CHAPTER 15

ABOVE AVERAGE

Inside the civic center, everybody was running around. The noise was as loud as when my sister blow-dries her hair and sings with the radio turned up.

We checked in thirteen seconds before the cutoff time. Following that, a lady with tall black hair gave us all name tags and showed us on a map where we would be stationed.

The tryouts were being held in a huge room that had mirrors on the far wall and large buzzing lights hanging from the ceiling. At the front of the room was a stage with two potted plants on it. I could see Principal Smelt and his band setting up on the left side of the stage near the bathrooms.

There were a lot of other teams participating in the tryouts, and the tables were lined up in rows with dividers between them. Each table had a mixer, an oven, and a few knives and spices. There was also a box with the words average ingredients written on it.

Because we were the last team to show up, we were put at the last table in the far corner. Janae and her team were right across the aisle at station 36. Janae was there with five other girls. Three of the girls were the Dodge triplets—Pixie, Patsy, and Petra. I had never really gotten along with the triplets. They were cranky and always together. Whenever they walked down the halls at school, they held hands and wouldn’t get out of anyone’s way. I’ve been shoved up against the lockers more than once by them squeezing me to the side.

Not only were the Dodge triplets cranky, but their dad owned a catering business, so they probably were pretty good cooks. Janae’s team had matching aprons and rubber gloves. There was even a banner on the front of their table with their chosen team name.

Both our tables were at the far end of the room near the mirrored wall. Music started to play, and everyone began to clap as the host of Average Chef, Chad Average, walked up onto the stage. The stage was so far away from us that we couldn’t really see. Luckily, there were TVs we could watch on the walls in the back. Chad Average waited for the clapping to stop and then shouted …

I thought all my friends knew what to shout …

My friends stared at me like I was crazy. Chad Average clapped and then held his hands up to quiet all the tables. He told us we had one hour to make the best food we could, using the eight average ingredients in our boxes. At the end of the hour, a judge would taste our meal. The two highest-scoring teams would be featured on the Average Chef TV show in two weeks.

The contestants put their hands on the top of their boxes and counted down with him. I then lifted the lid, and we all looked in.

The ingredients were simple and every table had the same ones. There were no real surprises in the box. I was already thinking of a few things we could make. But before we could start, we needed to know which of the eight average items we were supposed to focus on. I was hoping it would be the bacon, but I was wrong.

There was a huge groan from everyone in the room. Water was the most boring item in the box. There was no way to make water anything but plain. Rourk had a suggestion.

As much as I could see the wisdom in what he was saying, I wasn’t going to quit and let Janae and her team beat us.

The host shouted, “Let’s all aim for average,” and then rang a bell. The competition was on. Everyone around us instantly began to chop and wash food as Principal Smelt and his band started to play music.

It was lame, but it was probably one of their best songs. I opened my backpack to get my recipes, and there was Hairy, smiling and waving his wand.

I had no time to mess with him, so I told him to keep quiet, grabbed my recipe cards, and zipped him back in. I flipped through the cards and found two recipes that I thought we could use—a soup and a salad. We didn’t have all the ingredients, but I figured with some creativity, we could make them work. Everyone seemed okay with my choices.

Teddy crushed up crackers. Rourk sifted flour. Aaron took the apples and started to peel them while Jack worked on chopping up some lettuce. Trevor and I mixed flour and egg together and created some dough. Time was flying, and after twenty minutes, all we had were some piles of chopped things and a wad of sticky dough.

I looked over at Janae’s table. She and her team were whisking and measuring like they were food fairies. Everything looked so peaceful and happy at their table.

I threw some croutons in the oven to bake, then began mixing some of the chopped food together. A lady with a microphone and big teeth stopped by our table and began to ask questions. The microphone seemed to make us all nervous, so we just stood there smiling.

The big-toothed lady tried asking another question. We just kept smiling. Only Aaron found the courage to speak up. Of course, he didn’t really answer the question.

The lady didn’t look too impressed with us. She left and went to talk to Janae’s table.

I put my head down, and we all kept on working. Before I knew it, an alarm rang announcing that there were only ten minutes left.

I pulled out two plates and set them on the table. I then looked at the oven. The croutons I was baking weren’t quite done, and the bacon on the stove was still way undercooked.

The room seemed to sway and then come to a complete stop. Then everything froze, and there was no longer any sound. The question lady was frozen mid-stride, and I could see pepper and other ingredients floating in the air. I seemed to be the only thing moving. I looked around, and Hairy popped up on the table waving his wand and smiling.

Somehow Hairy had stopped time; his spells were getting so much stronger. The only noise now was the sound of our bacon frying. Everything except for me, Hairy, and what I was cooking remained frozen.

I wanted to be excited, but I knew there was probably some rule about contestants not being allowed to stop time. I looked at Janae’s team. They were all frozen.

I stared at the mirrored wall next to us, and for some magical reason, my reflection was doing something odd in the mirror. It looked like I was walking over to Janae and dumping a huge pile of salt into the food she was making. I wasn’t actually doing it, but the mirror seemed to be showing me what I wanted to do.

It was just like the mirror of Erised at the end of Harry Potter. I looked down at the salt shaker on my table. I picked it up and thought about how easy it would be to ruin the food Janae and her team were making. The problem was I liked Janae way more than I wanted to win this stupid cooking contest. There was just no way I could do that to her. I set the salt shaker down and sighed. My reflection seemed mad at me for chickening out.

Hairy spotted his own reflection, and the Chewbacca part of him started snarling. He growled at himself and then ran as fast as he could, slamming up against his own reflection.

As Hairy fell to the ground, his wand sparked, and like a film speeding up, time began to move again. I grabbed Hairy and shoved him back into my pack and then stood up and tried to look innocent. The bacon in my pan was now perfectly cooked, and the croutons were done. I was going to spend more time marveling over what had happened, but I was interrupted by Chad Average announcing …

My friends and I began throwing things together. I took the croutons out and pulled the bacon from the stovetop. We put some of the chopped lettuce in a row, and Trevor tried to shape it like a big piece of bacon while I put some chopped apples and bacon in a bowl and poured water over it.

Teddy mixed some gelatin with water, and we dripped it over the salad as Rourk and Aaron made a decorative ring of jam around the soup bowl while Trevor added pieces of fried egg to the apple, bacon bits, water soup. Jack was in charge of the silverware and he had forgotten it. He started freaking out about us missing our spoons and forks, so I had to calm him down.

Jack actually smiled and came up with a solution with only two seconds to spare.

We all threw our hands up. I looked at our plates and thought we just might have a chance. I was pretty certain what we had made didn’t taste great, but it looked okay.

We glanced over to see what Janae and her friends had made. I don’t want to sound braggy, but ours looked way better. In fact, it looked like they hadn’t finished. One of their plates was okay, but the other one only had peas on it.

I glanced at Janae as she stood there frowning. She looked at her food and sighed. I felt bad for her. I was extra glad I hadn’t dumped that salt on her food. Jack pointed at their practically empty plate.

I don’t know why I did what I did next. I mean, it was a competition, and I wasn’t supposed to talk to the enemy, yet for some reason my legs started to move without my permission. I walked out from behind our table and up to Janae’s. The triplets growled at me as I congratulated Janae.

Janae smiled at me. A bald judge with a tiny nose came over and tasted Janae’s food. The judge seemed to like it, but then marked them down because they were missing part of their meal.

The bald judge then came to our table and tasted ours. I’m not positive, but I don’t think he liked what we made.

He called our food disgusting, bland, and chewy before running off. We then stood around until it was time for the results. After all the tables had been judged, Chad Average walked back up onto the stage to announce the two winning teams. The first team to win was a table of women who were all wearing red hats. They had made bread boats in jam and swamp water salad.

I personally think the red-hat ladies cheered louder than was necessary. It took a while for Chad Average to calm them down. Once they finally left the stage, Chad read off the second and final winner.

I couldn’t believe they had called my name. I thought after the way the judge had gagged and run off, that we didn’t have a chance. I looked at my friends. All of them seemed equally confused. Trevor’s eyes widened, and he pointed toward the stage. I was so shocked by what I saw that my mouth dropped and all my fingers fell to the floor.

It wasn’t me that had won. It was a different Burnside.

Tuffin and my mom were the second winning team. I had no clue they were even in the contest. They had been at station 3. My mom had gladly included Tuffin on her team. In fact, it was Tuffin’s ideas that had won it for them.

I wanted to be mad, but for some reason, I was proud of Tuffin. I figured if it couldn’t be me that people adored, it might as well be my little brother. Everyone clapped wildly as they put a chef’s hat on Tuffin and knighted him with a spatula.

I never found out if our food was any good, because by the time I finished congratulating Tuffin, Rourk had eaten it.

Rourk actually did us all a favor. By the time we got home, he was so sick from what we had made that he couldn’t go out for “congratulations” and “nice try” ice cream with the rest of us.

We all tried to act sad, but it sort of served Rourk right, seeing as how he had eaten all the food. Plus, we all knew how much more ice cream there would be for each of us without him there to hog it.