Back to School with Betsy (12 page)

"Maybe I ought to sit on the griddle and bake them," chuckled Billy.

This sent the children off again into fits of laughing.

When they recovered, Billy said, "Well, no kidding. We've lost our lunch."

Betsy did the best she could to wipe the batter off herself with a wet rag.

"If I can find the recipe in the cookbook," said Billy, "I guess we could mix up some more batter."

Billy opened the cookbook. He thumbed through the pages. "Oh, boy!" he cried. "Look at these pictures of desserts!"

Betsy ran to the table and bent her head over the cookbook. "Oh, don't they look good!" she said.

Billy turned a page. "Oh, Betsy!" he shouted. "Lookie! Here's a recipe for cream puffs."

"Umm, yummy!" said Betsy.

"What do you say we make cream puffs?" said Billy.

"Oh, they would be too hard to make," replied Betsy.

"No, they're not," said Billy. "Look," he added, pointing to the page. "It just takes butter and water and flour, salt and eggs. Bet that isn't any harder than pancakes. Come on, what do you say we make them?"

"I think you ought to ask your daddy first," said Betsy.

"Oh, all right," said Billy. "I'll ask him."

Billy went halfway up the stairs. Then he called out, "Daddy!"

"What is it?" Mr. Porter's voice came from the top of the house.

"Can we make cream puffs?" Billy shouted.

"Make what?" his daddy called back.

"Cream puffs," yelled Billy.

"Sure, sure," Daddy answered.

"See?" said Billy, as the two children returned to the kitchen.

Betsy opened the refrigerator. She took out the butter and the eggs. "How much butter does it say, Billy?"

"It says a quarter of a pound," replied Billy.

"Well, there's only a quarter of a pound here," said Betsy. "Maybe your mother wouldn't want us to use the butter."

"I'll ask Daddy," said Billy.

Billy ran halfway up the stairs again. "Daddy!" he shouted.

"Now what is it?" his daddy called back.

"Can we use the butter?" replied Billy.

"Use what?" called Mr. Porter.

"The butter," shouted Billy.

"Sure, sure," came the voice from the attic.

The children returned again to the kitchen. Billy put the butter and water in a saucepan and put the pan on the stove. Betsy brought a cookie tin from the closet. She greased the tin. "How many cream puffs are we going to make?" she asked.

"Oh, I guess it will be a lot," said Billy, as he measured the flour and salt into a bowl.

When the butter and water were boiling, Billy dumped the contents of the bowl into the saucepan and stirred it rapidly, just the way the recipe said to. Then he took it from the stove and added four eggs, one at a time. He beat each one in with the electric beater. When he finished, he said, "Say, Betsy, this isn't going to make very many cream puffs. It's only enough for about two. One for you and one for me."

Betsy looked into the saucepan. "Yepper," she said, "you're right. That won't make more than two."

"Well," said Billy, "guess it will be OK. We'll each have one anyway."

He divided the dough into two equal parts. One half he put at the top of the cookie tin, the other lump at the bottom. "Gee!" he said. "I thought we would surely have two apiece. I'm getting awfully hungry."

"So am I," said Betsy, as Billy put the pan in the oven.

"Well, let's have some cornflakes and milk while we're waiting for the cream puffs to get done," said Billy.

The children sat down at the kitchen table. They each ate two bowls of cornflakes with milk. Billy, meanwhile, was reading the cookbook. Suddenly he looked up. "Hey, Betsy!" he said. "This cookbook is crazy."

"What do you mean, 'It's crazy'?" asked Betsy.

"Well, it says here, 'This recipe will make twelve good-size cream puffs or thirty-six small ones,'" Billy read.

"It's crazy," said Betsy. "It only makes two."

When the children finished their cornflakes, Billy said, "I guess we better look at them. It's been fifteen minutes."

He opened the oven door and the two children stooped down and looked inside. To their astonishment, there in the oven sat two golden pumpkins. They were the cream puffs, all blown up and six times as big as an ordinary cream puff and eighteen times as big as a small cream puff.

The children's eyes looked as though they were about to fall out onto the kitchen floor.

"Golly!" cried Billy. "I didn't know that they were going to blow up like balloons."

"Jimminy!" cried Betsy. "I'll bet we've made the biggest cream puffs that were ever baked..."

C
AROLYN
H
AYWOOD
(1898–1990) was born in Philadelphia and began her career as an artist. She hoped to become a children's book illustrator, but at an editor's suggestion, she began writing stories about the everyday lives of children. The first of those,
"B" Is for Betsy,
was published in 1939, and more than fifty other books followed. One of America's most popular authors for children, Ms. Haywood used many of her own childhood experiences in her novels. "I write for children," she once explained, "because I feel that they need to know what is going on in their world and they can best understand it through stories."