Sugar And Spice (32 page)

Mix thoroughly.

Test your chocolate mixture to make sure it’s cool enough to add. (You don’t want to cook the eggs!) If it’s fairly warm to the touch but not so hot you have to pull your hand away, you can add it at this point.

Stir thoroughly and you’re done.

Let the batter rest for five minutes. Then stir it again by hand and fill each cupcake paper three-quarters full. If you decided to use the 8-inch cake pan instead of the 6-cup muffin tin, fill it with the remaining batter.

Bake the cupcakes in a 350 degree F. oven for 20 to 25 minutes. The 8-inch cake should bake an additional 5 minutes.

Fudge Frosting:

2 cups semi-sweet (regular) chocolate chips (a 12-ounce package)

One 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

18 cupcakes, or 12 cupcakes and 1 small cake, cooled to room temperature and ready to frost.

If you use a double boiler for this frosting, it’s foolproof. You can also make it in a heavy saucepan over low to medium heat on the stovetop, but you’ll have to stir it constantly with a spatula to keep it from scorching.

Fill the bottom part of the double boiler with water. Make sure it doesn’t touch the underside of the top.

Put the chocolate chips in the top of the double boiler, set it over the bottom, and place the double boiler on the stovetop at medium heat. Stir occasionally until the chocolate chips are melted.

Stir in the can of sweetened condensed milk and cook approximately 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until the frosting is shiny and of spreading consistency.

Spread it on the cupcakes, making sure to fill in the “frosting pocket.”

Give the frosting pan to your favorite person to scrape.

These cupcakes are even better if you cool them, cover them, and let them sit for several hours (or even overnight) before frosting them.

Hannah’s Note: If you want to make them in mini-cupcake tins, fill those 2 / 3 full and bake them at 350

degrees F. for 15 minutes.

“Do you know how to preheat the oven to three hundred and fifty degrees?” Hannah asked, taking nothing for granted as far as Julie’s domestic skills were concerned.

Julie nodded. “I can handle that part of it. It’s the job they used to give me when we baked in a group in high school. Do I have to do something with the rack?”

“It should be in the middle position,” Serena told her after glancing down at the recipe Hannah had brought. “Do you want us to unpack the box with the ingredients, Miss Swensen?”

“Not until Miss Jansen’s had time to read through the recipe,” Hannah said, handing the recipe to Julie as she came back to the workstation in the middle of the kitchen.

Julie scanned the recipe and started to smile. “What fun! I’ve never heard of Multiple-Choice Bar Cookies before.”

“You mean it’s like a test?” Serena asked.

“No, it’s like a buffet,” Julie said, placing the recipe on the surface of the workstation and motioning for the girls to come closer. “Just look. There are four columns, and you get to choose one ingredient from each column. You could make a lot of different bar cookies from this recipe.”

“One thousand five hundred and eighty-two,” Hannah said.

“You figured it out that fast?” Serena looked impressed.

“No, I made it up. Whenever I do math problems like that, I forget to subtract for the number of factors to avoid the duplicates.”

“Right,” Julie said, looking every bit as confused as the kids. “Whenever I see a math problem like that, I’m glad I majored in English.”

Serena cracked up, and so did the two younger girls. Hannah could tell that Julie had a good relationship with them. It would be an unusual child indeed who didn’t like Julie. She was funny and caring at the same time.

“Since there are four columns, let’s split this up,” Julie continued. “You can choose one from each column. Take the first column, Serena. Hope? You’ve got the second column. And you’ve got the third column, Joy. I’ll take the fourth, and we’ll have our own creation.”

Leaving the girls to discuss their choices and argue the merits of graham cracker crumbs over chocolate wafer crumbs, Hannah pulled Julie aside to teach her how to melt butter in the microwave and pour it in the pan. Once that was done, they had time for a brief, private conversation.

“How are things developing with Matt?” Hannah discarded any fleeting notion she might have had at subtlety and waded in with both feet.

“We’d be fine if the kids would just leave us alone,” Julie said, and then she shook her head. “Matt and I talked about it, and he pointed out that it’s just the boys. The girls have been perfect angels. They never interrupt us when we’re together. I think they’re really sensitive to the way we feel about each other.

It’s almost as if they’re encouraging us to get together.”

“Miss Jansen?” Hope called out. “Can I use M&Ms and raisins? It says two cups, and Serena thought it might be okay if I used one cup of each.”

“Hannah?” Julie turned to her.

“Absolutely. And that makes one thousand five hundred and eighty-three ways to make them. You’re a natural-born baker, Hope.”

“Thanks, Miss Swensen.”

While Julie was sprinkling the chosen ingredient from column A in the pan, Hannah thought about how the boys didn’t want Julie and Matt to get together and the girls did. It was a little strange, considering that both the boys and the girls seemed to like Matt and Julie a lot. Something didn’t make sense, but Hannah couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. Then Julie asked about the best way to cover the pan evenly with sweetened condensed milk, and Hannah shoved the romantic puzzle aside to consider later.

Spenser was worried. He’d thought it was suspicious when Mr. Sherwood said he was going out for supplies. The storeroom was fully stocked and there really wasn’t anything they needed. It was the reason he’d offered to help Mr. Sherwood unload when he came back, and just as he’d expected, Mr.

Sherwood had insisted that he could handle it himself.

His curiosity aroused, Spenser had watched from an upstairs window as his teacher carried things in.

Most of the packages Mr. Sherwood had bought were for them. Spenser recognized the toy store logo on the bags. But then Mr. Sherwood had gone back out to his car to retrieve a red bag with a logo on the side. It was a silver heart with an arrow, the trademark symbol of Cupid’s Jewelry. Since there was no way Mr. Sherwood had purchased jewelry for one of them, it had to be for Miss Jansen. And Spenser was pretty sure the bag contained a diamond engagement ring.

Spenser ducked around a corner as Mr. Sherwood came up the stairs to stash the bag in his room.

Things were coming to a head much too fast. It was time for them to act, or all was lost.

“Something’s wrong in the office, Mr. Sherwood.” Gary arrived at his teacher’s side panting slightly, with Larry following a second or two behind him.

“What office?”

“The one down the hall,” Larry answered. “Gary and I were walking down…”

“…the hall when we heard this loud noise,” Gary finished.

“It was sort of like a ringing sound,” Larry tried to describe, “except it buzzed too. We thought it was…”

“…a phone off the hook, or something like that.”

“Thanks for telling me,” Matt said. “It sounds like a fax machine, or something electronic. I’ve got the master keys in my pocket. Show me which office it is, and we’ll go take a look.”

This time it seemed that the twins had a legitimate reason for needing him. As they neared the office that Julie used to check her e-mail and generate daily reports to Dr. Caulder, he could hear the beeping noise Larry and Gary had told him about.

“It’s definitely electronic,” Matt said, making short work of unlocking the door and flicking on the lights.

Gary headed straight for the computer desk. “It’s coming from here.”

“What is it?” Matt asked.

Larry gave a little laugh. “It’s an alarm clock. One of the guests must have left it in here…”

“…and it got turned on accidentally,” Gary finished. “But it’s a good thing we came in. This is the computer Miss Jansen used, and she…”

“…must have forgotten to turn it off,” Larry completed the thought. “Do you want me to do it, Mr.

Sherwood?”

Matt nodded. Both Gary and Larry were computer gurus. Even though they were only ten, they’d already written several small programs, and they knew more about the computers in the offices than Matt did. “Go ahead. Just make sure you save any files Miss Jansen might have open.”

“Don’t worry about that. We always check everything to…” Gary stopped and stared at the screen.

“What do you think…?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s some kind of security…”

“No way! It looks more like an illegal operation that led into an internal conflict with…”

“No, it doesn’t. Just let me…”

“Better not. Look at that…”

“Uh-oh,” Larry groaned.

Matt began to frown. “Uh-oh what?”

“Miss Jansen’s computer just went to the blue screen of death.”

“What blue screen of death?” Matt interjected before they could revert to twin talk again.

“You know, Mr. Sherwood,” Larry started to explain. “You only get the bright blue screen when…”

“…your operating system’s compromised,” Gary ended the explanation.

“That sounds bad,” Matt said, remembering his old college roommate talking about getting a blue screen and not being able to access the term paper he’d just finished.

Gary gave a short laugh. “It’s always bad, and sometimes it’s a disaster. But we know a couple of fixes that might…”

“…get it back online again,” Larry took over. “Just give us a minute, and we’ll get into the CMOS and run some internal checks.”

“Take your time,” Matt said, sitting down on the couch by the window.

The twins worked in silence for a moment, and then Gary gave a little cheer. “Okay. It’s up.”

“That’s just the operating system,” Larry pointed out. “How about her files and her Internet provider?”

“The files are here. Let me just sign on and see if…” Gary stopped speaking as the computer rang like a bell several times in succession. “It’s an instant message.”

Larry frowned. “Better retrieve it and save it. If you don’t, she might lose it.”

“Okay. I’ll just pull it up and…Wow!”

“Wow, what?” Matt asked, leaning forward slightly.

“I didn’t know Miss Jansen was engaged!”

“Engaged?” both Matt and Larry asked at once.

“Well, she must be. He’s asking her questions about their wedding.”

Matt felt sick, and he was glad he was sitting down. “You shouldn’t read somebody else’s e-mail,” he said weakly.

“But he’s talking about you,” Gary insisted. “You want to know what he says, don’t you?”

“Yes, but we really ought to respect her privacy.” Matt’s voice trailed off. Of course he wanted to know what the message said. He’d been about to propose to Julie and that meant he needed to know.

“How can it be private if it’s about you?” Larry challenged, and then he turned to his twin. “Go ahead and tell Mr. Sherwood what it says. Don’t read it out loud ’cause that would be snooping, but tell him the important parts.”

“Okay. His name is Dan and he’s talking about something called a bachelor party. Do you know what that is?”

“Oh, yes,” Matt said, the sick feeling rising in his stomach.

“The wedding’s going to be in June, and Dan’s telling Miss Jansen that he just sent an e-mail to her colleague to invite him to the bachelor party.”

“Me?” Matt managed to ask.

“That’s right. He says, your colleague, Mr. Sherwood. And then he says something about how he’s looking forward to meeting you, and how glad he is that you’re keeping her amused over Christmas.”

Amused? Julie had told her fiancé that he’d amused her? Matt felt like swearing a blue streak, or throwing something through the picture window that overlooked the quad, or tracking down Julie’s fiancé and taking him out with his bare hands. Any one of the three might have made him feel better, but he did none of them. Instead, Matt took a deep breath and let it out again slowly, hoping that his equilibrium would return and the twins wouldn’t notice how his hands were shaking.

“That’s very interesting,” he said, pleased that his voice sounded calm, “but it’s really none of our business. Save the message and then go find Spenser. Tell him I’m going to drive you boys out to the mall for hamburgers, and after that we’ll take in a movie, or go bowling, or something.”

“How about the girls?” Larry asked.

“They can stay here with Miss Jansen. It’ll be boys night out, no girls allowed.”

“Like a bachelor party?” Gary wanted to know.

“’Course not,” Larry corrected him. “Spense told me about bachelor parties. All the guys drink a lot, and a lady in a bikini pops out of a cake.”

“Do they eat the cake after she pops out?”

“Spense didn’t say. Come on, Gary. Let’s go find him.”

Gary started to join his twin, but then he turned back to the computer. “Do you want me to shut this off, Mr. Sherwood?”

“I’ll do it. I’ve got an e-mail I have to send, and I need to check something in that last report Miss Jansen wrote for Dr. Caulder. Just meet me by the car at five o’clock sharp and we’ll leave.”

“Thanks, Mr. Sherwood,” Gary said.

“It’ll be fun,” Larry added.

The twins headed for the door, but just as they got there, Matt thought of something else. “Better not say anything to anybody about that e-mail from Miss Jansen’s fiancé.”

“Right,” Larry agreed.

“We won’t,” Gary promised. “She might not understand how we had to open it to save it.”

Once the boys had left and closed the door behind them, Matt sat down at the computer desk and opened Julie’s e-mail. He was going to do something he knew he shouldn’t do, but in the interests of his own sanity, he had to know exactly what was going on with the woman he’d intended to make his wife.

MULTIPLE-CHOICE BAR COOKIES

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

½ cup butter (one stick, ¼ pound)

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk