Boiling Point (4 page)

“You’re telling me!” Peichi said with a giggle. “Come on, let’s walk faster! I can’t wait to show you my new room!”

“You’ve been saying that all day,” Molly teased her.

Amanda stopped to fix the strap of her sandal that had slipped down. “I have to get another hole in this strap. It’s too loose,” she said.

“Come on! Come on!” Peichi said impatiently. “You can fix your shoe at my house.”

The girls knew Peichi was excited, so they hurried the rest of the way to her house.

“Everybody close your eyes!” said Peichi as she led the friends upstairs to her room. “I mean, after you get upstairs.”

She opened her door.
“Ta-da!”
she cried.

“
Oooh!
” squealed the girls.

Mrs. Cheng had painted the room ivory. A large cotton chenille rug, also in ivory, made the room look cozy. Sheer ivory drapes hung from the tall windows. In one corner was a new white wooden desk, with cute little cubbies and drawers, and a matching white chair with an aqua velvet cushion. In another corner was an overstuffed armchair, upholstered in aqua velvet. A dresser matched the desk. On the floor were four gigantic velvet pillows for sitting on—in aqua leopard print!

But the best thing was Peichi’s queen-sized wooden sleigh bed.

“It’s my parents’ old bed,” explained Peichi. “They got a new bed. This is so huge, I feel like I’m in a boat!”

“We could all have a sleepover right
here!”
Molly joked, plopping on the bed.

Peichi had picked out the bedding herself. Her friends loved the aqua puffy quilt. It was bordered in velvet, in a very pale aqua. Two matching pillow shams completed the look.

There were fun touches, too—a groovy pink Lava Lamp. Transparent yellow plastic towers for CDs. Even a string of white lights with pink plastic flower-shaped covers.

There was also a traditional touch. Under glass, hanging on a wall, was a woman’s black Chinese silk jacket with colorful embroidery. It had belonged to Peichi’s grandmother, Ah-mah.

“Wow! Your parents went all
out!”

“I love your bed!”

“I love how bright everything is. Can I move in?”

Shawn ran her hand over the quilt’s silky fabric as she gazed around the room. “I love it, Peichi,” she said. “Now I want to do my room over, too! Mine’s so babyish. Yours looks grown-up. Hey, what happened to your posters? Did your mom make you throw them out?”

Peichi smiled and got up to close her door. On the back of the door were two posters of Peichi’s favorite bands. “I don’t think Mom knows they’re here!” she said, opening the door. Everybody laughed, and the girls made themselves comfortable on the big cushions.

Peichi sank into her big velvet chair. “
Aaaaahh!
” she sighed. “You guys have to try this!”

Amanda reached into her pocket. “Here’s our money!” she said, waving a wad of bills. “I think Mrs. Jamison even put a tip in.” She put the pile of cash on the floor.

“Money, money, money!” said Molly, throwing up a bunch of bills and watching them float to the floor. “I’ll divide it up. One dollar for you, Peichi, one dollar for you, Amanda, one for Shawn, five dollars for me...,” she joked.

“Maybe we should have a treasurer, like real clubs have,” suggested Shawn. “Now that we have a real business, and we’ve made a little money.”

“What does a treasurer do?” asked Molly.

“A treasurer takes care of all the money,” Peichi explained.

“She writes down how much money comes in, divides it up, and keeps track of how it’s spent,” added Shawn.

Peichi looked around at her friends. “Can I do it?” she asked. “Or do you want to be the treasurer. Shawn?”

Shawn shook her head. “No, thanks,” she said. She hadn’t yet told Peichi that she would be leaving soon.

The girls looked at each other.

“Does anyone else want to be treasurer?” asked Molly. “Actually, I think I do. We’ll have to take a vote.”

“I’m definitely not voting for you, Molls, chuckled Amanda.

“Why not?” asked Molly with a pout.

Amanda giggled and told the friends, “One time Molly had a hole in her pocket and she lost all her allowance! And another time, she paid for an ice-cream cone with a ten-dollar bill and forgot to wait for her change, and the kid behind the counter had to chase her up the street to give it to her—”

“That was a long time ago, Manda,” said Molly, rolling her eyes.

“If you call the beginning of the summer a long time ago,” teased Amanda. She poked Molly in the ribs. “Plus, your money is always ending up in the wash.”

“Well, at least it’s clean!” Molly giggled. “Okay, so I won’t be treasurer! Who wants Peichi to be treasurer?”

Everyone raised her hand.

“Then it’s—what’s that word?” asked Molly, handing the pile of bills over to Peichi. “When everyone votes for the same person?”

“Unanimous!” said Peichi. “Great! Thanks, guys! I’ll start right now!” She reached for a pad of paper. Cooking job for the Jamisons. . .” She began to write. Then she took all the bills and divided the money equally among the friends.

“Hooray, I’m rich!” cried Molly. “Let’s go to the movies! Let’s buy some candy! Let’s—”

“Hi. girls,” called a gentle voice. The girls looked up. It was Mrs. Cheng, standing in the doorway. She looked like a model with her sleek black bobbed hair, flared jeans, and black sleeveless top.

“Oh, hi, Mom!” called Peichi. “You sneaked up on us.”

“Moms are good at that,” said Mrs. Cheng with a soft laugh. “You’re all holding what looks like lots of money. Now don’t spend it all in one place!”

“We won’t,” said Peichi. “Guess what? I’m treasurer of Dish!”

Mrs. Cheng came into the room and sat on the floor with the girls.

“Are you going to invest some money in Dish?” asked Mrs. Cheng. “I hope so.”

“What does ‘invest’ mean?” asked Amanda.

Mrs. Cheng thought for a moment. “Well, it means to put some of the money you earned from Dish back
into
Dish. To buy things your business needs. For instance, I used some of the money I made from designing the logo for the Brooklyn Bank to buy a more powerful computer, and a better chair.”

“We invested in the fridge, and it’s paid off already,” said Amanda. “Luckily, it was only forty-five dollars!”

“Great!” said Mrs. Cheng. “What does your business need now? Spices? Sugar? Flour?”

Molly and Amanda nodded as they looked at each other.

“We’ve just been using a lot of ingredients that Mom had,” said Amanda.

“But we should buy our own stuff,” added Molly, “so that Mom doesn’t have to keep replacing what we take.”

“And maybe we should buy your mom some supplies to pay her back for what we’ve already used,” said Peichi.

Mrs. Cheng smiled. “You have the idea,” she said.

“And we need to make flyers to advertise our business, and pay for an ad to put in the newspaper,” Peichi added. “The ad will cost money.”

“Maybe we don’t even need an ad,” said Shawn. “I mean, we’re getting a lot of business already, and we might get more than we can handle.”

Molly and Amanda flashed each other a look. Shawn was right. Once Shawn left, they’d be down to just themselves and Peichi.

Mrs. Cheng stood up to go. “I’ll be happy to design a flyer if you girls want one,” she offered. “And you don’t have to pay me! Now come on down to the pool. It’s too nice a day to be cooped up inside!”

“Okay,” said the girls.

Peichi turned to her friends after Mrs. Cheng left. “We do need supplies. So, the best thing to do is for each of us to put back some of our money—let’s say ten dollars. That’ll give us forty dollars to start with.”

Everyone gave Peichi ten dollars.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll put this in an envelope and we’ll take it shopping when we get our next job. And each time we get paid for a job, we should put in ten more dollars.”

“Oh, well, I guess we’re not rich anymore,” said Molly.

“But we still have enough for an extra-large pizza and a movie tonight!” Peichi pointed out.

Molly and Amanda headed straight into the pool, but Shawn and Peichi sat at the little table near the pool and drank their sodas. That’s when Shawn told Peichi that she would be leaving.

“Why?” exclaimed Peichi. “What about Dish? And all the fun we’ve been having? I wish—”

“It’s just for a month,” Shawn told her. It seemed like she’d said that a million times already.

“Oh, well,” said Peichi with a shrug. “I’ll miss you! I promise to send you lots of e-mails!”

“That would be great,” said Shawn with a smile. “I’ll miss you too.”

Amanda stopped swimming and poked her head out of the water. She saw Shawn smiling as she spoke to Peichi. Amanda knew she should try to see things Shawn’s way, as Mom had said, but it really didn’t seem like Shawn was going to miss them. Shawn looked too happy. Way too happy.

T
he next day was cooking class.

“Today’s our last class,” said Molly, when they met up with Shawn in her apartment building. “It’s graduation day!”

“I wonder if Natasha will be in class?” asked Shawn.

Amanda sighed. “It’s gonna be so weird if she is.”

Natasha Ross was the most complicated person the girls knew. Last year she’d become the twins’ and Shawn’s first and only enemy. The girls still didn’t know why Natasha had told the principal that they’d cheated on an important science test. The lie turned into a rumor that shot through the school, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.

The girls had decided to keep their distance from Natasha. But Natasha was impossible to avoid.

The girls ran into her everywhere, including cooking class. Mrs. Moore suspected that Natasha had an unhappy life. She encouraged the twins to forgive her and be as friendly as possible. So they were. Or at least they tried to be.

But it wasn’t easy.

Then, suddenly, Natasha was calling them, wanting to get together. The girls even went to a tea party at her house. And Natasha began to cook with them. The girls started to see another side of her—a shy, sweet side—and they began to trust her.