Pickle, p.11
Pickle, page 11
“What?”
“The costumes. Not to be rude, but they don’t seem very clean,” I said. Bean held her hand up to her ear and shook her head like she couldn’t hear me. I was pretty sure I had my answer, so I gave up and walked home.
36
The Next Twenty Minutes
I really just wanted to go home, relax, and read a book in something non-itchy before I had to be at Lupe’s, but it wasn’t over yet. I opened the front door to my building and found Hector standing in front of the mailboxes with his arms crossed and his feet wide. Like he expected someone to try to shove him over.
“Just say it, Ben.”
The lobby is more like a wide hall with just enough room for mailboxes and peeling wallpaper before you get to the stairs. I couldn’t really get up to my apartment without pushing Hector out of the way. He looked like he wanted me to push him so he could push back.
“Hey, is it a good time to come up and get the eggs?” I said. He just glared at me. I sighed. “What do you want me to say, Hector?”
“Say you’re done being friends with me. You only want to hang out with your cool, new friends—fine by me. But have the guts to say it to my face.”
“Hector, I’m not in the mood,” I said. I tried to go around him, but he moved to block my way. “Look, you don’t understand. There are things I can’t tell you.”
“Because you’re a coward.”
“Because they are secret!”
“Oh, I already know your mom uses salsa from jars at the restaurant,” he said.
“She does not. Take it back.” Hector just glared at me. “Take it back now, Hector.”
“Forget it. Why don’t you have her sell the stupid pickles you’re always making with your precious club? Huh?” He pushed my shoulder. I felt the top of my head getting hot and my fingers tingled. “Your pickles are probably so gross, your own mom wouldn’t eat them.”
“You know why you can’t be in the pickle club, Hector? Because you can’t keep a secret. If you knew what happened in pickle club, you’d go tell your grandma.”
“I would not.”
“Well, they all think you would,” I said. Hector flinched.
“What do you think?” He glared at me.
“I think you tattled to your grandma about something somebody else drew on the building. Something I got in trouble for!”
“I said I was sorry,” Hector said.
“That wasn’t the only time! Don’t you remember when Bean stuck gum under the desk? You told on her and she got in trouble. She had to scrape gum out from under all the tables, and a lot of that wasn’t even hers.”
“That happened almost a year ago! I haven’t told on anybody since,” he yelled.
“They don’t trust you!” It felt too warm in the hall. “You’ve got to grow up and stop worrying if you’re doing things your mean old grandma’s way. I’m doing things my way. With kids who don’t care what the principal will say about it. It’s not like we’re hurting anybody.”
Hector shook his head and turned toward the stairs.
“Have a nice life,” he said.
It only took me seven steps to crack. If I ever want to join the C.I.A. or something, all they have to do is ask Hector about this particular incident. They’ll see that I take pressure like a wet noodle. I felt like I was going to explode before he got to the first landing.
“We don’t make pickles. Not really. We only made the pickled eggs for the fair,” I said. Hector stopped, but he didn’t turn around. “We pull pranks. Like the balls, and the party, and the foam in the fountains. That was all us. And it’s SECRET. It’s a SECRET CLUB. If your grandma found out we would all be in serious trouble. Just for having a little fun. And if you were there, you would tell her about us. You’d get punished. I’d get punished. And the rest of them, too. You probably wouldn’t think what we do was fun anyway. Don’t you understand?” I couldn’t get enough air. My hands balled into white-knuckled fists.
“Why do you do it then?” Hector turned around. “If so many people could get in so much trouble, why do you keep doing it?”
“Because sometimes life should just be fun, Hector,” I said. “We shouldn’t have to worry about what teachers and parents and principals tell us to do every second of every day! When do we get to choose? I’m choosing now.”
“You don’t have to do stuff like that just to impress your new friends. Just be yourself.”
“I’m not trying to impress anybody! I’m making my own choices. To have fun. My way. People don’t even know it’s us,” I said, but he was already shaking his head.
“I already guessed you were the one doing that stuff. Jerk.” His words fell down the stairs and landed on my chest.
“Come on, Hector. Don’t go away mad. Can I at least get our eggs?” I don’t think he heard me over the door slamming.
37
Just a Second
I know what you are thinking.
You think I should have kept my big yap shut and not told Hector about the club. Right? I’m in trouble, and the pickle makers are right there with me. This is going to be so much worse than The Graffiti Incident. I can’t really think of any instances since then, when I know for sure that Hector spilled the beans, but let’s just say there have been suspicious circumstances. Principal Lebonsky is not psychic, but she knows things. Unless she’s got an army of eavesdroppers, my guess is she’s getting her information from Hector. I’m not the only one who thinks so.
Loyalty is everything. I’m loyal. At the restaurant, the guys in the kitchen do all kinds of crazy stuff, and I never tell. Besides, if I did, they’d probably stop teaching me how to insult people in Spanish. And then they’d start telling on me when I hid out in the kitchen telling jokes or eating tres leches cake in the walk-in, instead of busing tables or whatever gross thing they have me doing. My life would be ruined.
What am I saying? If Hector tells his grandma about the P.T.A., then we will all be in a big world of Lebonsky hurt. My life will be ruined. I will have no friends. Sure, people will admire me from afar, but if I don’t have Hector or the pickle makers, I’ll have to hang out with Finn Romo, and he talks about what his pet lizards are doing way too much. All of my real friends will be gone, and who can blame them.
So, let’s recap. A week until the Pioneer Fair, and we have no pickles. Or pickled things. Or time to make pickled things. We would have had the principal’s pickled eggs, but Hector stole them.
My oldest friend, Hector Lebonsky, hates me. I can feel it coming up through the squeaky floorboards with his grandma’s cooking smells. Cabbage soup and loathing. Marinara with a side of rage. Oatmeal and animosity.
We are not getting our eggs back.
We are doomed. Hector is going to tell Principal Lebonsky everything.
Are we all caught up now? Great. Moving on.
38
Extreme Volleyball
“CAN YOU HEAR ME? IS THIS LOUD ENOUGH? THERE’S A NOTE HERE FROM THE P.T.A. THAT THERE’S A PROBLEM WITH THE MICROPHONE AND WE NEED TO SPEAK AS LOUDLY AS POSSIBLE.” Pat, the secretary, shrieked from the P.A. speakers through the gym. Most kids covered their ears. Except Bean. She was smiling as she unzipped her hoodie. She held it open and smirked at me.
“I’M OFFICIAL NOW, CHUMPS!” was written across the front of her T-shirt in red, iron-on block letters. She’d drawn what looked like a pickle sticking its tongue out underneath to drive home the message. Probably with the same marker that she had used for the note on the intercom. She marched over to Oliver and Frank and showed them, too. No points for subtlety. Frank gave her a thumbs-up.
“THERE WILL BE AN ASSEMBLY ON THE RAINBOW OF PROPER NUTRITION ON MONDAY. OH, AND DON’T FORGET TO BRING DONATIONS FOR THE BAKE SALE MONDAY. BAKE! SALE! MONDAY! AND THE PIONEER FAIR IS THIS SATURDAY MORNING. COME ONE, COME ALL FOR A TRIP THROUGH HISTORY! PARTICIPATING CLUBS ARRIVE AT TEN TO SET UP. DOORS OPEN FOR STUDENTS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC AT ELEVEN. ELEVEN!”
The speaker clicked off. Coach Capell blew the whistle for extreme volleyball. It was sort of like regular volleyball, but with no net. And tackling. Standing still wasn’t advised. It’s not really the place to be thinking about the Pioneer Fair, either. I got knocked down six times.
39
Emergency Meeting
“We don’t have any pickles for the Pioneer Fair,” I said. The P.T.A. sat in the back booth at Lupe’s. I was technically supposed to be helping out in the kitchen, but I was taking a break for a “school project.”
“What if we did something else at the fair?” Bean said.
“Like what?” Oliver said.
“You know…” Bean whispered. “A prank.”
The idea of a prank at the fair had occurred to me, but I hadn’t thought of anything really fantastic that we could do yet.
“No,” Sienna said.
“No?!” Bean put her eyebrows up, like she dared Sienna to say it again.
“I mean, please no. Could we skip it? I think my dad is coming to visit, and I don’t want anything to mess it up,” Sienna said. Bean went back to rearranging the salt and pepper shakers with the flowers my dad puts on the tables.
“That’s all right with me,” I said. “We’ll skip the fair as the P.T.A. But, what are we going to do as the League of Pickle Makers?”
“We totally need to make something great,” Sienna said. “Something my dad would like!” I really wanted to think of something great that Sienna’s dad would like. Diego brought some pan dulce and horchata out of the kitchen. He used the big glasses, because my mom and dad weren’t around.
“Well, I’m not sure what kind of pickles we can make in four days,” I said.
Oliver sat up and faced Diego. “Can you make escabeche?”
“Of course I can.” Diego looked offended.
“Can you show us? Like, teach us how to do it?” Oliver asked.
“Sure, if you guys wanna learn.”
“What’s escabeche?” Frank said.
“It’s spicy carrots and onions and stuff that my mom gives out with chips and salsa after people order,” I said. “That stuff.” I pointed to the jar on the table.
“It’s pickled vegetables. They’re pickles!” Oliver practically shouted. “Can we have them ready in three days?”
“It’s better if they cure longer, but sure, they’d still be good. I bet they’d win your contest. You guys eat some pan dulce while I get the stuff ready. Just give me a minute,” Diego said.
“Nice one, Clevoliver. But wait, they didn’t have Mexican restaurants in pioneer days,” Bean said. “The judges aren’t going to accept it.” I thought about it.
“What if there were Mexican pioneers?” I said. “I bet there were.”
“I’ve never seen any in the pictures. It’s always just a bunch of white guys,” Oliver said.
“It doesn’t mean that they weren’t there,” I said. “Hang on, I’ll be right back.” I went into the back office where my mom writes the checks and stuff. I sat down at her computer and started searching. I couldn’t find any Mexicans anywhere, and I got nervous, until I got a hit on the third page of results. I tapped the print button and ran back to the table.
“Some of the first city settlers were migrants from Mexico,” I said. I felt kind of proud. I knew that my mom’s family came from Los Angeles and my dad’s parents were in Durango, Mexico, so the settlers didn’t really have anything to do with me. But, it still made me feel good that they were there. I thought about Mrs. Wentworth, my old kindergarten teacher. She made me do my Thanksgiving pilgrim puppet over because I had used the brown construction paper she’d set out for the Native American puppets. Turns out, there were brown pilgrims after all. For a minute I got worried that the others might not want to make a Mexican version of pickles. But, everyone was on board. I actually felt excited about pickling.
“Won’t Principal Lebonsky get mad that we’re not making eggs?” Oliver said. “And what about Ms. Ruiz? She said to pick a recipe out of her book.”
“They’ll probably be upset,” Bean said. She smiled.
“I don’t care what Principal Lebonsky says, but I hope Ms. Ruiz doesn’t take it too hard. She gets really excited about pickles,” I said. No one believed me.
“We don’t have to do what they say all the time,” I said. “This is our club.” We went into the kitchen, and Diego got down to business giving us the what’s what on chopping and measuring. Oliver asked him a lot of questions, so it took a while. We boiled carrots, onions, jalapenos, and tomatillos in vinegar, and I threw in some of the pickling spice from the jar in my backpack. Diego told us to add some oregano and a little bit of cumin, and then Bean threw in some cilantro. I added garlic, because everything is better with garlic, and we poured it all into jars. Diego got all fancy and dipped the jars into boiling water with tongs to get the lids sucked on to keep out germs.
My mom and dad came in just as the pickle makers were leaving, and we showed them what we had made. We had two jars of mild escabeche, and two jars of hot. Sienna carried them in an old tomato box.
“My dad would love this. He really likes Mexican food. I bet he would like Lupe’s, too,” Sienna said. “I’m totally going to bring him here when he visits!”
“You bring him down for dinner. It will be our treat,” my mom said.
“Thanks, Mrs. Diaz!” Sienna said.
“Our pleasure. You guys did good, m’ijo! That escabeche looks great. I’m so proud of you!” She gave me a big hug and a kiss in front of everyone, leaving her crazy red lipstick on my cheek. But, I didn’t care.
We had pickles for the fair, and they were pickles to be proud of.
40
The Day Before
“Are you all set for tomorrow?” Ms. Ruiz leaned forward over the big bowl on her desk. It was like the crystal one that my mom kept mints in by the cash register, but a lot bigger.
“I think so, yeah,” I said. I worried that she’d be mad that we didn’t have the eggs. Maybe Principal Lebonsky would be mad at Ms. Ruiz, like it was her fault that we hadn’t followed orders. “I wanted to talk to you about that. We’ve been working on something pretty unique.”
“Do not tell me! I want to be surprised tomorrow when I see your creation. In this.” She slid the big bowl across her desk toward me and smiled.
“Is this a pickle bowl?” I said. Ms. Ruiz laughed like I just asked her why six was afraid of seven.
“No, it’s a punch bowl. It was my grandmother’s, but I don’t use it much. You could bring it tomorrow to display your lovely pickles.” I couldn’t really picture the escabeche in the bowl. We could mix up the mild and the spicy to fill it up, but it just seemed kind of fancy. I don’t know what kind of pickles she thought would look better in a bowl like this, but I was really glad that we didn’t go with the pickled pig feet recipe from The Joy of Pickling.
“Did the pioneers have punch bowls?”
“I’m sure they carried many beloved family heirlooms on the trail. Carefully.”
Ms. Ruiz loved the bowl. Message received. I lifted it slowly off of the desk and promised to be extra careful with it. It made me kind of nervous, and I didn’t really want to take it, but I didn’t think I could say no. She was still watching me, so I wrapped my sweatshirt around it carefully for extra padding. I wanted to warn her that we were doing something different than what she expected. It looked like she had her hopes up.
“Ms. Ruiz, we used a different recipe than we first planned. Instead of the—”
“I don’t need the details.” She held up a hand. “I’ll just wait and be surprised tomorrow.”
Oh, crust. That’s what I was afraid of.
41
Pioneer Preparations
I woke up early with a nervous stomach, so I had plenty of time to think about the fair. I still forgot Ms. Ruiz’s punchbowl and had to run back to my apartment. I grabbed some corn chips that the judges could eat with the escabeche, if they wanted to. There were a lot more school buses than normal. They must have brought the other schools’ clubs. Crowds of kids walked toward the gym carrying their pioneer projects. Knitted stuff, patchwork blankets, something that I could only hope was some kind of beef jerky … I couldn’t believe how many kids were into this. Sienna and Oliver were already standing by the gym doors. They were far away, but I could see that Sienna looked upset. She tried to wipe her face, but she was holding a box. Oliver reached out and wiped her cheek off with a handkerchief from his shirt pocket. For real. I can’t believe that guy carries a handkerchief.
Frank had been in charge of getting the escabeche out of the cupboard in the lab, and he stood waiting with Bean by the fountain. Bean noticed me looking at them and held up a Lee’s Costume & Party bag with supplies she’d snagged from the store. Frank held up the escabeche. We were all set.
“Exciting day, huh?” Leo stood beside me. Maybe he really liked pickles, too. But Leo never tried to join the club, so he must have been talking about something else.
I just nodded and walked toward the gym. A couple of eighth graders passed carrying big, golden pies. The crust twisted around the top, fancy-style, and bits of apple and berry poked up through the little holes. They looked pretty good and they smelled even better. If we were competing against pies, we were doomed.
Coach Capell and Rick had put up dividers so that the gym was split into four sections. The Foods of Yore Pavilion was in the back. There was also the Colonist Craft Coliseum, Pioneer Playfield, and History of the Homesteaders Center. A woman wearing a sunbonnet walked toward the History of the Homesteaders Center carrying a pile of brown furs. Another woman with a long dress and an apron led a goat past with a yellow ribbon around his neck. I didn’t know what I had gotten myself into.
Only the clubs and people with exhibits were allowed in the gym at the start to get ready. We found our table in the corner. Bean had brought a tablecloth with horseshoes and tumbleweeds all over it. Probably not so great for a birthday party, but kind of super for a pioneer fair. We mixed the mild and spicy escabeche together in Ms. Ruiz’s punch bowl and put some chips on a plate beside the bowl. We spread out some napkins and little paper bowls. The napkins had horseshoes and the bowls were plain white. Bean had really pulled through. It looked classy and pioneer-ish, if something can be both of those things at once. Sienna had written the recipe for the escabeche on a blue card and glued it to the green banner with my Mexican settler article. She hung it on the front of the table. Oliver brought some salad tongs. He said he knew that we wouldn’t think about how people would get the escabeche without using their fingers. He was right.
