Claudia and the Recipe for Danger Read online

  I didn’t have to wonder for long, though. Ms. Salerno went right ahead and announced the name of the team that had won second runner-up: “Congratulations to Team Eight,” she said. “Logan and Kerry Bruno, and Austin Bentley.”

  A big cheer rose up, and I turned to see that my BSC friends had come into the gym and were standing at the back, along with several kids they were still responsible for. I also saw my parents and Janine, who had come to watch the final judging. I smiled and waved to them.

  Mary Anne ran to Logan and gave him a hug, right in front of everybody (which is not Mary Anne’s style). Logan looked surprised, and even blushed a little. But then he pulled himself together and led Kerry and Austin to the platform to receive the yellow ribbon Ms. Salerno was waiting to give them.

  She asked Logan’s team to stay where they were until all the winners had been announced. “And now, our first runner-up,” she said.

  I held my breath again, and recrossed my fingers. First runner-up would be pretty good. If she called my team’s name, I knew I’d be happy.

  But she didn’t. Instead, she announced that Rachel Kleinman and Anna Atamian, Team Five, were the official first runners-up. Rachel and Anna squealed and hugged each other, and I saw Mr. Kleinman beaming as the crowd applauded and Rachel and Anna received their ribbon.

  “And now,” said Ms. Salerno, after she’d congratulated the girls, “the moment you’ve really all been waiting for.”

  “And waiting, and waiting,” I whispered. Shea giggled. By that time, Mary Anne was holding both our hands again. I noticed that her hand was damp. I guess mine probably was, too. This was it! In a second, we’d either be the winners of the whole contest — or we’d walk away with nothing but memories. “Either way,” I whispered to Mary Anne and Shea, “I had a great time with you guys.”

  Mary Anne immediately became all teary-eyed. I should have known. “Oh, me, too, Claud,” she said, in a choked-up voice.

  “It was fun,” said Shea. He tried to sound cool. But you know what? He was a little choked up, too.

  Ms. Salerno cleared her throat. “Again, I just want to say that we judges found it very difficult to choose a winner in this contest. Every entry was delicious. But we agreed that one did rise above the others, in both taste and appearance. That was the chocolate-cherry cake made by Claudia Kishi, Mary Anne Spier, and Shea Rodowsky. Congratulations to our winners, Team Seven!”

  I didn’t react right away. I couldn’t. All I could do was stand there and stare at Ms. Salerno. Thinking back, I’m sure that my mouth was hanging open and that I looked like a total geek. But at the time, I couldn’t have cared less what I looked like. I was just trying to take in what Ms. Salerno had said, and for some reason her words did not make sense.

  Mary Anne threw her arms around me, and so did Shea. I hugged them back. “We did it!” said Shea.

  “We won!” said Mary Anne.

  “We did?” I said wonderingly. Then the light came on in my head. “We did!” I cried. “We won!” I threw my fists in the air. “Yesss!” I heard my friends and family cheering.

  “Come on up,” said Ms. Salerno. “Let me introduce you to Mr. Herriot, President and CEO of Mrs. Goode’s Cookware. I believe he has a check for you.” A bearded man was climbing the platform.

  Shea, Mary Anne, and I shook hands with everybody on the platform, which took a while, since the first and second runners-up were still there, too. After that, the rest of the ceremony passed in a blur. Mr. Herriot handed me a check, and flashbulbs went off. Ms. Salerno hugged Shea, and more flashbulbs went off. Mr. Herriot said something about our recipe being in the cookbook, and then the rest of the judges shook our hands and my friends and family started to swarm all over the platform. Everybody was hugging and saying, “I don’t believe it!”

  The next thing I knew, I was in the car with my parents and Janine, heading home. They kept saying how proud they were, but I was barely listening. I was too busy fantasizing about how to spend my share of the prize money. I knew my parents would have something to say about it — they’d probably insist that I do something boring, such as put it in my college fund — but I could dream for a little while about clothes and accessories and CD players, couldn’t I?

  I also dreamed about seeing my name in a real, published book. One that anybody could buy in a bookstore. One that a lot of people probably would buy. The idea was cool beyond words. What would the recipe be called? How about Claudia’s Classy Chocolate-Cherry Cake? Or maybe something simpler, such as Cake à la Claudia …

  * * *

  “Alma’s Memory Cake,” Mary Anne said. “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought about it all night, and that’s the name that finally popped into my head. It’s perfect, isn’t it? I really wanted to have my mother’s name in there.”

  It was Monday afternoon, and the BSC members were gathered in my room for a meeting. We’d skipped over business, and we were talking about the Battle of the Bakers. Mary Anne had just told us about the name she had come up with for our recipe.

  “It’s perfect,” was all I could say. I felt terrible for even thinking of using my own name. The recipe came from Mary Anne’s mother. We owed everything to her — and to Mary Anne’s grandmother. Mary Anne had already called her grandmother and thanked her for sending the recipe in time, but then and there I made a promise to myself that I would write a thank-you note of my own to her. Maybe I could make a card with a watercolor of the cake on it.

  “My dad thought so, too,” said Mary Anne. “He looked like he was going to cry when I told him the name.” She looked sad for a second, then grinned. “But he cheered up as soon as I told him I’d be making him a cake of his own tonight. It sure will be fun to bake one in my own house, without having to worry about sabotage!”

  “Speaking of sabotage, what happened to Marty?” asked Dawn. “Are they going to throw him in jail, or what?”

  “I don’t think so,” Kristy said. “From what I heard, Mrs. Goode’s isn’t going to press charges. But I have a feeling Marty’s going to be looking for a new job.”

  “I hope he finds one,” I said. “He’s a nice guy, just a little confused.”

  “Sort of like Kyle,” said Jessi. (She and Dawn had already told us what had happened.) “He’s going to be just fine.”

  “Once he recovers from eating four peanut butter sandwiches, that is!” Stacey added, laughing. “He and the other kids ended up eating all the leftover from Kidz Kitchen. I think we sent more than one of them home with a tummy ache yesterday!”

  “That reminds me,” I said. “Grace called today. Cokie’s over her bronchitis. Guess how Grace could tell.” I paused, grinning. ”She said Cokie’s hopping mad about how friendly we became with Grace. She can’t believe we ended up on the same side. And she told Grace to tell us that she, Cokie, isn’t falling for our tricks. ‘The feud isn’t over,’ is what she said. Grace was laughing when she told me, but I know Cokie wasn’t kidding.”

  “What would the BSC be without Cokie for an enemy?” mused Mary Anne.

  “Happy?” asked Jessi.

  “Secure?” asked Mal.

  “Bored!” exclaimed Kristy. That’s when we cracked up. Kristy was right. A lot of things might change in this world, but Cokie Mason probably never will, and I guess that’s okay. She adds a certain something to our lives — the same way cherries add something to a chocolate cake.

  The author gratefully acknowledges

  Ellen Miles

  for her help in

  preparing this manuscript.

  About the Author

  ANN MATTHEWS MARTIN was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane.

  There are currently over 176 million copies of The Baby-sitters Club in print. (If you stacked all of these books up, the pile would be 21,245 miles high.) In addition to The Baby-sitters Club, Ann is the author of two other series, Main Street and Family Tree. Her novels include Belle Teal, A Corner of the Univ
erse (a Newbery Honor book), Here Today, A Dog’s Life, On Christmas Eve, Everything for a Dog, Ten Rules for Living with My Sister, and Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far). She is also the coauthor, with Laura Godwin, of the Doll People series.

  Ann lives in upstate New York with her dog and her cats.

  Copyright © 1995 by Ann M. Martin

  Cover art by Hodges Soileau

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, THE BABY-SITTERS CLUB, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First edition, August 1995

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-79216-5

 

 

  Ann M. Martin, Claudia and the Recipe for Danger

 

 

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