A Measure of Thanks #10

“Wow. You really painted these yourself?”

Shawn Jordan’s dark eyes lit up behind her cool lime-green cats-eye glasses. “Thanks, you guys!” She set a pair of pale yellow teacups and saucers safely on a counter away from where she and her friends were cooking.

The cups were accented with bright green flowery shapes. “I did these at this new place in Park Terrace where they sell you plain white dishes, and paints, and stencils if you want them. And you just sit at a table and paint! Then you leave your stuff there while they fire it in a kiln, and a week later you go back and pick it up. It’s so fun!”

“Where are you gonna put them?” asked Amanda Moore.

Shawn looked around the Moores’ large, bright kitchen. Cupboards with glass doors showed off the colorful dishes that Mrs. Moore collected. “I’m giving these to your mom.” said Shawn, “‘cause she likes funky stuff like this. Next time I go there, I’ll paint her a matching teapot.”

“She’ll love them!” exclaimed Molly Moore, Amanda’s twin. “They’ll look fantastic in here with all her other cool things. I wish I could paint like you.”

“Me, too,” agreed Amanda.

“Mine would look like a four-year-old did it,” said Peichi Cheng, giggling.

“So would mine,” agreed Natasha Ross with a smile.

“Oh, anyone can do this,” said Shawn brightly. “Next time, I’ll take you all with me. Maybe I’ll have my thirteenth birthday party there in April!”

“That would be different,” said Natasha as she began to stir her homemade brownie batter.

Peichi slapped her forehead. “Oh, I just remembered! Guess what, you guys! Something funny happened to me on the way home from school today, after the twins dropped me off. I was almost home, and there was this squirrel running down the sidewalk toward me. He was really cute! Anyway, he kept running, like, right at me, and I thought, ‘Hey, this squirrel isn’t moving off to the side like squirrels usually do, you know? And then it looked like it was gonna run right up my leg! It was so weird!”

“No way!” exclaimed Molly.

“Yeah! I thought it was gonna bite me! And, you know,

I was carrying my big backpack, cause I brought all my books home this weekend to make book covers for them. Anyway, I started to back up as fast as I could but the squirrel kept coming! And pretty soon I was running backward down the sidewalk—really awkwardly cause I was carrying all those books!”

The Chef Girls shrieked with laughter.

“Then what?” cried Amanda.

“Well, I was also afraid that the squirrel—who looked like a baby—was gonna dart into the road, so I was, like, torn between wanting to get away from it in case it had rabies, and wanting to make sure it wouldn’t get run over! So I screamed. Help, a crazy squirrel is chasing me!’”

Everyone cracked up at they pictured Peichi running screaming from a squirrel—backwards!

“So what happened?” asked Shawn, her brown eyes wide.

“Luckily, this man and this lady were walking by and they figured out what was going on! The man said, That looks like a tame squirrel! We’ll get a box from the pet store down the street, and we’ll capture it and take it to someone who knows how to care for orphan squirrels.’”

“No way,” groaned the twins at the same time, which made everyone laugh even harder.

“...So then I just went home!” finished Peichi with a shrug. “That was nice of them, you know? To just take charge like that? I hope I remembered to say, thank you!”’

The Chef Girls shook their heads as they looked at one another and giggled. Peichi was always good for a laugh. None of her friends had ever really seen her in a bad mood—or when she wasn’t expressing her cheerful personality with fun, colorful clothes and awesome, artistic hairstyles.

“Hooray! It’s Friday!” Peichi went on. “Natasha, we’re still having pizza at your house after we drop off this food, right?”

Natasha’s pale blue eyes sparkled. “Absolutely.” she replied. “We have to celebrate surviving our first week of seventh grade!”

“And finishing another successful cooking job!” added Amanda.

“You know, I can’t believe that Dish is more than a year old!” exclaimed Molly. The Chef Girls, as they called themselves, earned spending money by cooking for people in their Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Park Terrace. Like the girls’ own parents, these people were sometimes too busy with their jobs and families to make dinner every night, and were happy to pay for some home-cooked meals to be delivered.

Sometimes the Chef Girls cooked for no charge, just to help someone. They’d done this for new families who’d moved into the neighborhood, and for families in crisis. In fact, that’s how Dish began. The twins mom suggested that the girls cook a weeks worth of meals to help out the family of their new classmate (and Amanda’s crush) Justin McElroy, whose kitchen had been damaged by an electrical fire. Luckily, no one had been hurt, but the McElroys, who’d just moved from Chicago, had to move into an apartment while their kitchen was completely renovated. With Mrs. Moore’s help, Molly, Amanda, Peichi, and Shawn made a ton of food—and the AcElroys were touched that people who barely knew them had been so thoughtful.

Dish had changed since then. The girls had brought in Natasha, who they hadn’t gotten along with in the past. But now Natasha was a good friend—and they knew she always would be.

It wasn’t always easy for the girls to balance Dish with school, music lessons, and after-school activities, but the girls always had a great time cooking together. It could be a real adventure—they’d catered parties, cooked for huge families, and had recently been interviewed on a live morning TV show! The girls would never forget doing a cooking demonstration on national TV “Ohmigosh!” cried Amanda suddenly, looking up at the clock. “The chicken! Who’s watching it?”

“I thought you were,” said Molly.

“But—it’s five-thirty! The timer was supposed to go off at five-oh-five! Why didn’t it go off?” She quickly put on oven mitts and yanked open the oven door. “Oh-h-h,” she groaned, as she carefully

pulled out the chicken and set it on a heatproof trivet.

The girls gathered around to inspect the chicken. Amanda cut off a small piece where it wouldn’t be noticeable, and looked worriedly at her friends.

“Dry?” asked Shawn anxiously.

“Yeah, it’s dry. I ruined it! But why didn’t the timer go off—” Just then, Amanda realized something. With all the talking and laughing, she’d been distracted...

“Uh, you forgot to set the timer, didn’t you?” Molly asked her.

Amanda nodded miserably and looked down at the floor.

“Don’t worry, Manda,” Molly said soothingly. “It’ll be okay. At least we didn’t burn it.”

“No, it won’t be okay!” insisted Amanda. “We have to deliver this food soon! And it’s too late to roast another chicken, even if we had one.”

No one said anything, and Peichi nervously cleared her throat to fill the silence.

“Mrow.” wailed Kitty suddenly. Even the Moores fat tiger cat seemed to know something was wrong. Despite the problem, everyone giggled at Kitty, who was sitting straight up in a chair and watching the girls intently.

“Maybe we could turn it into something else,” said Molly, “so that the Browns won’t notice it’s dry!”

“How are we going to do that?” asked Peichi.

“We’ll make, like, a casserole or something. Or—a chicken potpie! We’ll cut all the chicken up, and the creamy sauce that goes in the potpie will cover up how dry the chicken is.”

“But we’ve never made a potpie before!” cried Amanda. “Oh, I wish Mom was home from work. She’d know what to do.”

Natasha pointed to Mrs. Moore’s baker’s rack. “Your mom has a ton of cookbooks. Or we could find a recipe

on the Internet! There must be hundreds of chicken potpie recipes out there.”

“But what about the ingredients?” Shawn pointed out. “We might not have everything we’d need, and—”

“And we don’t have time to make the crust,” wailed Amanda. “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry, guys. What are we gonna do? We don’t have enough food for the Browns!”

“Let’s check out the Internet before we freak,” said Molly firmly. She led the Chef Girls toward the den. Somehow, seeing Molly take charge helped Amanda calm down.

Soon the girls had found a list of chicken potpie recipes on the Internet.

“Easy Chicken Potpie,” read Shawn over Molly’s shoulder. She chuckled. “That oughta do it! Click on it, Molly.”

Everyone was quiet as the girls quickly read the recipe.

“Look!” exclaimed Molly. “This says to use biscuits for the crust. We don’t have time to make biscuits from scratch, but, Manda, don’t we have one of those pop-up cans of biscuit dough? Mom usually keeps stuff like that around.”

“I’ll check,” said Amanda, heading toward the kitchen. “What else?”

“Cream of chicken soup,” called Molly over her shoulder. “And frozen vegetables. I know we have that. Luckily. Mom keeps the freezer full! Dried herbs...” she

muttered, her green eyes scanning the screen. “We’ve got the rest of this stuff. Cool! Everything’s gonna be fine—and we don’t have to deliver the food for another hour or so.”

Making the chicken potpie turned out to be easy. The girls threw out the chicken skin and bones, cut up the chicken, and put it in Mrs. Moore’s 9 x 12-inch glass baking dish with a mixture made from cream of chicken soup, cream of celery soup, milk, frozen peas, and frozen corn. Then the girls lightly cooked some chopped baby carrots and added them, too.

“I hope this turns out okay,” fretted Amanda as she sprinkled the mixture with celery seed and paprika. Natasha added some dried parsley.

“I think it looks delicious,” commented Molly. “What’s not to like? Everything in here is normal stuff.”

“Well, it just makes me nervous to give a customer something we’ve never made before.”

“You know, my mom said once that a real cook is able to make a meal with whatever is around,” Natasha told her friends. “So, Molly, you’re a real cook!”

Molly smiled. “Thanks!” She topped the mixture with the unbaked biscuits that had been cut in half. “You know, I don’t think we should bake this. When Mr. Brown’s ready to eat it, he can put it in the oven. We’ll put a note in with the food to tell him what to do.”

“I hope he doesn’t mind not getting a roast chicken,” said Shawn. “Did we tell Mrs. Brown exactly what we were going to bring?”

“Well, I think I just said chicken,’” said Amanda. “So, this is chicken!”

“Chicken and biscuits, that’s even better!” Molly pointed out, absentmindedly wiping her hands on her baseball jersey top. “It’ll be okay!”

“It definitely will!” said Peichi, her long black ponytail swinging as she nodded. “When Mrs. Brown called to hire us, she was joking that Mr. Brown will eat anything—and that when she goes out of town to see her mother, she always worries he’s gonna eat something that went bad in the fridge.”

Eeeeeewwww!” cried the girls.

Half an hour later, the girls had packed up the food in plastic containers and carefully placed them in sturdy shopping bags. Taped to each bag was their cool business card, in case the client wanted to tell a friend about Dish.

The Browns house was only two blocks away. One of the great things about living in Brooklyn was that the girls were allowed to walk around Park Terrace without their parents, as long as they were with a group of kids. And Park Terrace seemed to have everything! Awesome pizza...townhouses with stoops where people sat on warm evenings and talked to neighbors...dozens of restaurants that served food from all over the world...Prospect Park, with its huge lake and peddle boats, a skating rink, and a bandshell where people went to see free concerts and eat picnics in the summertime... and a subway which traveled under the East River into Manhattan—the Big Apple—New York Cify.

Molly rang the bell of the brick townhouse, and Mr. Brown, holding a chubby toddler, opened the door. “Hi, girls!” he said. “You’re just in time. We were getting hungry, weren’t we, Jason?”

“Hungry!” repeated the little boy happily stretching out his arms to Peichi.

“He likes you!” said Mr. Brown.

“Hi, Mr. Brown,” said all the girls as they filed in. They quickly introduced themselves and brought everything into the kitchen.

“This is three-bean salad,” Molly told Mr. Brown, removing the plastic lid so he could see inside. “You can keep all these containers. We include them in what we charge you.”

“And this is a lasagna, still frozen,” said Peichi. Sometimes on a Sunday, the Chef Girls made food ahead of time for future jobs, and stored it in the Moores big basement freezer.

“Brownies!” said Natasha, patting another container.

“Here’s, um, a chicken potpie,” muttered Amanda. Or, should I say a mystery potpie, she thought to herself.

“Chicken potpie!” exclaimed Mr. Brown, flashing Amanda a big smile. “Wow! I love chicken potpie. I hope it’s just like my mom used to make!”

The twins glanced at one another.

Yipes, Amanda told Molly with her eyes.

Molly and Amanda were doing “the twin thing,” when they had the same thought at the same time.

Just like Mom used to make? That’s a tall order! Molly’s eyes flashed back worriedly.

Mr. Brown pulled out his wallet as he looked around at the girls. “Er, do I pay you individually, or—He hesitated.

“I’m the treasurer,” Peichi replied. “You can pay me! Then I’ll pay everyone else.”

“Are you sure?” Mr. Brown teased her, handing her a big bill. “Keep the change,” he added. “Girls, thanks a lot. Everything looks just great!”

“Mine!” agreed Jason, pointing at the brownies.

Mr. Brown showed the girls to the door. “Thanks again. Come on, Jason, let’s go have some of that yummy chicken potpie with those little pearl onions in it!”

After Mr. Brown closed the door, Amanda said with a nervous laugh, “Uh-oh—our chicken potpie doesn’t have pearl onions in it!”

“Too late now! Come on, let’s get out of here before he notices!” whispered Molly mischievously, and the Chef Girls took off running up the hill to Natasha’s house, giggling like they’d just gotten away with something.

“Hi, Mom,” called Natasha when she opened her front door fifteen minutes later. She led her friends into the stately foyer of her beautiful home. As they followed Natasha, the girls glanced at themselves in the massive mirror that hung near the door, over a beautiful antique table.

“Oh, hello, girls,” said Mrs. Ross, gliding down the thickly carpeted stairs as the girls trooped inside. Her rose-scented perfume filled the hallway, and her steely blue eyes warmed for a moment as she brushed Natasha’s blond bangs out of her eyes. “Hi, sweetheart. How did the job go?”

“Good!” replied Natasha. “We’re going to order our pizza now. I’ll see if Elizabeth wants to come down.” Elizabeth Derring, who was in seventh grade with the Chef Girls, lived with her aunt on the top floor of the Rosses’ house. The Derrings had moved to Brooklyn from Minnesota a few months ago.

“She’s baby-sitting, remember?” Mrs. Ross reminded Natasha. “Well, it’s a warm night—perfect for eating outside in the garden! I’ve set out some plates and glasses for you.”

“Oh, okay. Where’s Willy?” asked Natasha, looking around for her cute little terrier.

“He’s out for a walk with Daddy. Sweetheart, you got a letter today—from Paris! I put it in your room.”

“Yay! A letter from Laure!” exclaimed Natasha. Laure was a teenage friend Natasha had met in France, where she and Mrs. Ross had spent most of the summer. “I’ll read it later. Right now I have to call Pizza Roma. I’m starving!”

After Natasha ordered the pizzas—one plain, one with pepperoni and mushrooms—the girls followed her outside to the garden.

“Is this your mom’s china?” gasped Molly when she saw the Rosses picnic table. “We’re going to have pizza on your best dishes?”

Natasha blushed when her eyes fell upon the stack of large china plates decorated with an old-fashioned rose

design. Pale-pink cloth napkins lay neatly

folded near the beautiful china, along with monogrammed silverware, tall ice-tea glasses, and a pretty ice bucket.

“Believe it or not, these aren’t our best dishes,” she replied. “But I don’t know why my mom thinks we’d want them for pizza.” She looked around at her friends and rolled her eyes. “You know my mom. Everything has to be really formal!”

“That’s okay,” Amanda told her. “She’s just trying to make everything nice for you.”

“That’s how she shows you that she cares!” added Peichi, nodding enthusiastically.

“I guess so.” Natasha tucked her blond hair behind her ears. “It’s just that she always makes me feel so—different.”

But even as she said that, Natasha wanted to take it back. Her friends were right! Looking at the beautiful table, she imagined her mom carefully placing all the pretty things on it, just so...Mrs. Ross hadn’t always been the most affectionate mother in the past, and she could be really controlling and, well, stiff. But since their trip to Paris over the summer, Natasha and her mom had grown much closer. Natasha could tell that her mother was trying hard to make up for the past.

Thank you, Mom, Natasha thought gratefully. Sorry. I love you, too.

“Well, I think it looks nice,” declared Shawn, interrupting Natasha’s thoughts. She smiled warmly. “Our

pizza will taste better on these plates than on soggy paper plates!” She tuned in the radio on Natasha’s purple plastic boom box. ”Come on, you guys, let’s dance! I want to show you this cool move I learned from Ashley on the cheerleading squad!”

The pizza only took twenty minutes to arrive. For a few minutes, all the girls were quiet as they ate the delicious pizza.

“You guys! Can you believe we’re in seventh grade

already?” Peichi broke the silence as she reached for a second piece. ”It’s nice not to be the babies of the school anymore. Now we’re old enough to join the ski club, and take that cool class trip to Washington, D.C.!”

“What’s everyone doing this year?” asked Shawn. “You mean, for after-school activities?” asked Amanda. “For me, the school play, of course. If I make it, that is. The audition is Tuesday.”

“Oh, you’ll make it,” Shawn assured her with a wave of her hand. “I want to do something along with cheerleading, but I don’t know what. Molls, are you doing anything now, or will you just do softball next spring?”

Molly nodded as she chewed. “Mmm-hmmm. She swallowed. ”I want to do something new—something I’ve never done before! Maybe even a couple of new things.

Natasha poured herself some more soda. “I know what you mean, Molly. It would be fun to try something new. That’s, like, the whole point of school!”

“Well, anyway,” said Molly, “We all had amazing summers! Natasha went to the food and fashion capital of the world! Shawn was busting cool new moves in cheerleading camp, and Peichi got to visit ancient palaces in China! Amanda was becoming an amazing actress at Spotlight Arts Camp! I was a Super Sitter for two little kids on Cape God!”

The girls nodded, thinking back to their summer adventures and all the things they’d learned about themselves.

“And I think our amazing summer is gonna lead into our best year yet!” Molly went on. “...WindsorMiddle School had better watch out! Right?”

“Woo-hoo!” cried the girls, reaching for a group high-five.