Zoe swore she wouldn’t even taste my doughnuts, but she did want to stuff them. She was super into the pastry gun. So, when we’d finished our chicken and washed our hands, I spooned my new cream into the gun and let her fill the three doughnuts I had left from the winning batch. When she’d stuffed them all, she held one up and studied it as if she’d be able to spot the part with mashed potato and eat around it.
This time, I couldn’t wait to taste my creation. I knew the cream was mind-blowing, and I knew the doughnuts were mind-blowing, but how would they be together? Had I made something entirely new like PB&J or just some D stuffed with some C?
I picked up a doughnut and knocked it gently into the one Zoe was still inspecting. “Cheers!”
The lighter, cakier doughnut floated for a second on my tongue, then melted into the chocolate…
I’d done it!
Because the chocolate was more rich than sweet, my taste buds craved more doughnut. The doughnut and the cream worked together in a way they hadn’t before. This wasn’t just some D plus some C. It was picture-in-the-paper and get-up-at-dawn and flying-carpet just like it had been before. It was all those things, and it was mine and it was Winnie’s and it was life changing.
I guess after seeing the look on my face, Zoe couldn’t hold out any longer because she finally nibbled at the doughnut. As she chewed, her eyes opened a little wider, and before she’d even swallowed the first bite, she took another one that got her all the way to the chocolate. Her eyes rolled back a few seconds later, and she made this sound that was part giggle and part sigh, like this doughnut, my doughnut, was something she’d been missing forever and finally found.
“Let’s put mashed potatoes in everything!” she said and sucked chocolate off her thumb with a loud smack.
After that, I was so full of Shazzam, I agreed to help Zoe clean up the basement. I even promised not to tell my parents about the mess she’d made.
I was just lugging the vacuum cleaner up from the basement when I heard Mom calling me. She was standing at the top of the stairs, still in her bathrobe but looking less green than before.
“I think I could manage some ginger ale. Bring me some?” she called down.
“Sure.”
I told Zoe I’d be back in a second, got the ginger ale, and headed upstairs.
I guess I did take longer than a second, because Mom and I got to talking about how the D turned out, and by the time I got back to kitchen, Zoe was gone. So was the pastry gun.
I found them both in Jeanine’s room. The gun was empty.
“Okay, where’s the cream?” I hoped she could hear how annoyed I was and that she’d actually care.
She grinned. Not a chance.
“You’re gonna be so sick.” I’d assumed she’d eaten all the cream. That’s what I would have done.
“No, I’m not.” She rocked from one foot to the other. “I like stuffing things.”
“Things? Like doughnuts?”
Her eyes moved slowly from one side of the room to the other. “And other things.”
“Things like that?” I pointed to Jeanine’s model of the human heart. I thought I’d caught her eyes stop at it for a second too long as she looked around the room.
She shook her head but smiled bigger.
“What about that?” I was pointing to the inflatable space shuttle next to it.
“Uh-uh.”
“Come on, Zoe. Give it up. Where’s the cream?”
“No, this is fun. Keep trying,” she said, jumping up and down.
I didn’t have time for this. I was just about to yell for my mother when I noticed Paws, Jeanine’s bear, was on the desk and not on her pillow where she always left him.
“Please tell me you didn’t.” I reached for the bear.
Paws felt like he’d gained a few pounds and was disturbingly squishy. I gave him a little squeeze, and something dribbled out onto the floor.
Zoe clapped.
That was it. Enough. I’d done my best. My mother was off the bathroom floor. My shift was over.
I snatched the pastry gun out of Zoe’s hands, dragged her and Paws into my parents’ room, showed Paws’s new trick to my mother, and then went back downstairs.
In case you’re wondering, no, there is no way to clean chocolate cream from the inside of a teddy bear. Mom found this place in Nebraska though that can completely remake stuffed animals with new insides, so in six weeks Paws was back, even better than new. Zoe lost her Dessert Days for the entire time he was undergoing reconstructive surgery, but I’m pretty sure she’d tell you it was worth it and that she’d do it again if she got the chance. Just in case, we keep the pastry gun under tight security now.
19
A few days after Doughnut Day, I woke to Mom shouting, “I thought we were done with this!”
I leaned over the side of my bed and peeked through the hole in the floor. Mom, Jeanine, and Zoe were standing in a circle right under my room staring at something I couldn’t see on the hall carpet.
“Zoe, I don’t even know what to say,” Mom said.
Since whatever it was, it wasn’t my fault, I put the pillow over my head and tried to go back to sleep.
It was no use. Josh’s voice was playing on a loop in my head: “Why should you invest in the Doughnut Stop? The real question is: How can you afford not to?”
They were lines from our investor presentation. We’d rehearsed for hours the day before because we were pitching my parents that morning. Before we’d practiced though, I’d come clean about how I’d made Winnie’s recipe my own. Then I’d made Josh taste a doughnut I’d made from the original recipe and a new one and told him that if he didn’t like the new one better, we’d go with the original. Luckily, the
