Berried, page 24
part #6 of Charlie Cooper Mystery Series
Celeste grabbed her hand for comfort. “I think you did great, Barbara.”
“Without you, we wouldn’t even have all of this,” Marge joined in.
I gave my mom a hug. “Thanks, Mom.”
My mom almost melted.
“And we do still have dessert,” Celeste said. “Thanks to Charlie here—dessert chef extraordinaire.”
“Oh, that’s right!” I said. Mental forehead smack. I almost forgot about my cake. “We have my orange cream cheesecake!” Who would have ever guessed that I could save the day doing something that domestic?
“Then bring that bad boy inside,” Sam said. “Let’s eat dessert right now. We don’t have that much else to eat. Plus, if we wait too long, something else might happen and ruin our dessert too.”
I ran to get it from the window. I took off the lid and placed it proudly on the table, which looked a little fuller and a tiny bit less sad now.
My mother looked at it and frowned. “I just realized, I’m seeing that cake for the first time now without the lid on. It looks very…orange,” she said.
Marge nodded and looked closer. “That’s what I thought too when I, well, had that little accident earlier today,” she said.
Now, I was super worried. Had I somehow screwed this up? “Should it be a different color? I followed the recipe. I did exactly what it said.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s fabulous,” my mother said as she sat down and cut everyone a piece. The others settled in to try to enjoy the meal.
My mother took the first bite. She made a face and coughed, but I could tell she tried to compose herself as best she could. “Charlotte, I have to ask…what is in this cake?”
“I told you! You should have thought of a plan B! Now we don’t even have dessert!” Brad said.
My heart sank. Could this day get any worse?
“Well, I put in butter, cream cheese, sugar…” I ran to get the cookbook. I quickly found the page and held it out to my mother. “Here it is. Right here! I did exactly what it says. What did I do wrong?” What a day to ruin dessert.
All the others gathered around.
“Oh my stars,” my mother said.
“What? What? What is it?” I asked with my voice an octave higher.
“I think…this is a mistake. Did you really put in thirty ounces of orange gelatin?”
Marge gasped. “Thirty ounces?”
The others gave out a loud groan.
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked, my eyes bulging out.
“That’s too much, dear,” my mother said.
“Guess that explains why the color almost glows,” Marge said.
“But that’s what it says to do!” I looked at it again. It still said the same thing: 1 package—30 ounces—of orange gelatin.
“Three ounces!” my mother said. “It should have been three ounces. That is quite a typo.”
“A typo?” I asked. “I messed up dessert because of a typo?”
My mother looked at me sadly. “Charlie, dear, it wasn’t your mistake.”
I thought I would cry.
“Don’t worry, sis, this is totally in sync with the rest of the day,” Sam teased.
Now I really was going to cry.
My dad filled the room with a boom of laughter. “We’re so hungry, we’ll probably even eat the orange gelatin itself.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said, rolling my eyes. “What do we do now?”
“We do have some little bits of gingerbread in the cookie jar,” my father offered.
Nobody made a move to walk toward the cookie jar.
Marge grinned. “Well, I guess it’s a good thing that I brought my surprise.”
We all turned to Marge. I’d forgotten about the large box that she’d had with her when she came.
“You’ve got dessert?” Brad asked, and I could almost see drool at the corner of his mouth.
“Then don’t just stand there, go bring it,” Celeste said.
Marge ran into the living room and came back with her surprise. She placed the box on the table and took the lid off. It was brown and round, but what it was I wasn’t sure.
“It’s pudding!” Marge said proudly.
“Nice,” Brad said.
“Don’t dig in yet. I still have to add the finishing touch—which you will love. It’s part of the surprise.”
“What are you gonna do?” I asked.
“Just sit back and watch,” Marge said.
I don’t know why, but I had an uneasy feeling about it. I looked at Celeste, but she shrugged. Apparently, she didn’t know either what Marge was up to.
“Barbara, where are the bowls?” Marge asked.
“Right there, in the right cabinet,” my mom said. “I can’t wait to see your surprise.”
Marge pulled a bowl out of the cabinet and took a tiny bottle from her inside pocket. Was that a liquor flask? Exactly what we needed! Everybody watched intently as she poured some liquid from the flask into the bowl and put in the microwave. The rest of us picked hungrily at the tiny bits of food while Marge readied her creation.
A couple of minutes later, the microwave pinged. Marge came back to the table and poured the liquid from the bowl onto the pudding. The smell of alcohol was strong.
“Excellent!” my dad said. “I love a flambéed dessert. We’re getting fancy here.”
“Ooooh, so that’s what you’re doing,” I said, mesmerized by her cooking abilities. I couldn’t even read a recipe right.
Once the liquid had been poured, Marge produced a lighter to complete the show.
“This is it,” Marge said. “Watch and be amazed.”
We held our breath as Marge lit it up.
A giant flame shot up to the ceiling. Marge yelped and quickly pulled her hand away, and we all jumped up and moved backwards.
“Omg,” I said. “The pudding is on fire!”
“I think that’s a little bit too much, Marge,” my father said, the king of understatement.
“Not the pudding too,” Brad said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll put it out,” Marge said.
Desperately, she looked around and grabbed the first bottle she saw on the counter. Because Lady Luck that day seemed to absolutely hate us, it was Mrs. Eisler’s rum, but Marge didn’t know that. There had been no time to add that label. The liquid looked like plain juice.
“Don’t do it, Marge,” I screamed, lunging at her. “Don’t pour!”
But it was too late.
With the addition of the rum, the flame shot even higher, growing blue and huge.
We jumped a few more steps backwards. Now it looked as if the whole table was on fire.
“What the hell was that?” Marge shouted with her back against the wall.
“Rum! Rum for the eggnog,” I yelled back as the heat from the fire began to burn my face.
“Our dinner is now completely ruined,” my mom bawled.
My father sprang into rescue mode, ran to the cabinet closet, grabbed the fire extinguisher from the side and aimed it at the pudding and the remaining bits of food. You know your Christmas Eve day went down the drain when your food catches fire. A freakish-looking foam covered our table and splashed our faces and our clothes.
Just as the fire went out, the day took one more turn.
A shadowy kind of blob seemed to appear from nowhere. It leaped onto the table, causing more splashes. It jumped around, apparently freaked out by the fierce sprays coming from the red tube in my father’s hand. In horror, I watched it leap once more, this time disappearing into the elaborate waves of hair piled on top of Celeste’s head.
Chapter Five
“What is that?” I shrieked.
“Get it out, get it out!” Celeste batted wildly at her hair, which wiggled and jiggled as the creature tried to escape the waves that were heavily sprayed into place.
It leaped back to the table. It was just a gray blur as it ran across the bowls and through the crumbs, landing on the turkey. It looked up at us, and at last we understood.
“There’s your ghost,” my dad said and looked at Marge.
“A squirrel?” I asked and wiped some foam splash from my face.
“That is indeed…a squirrel!” Sam said, amazed.
“Oh my,” my mom said and put her hand on her chest.
“Look at its little face!” cooed Marge. “Isn’t it the cutest thing?”
“No Marge, it is not. It is not the cutest thing.” Celeste tried to smooth her hair, then jerked her hand back in disgust. “Eww! This is disgusting. I have sweet potatoes in my hair.”
“Oh, you’re such a fashionista,” Marge said. “Always wearing something new! I’m so glad it’s not a ghost.”
I handed Celeste a wad of paper towels. “So you’re saying, this small animal was our intruder? Where did it even hide this whole time?”
“Beats me,” Celeste said. “All I know is, it shouldn’t be in the house.”
“I can’t believe that tiny little thing could take down a whole big tree,” my mom said.
“I know!” I agreed. “What is he…like on steroids or something?”
My father’s laughter boomed again, while he put the fire extinguisher down and rubbed his forehead. “The squirrel on steroids. Now that’s a catchy headline.”
“What are we going to eat?” Brad said, looking desperately at the foam-food.
We stared at our dinner table. We couldn’t even distinguish the food.
“I can’t even look at this,” my mother said, covering her eyes.
On top of the foam-turkey, the squirrel sat very still. He stared at each of us in turn, as startled to see us as we were to see him.
“Let’s get him out of here,” I said, “and end this nightmare now.” I paused. “How do you move a squirrel?”
“We could call a creature catcher,” Marge suggested. “Did you know that people do that for a living?”
“Well, let me see how good I am at the art of creature catching,” my father said. “I was a fair athlete in my day. I can handle this.” Quietly and slowly, he approached the squirrel.
“Careful, Jack,” my mother whispered. “Do squirrels bite?”
“Only one way to find out,” my dad said.
He lunged at the squirrel and almost had him when it leaped up again and scurried into the living room. We ran after it, slipping on the foamy floor and knocking into each other.
“For Chrissake!” Celeste said. “This is like a bad movie.”
We got in the living room just in time to see the squirrel disappear into the fireplace.
“So that’s where it was hiding,” Sam said.
Mental forehead smack. The squirrel that ruined Christmas was hiding in the fireplace. We had inedible food in the kitchen, and my stomach was growling. Marge’s idea ordering Chinese food is actually not that bad.
“Good thing you didn’t make a fire yet,” Marge said.
“What now?” my mother asked. “We’ve never had this before.”
“We have to get him out of here,” my father said. “He probably slipped in through the chimney and couldn’t climb back up. First, we need to make sure he doesn’t come out of this opening again.”
Sam grabbed the fireplace screen and placed it against the opening.
“I hope that works,” my mom said.
My father checked the screen. “It should work.”
“I say we dangle some rope down the chimney, give the squirrel a way to climb back out,” Sam said.
“My thought exactly,” my dad said.
“That could work,” Celeste said. “If the rope is thick enough, it provides a rough surface for it to climb back up.”
My father scratched his head. “Of course, somebody would have to get up on the roof.”
“It’s already dark,” my mother said. “I don’t feel good about anybody doing that.”
“I don’t see any other way to fix it, babe,” my father told her with a sigh.
“It’s going to be okay,” Sam said. “I’ll make sure Brad is careful when he goes up there.”
“Wait…What?” Brad said.
“Thank you, Brad,” my mother said. “Everybody, get your coats.”
We wiped the foam splashes from our clothes as best we could and bundled up again. Once we got outside, I was glad to see that with the street lights and the Christmas lights from our house and the others down the street, our vision wasn’t as bad as expected.
“So far, I have to tell you, this is the Christmas Eve I will remember most,” Marge said.
“Quite a bit of action,” Celeste agreed.
“You know what sounds good to me right now?” I asked. “A normal, somewhat boring dinner like they’re probably having in that house and that one too.” I nodded toward the houses that sat across the street with cars spilling out in the driveways and figures moving back and forth in the lighted windows.
“Charlie, will you help me get the ladder?” my father asked.
“Why does she get the easy job?” Brad whined.
“This time I’m thinking we should leave the ladder out,” Sam said. “Who knows what’s going to happen next?”
“Hopefully some kind of dinner is going to happen next,” Brad said.
In the well-organized garage, my father quickly found a long, thick rope, which he handed to me along with some headband-looking things that had lights attached in front.
“What are these?” I asked.
“Those are headlamps, Charlie. Brad can wear one on his forehead and still have both hands to climb.”
“Cool,” I said and carried them outside while he followed with the ladder.
“We’re all set,” my dad told the others as we arrived with the equipment.
The next adventure had begun! Carefully my father lined the ladder up with the chimney opening. On the roof were narrow steps for when we needed access to the chimney opening.
Still mumbling, Brad took one of the flashlight things and strapped it to his head. With the rope draped around his arm, he began to climb.
“Let’s get this over with,” he said.
“Careful of the rope!” my mother cried. “Don’t let it make you trip.”
“I’ll go as well,” Sam said. “He might need some help.”
Once they were both on the roof, the rest of us looked up as Brad tied the rope to a small pole near the opening to the chimney. Sam stared down the opening. The headlamp gave off lots of light. “Hey!” he called down to us, “I can see the squirrel down there. I think Dad was right. He must have tumbled down the chimney and then he was stuck—trapped in with all of us. Hopefully this will work.”
“I sure hope it does,” I said. “I hope that squirrel is a kick-ass climber.”
“Good job, boys,” my father yelled. “We’ll check in the morning to see if the little fella’s gone. I think we need to get a chimney cap. We don’t want other visitors dropping down into the fireplace.”
“Unless they arrive by sleigh,” Marge said. She winked. “Hopefully with diamonds! Diamonds would be nice. Or some pink shoes—with just a little heel.”
“If you need a chimney cap, I have the perfect guy,” Celeste told my father. If you needed anything, Celeste always knew a guy, which could come in handy in our line of work.
Back in the house again, we made sure the fireplace screen was still firmly in place. My mother placed some heavy bookends against the screen for extra measure, but would the squirrel stay in its place? This was some energetic squirrel.
With the commotion over, we could focus on the mess in the kitchen—and, oh, what a mess it was. Now the food was not just dumped but some of it was burned, and my mother’s antique tablecloth was scorched. Plus, everything was dripping from my father’s valiant efforts with the fire extinguisher. To complete the picture, there was a trail of dirty footprints through the puddles on the floor.
“It exhausts me just to look at this. What are we going to do?” my mother asked.
Everyone was silent. I imagined that everybody else was as famished as I felt.
“Well, there is food at the diner,” my father volunteered. “It won’t be what we’re used to for the holiday, but you know what they say: Nobody goes home hungry when they stop at Jack’s. I don’t have any deliveries for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, but there’s always stuff we can find there to eat.”
“I’m starving,” Celeste said. “I vote yes. Let’s go!”
“Let’s do it,” I agreed.
I needed to be anywhere except that sticky kitchen that was oozing with disgust.
As soon as I turned to head for the spare room where our coats were, everybody ran past me and beat me to it. What do you know, apparently I was not the hungriest one.
We traveled in three cars, my parents in Dad’s truck, Sam and Brad in Sam’s Corvette, and me and Celeste with Marge. This was the perfect time to be on the road with Marge with the streets all but deserted. That meant no slamming on the brakes to avoid colliding with another car—which Celeste and I always spotted long before Marge did. Springston looked so beautiful with the moonlight and holiday lights reflecting off the snow. Everything was still and quiet.
Ten minutes later we arrived at Jack’s. I don’t think I had ever seen an empty parking lot at my father’s diner. We parked our cars and almost ran inside. Immediately, my mother headed to the kitchen to make some Christmas magic. My father followed her, calling out behind him, “Someone turn on the heat.” Sam worked the thermostat, and Marge found an all-Christmas station on the radio.
“Let’s see if we can help,” Marge said, and my friends and I headed to the kitchen.
“Feels like old times again,” my father said with a wink as Celeste got to work, dumping pasta into a giant pot. Before Marge, Celeste, and I opened up our business, they were both waitresses at Jack’s. I don’t think they ever cooked, but these girls knew their way around the diner kitchen.
My mom was taking inventory. “I see some potatoes, pickles, eggs…some peanut butter crackers. This will be a zany kind of feast, but we’ll try to be creative.”
“Remind me to write down what we took from inventory,” my dad said.
