Now that the unpacking was done, Dad had a lot of free time, and he’d been spending it on these home improvement ideas he kept coming up with. Some actually weren’t half-bad, but all required skills he hadn’t picked up at the investment bank. Eventually, he’d be helping with the business side of the restaurant, but since there was no business side yet, the only way to help was by eating, which could only take up so much time.
“Zoe and I are headed to Crellin. Any takers?” Mom said.
Jeanine shook her head without looking up from her book.
“No thanks,” I said. “Can I bake something?”
“What were you thinking?”
“Molten chocolate cake. I have to show the woman at the General Store I’m worthy of her doughnut recipe.”
Mom laughed. “Sure, go ahead. Just remember to turn off the oven when you’re done. And make a double batch so there’s some for tonight.”
I’d settled on molten chocolate cake for three reasons. First, I didn’t know much about Winnie’s tastes, but I thought I could be pretty sure she liked chocolate. She was weird, but I didn’t think she’d have gone to the trouble of creating a recipe for chocolate cream doughnuts when she didn’t like chocolate. Second, I’d never met anyone who didn’t flip for my mother’s molten chocolate cake. Third, other than chocolate chip cookies, I’d had more practice making it than anything else.
As soon as Mom and Zoe left, I turned on the oven and took out the ingredients; a saucepan for melting the chocolate; and ramekins, the little cups we use for making mini cakes. You have to make mini molten cakes because the cake is so gooey, a big one will fall apart. I learned that the hard way.
I was especially careful not to burn the chocolate because, in case you don’t know, burned chocolate tastes like metal and looks like dog food, and we didn’t have enough to make another batch. I was also super careful measuring out the sugar and flour. Really, a clump more or less won’t ruin anything, but I needed these to be perfect.
Twelve minutes in the oven is usually just enough to get the crackly shell on top that lets you know the cakes are done. That day, because I kept checking and letting cold air in, it took almost twenty.
As soon as the cakes were cool enough, I popped them out of the cups and tasted one. The hot, gooey center, more batter than cake, oozed out onto my tongue.
Shazzam! Taste bud happy dance all around my mouth. Perfect. So perfect that when I finished eating one, I had to go into the living room to keep myself from eating another.
“Can I have one?” Jeanine called from the kitchen. She hadn’t said a word the whole time I’d been cooking.
“No!” I called back.
I hadn’t forgotten about her telling my parents that doughnuts couldn’t be a project after I’d said her project sounded cool, which it didn’t. The day my parents told us we were moving to Petersville, it was us versus them for the first time ever. And I’d thought it would stay that way, at least for a little while, but Jeanine had already gone back to her own side, the one that only has room for her.
“I can’t have just one?” she shouted.
“They’re for my project!”
“I thought your project was doughnuts!”
“It is, but I need to give a molten chocolate cake to Winnie to get the doughnut recipe.”
“Was that English?”
“I just have to give one to somebody! Okay?” I yelled.
“Come on!”
“They’re for dessert tonight too!”
“That still leaves five!”
“Fine! Have one!” I flopped onto the couch. She wouldn’t have let up until I gave in, so what was the point of going another twenty rounds, especially when I didn’t actually have a reason, or at least not one I’d tell her?
I pulled some blankets over me and started reading Both Hands, the book Josh had made me take out of the library.
I don’t know how long I was sitting there, but before I knew it, I’d read almost forty pages. Normally, I don’t get through more than a couple without thinking about what we’re having for dinner or checking where the chapter ends, but I’d been too focused on whether Jack—he was the kid in the book—was going to make the state swimming finals to think about anything else. Jack had just won regionals when Dad came through the living room carrying his brand-new toolbox.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Fixing that leak in your room. I checked it out the other day. Guy at the hardware store says it shouldn’t be too complicated. Just give me a hand getting the ladder out of the shed?”
“Sure,” I said.
When I came back, Jeanine was lying in my spot on the couch.
“It’s warmer here,” she said.
“It’s warmer there because I was sitting there.” I ripped one of the blankets I’d been using out from under her. Then I got my book and sat down to read in one of the armchairs.
Before long, we heard banging above us.
“What’s that?” Jeanine said.
“Dad.”
“On the roof?”
“He’s fixing the leak in my room.”
“Do you know how long that’s going to take? I’m trying to get some work done here.”
“I’m pretty sure he feels the same way.”
She stuck her tongue out at me through the mouth hole in the ski mask, then went back to her book. I could tell she wasn’t getting much reading done though, because after every bang, she looked up and gave the ceiling a dirty look.
If you want to know the truth, I couldn’t tune out the noise either, but I knew it would drive Jeanine bonkers to think I could when she couldn’t, so I went right on pretending.
After a while, she slammed Conifers of the Northeast shut, unzipped the bottom of the sleeping bag, stuck out her feet, and stood up. “That’s it!” Then, still wearing the sleeping bag, bathrobe, and ski mask, she slid
