Head Spinners, page 13
‘Yeah,’ I nodded, slow at first then faster and faster. Everything wasn’t okay yet, but maybe it would be soon.
Three days later, I had a pile of order forms and bags of ingredients on the kitchen bench. Operation keep-the-ghost-happy was back on track. There were even more orders than I’d dared hope, enough to make the money I needed and a bit more. But I still had to bake the cookies, and I was nervous about that. I was going to have to make double batches, or even triple, to get all the orders cooked in time.
Dad was feeling better and had helped me translate a biscuit recipe from the old cookbook. He was having trouble with one of the ingredients until Mum walked past, took one look at the English translation and said, ‘It must be baking powder.’ I was impressed.
At the back of my mind the whole time I imagined my great-grandmother hanging around – well, hovering, or whatever it was that she did – watching what was going on. She didn’t send any more electricity to make everything go weird, though. A good sign, I decided.
That was, until the afternoon when I started to cook.
I felt it as soon as I pulled a mixing bowl out of the cupboard – the fizz of electricity in the air. It hit me with a rush of surprise and confusion. What? Didn’t she want me cooking?
I stopped myself from gesturing rudely at thin air. Instead, I humphed loud enough for anyone who might be listening to hear it, and put the bowl back.
Right on cue, the fizziness faded.
I wasn’t expecting this. For a while I frowned at the packets of ingredients spread out in front of me. They looked so . . . ready to be made into something more than just flour and sugar. I’d even used my own money to buy them.
I put my hands on my hips. My great-grandmother might be bossy. She might be stubborn. But her youngest great-grandson could be stubborn too.
Gritting my teeth I pulled the bowl out of the cupboard again.
Zap went the air around me. My hair stood on end. Even my jumper felt prickly. I ignored it and picked up a bar of butter. My teeth began to tingle and I started feeling dizzy. My great-grandmother was hitting me with the works.
What was her problem? I put the butter down and bit my lip.
It wasn’t as if she had gone all fizzy on me when I’d printed out the order forms. Or when I’d bought the ingredients. Maybe it wasn’t exactly the cooking that she didn’t like. Maybe it was something as simple as . . . the mixing bowl.
I put the bowl back in the cupboard for the second time, and took a deep breath. With slow, deliberate steps, I moved around the kitchen.
Then, near a corner cupboard, I sensed something. It wasn’t a zap this time, more a kind of pulsing around me. It felt warm. An invitation.
As soon as I opened the cupboard, I knew what my great-grandmother was after. It was the electric mixer. Maybe she wasn’t opposed to technology all the time. I pulled it out and the air stayed normal.
I went to plug the power cord in . . .
Zap went the air.
Okay. I put the cord down. So she wanted me to set it all up before I plugged it in.
‘Do you want any help?’ Mum was hovering, peering at the electric mixer.
‘Ah . . . not yet,’ I said. ‘I’ll let you know.’
I had the feeling that I was going to be getting all the help I needed.
At first as I began to mix the ingredients, I kept getting zapped – like little slaps on the wrist – when I did something wrong. Too much! Too hot! Enough! But soon I began to get a feel for what my great-grandmother liked in the kitchen – she preferred wooden spoons to plastic ones and liked a low flame on the stove. She especially liked it when I cleaned up as I went along.
It was the best feeling when I shaped my first cookie. I’d rolled out a piece of dough into a fat worm shape, then folded it in half and twisted.
When I placed it on the baking tray, the air pulsed warmly. First try and she was happy!
The cookies all came out perfect, every batch. Even Clio and Poppy hung around being friendly so they could have a taste.
I worked really hard that day and I had to get up early to cook the next morning. But when it was all finished, I had to admit that cooking with my great-grandmother had been great fun.
On Easter Sunday I helped Mum cook lunch. Not because I had to, because I wanted to. I had already used the money I’d earned to buy back the watch. I couldn’t stop grinning at that nasty old shop owner as he counted out the money.
Then I brought the watch home and gave it to Dad. ‘Here,’ I said. ‘I thought you might like it now.’
Dad was so surprised that he didn’t know what to say. He nodded at the watch, then looked up at me with a strange look on his face.
Now it was propped up in a clear plastic case, sitting on the photo shelf in the lounge room. I imagined it looking out at everything that went on.
The watch was back, safe and sound, but I couldn’t help checking for signs that my great-grandmother was still around. Now that I . . . well, sort of knew her a bit, I didn’t want her to go.
But the last time I’d felt her was when I’d put the cookies into bags. She’d sent me on a long hunt to find a red ribbon in the bottom of a drawer. The bags had looked really good tied up with ribbons. But that had been three days before.
As I cooked with Mum I kept bracing myself for a zap on the wrist or a warm pulse. At one point I even chose a plastic spoon to see if anything happened. Nothing did. After a while I swapped the plastic spoon for a wooden one.
I hoped that my great-grandmother was still around, but that wasn’t the only reason why I wanted to help cook. Now that I had a feel for it, I didn’t want to stop. There was something about the process – the transformation of ingredients – that I found fascinating. The way floppy, sticky cookie dough went firm and crunchy just after being hot for a while. Who was the first person who came up with that idea? How did they work out what would happen? Who first decided to mix flour and egg, and how did they realise that something like yeast would make dough grow bigger and softer with heat? Before people knew how different ingredients worked, it must have been strange trying to cook. The first time someone baked bread in the coals of a fire, it must have seemed like magic.
I couldn’t stop looking through the old Greek recipe book either. It seemed to hold the ideas and experiments of so many people. Starting with the ones who first worked out how to cook with fire, or how to make dough, then adding all the other people who’d come after them who’d tried adding sugar, or sultanas or whatever, to make it taste even better. And then my great-grandmother had come along and collected recipes, changing them or adding something new and finally passing it all on to me and Mum.
It made me feel, I don’t know, lucky to have that book. It seemed like something worth looking after.
After lunch we sat around the table, too full to keep eating but too relaxed to leave. Even Clio and Poppy were in a good mood.
I leaned over and snuck a piece of lettuce from the salad bowl. The tang of the dressing tasted good but it needed a bit more salt. Maybe next time I could add some soy sauce . . .
Dad shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. ‘I have a confession to make, everyone,’ he said. ‘Your great-grandmother didn’t just leave you jewellery in her will. She also left a bit of money as a wedding present for each of you when you get married . . .’
‘How much?’ asked Clio straight away.
Poppy was grinning. ‘What does a bit mean?’
They looked pretty interested. I was too, though not as much as I would have been two weeks before. I don’t plan to ever get married. And now that I had a way to earn my own money, I wasn’t so fussed about having it given to me.
‘I’m getting to that,’ said Dad to the girls. Then he looked at me. Mum was smiling strangely at me too.
‘We’re very proud of the way you worked this past week, Tony,’ said Dad. ‘The way you treated your great-grandmother’s watch, paying for it to be fixed up.’ He looked at Mum, who nodded. ‘We think you’ve been very mature with your money . . . mature enough to manage a bit of your own. And since it’ll be such a long time until you get married . . .’
‘And there’s no guarantee that you will . . .’ interrupted Mum.
‘We thought the inheritance money would mean more to you now,’ finished Dad.
Really? Everyone was looking at me. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, but something seemed to change in the air. It wasn’t fizzy, or even pulsing, but I could still feel something . . .
‘Come on, Dad!’ cried Poppy. ‘How much are we talking here?’
‘Eight hundred euros shared between the three of you,’ said Dad.
That sounded like a whole heap of money, but no one knew how many dollars were in one euro. We all started talking at the same time.
‘Calm down, you lot!’ called Dad. He pulled out his mobile and started pressing buttons. ‘If I find out the exchange rate . . . euros into Australian dollars. . . . then I subtract a commission for exchanging the money . . . and divide that amount by three . . .’
Dad looked at the screen and raised his eyebrows. ‘Well son, nothing to sneeze at, eh?’
As I leaned forward, the sense of something increased in the air around me. It was good to have it back. It made me feel safe somehow . . . part of something.
‘How much, Tony?’ asked Poppy.
I looked at the screen and burst out laughing. It read 390.90 – the exact price of the new-release game console. I had a feeling that this one would work fine.
Mum leaned forward. ‘We want you to buy something that will remind you of your great-grandmother.’
‘No problem!’ I grinned. It was pretty much guaranteed that I’d think of my great-grandmother each time I played my new game . . .
Each time I turned it on, and it didn’t go zap!
About the author
Thalia grew up on a farm on the outskirts of Melbourne. After a stint as a dancer she edited websites and travel guides. But her biggest passion has always been writing. Thalia has published multiple books in the Go Girl! series, as well as the non-fiction children’s book It’s True! Sleep Makes You Smarter! (which is true, in case you’re wondering). She has also published two novels in the Girlfriend Fiction series, Step Up and Dance and What Supergirl Did Next.
These days she lives in north-eastern Victoria with her husband and two children, as well as two cats, three frogs and a big family of micro bats. She is currently trying to think up a logical reason why time travellers from the future haven’t popped in yet to say hi.
Thalia Kalkipsakis, Head Spinners
