Boiling Point Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  chapter 1

  chapter 2

  chapter 3

  chapter 4

  chapter 5

  chapter 6

  chapter 7

  chapter 8

  chapter 9

  chapter 10

  chapter 11

  chapter 12

  chapter 13

  chapter 14

  cooking tips From the chef Girls!

  for Jamie Muldrow—D.M.

  Special thanks to Kari Muldrow, Jim Muldrow,

  Song Gu Muldrow,

  and the real Peichi—Peichi Tung

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  Text copyright @ 2002 by Diane Muldrow. Interior illustrations copyright © 2002 by Barbara Pollak. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group. 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. S.A.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15375-8

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2002102955

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  chapter 1

  BRRRIIING!

  Phone! called Molly Moore, who was sliding a cookie sheet out of the oven. “Can somebody get it? I have to get these cookies out of the oven before they’re totally ruined!”

  BRRRIIING!

  “Gross! This package of chicken is dripping!” cried Peichi Cheng. “Yuck! It’s leaking all over the place.”

  BRRRIIING!!

  “Aaah! I dropped another egg on the floor!” groaned Shawn Jordan.

  BRRRIIING!!

  “Oh, I‘ll get the phone!” shouted Molly. She dropped the cookie sheet down on the counter and raced toward the phone.

  “Got it!” called out Molly’s twin, Amanda. She skidded down the hall into the Moores’ kitchen and grabbed the receiver. Amanda had a weird talent of always getting the phone before Molly did.

  “Hello?” said Amanda, out of breath. “This is Amanda Moore...Right. Yes, we’ve cooked for a few people. We have a new business called Dish. We cook five nights’ worth of dinners and deliver them—”

  Molly, Shawn, and Peichi gasped. Amanda looked over at her sister and friends with her eyes wide, her head nodding, as if to say Can you believe this?

  Just then, a large metal spoon slipped off a counter and fell to the floor with a loud clang.

  “—Um, we deliver the food to you,” continued Amanda, distracted. “Oh, you only need it for three nights? Well, we could do that, too. That’ll cost less, of course...okay...what would we make? Well, we make basic stuff, like, we could roast a chicken for you, make some homemade macaroni and cheese, some pesto sauce for pasta, stuff like that...for Thursday? I just need your name, address, and phone number. Okay. Thank you. We’ll see you then. Bye.”

  She hung up. “Guess what. Chef Girls? We have another cooking job!”

  “Yesss!” cried the girls.

  “Dish rocks!” said Molly, as she gave her sister a high-five. “Who was that? And how did they hear about Dish? Here. help me take these cookies off the cookie sheet or they’ll keep baking.”

  “Mmmm, chocolate chip,” said Amanda as she reached for a spatula. “I wish these were for us.”

  “We can keep a few aside,” said Molly with a sly smile. “We didn’t promise our customers an entire batch! We just said we’d include ‘some cookies.’”

  The twins heard the front door open.

  “Cookies!” shouted their seven-year-old brother, Matthew. He came running down the hall and into the kitchen. “I could smell ’em outside!”

  “Don’t slide in the chicken mess!” cried Peichi. She held her arms out wide like a traffic cop.

  “Watch the egg!” said Shawn, who was wiping off the floor. “And don’t step on my hand, Matthew.”

  “Wow, you guys are making a mess. Mom’s gonna be mad!” said Matthew. He stood as close as he could to the counter without stepping into the goo on the floor, and reached for a cookie.

  “Gross! Your hands are filthy,” cried Molly. “Wash them. With soap.”

  Matthew hated to be told what to do by his big sisters, but this time the payoff was too good. So he crossed the Moores’ big kitchen to the sink and washed off the crusty dirt.

  “How’d your hands get so dirty, anyway?” asked Molly, wrinkling her freckled nose. “Get the paper towels for Peichi while you’re over there.”

  “I don’t know,” said Matthew with a shrug. “Say ‘please.”’

  “Please bring the paper towels for Peichi,” said Molly with a sigh.

  “Dirt just finds him, no matter what he’s doing,” joked Amanda.

  “He gets dirty just sitting in church,” added Molly.

  “Ha, ha, you’re so funny,” said Matthew. “Go long, Peichi!” He tossed the fat paper towel roll like a football to Peichi. It headed way too close to a ceramic cookie jar.

  Luckily, Peichi caught it.

  “Oof!” cried Peichi. “Gee, thanks, Matthew,” she said, rolling her eyes. Matthew held up his arms in victory and made sounds like a screaming crowd of sports fans.

  Both Molly and Amanda closed their eyes and let out sighs of relief. They opened their eyes to see Matthew grabbing as many cookies as his small hands could hold.

  “Hey, slow down!” cried Molly.

  “These are for Ben, too.” Matthew explained, balancing eight warm, gooey cookies in his hands. Ben was Matthew’s best friend. He lived across the street. The two had been inseparable since the boys were babies. And Ben’s mom, Mrs. Bader, was Matthew’s official baby-sitter.

  “Well, so much for a few cookies for us,” said Amanda, as Matthew slammed the front door shut.

  “Who was on the phone, anyway?” asked Shawn.

  “Someone named Mrs. Jamison. She lives on Fifth Street. She heard about our cooking from Mrs. Lawlor. I guess Mrs. Lawlor really liked the food we cooked for her after she got out of the hospital. Mrs. Jamison is having some sort of women’s group over, and she wants some fun snacks. The next day, she’s going on a business trip. Her husband can’t cook at all, and she has two little kids.”

  “I ca
n’t believe we got another call,” said Shawn, shaking her head. Here we are, doing a cooking job today for the Falvos—”

  “I know!” cried Peichi. “I mean, we just decided to try to turn our cooking club into a little business, and our parents finally allowed us to do it, and Dish is taking off by itself. We haven’t even made flyers yet, or put an ad in the paper!”

  “Right,” said Molly. “It’s almost happening without us. We really don’t have Dish together yet. We’re nof-we’ re not—”

  “Organized,” said Amanda. “Well, guys, that’s what we have to work on. As soon as we can! In between cooking jobs.”

  BZZZ!

  “Phone!” shouted Peichi.

  “That’s not the phone,” Molly said with a laugh. “It’s the kitchen timer. The chicken’s done.

  “Can I just say how awesome we are for cooking something this good?” said Shawn, as she carefully took the chicken out of the oven.

  “Mmmmm,” sighed the girls all at once.

  The girls had bought three pounds of chicken tenders, which they’d seasoned with teriyaki sauce, balsamic vinegar, fresh basil, and tarragon, the way Mrs. Moore had taught them. And it smelled unbelievable!

  “Wow!” cried Peichi. “This is what I want for dinner tonight. It smells so good!”

  “That’s from the herbs we put on it,” said Shawn. “But how do I know if it’s done?”

  “It looks done,” said Peichi. “It’s nice and brown, anyway.

  “Just cut open a piece,” said Molly, reaching for a knife.

  “No! Don’t do that!” cried Shawn. “It won’t look pretty.”

  “No big,” said Molly.

  “I can’t look!” cried Shawn, hiding her eyes. “She’s ruining my chicken!”

  Molly carefully sliced through part of a plump piece of chicken and prodded open the meat. “It’s still too pink,” she said. “Right, guys?”

  The girls leaned over and peered at the chicken. “The recipe says it’s done when the juices run clear,” said Amanda, who’d quickly scanned a page in Mom’s favorite cookbook. “This needs to go back in.”

  Shawn put her oven mitts back on and opened the oven door. She slid the glass pan full of chicken back in the oven and closed the door. “I hope I don’t end up burning it,” she said. “What if it gets too tough?”

  “Don’t worry”, said Amanda. “We can just stick the meat thermometer in a piece of chicken. When it reads one hundred eighty degrees, the chicken will be done.”

  “We should have thought of using it earlier—before we mangled this poor bird!” Shawn said.

  Amanda shrugged. “Well, we can’t think of everything. The chicken will look and taste just fine!”

  Besides the chicken, the girls had also made homemade macaroni and cheese, a tomato sauce for pasta, a pasta salad, a chickpea salad, a cold soup called gazpacho, scalloped potatoes, and the cookies. The woman whom they were cooking for, Mrs. Falvo, had asked for something for breakfast, too, so the girls had made banana bread. Some of the dishes the girls made were from family recipes, and some were from their weekly cooking class that they had been taking together.

  “My legs are stiff,” groaned Molly. She plopped into a chair at the Moores’ kitchen table. “Aaaahhh. ”

  “So are mine.” said Shawn, pulling out a chair. Amanda and Peichi did the same.

  It felt good to sit down, which none of them had done in hours.

  Molly looked around the big kitchen. She and Amanda spent a lot of time in there—more time than in the room they shared. And lately, Peichi and Shawn had been spending a lot of time there, too. The kitchen was inviting and open, with its high ceilings, pale yellow walls, and deep blue and green tiles that Mom had found in Spain. It was decorated with funky old dishes and bowls, colorful rugs shaped like apples and pears, and gleaming copper pots that hung from the ceiling. It was a place in which to hang out, do homework, and talk to Mom while she cooked. Mom cooked a lot on the weekends. Dad pretended to help, but he really just enjoyed spending time with Mom in the kitchen, too.

  “Hey, Molls, do you think we have enough containers?” Amanda asked, looking at all the food.

  Molly just continued staring into space.

  “Yo, Molly!” Shawn called.

  “Molls, this is no time to daydream. We have a ton of work to do,” Amanda said.

  “Huh?” Molly said, blushing. “I-I heard you.”

  “Yeah, right,” Amanda said.

  “Molly, do you think we have enough containers for all this food?” Shawn asked, stepping in between the girls.

  Molly stood up. “No problem. We have plenty in here.” She opened up a cabinet.

  “I can’t wait to get paid!” Peichi said as the girls started to pack the food away.

  “We’re going to be extra-rich this week, because we have to turn around and start cooking for the Jamisons!” Shawn pointed out. “Oops, I forgot—we should finish paying back Grandma Ruthie.”

  Shawn’s grandmother had loaned Dish the money to buy a secondhand fridge that was kept in the Moores’ basement. Now the girls could keep the food for their jobs out of Mrs. Moore’s way.

  “We need to come up with a plan to pay back Grandma Ruthie,” Amanda said. “But right now we need to figure out when we should go shopping for the Jamison job. Tomorrow morning? Molly and I have piano lessons tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Tomorrow morning doesn’t work,” said Peichi. “I have my flute lesson, and I’m so not ready.”

  “Well, tomorrow morning’s the only time that works for me,” Shawn said.

  “That’s okay,” said Peichi. “We don’t all have to go every time, do we?”

  “I guess not,” said Molly.

  “Well, let’s get going!” said Peichi. “Let’s walk this food over to the Falvos! Then we’ll head over to my house and go swimming.

  “Uh, Peichi, the chicken’s still in the oven,” said Shawn.

  “Oh, yeah.” Peichi blushed as she sat down.

  “We really should just go shopping after we drop off this stuff,” suggested Amanda.

  Everyone groaned.

  “I wanna go swimming!”

  “Me, too.”

  “We worked all day! We need a break.”

  “Guys, it’s just food shopping. We can swim afferwards!”

  “All right,” the girls agreed

  To: mooretimes2

  From: qtpie490

  qtpie490: wuzzup, M & A?

  mooretimes2: not much, Shawn, wuzzup with u? We’re tired from cooking and shopping and swimming today.

  qtpie490: me too! Hey can u meet me 2morrow morning at the park?

  mooretimes2: where? The usual place?

  qtpie490: yup, Turtle Bench.

  mooretimes2: ok, what 4?

  qtpie490: I need 2 talk!

  mooretimes2: did something bad happen?

  qtpie490: not really. Don’t worry. GTG! See u at 10. Mwa!

  mooretimes2: ok. b-b <3 <3 <3 <3

  After Molly and Amanda logged off the computer they went upstairs to their big pale-blue room. It had twin beds, a window seat, and a full-length mirror that Molly teased Amanda for spending too much time in front of. The window seat had a dark blue cushion littered with dozens of stuffed animals. The twins didn’t really play with them anymore, but getting rid of them was unthinkable.

  Amanda began to brush her hair.

  Molly sat on the window seat and hugged her old pink elephant. “I wonder what’s up with Shawn?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  Amanda shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “The suspense is killing me!”

  “Me, too,” admitted Molly. She sighed. “I just hope Shawn’s okay.”

  chapter 2

  Molly woke up early. Their tall row house was quiet. Taft Street was quiet. But something had woken her up. She turned her head in the direction of a cooing pigeon outside on the windowsill. There was Matthew’s fat tiger cat, Kitty. She’d jumped noisily onto the window
sill and was staring intently at the bird.

  “Kitty,” whispered Molly, “that bird isn’t afraid of you.”

  Kitty turned to look at Molly and jumped right onto her stomach.

  “Oof!” Molly said, trying not to wake up Amanda, who was sound asleep.

  Molly looked at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock. Six-thirty A.M. It was still hours before she and Amanda were to meet Shawn.

  As Molly petted Kitty, she wondered what the deal was with Shawn. Shawn had been Molly’s and Amanda’s best friend for years, and they’d seen her through a lot. When Shawn’s mother died a few years ago, after a long illness, Molly and Amanda were there for her. Having sleepovers. Bringing her along to their grandpa’s house on the Jersey Shore. And just hanging out. Shawn was an only child, and Molly and Amanda were like sisters to her.

  Oh, I know what this is about, Molly suddenly realized. I think.

  A few hours later, the twins were waiting for Shawn at Turtle Bench in Prospect Park, watching two swans glide silently through the water.

  It had been only recently that the twins’ parents and Shawn’s dad let them go to the park without them. Prospect Park was huge and thickly wooded, so the girls couldn’t just roam anywhere they wanted to. But they were allowed to hang out in small sections of the park right near their homes. How that the girls were eleven, their parents had given them a little more freedom. They could explore the cool toy stores, bookstores, and pizzerias of their neighborhood, Park Terrace, Brooklyn, as long as they were in a group of two or more.

  Sometimes the girls visited the seals and other animals at Prospect Parks new zoo. Nearby was a cool old carousel. The big lake had pedal boats, and there were beautiful meadows everywhere for picnics. Free plays, dance performances, and concerts were held at the band shell all summer long. And there was ice-skating at the rink all winter. Near the park stood the huge Brooklyn Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. If this wasn’t enough, Manhattan was only a quick subway ride away. The girls loved living in New York.