  “I guess you found her,” Kyle said, from behind Jessi.

  “We did,” said Jessi. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Megan —” began Kyle haltingly. “Megan does bad things, and she lies a lot. Ever since our dad went away. I don’t know why.” He looked so upset that Jessi stopped what she was doing to give him a hug. Kyle seemed like such a sweet kid, and he was so concerned about his sister. Jessi promised herself that she would try to help Megan. Maybe, together with Kyle, they could figure out what was making her unhappy enough to lie and steal.

  “Are you ready, bakers? Today is the last day of qualifying rounds in the Mrs. Goode’s Cookware Battle of the Bakers. At the end of today’s judging, only five finalists will be left to compete for the top prizes. Good luck to you all. Now, ready, set, bake!”

  Grace and I looked at each other across the dividers. I pointed to my eye and she smiled and nodded and gave me the thumbs-up. We had made a pact to keep an eye out for sabotage that day. I smiled back at her. The pact was still on.

  It was hard to believe that a friend of Cokie’s could be a friend of mine, but because of the dirty tricks going on at the Battle of the Bakers, I needed all the friends I could find. Mary Anne, Shea, and I really wanted to make it into the finals and have a crack at winning that prize money. Plus, I was having fun with our baking, and I wanted the chance to prove we could make something beautiful and delicious. The problem was that everybody else in that room felt the same way — and somebody was willing to do whatever it took to make sure the judges called his or her name at the end of the day.

  “Well,” I said, turning to face Mary Anne and Shea. I tried to put a lot of enthusiasm into my voice. “I guess it’s time to start!” I rubbed my hands together nervously.

  “I guess it is,” said Mary Anne.

  “What do we do first?” asked Shea.

  Neither of them sounded very happy. I knew why, too. We hadn’t heard from Mary Anne’s grandmother, and we were stuck with another one of my recipes. Again. Even though I was pretty sure that this latest one would at least be edible, it was hard to be optimistic about our chances for making the finals. After our not-so-great showings last weekend, we needed a totally awesome dessert for this last day of semifinals. We needed a cake that would look great and also knock the judges’ socks off with just one bite. It wasn’t likely that my recipe could do all that, but we had no choice. All we could do was try, and hope for the best.

  “I set everything up already,” I said, gesturing toward the counter. I’d arrived at our workstation early that day — only Julie and Marty were there before me — and made sure that all our ingredients were laid out neatly in the order in which we’d be using them. “So I guess we can start measuring. Let’s see, now.” I bent over to check the recipe.

  Suddenly I heard Mary Anne gasp. “Dad!” she said. “What are you doing here?” I looked up and saw her glancing nervously from her father, who was walking toward our station, holding a grocery bag, to Marty, Kristy, and the judges, who were hanging around on the sidelines. “You’re not supposed to —” she began, but he shushed her.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve cleared it with the judges. They said it was all right for me to bring you this stuff.”

  “But what is it?” Mary Anne asked.

  “It’s the ingredients for Alma’s chocolate-cherry cake,” he said, grinning. “Your grandmother called me with the recipe after you left this morning.” He held up a piece of paper covered with scribbles.

  “You’re kidding!” said Mary Anne. She grabbed the paper and started to read through it. “This is fantastic. And just in the nick of time.” She turned to me. “Your icing design will still work perfectly with this cake,” she said.

  “Thanks, Mr. Spier,” said Shea as he took the bag and started to unload it.

  I cleared some of the ingredients for my cake off the counter. I was relieved that we wouldn’t have to make my cake after all. “We owe you one,” I told Mary Anne’s father.

  “Just save me a piece of that cake,” he said. “I’ve been craving it for a long, long time now.”

  “We’ll make you a whole cake of your own,” promised Mary Anne. She glanced again at the judges. “But you’d better be going, or we’ll get in trouble.” She gave her father a huge hug. “Thanks again, Dad,” she said. “You’re the best.”

  “Good luck!” he called as he left. “If that cake is anywhere near as good as I remember, you’ll be sure to win.”

  I saw some of the other contestants watching us closely, but I ignored them. We had a cake to make. “Okay, Mary Anne,” I said as soon as her father had left. “What do we do first?”

  “An ingredient check,” she said. “I’ll read down the list and you guys tell me if everything’s here.” She started to read. “Flour. Butter. Eggs. Sugar.”

  “Check, check, check, check,” said Shea, after he found the ingredients.

  “Hold on a second,” I said. “Look at that sugar!” I pointed to the bag.

  “What?” asked Mary Anne. “It looks like there’s plenty.”

  “Plenty of what?” I asked. “This isn’t the same bag I put out here. Mine had a yellow price tag on top.”

  “Maybe my dad brought some new sugar,” said Mary Anne.

  “Maybe,” I said. “
But let’s check this out, just in case.” I opened the bag, stuck in a spoon, and took a taste. “Bleagghh!” I shuddered. “Ew! That’s salt.”

  Mary Anne, Shea, and I looked at each other. We hadn’t even started baking yet, and already the sabotage had begun. “Somebody must have switched it when we were busy with my dad,” said Mary Anne.

  I ran to Grace’s station and told her what had happened. She and Mari looked shocked. “I didn’t see a thing,” said Grace. “I mean, there have been lots of parents marching in and out, but nobody came near your station, as far as I saw.” She picked up a bag of sugar. “Why don’t you use ours?” she asked. “We’ve already measured out what we need.”

  I took the sugar. Two weeks ago, I would never have trusted a friend of Cokie’s, but I’d learned a lot about Grace, and I knew she wouldn’t do anything to mess up our chances of making the finals. “Thanks, Grace,” I said. “You saved my team’s life.” (I could have sworn I heard Cokie groan from her bed.)

  I brought the sugar to Mary Anne and headed for the locker room, so I could rinse that salty taste out of my mouth. And just as I turned the corner, guess who I bumped into? Jackie Rodowsky — with flour all over the front of his green T-shirt. “Jackie!” I said, catching him before he could run off. “What are you up to?”

  “N-nothing,” he said.

  “You haven’t been fooling around with other people’s things, have you?” I asked.

  “No!” he said. “I just — I just wanted to build my very own cake. A lady gave me some stuff to use. I can be a cook, too, just like Shea!” He led me to a corner of the locker room, where he’d been working on his “cake.” I saw a forlorn, grayish lump sitting on a plate, and my heart melted. He was trying so hard, just like I was.

  “Jackie,” I said, squatting down so I could look him in the eye. “Someday soon you and I can bake a cake together, okay? But for now, you need to head back to the day-care center. I bet your sitters are wondering where you are.” I walked him to the center and watched him go in. Then, shaking my head, I returned to my workstation and started to tell Mary Anne that we could scratch Jackie off our suspect list.

  “Claud,” she said, interrupting me before I’d finished. “You won’t believe what happened while you were gone.” She lowered her voice. “Somebody replaced all of Logan’s team’s eggs with hard-boiled ones!”

  “Oh, no.” I groaned.

  “They had to send someone to buy some more,” said Shea. “If they’re lucky, they’ll still make it in time.”

  “This is ridiculous!”

  “I know,” said Mary Anne. “Now I’m suspicious of everybody. I’ve been watching the parents come and go. Julie’s parents have been hovering around all day. Plus, I just saw Mr. Kleinman bring Rachel a bag of sugar, and I could swear I saw a bag already on their counter when I walked by a few minutes ago.”

  “Okay, look,” I said. “This is getting out of hand. But there’s nothing we can do about it now, except to keep a very close eye on our own ingredients. I think we should just concentrate on putting our recipe together. Once it’s in the oven, we’ll be safe.”

  “As long as nobody messes with our oven temperature,” said Shea.

  “Or our timer,” added Mary Anne.

  I never knew how stressful baking could be! We mixed our batter as carefully as we could, watching constantly for any suspicious behavior. Finally, we stuck it into the oven. Mary Anne volunteered to keep an eye on it while Shea and I washed up.

  We brought the bowls, spoons, and measuring cups into the locker room and went to work on them. While we were in there, I overheard a lot of people talking about the sabotage, but nobody seemed to have any idea who was responsible. And everybody was nervous about making the finals. “Julie’s been biting her nails,” said her teammate Celeste, who was at the sink next to ours. “I think her parents are practically going to disown her if she doesn’t make the cut.”

  I felt bad for Julie. Who needed the extra pressure? I knew my parents would be proud of me if I did well in the contest, but they wouldn’t be upset if I lost.

  Shea and I returned just as our timer rang. Mary Anne pulled out the cake — and it looked perfect.

  “Smells delicious,” said Shea.

  “Now for the frosting,” I said. I started to measure and stir. I felt confident. By the time the frosting was ready, the cake was cool enough to ice. I decorated it carefully, and when it was done, it looked awesome, if I do say so myself.

  Mary Anne gazed at it. “I have a feeling this cake is a winner,” she said happily.

  Guess what? She was right.

  The judges loved our recipe. “This is a real, old-fashioned cake,” said one of them.

  “So moist! Mrs. Goode would be proud,” said another.

  “And so beautiful,” said a third. All Mary Anne, Shea, and I could do was grin when they told us to come back the next day.

  Logan’s team made the cut, too, which made Mary Anne happy. So did Julie’s (I hoped her parents were happy) and Rachel’s. Grace’s team was the last finalist named. Sabotage and all, the five best teams had made it through the first rounds. Now we were on our way to the finals!

  “Pepperoni!”

  “No, sausage!”

  “What about extra cheese?”

  “I vote for anchovies!”

  “EWWWW!”

  The people talking were, in order, Grace, me, Mary Anne, Logan, and — everybody. Hardly anybody really likes anchovies, except maybe Kristy and her friend Bart. For everyone else, they’re just a big joke. Mentioning them always gets a huge reaction.

  As you’ve probably guessed, we were talking about pizza toppings. And we were talking about toppings because we were sitting around a table (actually two tables pushed together) at Pizza Express, about to order a couple of pies. Eight of us were there, so it was taking awhile to decide what to order.

  Going to Pizza Express had been my brilliant idea. I thought of it after the finalists were named that Saturday afternoon, and I immediately turned to Mary Anne. “I’m hungry,” I said. “I bet everybody else is, too. And I’m dying to figure out who’s behind the sabotage. Let’s ask everybody we know who’s been a victim of sabotage if they want to go out for a pizza.” Mary Anne thought this was a great idea, and she talked with Logan and his team. I went to Grace’s and Mari’s workstation, where they were doing a final cleanup, and invited them. And that’s how we ended up around those two tables.

  Figuring out toppings was like doing one of those impossible math problems about sets and subsets. Logan likes pepperoni, but not onions. Kerry insists on onions, and hates peppers. Mary Anne loves plain old extra cheese with nothing on it, while I like as many toppings as possible (except, of course, those A-things). Shea goes for sausage and onions, and he’d really rather not have pepperoni. Austin and Grace both like peppers and onions, and hate sausage. And Mari voted for — are you ready? — broccoli.

  We ended up ordering two large pies, one with half pepperoni, half peppers and onions, and the other with half sausage and onions and half extra cheese. The waitress promised to bring Mari some broccoli on the side.

  While we sipped our sodas and waited for the pizzas, we talked about how exciting it had been to make the finals.

  “I thought I was going to die when that judge took so long to announce the fifth finalists,” said Mari. She toyed with the paper from her straw. “I had my fingers crossed so hard they hurt.”

  “Me too,” said Grace. “But we made it! You should have heard Cokie scream when I called her from the pay phone in the hall. She went totally ballistic.”

  “Logan was sure we were going to make it,” said Kerry timidly, “but I wasn’t. I was nervous.” She and Shea were the youngest people at the table, and I think they both felt a little shy.

  “I was nervous, too,” said Austin, giving her a warm smile. “But I knew we’d done our best. I was just worried because we had to work so fast to finish our recipe after I discovered those hard
-boiled eggs.”

  “What about those eggs?” I said, narrowing my eyes. “This sabotage is nasty business. I was watching everything today, and stuff still happened. And now we’re in the final round.”

  “That’s right,” said Grace. “The stakes are higher. And if the person doesn’t care about whether he starts fires in people’s ovens, who knows what he might do next?”

  “Do you think we’re in danger?” Mary Anne asked. I saw her gulp. Logan reached over and squeezed her hand.

  “Excuse me!” said the waitress, who appeared just then with two steaming trays in her hands. We all moved our soda cups so she’d have room to put the pizzas down. “Here you go. Enjoy!” She set the trays in the middle of the table.

  There was no talking after that. Pizza has a way of cutting a conversation short. It’s so delicious, and so hot, and so cheesy and chewy. It demands your full attention.

  After a while, I put down a piece of crust. “That was great. I’m stuffed.”

  “Me too,” said Kerry.

  “Not me!” said Logan, taking one of the last pieces. But I noticed that he was eating a lot more slowly.

  Finally, when all the pizza was gone, and the waitress had taken away the empty trays, we went back to the subject of sabotage.

  “Okay,” I said, leaning forward and looking at each person at the table in turn, “let’s put all our cards on the table.” I’d heard somebody say that once, on a TV show, and thought it sounded cool. I’d always wanted the chance to say it myself.

  “Huh?” asked Shea. “You want to play cards?”

  “No, no,” I said. “It’s an expression. It means let’s all be honest and tell everything we know. For example, I have to admit that when my team was sabotaged on the first day of the contest, I was pretty sure I knew who had done it.” I gave Grace and Mari an apologetic look. “But I was wrong, and I’m sorry.”