Page 73 of Kiss the Girl
“He’ll love that I asked,” she reassured me. “He’s getting more and more of his energy back. And after all the help with the decorations, he’ll be stoked to repay the favor. I’ll let you know if I can make it.”
We hung up, and I almost headed over to Brooke’s classroom to ask her advice for the booth. Then I realized she was going to be all over me about the mistletoe kiss, and I hid in my office instead.
She texted me ten minutes before lunch ended: “Chicken.”
Absolutely. Brooke would have questions that I didn’t have answers to. I couldn’t avoid figuring out what was going on between Grace and me forever, but I could definitely put it off for one more day until I solved the booth problem.
Grace texted that she’d be off at five, and I was waiting for her in the gym with the boys.
“Fellas,” I said, “we’ve got a small problem with the booth.”
“Did it break?” DeShawn asked.
“We gotta build more?” J.J. asked.
I made the “settle down” gesture. “No, I don’t think so. But we’re not going to be able to do apple cider donuts.” I explained the problem and got the grumbling I expected.
“Maybe that’s okay,” Grant said. “I could never figure out what apple cider donuts had to do withCat in the Hat.”
Grace glanced over to me with a small smile, her eyebrows raised.
“Fair point,” I said. “So let’s tie whatever we’re going to do in with our theme.”
“How do we do that?” DeShawn asked.
“I don’t know. That’s for you boys to figure it out. This is raising funds for your program, so you should have a say in it. Right now, I’m turning our game board into a problem-solving board.” I erased the Xs and Os from the play we’d been practicing today and wrote “Brainstorm” across the top. “We’ve got twenty pounds of flour, gallons of apple cider, pounds of butter and sugar, plus all this stuff.” I wrote the additional spices and ingredients. “Pull out your phones and google to see what else we can do.”
Rustling and murmurs sounded as they pulled out their phones and set to work.
“Well done, coach,” Grace said, joining me to study the whiteboard. “You should probably also know that if all else fails, I have a secret weapon.”
“What’s that?”
“My sister, the celebrity chef. She might be falling down right now in the family department, but she never fails in the baking department. She’ll have an idea.”
“How did I forget you have a celebrity chef practically in your pocket?”
She shrugged. “Because she’s rarely actually helpful, but maybe this time she can do some good.”
I lowered my voice. “I talk a good game about having faith in these boys, but I’m going to feel a lot better if we have a Plan B.”
“You’ve got a Plan B,” she said. “I promise.”
“I got something,” Grant said. “What about apple turnovers?”
“My mom makes turnovers that are the bomb,” DeShawn said. “But what’s that got to do withCat in the Hat?”
“I don’t know,” Grant said, sounding irritated. “Maybe because of how those Things turn over everything in the house?”
“Oh, dang,” J.J. said. “That’s good.”
“Thatisgood,” DeShawn said. “Okay, okay, what about…”
They were off and running, ideas pouring out. I tried to keep up with them on the board as they googled more recipes and connections to the theme.
Twenty minutes later, we’d narrowed it down to three ideas: apple turnovers (because the Cat in the Hat turned the house upside down), apple hand pies (because it seemed like the kind of pies little kids would make), or apple tacos (where the taco shell was a pancake because “that’s the kind of messed up thing that cat would make”).
“Feeling better?” Grace asked as the boys argued among the three options.
