eleven

I went straight to my room to start homework.

At least that’s what I told DiDi.

What I really did was lock the door and then pull out the KOB. Wait till you get home to read. I’d kept my promise.

I opened it.

Did you wait till you got home? Haha. Just kidding. I just wanted to say I’m sorry if lunch was weird. I’m glad you moved here. I really, really like you and liked talking. See you tomorrow, T

I traced over the words with their perfectly dotted i’s and neat little o’s. A boy sent me a KOB. And not just any boy. Trip. The most beautiful, sweetest boy ever. He went to all the trouble to make it for me and then slip it into my backpack. He said really two times. He really, really liked me. And he was glad I moved here. At that very second, so was I.

So was I.

I’ve kind of just always done whatever DiDi asked me to, so when she said we were moving, I started packing. Leaving the South was a big deal for DiDi. She had it in her head that unless she got me out of that trailer park, I wouldn’t have a future. It didn’t matter to her that I was happy there and that we had the nicest neighbors, who all looked out for each other.

“The North Shore,” she said, eyes all shiny and bright. “That’s on Long Island, New York, G. Remember Lori’s boyfriend who sold supplies to all the schools? He said New York is where the best schools in the country are, and—c’mon!—we could be living on an island! Beaches and boats and water.”

There were plenty of beaches in South Carolina. All you had to do was hop in the car, so I don’t think that was the big deal. And of all the places we could go, I didn’t get why DiDi would pick somewhere called the North Shore, which, if you ask me, sounded like it’d be the exact opposite of the South.

Oh, she talked a big talk about moving, but moving takes money, and that was one thing we never seemed to have enough of.

Then DiDi heard about the Mayflower Bake-Off.

It’s this nationwide contest where you have to come up with a recipe that uses products in the Mayflower family. Which is just a ton of stuff like refrigerator biscuits, cake mixes, and such. It’s a pretty big deal and they have all these categories to enter. Then they pick a Grand Prize, and the winner gets one million dollars. I swear. DiDi decided to go for the Dinner Delights category and then she went straight into Mama’s Cookbook “for research.”

I thought she should make something like a beautiful dessert or hors d’oeuvre (which is just a fancy word for appetizer). But DiDi said this contest was going to change our lives and she wanted to go with something special.

And that’s how she decided to enter Mama’s Turn Over a New Leaf Turnovers. Even the name was perfect. It was for when you found yourself in a sad situation with a whole heap of leftover chicken and wanted to make something amazing out of it.

She won.

Everyone loved it, and I swear that for the rest of the summer, everyone we knew made Mama’s Turn Over a New Leaf Turnovers. I figured that million dollars would change our lives forever.

That was when the crazy part started.

Before she’d let them take the official winner’s photo, DiDi had her Beautiful Gay Best Friend, Harley, give her a total makeover. New hair, face—everything. Even I couldn’t recognize her. Then she said that, for reasons of a delicate nature, her real name was not to be used anywhere in print, but that she’d be glad to provide a suitable alias. Well, the good people at Mayflower had their winning recipe, so they said she could call herself whatever she wanted. At first, I thought it was all pretty fun and glamorous, but then DiDi just ended up using Lori’s name and giving her some of the prize money for her trouble. Now, I have no problem sharing with Lori—she practically saved our lives way back when we needed a place to stay. But if you’re going to get a total makeover and play the name game, why not go all out? She could’ve been anyone.

“Anytime you make up a story, G, it’s best to have a little bit of truth to it. Otherwise it’s hard to keep track of things. All I want is to make sure we have our privacy. This money is nobody’s business but ours.”

If you asked me, with a million dollars, we should’ve thrown a big old celebration for the neighborhood. We should be living in a mansion with a butler and a pet tiger and a swimming pool filled with champagne. But then DiDi started in on how a million dollars was not all that much money. Even with my scholarship. How she still had to pay taxes and with six more years of private school and then college, it wouldn’t even end up being enough. Yakkity. Yakkity. Yak. Can you imagine? A million dollars not enough money?

Everyone knows I’m the math whiz in the family, but DiDi is the legal guardian, so she gets the final say. I’ll tell you what, though, if I ever got my hands on some of that money, the first thing I’d buy DiDi is a calculator.

So here we are. No big fancy house. No swimming pool. Just living the way we always did. The only thing she was going to spend a penny on was My Future. The money, DiDi said, was to make sure I got to be what I deserved to be. Getting fancy wasn’t going to do it, but making sure I got educated was.

“But, D, wouldn’t it be nice to at least have a new car?” I said, looking at the Blue Bomb with its funny back fins and headlight eyes. “This poor thing is practically prehistoric!”

“When would we use it, G? I work right downstairs and you can walk to school. Besides, the Blue Bomb got us where we needed to go. She deserves to retire as a permanent member of the family and relax. I’m done with driving. Besides, now we live in a—”

“Walking Town. I know, I know.…”

I think the real reason DiDi doesn’t like to drive a lot is because she hates her driver’s license photo. I mean, she does all this talking about what’s really important and what’s silly, but truth is DiDi can be downright vain. She says it’s the worst picture of anybody in the history of everything and won’t even let me see it—which honestly I could give a hoot about. I’ll bet if she ever got pulled over by the police and had to pull it out, she’d start crying. Good-looking people sure can be crazy. It kind of makes me glad to be just okay.

I looked at Trip’s KOB and read it about a hundred more times. Then I carefully folded it back up and put it in an old shoe box and stuck it way up on a high shelf in our closet where DiDi keeps all these old papers and records. Then took it back down and snapped a big rubber band around the whole thing. And then another and another. That KOB was my private business, and all I know is that if DiDi found a note from a boy saying how he really, really liked me, she would go really, really Grammatical.

My Turn Over a New Leaf Turnovers

Million-Dollar Bacon

• 8 tablespoons light brown sugar

• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper

• 1 package (1 pound) thick-sliced bacon

Turnover Filling

• 1 pound cooked chicken

• 2 tablespoons butter

• ½ cup tiny-diced carrots

• ½ cup tiny-diced onions

• ½ cup tiny-diced celery

• ½ cup tiny frozen sweet green peas

• 1 small can (11 ounces) Mayflower condensed Cream of Chicken Soup

• About 11 ounces half-and-half (enough to fill the soup can)

• Salt and pepper

Turnovers

• 1 egg

• 1 tablespoon milk

• 2 packages Mayflower empanada dough

Sometimes you find yourself in a mess. Whole pile of dry chicken and no idea what to do. Well, just Turn Over a New Leaf.

Anyone can say they make a nice turnover or even a chicken pot pie, but my turnovers are the only ones with my special Million-Dollar Bacon.

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Mix together your brown sugar and cayenne. Set your bacon strips flat on a foil-covered nice cooking sheet. Then, one at a time, put a spoonful of the sugar mixture on each slice and spread it evenly over the top. Carefully flip each one over and repeat on the other side. When all your slices are coated, put the sheet in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes, till the bacon is sizzling and dark golden brown. Let it cool for just a minute, then put the slices on a plate to rest before they get too stiff and stuck to the pan.

Then take two big forks and shred your chicken. Put the butter in a pan over medium-high heat. Sauté your carrots, onions, and celery till they’re nice and soft, about 10 minutes. Add the peas and chicken and your can of soup.

Fill the empty soup can with your half-and-half and add that, too. Let everything warm up together, then lower the heat. Salt and pepper to taste.

Beat the egg and the milk in a small bowl. Now take your empanada dough disks and put a nice big spoonful of your chicken filling on each piece, a little to one side and leaving a ½-inch border. Break up your Million-Dollar Bacon into pieces and cover the chicken mixture with it. And don’t be shy, because that Million-Dollar Bacon is what gives those turnovers a real kick.

Dampen the edges of each empanada with the egg wash and fold the dough over. This is the pretty part. Crimp the edges all around with a fork and score the top with a knife till it looks just like a beautiful leaf. Brush the tops with the egg wash. Bake on lightly greased cookie sheets in the 400°F oven till golden brown, about 15 minutes. Turn the pans halfway through.

Makes 10 to 12, depending on how fat you stuff them.

Trust me. They taste like a million bucks.

Enjoy!