The Just Desserts Club Page 3

  “That’s an awful lot of soda and beer,” said Zoe.

  “How much did you make?” asked Julio.

  Zoe counted up the bills and loose change. She gasped. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Did we make that much money?” asked Cricket, pleased that her plan had been so successful.

  “We made exactly seven dollars and thirty-five cents,” Zoe replied.

  “Hey. We both made the same amount,” said Julio, smiling. He reached for a cookie that was on the tray in front of him and stuffed it into his mouth. “These are really good,” he said, and he reached for another.

  “Do you want some milk?” asked Cricket sweetly.

  “Sure,” said Julio. He gulped down the cup of milk his classmate poured for him.

  “What about me?” asked Lucas. “Don’t I get any? I worked pretty hard too.”

  “Sure,” said Zoe. She handed Lucas a cup of milk and offered him a choice of cookies.

  She looked at Cricket and Sara Jane, trying hard not to smile. Only when Lucas had drained his cup of milk and finished his cookies did anyone speak.

  “You owe us a dollar,” said Cricket with delight.

  “A dollar? What for?” asked Lucas.

  “Did you think we were standing here just giving this stuff away?” she asked him. “This bake sale is to raise money to buy food for the needy. Two cookies and a cup of milk cost fifty cents.”

  “But if we pay you with the money we made from the cans, we won’t have as much to turn in at school.”

  “And we’ll have earned more than you!” said Cricket smugly. There was a huge grin on her face.

  “But it will all go to help the people who are hungry,” Sara Jane reminded the boys.

  “That’s right,” agreed Lucas. “I’m feeling pretty hungry now myself. In fact, I’m starving. Can you throw in an extra cookie or two?”

  “Sure, help yourself,” Cricket agreed. Now that they had triumphed over the boys, she could afford to be generous. “Let’s all finish them up,” she suggested to her friends. And before long, the bake sale was completely sold out—even though not another penny was earned.

  Sara Jane remembered the two empty soda cans at the edge of the sidewalk near the freshly washed car. She ran to get them and gave one to Julio and one to Lucas. “You can turn these in for another ten cents,” she told them.

  And that’s why on Monday morning Mrs. Cheechia received an envelope with fourteen dollars and eighty cents. It was the combined effort of five students who had cooked up two plans—and some cookies as well.

  No-Bake Orange Balls

  Ingredients

  1 twelve-ounce box of vanilla wafers, crushed

  1 pound of confectioners’ sugar

  1 stick of butter or margarine, at room temperature

  1 six-ounce can frozen orange juice concentrate

  1 bag shredded coconut

  Cooking Directions

  • Mix butter and sugar together thoroughly.

  • Add juice concentrate (do this gradually to keep mixture creamy, and do not add water to the concentrate).

  • Stir in wafer crumbs. (Make crumbs by putting wafers into a blender. Or place wafers on a sheet of waxed paper, cover with another sheet of waxed paper, and move a rolling pin over the cookies, crushing them.)

  • Using your hands, roll into one-inch balls.

  • Pour coconut into a large bowl. Roll the balls in the coconut (or, for variety, you could also use chopped nuts).

  • Makes four dozen balls.

  Not-for-Breakfast Cornflake Candy

  Ingredients

  3 tablespoons butter or margarine

  1 cup light brown sugar

  1∕3 cup evaporated milk

  5 cups cornflakes (or other breakfast cereal—assorted cold cereals may be used in combination)

  ½ cup chopped nuts (optional)

  Cooking Directions

  • Melt the butter or margarine over low heat. Add sugar and stir constantly until sugar is dissolved. Continue stirring and slowly add evaporated milk.

  • Keep the heat low as you add cereal and nuts. Mix thoroughly. Remove from heat.

  • Press mixture into a greased, foil-lined 9-inch-by-9-inch pan. Cover with waxed paper and let stand in a cool, dry place.

  • Break into pieces and serve like candy.

  No-Bake Peanut Butter Balls

  Ingredients

  ½ cup wheat germ

  1½ cups peanut butter

  1½ cups honey

  3 cups dried milk powder

  ¾ cup graham cracker crumbs  (These are sold, ready to use, in a box, or you can take whole graham crackers and crumble them just as you did the vanilla wafers on page 42.)

  2 cups confectioners’ sugar

  Cooking Directions

  • Mix all ingredients, except confectioners’ sugar, together thoroughly.

  • Form into balls the size of large marbles.

  • Place the confectioners’ sugar in a large bowl and roll each ball in it until coated.

  • Makes about five dozen little balls.

  Use-Your-Noodle Cookies

  Ingredients

  1 six-ounce package of semisweet chocolate chips

  1 six-ounce package of butterscotch chips

  1 six-ounce can of salted peanuts

  1 five-ounce can of Chinese chow mein noodles

  Cooking Directions

  • Melt chocolate and butterscotch chips together in top of double boiler (this is a pot that rests on another pot, which is filled with water to prevent burning). Stir from time to time, until all the chips are totally melted and blended.

  • Remove from stove. Stir in peanuts and noodles.

  • Drop from a teaspoon onto a wax-paper-covered cookie sheet. No more cooking is involved, but you should wait a few minutes until the cookies harden a bit before you eat them.

  • Makes about three dozen crunchy cookies.

  THREE

  Sweet Valentine

  One December morning, there was a visitor in Mrs. Cheechia’s classroom. It was her son Greg, who was an eighth grader at Mark Twain Junior High School. His school’s furnace had broken down, and the school was closed for the day.

  It was the first time Cricket had ever seen a child of one of her teachers. Greg Cheechia was tall and dark-haired. Cricket thought he was so good-looking he should be on TV or in the movies.

  Mrs. Cheechia asked Greg to help her distribute the spelling quizzes that she’d marked the night before.

  “Cricket Kaufman?” he called out.

  Cricket blushed and raised her hand.

  “That’s a cute name you have,” he commented, and her heart flip-flopped.

  For once Cricket was hardly aware that she had a perfect paper. She was much busier thinking about Greg Cheechia. She wondered if he thought she was cute, like her name. And she wondered if he had noticed her grade. If he had, she hoped he’d been impressed.

  Later Mrs. Cheechia had her son sit next to Carol Simmons and help her by going over yesterday’s math homework. Poor Carol always seemed about a month behind her classmates in math. But today Cricket envied her. If only she needed extra help too! Then Greg Cheechia would be sitting next to her.

  By the end of the school day, Cricket realized that she was falling in love with Greg Cheechia. It had never happened to her before, but it was no wonder. Who could fall in love with the boys who were in her class? Lucas Cott? Julio Sanchez? Arthur Lewis? None of them had the wonderful smile of Greg Cheechia. These days Arthur had braces that made him look as if he’d tried to swallow his mother’s tableware. Julio was shorter than Cricket since her latest growth spurt. And as for Lucas, forget about it. No one but his mother could love Lucas Cott.

  Cricket raised her hand. “Will Greg come back another time?” she asked Mrs. Cheechia shyly.

  The teacher looked at her son. “How would you like to come to our class Christmas party?” she suggested to him.

  “Sure,
” said Greg, smiling. “I love parties.”

  Cricket thought he probably also liked being older and bigger and smarter than all the kids in his mother’s class. And maybe, just maybe, he liked Cricket and wanted to come back to see her again.

  The Christmas party was held on the last afternoon before the school vacation. The plan was for everyone to bring a treat to eat. Even though she’d been doing a lot of cooking lately, Cricket had trouble deciding what to bring. She wanted something that would really appeal to Greg Cheechia, something different and special. She hunted through all her mother’s cookbooks to find just the right thing to make. So when she saw a recipe for cookies called Sweet Kisses, she knew that was perfect.

  Cricket came to school on the morning of the Christmas party wearing a new red sweater. She wanted to be sure Greg noticed her. All during the party she watched Greg, though of course she was careful that neither he nor her classmates were aware of that. Still, it was hard not to break out into a huge grin when she saw him stuff three Sweet Kisses into his mouth. Of course, she noticed, he had many pieces of just about every dessert that was offered. It must be because he was bigger than the sixth graders and needed more nourishment than they did. If she’d eaten that much of everything, she’d have exploded right there in the classroom.

  When they were all putting on their jackets and caps to go home, Greg said, “Have a great holiday, Cricket.” She was thrilled that he remembered her name. But she was even more excited when she turned to get one last look at him as she was walking out of the classroom and he winked at her.

  Cricket replayed the memory of that wink for days and days. It was like rewinding a video on the VCR and watching her favorite part over and over.

  For several weeks, Cricket kept her feelings for Greg Cheechia a secret. She didn’t want anyone laughing at her just because she liked the teacher’s son. Her mother would probably say that she should find a boyfriend who was her own age. But Cricket knew that she was mature for her age and so it only made sense that she’d be attracted to an older boy. Since he was in eighth grade, Greg was probably almost fourteen!

  A month passed, and Cricket wondered if she would ever get to see Greg again. But there was an actor on one of her favorite TV shows who resembled Greg, and whenever she saw him, she thought of her teacher’s handsome son. When stores began advertising for Valentine’s Day, Cricket got the idea of sending him a card for the holiday. She had already looked in the telephone book, and there was only one family named Cheechia listed. So she had the address. The next thing she had to decide was whether or not she would sign the card. Greg might guess it was from her even without her signature, she thought.

  One day in early February, she stopped in Harper’s Party Shop together with Zoe. Zoe was buying a birthday card to give her mother. Cricket helped Zoe make up her mind which card to select. Then the two girls walked over to the display of valentine cards. They read some of them aloud to each other and giggled at the funny ones.

  “Did you ever get a valentine?” Cricket asked Zoe.

  “I get one every year from my stepfather,” Zoe said. “He sends one to my sister and one to my mother too.”

  “I mean, did you ever get a card from a boy,” Cricket said.

  “Before I moved here, in my old school, I got two cards. But whoever sent them didn’t sign them, and I never figured out who they were from.”

  “Did you ever send a valentine to anyone?” Cricket asked.

  “Well, since my stepfather sends one to me, I usually send him one too,” Zoe admitted.

  “That doesn’t count,” said Cricket. “I mean did you ever send a card to a boy our age? Or a little bit older?”

  Zoe shook her head no. “What about you?” she asked.

  Cricket shook her head too. She wondered if she should tell Zoe how she felt about Greg. After all, Zoe was her best friend.

  As they left the store, Cricket said slowly “I think I may send a valentine to someone this year.”

  “Who?” Zoe asked at once. “Is it someone I know?”

  “Well, it’s someone you’ve met,” said Cricket.

  “Someone in our class?”

  “Not exactly,” said Cricket.

  “What does that mean?” Zoe wanted to know. “Either someone’s in our class or they’re not in our class. Do you mean he was in our class last year? Peter? Franklin?” She paused a moment, thinking of who else had been with them in fifth grade.

  “They’re babies,” said Cricket. “The person I’m thinking of is older than we are.”

  “But all the boys in sixth grade are just about the same age,” said Zoe, looking puzzled.

  “This isn’t someone in sixth grade,” Cricket explained mysteriously.

  “If he’s not in sixth grade, then he can’t be in our class,” Zoe pointed out.

  “Exactly,” said Cricket.

  “Cricket Kaufman, tell me right now. It’s only fair. I’d tell you if I was going to send a valentine to someone,” Zoe said.

  “Promise you won’t tell anyone?” Cricket asked her.

  “Of course,” said Zoe. “You know you can trust me.”

  “I was thinking of sending a card to Greg Cheechia,” Cricket said, half whispering.

  “Ooooh. Do you like him?” asked Zoe.

  Cricket shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I sort of think he’s cute,” she said.

  “Oh, you do like him. I can tell,” said Zoe. “He’s in my sister Hailey’s class at the junior high. He’s even been to my house a couple of times. They were doing a science project together, and he came over when they were working on it.”

  “Greg Cheechia was at your house, and you never even told me?” Cricket asked. If only she had known, she could have gone over to visit Zoe when Greg was there.

  “It was no big deal,” said Zoe. “They just sat around talking about science stuff.”

  Cricket looked at Zoe. “Promise me that if he comes over to your house again, you’ll call me right away.”

  “I promise,” said Zoe. She gave Cricket’s hand a squeeze. “If you want, tomorrow I’ll go to Harper’s with you again and I’ll help you pick out a good card to send him.”

  The next day it took Cricket and Zoe almost an hour to select the perfect card. They read dozens of them aloud to each other.

  “I don’t think I should send a mushy card like this,” said Cricket. “‘My heart sings and the world is full of music when you are near me,’” she read aloud.

  “Oh no. That’s terrible,” responded Zoe. She sang the words of the card, and both girls started giggling.

  Cricket pulled another card off the rack. “I better get a funny card,” she said. “This one’s kind of cute,” she observed. The card showed two bears walking hand in hand. The message inside read “I can’t bear to be without you.”

  What appealed to Cricket was that the girl bear was wearing a red sweater like the one she was wearing the last time she and Greg were together.

  “This is the perfect one,” Cricket decided. “I’m going to buy it!”

  The card cost a dollar and a half, which she thought was an awful lot of money for a piece of paper with such a short message on it. Still, Greg Cheechia was worth it, she told herself.

  Cricket addressed the envelope carefully in her neatest cursive writing. After changing her mind back and forth, she’d finally decided not to sign her name. She considered drawing a tiny picture of a cricket at the bottom of the card but decided against it. It would give away who she was, and besides, she wasn’t certain that she could actually draw a cricket. It might look more like just any old bug.

  And then something awful happened. Only an hour after Cricket had mailed her valentine card to Greg Cheechia, Zoe phoned her. “I have to tell you something terrible,” Zoe said.

  “What is it?” asked Cricket.

  “Promise that you won’t get upset?” Zoe said.

  “How can I promise when I don’t know what you’re going to tell me?” Cricket
protested. “Besides, you already said that it was terrible.”

  “Well, promise anyhow” said Zoe. “Otherwise, I’m not going to tell you.”

  Cricket promised only because she was so curious about what it was that Zoe wanted to tell her. And then she was sorry that she had, because Zoe’s news was more than just terrible. It was terrible, horrible, and heartbreaking.

  “Greg Cheechia invited my sister Hailey’s friend Cheryl to the valentine dance at the junior high school. Hailey says he took Cheryl to the movies last weekend too. According to Hailey, they’re in a serious relationship.”

  Suddenly, all the joy of Cricket’s secret love collapsed like a deflating balloon. Greg Cheechia would just throw her valentine card in the garbage. He wouldn’t know who sent it and he wouldn’t care. He would be too busy thinking about that other girl, Cheryl.

  Cricket got off the phone and went into her bedroom. She lay down on her bed with her shoes on. She knew her mother would be annoyed if she saw that, but for once Cricket didn’t care. So what if she got the quilt dirty? What did it matter? Nothing mattered. Greg Cheechia liked a girl named Cheryl. He didn’t like her. Probably no one would ever like her.

  A little later Mrs. Kaufman knocked on Cricket’s door. “Honey, I almost forgot. You got a piece of mail today. I put it in my pocketbook because I met the mail carrier as I was about to drive off in the car.”

  Cricket jumped off her bed and opened the door. Her mother handed her a white envelope.

  Cricket looked at the envelope. Her name and address had been printed in ink, and the stamp had been pasted on upside down. Cricket ripped the flap open. Inside there was a card with a big red heart surrounded by flowers and birds and the words To My Valentine. Cricket had seen the card before. It was one of the cards that she had seen and rejected at Harper’s Party Shop because it had seemed too mushy. Inside, the printed message read,

  Flowers would lose their color,

  Birds would lose their song.

  Nothing in life would matter

  If you were not along.

  Underneath those words the sender had added I hope you will be my sweatheart.