Chapter 5
Brown Bag Lunch

Poppy was thinking about Po Po and the salty tang yuan the next morning when she put on her third-favorite overalls, which were light pink. As she pulled the left strap over her shoulder and slid the buckle over the button to secure it, she noticed that Po Po had stitched a small red heart on this pair, too. It was on the front chest pocket, right over where Poppy’s own heart was. Poppy smiled.

She left her bedroom and found Mama in the kitchen putting a box of cereal and a carton of milk on the kitchen table.

“Where’s Po Po?” Poppy asked. Ever since Po Po retired, she had been making breakfast for Poppy and Calvin.

“She’s sleeping in today,” Mama replied.

Poppy frowned. Her grandmother was always the first person awake. “Is she okay?”

Mama nodded. “She’s just feeling tired this morning.”

Calvin came out of his room and wrinkled his nose when he saw the cereal and milk. “I just woke up from a dream where Po Po made congee and crullers. I was hoping I dreamed it into reality.”

“Maybe I should try making congee one day,” Mama mused.

Calvin and Poppy exchanged a glance. Mama was great at lots of things. She could knit comfy sweaters and take group photos where no one was blinking or making a weird face. She regularly ran half-
marathons. But she was terrible, just terrible, in the kitchen.

“Poppy, I was thinking about you making Dragon’s Beard candy,” Mama said, “and I wondered if you wanted to ask Ms. Kellogg if you could use her kitchen. That way you can keep it a surprise for Po Po.”

“That’s a good idea!” Poppy said.

Poppy used Mama’s phone, and Ms. Kellogg said Poppy could come over the next day after school. Poppy gave Mama a list of ingredients she needed, and Mama said she would drop them off at Ms. Kellogg’s place later.

After Poppy finished her breakfast, Mama handed her a brown paper bag.

“Lunch for you!” Mama said. “Hurry, the bus will be here in three minutes.”

Poppy took the bag. “Where’s my lunch box?”

“I thought you might want a brown bag lunch for once, instead of carrying that heavy lunch box,” Mama said.

Poppy shoved the lunch bag into her backpack and followed Calvin down the stairs and onto the street. When the bus screeched to a stop in front of them, Poppy and Calvin got on.

The first thing Wyatt said when Poppy took the empty seat next to him was, “You forgot your lunch box!”

Poppy shook her head. “My mom made my lunch today. I put it in my backpack.”

“Cool,” Wyatt said, patting his own backpack. “The candy you’re making sounds amazing!”

Poppy nodded, but she didn’t say anything else. She kept thinking about Po Po. A few minutes later, the bus dropped them off in front of the school. Without her lunch box, Poppy felt like she was missing something really important.

“Good morning!” Mrs. Z called as Poppy and her classmates filed into the classroom. “Take a seat at your desk and start the Daily Scribble.”

Poppy put away her things and sat down. Around her was lots of noise. Lucy was already asking Mrs. Z if she could go to the nurse. Carlota and Fia were comparing their new bracelets. Olive was sitting at the desk across from Poppy, picking at the pink eraser at the top of her pencil.

The Daily Scribble

for Wednesday, October 2

If you could invent a new dessert, what would it be?

If this was yesterday’s Daily Scribble, Poppy would have lots of ideas, like fruity cream puffs or nian gao cupcakes. Sometimes she would have an idea for a new dessert,
and she and Po Po would try making it. But today she was not in the mood for invention, so she wrote:

My grandma is the best at making desserts. My grandma already makes all of my favorites. I don’t want her desserts to ever change.

Poppy knew she didn’t really answer the question, but she did not want to think about change today.

When the egg timer went off, Mrs. Z called on a few people to share.

Memo’s favorite dessert was coffee ice cream, and he wanted cotton candy that tasted like coffee.

Sebastian wanted to create a mango rice pudding.

Mars wanted green tea–flavored doughnuts to be a thing.

“I can’t wait until Poppy’s grandma comes next week,” Olive announced. “Poppy is making Dragon’s Beard candy so we can celebrate her grandma’s birthday!”

Poppy looked down at her notebook and pushed the tip of her pencil down into the lower left corner of the page, so hard that it left a dark mark and dented a lot of the pages underneath it. She really hoped she could make that candy. Everyone was counting on her.

It was time to put away their writing notebooks and get ready for math. The morning felt very long, and Poppy couldn’t even look forward to lunch.

When her table was called to go down to the cafeteria, Poppy grabbed her brown-bag lunch and peeked inside.

Instead of a steamed bun filled with roasted pork or a raisin twist bun or an egg custard tart, her lunch bag held a sunflower-
butter-and-jelly sandwich, a granola bar, an apple, and a bag of crackers. And the granola bar was the dry oatmeal kind, and the only person in her family who liked those was Calvin.

Poppy swallowed her disappointment.