The Secret Cookie Club (9 page)

Emma

When my mom was pregnant with me, she read somewhere that the children of families that eat dinner together are more successful than the children of families that don't. I bet my mom has read a million articles about raising children, but that one she remembered, which is why we eat dinner as a family almost every night.

My mom is a lawyer, and my dad is the kind of doctor
you go to if you have a problem with your heart, a cardiologist. They both leave for work early in the morning, so my little brother, Benjamin, and I take turns walking Ike, and then we get our own breakfasts, put on our coats, and walk the two blocks to catch the van that takes us to school.

If we forget to walk Ike, we have to clean up the mess when we get home. If we forget our homework or our mittens, our homework doesn't get turned in or our hands are cold. Sometimes I envy kids who have a parent around to solve problems. Other times I'm proud of Benjamin and me for taking care of ourselves.

My parents usually get home around six o'clock and we eat dinner around seven. After that, they work at their desks while either Ben or I cleans up. Luckily, my parents don't cook much, so cleanup equals putting plates in the dishwasher and throwing away cardboard takeout containers.

Since it was a Friday night, the Jewish Sabbath, Mom had prepared what for us counted as a special, homemade dinner: spaghetti with sauce from a jar along with a
salad from the expensive grocery store, the one where all the checkers have tattoos and even the ketchup is organic. My parents don't follow all the rules about being Jewish, but they like the rituals. So we had lit candles before dinner and said the Sabbath prayer in Hebrew.

Ike sat by my chair while we ate. When I was little, I used to drop a lot of food—more than Benjamin ever did—and even though I don't drop so much anymore, our dog stays optimistic.

When I told about tutoring Kayden, Benjamin had one question: “Did you dance in front of Mrs. Haley?” Benjamin is eight years old, a third grader.

I shrugged. “I kind of had to. She said I wasn't as bad as I thought and I should practice in front of a mirror.”

Benjamin made a face. “Please promise me you'll keep your door closed. If I saw that, I might be traumatized for life.” My mom gave Benjamin a warning look, but he just grinned. “I'm young,” he said. “My brain's impressionable.”

“Your brain is soft, you mean,” I said.

Benjamin covered his head and squealed, “
Don't hurt me
!”

“Enough, you two,” my father said. “Is there any other news of the day?”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” I said, and I told about the e-mail from Grace.

“Did someone say
cookies
?” My father perked up.

“Cookies are bad for your heart,” Ben said.

“But good for your soul,” said my father, which made my mom laugh. They have been married about a hundred years, but still really like each other. Sometimes it's gross.

“So if the cookies are supposed to help you solve a problem,” my mom said, “what problem do you need help with?”

There was something, but I didn't want to say it right then. “Nothing much,” I answered. “My life is actually going pretty smoothly.”

Note to self: Do not make that kind of announcement ever again. The universe just sees it as a challenge.

Emma

There is no such thing as a clean-your-plate club in my family because (according to my parents) clean-your-plate clubs contribute to obesity. So I was trying to decide whether the remains of my dinner—four spaghetti noodles and a dressing-soaked lettuce leaf—were worth eating when my mom asked, “Did you scan those photos for GG's book yet?”

It was the question I dreaded.

“Right,” I said, which was a way to answer without actually answering. Then—leaving the last bites for the compost bin—I stood up in a hurry. It was my turn to do the dishes, and also I didn't want to be asked for details.

GG is what we call my great-grandmother, and the photos were for a book the family was putting together for her ninetieth birthday in January. My grandmother—GG's daughter and my mom's mom—was coordinating it all. Mom's and my job was to scan old photographs of GG's early life, write captions, and lay them out on pages.

Mom had thought this would be good for teaching me about family history and good for mother-daughter bonding. But she's so busy, we haven't even started yet, and it has to go to a printer by the end of next week.

Our dog, Ike, followed me into the kitchen. He is ten years old, which is old for a golden. He has a white muzzle and his eyes are cloudy. When he smells bad, my parents and I ignore it; Ben makes faces and blames me. Ike's dog bed is in the kitchen. Now he circled once and lay down.

I started loading the dishwasher, and Mom came in. “This weekend we'll work on GG's book. I promise,” she said. “I just have to put in a few of hours at legal services in the morning.”

Legal services is a place where people without a lot of money can go to get help from a lawyer. My mom volunteers there.

I bumped the dishwasher closed with my toe. “
And
Hanukkah starts on Sunday,” I said, “
and
you have to take Ben to hockey.”

Mom pushed her fingers through her hair—a gesture she makes when she's exasperated. “I know, Emma. Tomorrow night for sure. Meanwhile, you can maybe draw some ideas of how the photos will go on the pages.”

“Uh-huh,” I said vaguely because there was a tiny problem my mom didn't know about. I had lost the photos. Well, not really
lost
. More like I didn't happen to know their precise location at that moment.

*  *  *

When the dishes were done, I went up the back stairs to my bedroom. Our house is in a suburb of Philadelphia called
Gladwyne, which is nice—winding quiet streets with trees on both sides, comfortable houses and big lawns. Sometimes when I tell someone I live here, they say, “Oh-h-h-h,” then look me up and down in a particular way.

It took me a long time to figure out what they're thinking:
You must be rich.

My parents would like you to know that we're not rich. We are like everyone else. Only because they both work superhard, our family has some nice things. They say we should always remember that we are lucky, and we should be generous to people who aren't.

Our house is made of stone and plaster and wood in a style called Tudor. It has a semicircular driveway in front and more rooms than we even use. When I get to the second floor, I turn right and pass Benjamin's room, then a guest room and another room across the hall.

That's the one that belonged to my brother who died.

His name was Nathan. He was five when he got a scrape on his leg that got infected, and then he got a fever. When they saw how sick he was, my parents took
him to the hospital, but the medicines didn't work against his infection, and his heart stopped.

All this happened before I was born, so I never even met him. Eventually, my parents took the bed out of Nathan's room and changed the pictures on the wall. They put in chairs and a sofa and decided it was now a sitting room. But they left one thing of my brother's, his bookcase with all his books in it—
Where the Wild Things Are
,
Goodnight, Moon
,
Now We Are Six
, and lots more.

When Benjamin and I were little, my parents would read Nathan's books to us and say, “This was your brother's book, one of his favorites,” or, “This was your brother's book, and he thought it was kind of boring, which is what made it good for bedtime.”

Because of that, I have always known that my parents loved Nathan and that he is part of my family.

Emma

In my bedroom, I considered my options: (1) read
The Sign of the Twisted Candles
, which was the Nancy Drew mystery I had checked out of the school library; or (2) reply to Grace's e-mail; or (3) find the envelope full of pictures.

If I did the first one first, I would feel guilty that I hadn't done the other two. And I wasn't ready to face looking for the pictures because that seemed like
work
—and hadn't I
already worked a whole day at school? Not to mention I tutored Kayden?

So I sat down at my desk, opened my laptop, opened my in-box, reread Grace's note, and hit reply:

Hello, Grace—Getting your e-mail was like getting a blast of hot Arizona sunshine. (That is a simile. We are learning about them in school. Because you skipped fifth grade, you will never know about similes.)

Now all of a sudden I miss everybody so much! And I miss summer weather, too, even the sweat and the smells in the horse barn and the flies.

Do you remember the day our parents picked us up and we all said good-bye? For me, it was SO WEIRD. I never told you, but I didn't want to go to camp. It was my parents' idea. I think they thought being outside riding horses and stuff would make me less klutzy.

Ha!

At first, I was so homesick I called my parents and begged them to fly back from Philadelphia and pick me up. I even cried.

Then I got over it. Hannah would say it was because of flour power. (Hannah knows everything.)

So the weird part is by the time the day came to be picked up, I didn't want to leave camp at all.

Also, I was embarrassed about my parents.

Y
our parents looked so neat and tidy and full of energy, and Olivia's parents looked so handsome/beautiful, and Lucy's mom is young and glamorous in her weird Cali kind of way. I love my parents, and they are nice (I think), but they are old for parents, and my mom refuses to dye her gray and frizzy hair, and they don't notice how they dress either, unless they are at work. (They always say they have better things to think about than clothes.) Also I think
that day they actually held hands with each other. They do that sometimes IN FRONT OF EVERYONE!

Now you are tired of reading about my parents.

One more thing about Moonlight Ranch—you have to come back next year because I can't wait to see you and everybody!

There is something I have to tell you about the pancakes you are expecting at your friend's house. On behalf of all the people all over the world who celebrate Hanukkah, I apologize because there won't be maple syrup. Latkes are made of grated potato and onion. They don't go with maple syrup.

Also, the game with the top is called DREIDEL. When you play it, you win gelt, which are chocolate candies in gold wrappers that look like coins. It is a little bit babyish, but still my family plays every year.

It is so cool that you are dancing in
The Nutcracker
!
I bet you look totally cute in the costumes even if they are itchy. My parents let me quit ballet.

You asked about a problem. I do have one, but cookies can't help.

Some pictures have disappeared. They were in an envelope my mom handed to me, and when she did, she said, “Put this someplace safe. It's very important. These photos are old and can't be replaced.”

I am sure I did put the envelope someplace safe.

I just don't know where.

And now I can't find it.

I can't tell my mom because she is so well organized she separates her socks by color and keeps each
color in its own special bag in her underwear drawer. She would think this is a crisis, and I would get in trouble, which is usually my brother Benjamin's job.

The idea of being in trouble makes me so upset, I don't even want to look for the pictures because what if I don't find them? What if they are really lost?

Even though cookies cannot solve my problem, it is still okay for you to send some. I don't think I am allergic to any of the ingredients in the recipes Hannah gave us. Thank you for asking. Have fun at your friend Shoshi's party!