She turned back to the woman with the clipboard. “I don’t know,” she said at last. “I usually wait until I meet the judge.” How could Cady bake the perfect cake for the judge until she knew who that judge was?
The woman frowned. “Well, the judges will be coming out to greet the contestants in a moment, but I really do need to note down—”
“Judges?” Cady asked.
“Yes.” Cady could tell by the woman’s voice that she was growing more and more impatient. “They’ve changed the rules around a little bit since last time. There are five judges this year.”
Cady’s eyes went wide. “Five? But how am I supposed to . . . ?”
The woman’s face softened just the slightest. “You’re never going to be able to please every person every time,” she told Cady.
Cady squinted her eyes shut for a short second, searching her brain. The large woman standing before her was, surprisingly, not a cake at all, but rather a blackberry pie. Her eyes snapped open. If only she were baking for this woman, she’d have won the trophy already.
The woman glanced down the long row of bakers. “Look, take a minute to think about it, all right? I’ll come back to you last. But if I might make a suggestion”—she regarded Cady kindly—“why don’t you bake the cake that’s your favorite?”
Cady kicked her toe against the oven door as the woman in the chef’s hat continued on down the row. Bake the cake that’s your favorite. It sounded so simple. But how was Cady supposed to know what her favorite cake was? Cherry? Chocolate? Almond? Cady had never thought she’d have to worry about such a thing until her Adoption Day party and, for some reason, when she squeezed shut her eyes and searched her brain, all she found was a mess of confusion. But somewhere, out in the audience, Toby and Miss Mallory would be watching, and Cady didn’t want to disappoint them.
Cady set her elbows on the countertop and did her best to think. She was so busy with her own fitful thoughts that she didn’t notice the small fist-size slip of paper that had found its way into her flour bin.
46
Marigold
MARIGOLD WAS TYPICALLY THE TYPE OF GIRL WHO REFRAINED from whacking surly old men in the shins as hard as she could. But today was not a typical day.
Whack! “You hurt my brother!” Marigold screamed at the Owner. Whack! When he tried to push her away, she jumped on his back and—whack!—kicked him even harder. Zane was still in the dirt, moaning. Whack! “You hurt him!”
“Get off, get off!” The Owner raised a hand—was that an ice cube inside it?—to push Marigold away, but she was too quick for him. She whacked his arm, hard as she could, in the elbow, so that he shrieked and convulsed.
The ice cube snaked down his arm and found its way to Marigold’s wrist, where it promptly wedged itself under her Talent bracelet. She squealed at the sudden chill of it, trying to shake the frosty stone from her skin, even as she clutched tight to the Owner’s back. But the ice cube was trapped beneath the three shiny silver beads of Marigold’s bracelet, and she could only watch, mesmerized, as it quickly shrunk—tiny, tinier, tiniest—into her skin, the cold traveling through her veins, up her arm, and into her chest. And just like that, the icy stone was gone, vanished, sunk completely inside her.
The Owner tossed Marigold to the ground, where she landed—thump—next to Zane. Spinning on his heel, the Owner crackled across the broken mounds of glass, flung himself inside his car, and left in a screech of tires and dust.
“What . . .” Marigold rubbed her wrist as the Owner’s car disappeared down the main highway. “What happened?”
“I think . . .” Zane said slowly, rubbing at his forehead. He frowned. “I think you got my Talent.”
“What?” Marigold wouldn’t have believed it for a second if she didn’t feel the overwhelming desire to hock a loogie right that very moment. She kicked a shard of broken jar across the Owner’s tire tracks, sending the last squirrel sprinting back into the bushes. “We should go to the police,” she said, doing her best to think things through. “That guy’s dangerous. He just stole your Talent, so who knows what he . . .” She trailed off with the immensity of it all.
Zane pulled his hand from his forehead to blow cool air onto his scraped-up palms. “You’re right,” he said between breaths.
Marigold snapped her head up. Of all the startling things that had happened that afternoon, those two words were perhaps the most extraordinary. “I am?”
“Yeah,” Zane said. “We should go to the police. But how are we supposed to get there?”
That’s when the rope dropped from the sky, a thick length of rope with knots tied into it, expertly, every foot or so. Marigold and Zane’s eyes followed the whole length of it, up, up, up, until they found the source—one hundred feet above them in the sky.
A hot air balloon, with a red-and-blue striped top. It looked surprisingly like the balloon that had crashed into their apartment wall only one week ago.
A man leaned over the edge of the basket to peer down at them. Marigold could just make out the top of his gray suit.
“You kids need a lift?” he called down.
47
Toby
TOBY CHECKED HIS WATCH. GLANCED AT CADY WITH HER elbows on the floury countertop, and then checked his watch again. He might have outfoxed the Owner for the moment, but that greasy-haired fool with his book was making Toby nervous. What if someone figured out the truth about Toby before he had a chance to explain it to Cady for himself? He would feel much more at ease when this whole event was over.
Toby checked his watch again.
Zane’s Garlic Cake
a cake that’s not as terrible as it seems, on the surface, to be
FOR THE CAKE:
6 tbsp butter (plus extra for greasing the cake pan)
5 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 1/4 cups flour (plus extra for preparing the cake pan)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, finely grated
1/8 tsp black pepper
3 large eggs, yolks and whites separated, at room temperature
1 tbsp honey
3/4 cup milk, at room temperature
1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease an 8-inch round cake pan with butter, and flour lightly.
2. In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. When butter is fully melted, add the minced garlic and cook, stirring, until slightly fragrant, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, Parmesan, and pepper, until well combined. Set aside.
4. In a small bowl, mix together the three egg yolks, the honey, and the milk. Pour this mixture into the flour mixture, and stir until well combined. Gradually add the cooled garlic mixture, and stir until well combined. Set aside.
5. In a clean small bowl, beat the three egg whites with an electric mixer on high speed until stiff peaks form, about 3 to 5 minutes. Carefully fold the egg whites into the rest of the batter, until just combined.
6. Spoon the batter into the pan, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and the surface feels firm to the touch. Serve warm or cold, cut into wedges.
48
Zane
“THIS IS AMAZING,” MARIGOLD COOED, BENT FAR OVER THE edge of the hot air balloon basket, watching the trees zoom by below. She was difficult to hear over the roaring propane valve above their heads, but Zane heard her anyway.
“Will you sit down already?” he grumbled, scooching his butt farther against the padded seat. Zane had not wanted to board this stupid aircraft. He had not. As soon as he’d seen the giant red-and-blue striped balloon, he’d known it was a bad idea. It could crash at any moment, for one thing. But what was Zane supposed to do once Marigold started shimmying up
that rope? He couldn’t very well let her fly off by herself. He rubbed his forehead, but the chill would not come out. “You’re gonna fall,” he called over to her, “and then Mom and Dad will probably blame me.”
The man in the gray suit leaned closer to Zane, one thick-gloved hand still resting on the knob of the propane valve. Zane had been watching the man work the balloon’s controls ever since they’d climbed inside the basket, and he was good at it. Skilled. The kind of man who should be able to maneuver himself and his hot air balloon out of any danger that came his way.
Including a spit attack from an eleven-year-old boy out a twelfth-floor window.
“Everything okay with you, young man?” the man in the gray suit asked.
Zane shot a glance across the basket toward Marigold, but she wasn’t paying them any mind. She was busy using her new Talent to spit at treetops zooming past. Good for her. What had Zane ever used his Talent for, anyway, besides busting giant holes in his family’s apartment wall?
WORTHLESS.
“What did you say?” the man in the gray suit asked.
Zane shot his head up. Had he said that out loud?
“Nothing,” he muttered.
The man in the gray suit fiddled with the valve knobs, checked his gauges and, when he seemed satisfied with their current position and direction, left his post to take a seat next to Zane.
“I’m not upset, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he told Zane.
Zane squinted at him. He knew it was only a matter of time before this man recognized him as the kid who’d wrecked his balloon. But he’d never hoped to dream that—
“It was an old bicycle, anyway,” the man in the gray suit went on. “And I’m the one who forgot it there, so really I can’t be upset that it got smashed.”
“Oh.” Zane kept his eyes on one of the trees in the distance, a fir. “Well, good.”
From practically the moment he was born, Zane realized, he’d been ruining things. He’d ruined his chances of being a good student, he’d ruined his family’s apartment. He couldn’t even get a bunch of junky old jars to a pawn shop without ruining them. Maybe Principal Piles was right. Maybe he should go to boarding school. Maybe he was worthless.
The man in the gray suit gazed out at the horizon. “It’s an awful shame about all those Talents, though.”
Zane watched as the brown tip-top of the fir tree bobbed ever closer. “What Talents?” he asked the man.
“Your collection. In the jars. I was sorry to see them all escape like that.”
“That was what was in those jars?” Zane shrieked. He’d had four entire suitcases full of Talents and he went and ruined those, too? Those would’ve raked in a fortune at Louie’s.
“No question,” the man said. He let out a shallow snort. “There are some Talented squirrels out in the woods tonight. That’d be a sight, huh?”
Despite himself, Zane laughed. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess so.”
The balloon bobbed and weaved with the air currents for a while, the patches of trees making way for taller and taller buildings, and Zane sat, not thinking much of anything.
Trying hard not to think much of anything.
WORTHLESS.
“If you don’t mind my asking,” the man in the gray suit piped up after several minutes of silence, “what were you doing with all of those jars, anyway? If you didn’t know what was in them?”
Zane studied the laces of his shoes, the way they crossed each other. Over and under and over and under. “I was going to try to sell them.” His voice was low beneath the roar of the flame, but the man in the gray suit seemed to hear him fine. “I thought I could get a couple bucks for them. I needed the money to help my parents.” Over and under and over and under. “Our apartment . . .” He let out a huff of a breath. “They need to fix our apartment, and I thought I could help.”
The man in the gray suit nodded thoughtfully. “But those jars, they weren’t yours to sell. You stole them.”
Zane scrunched his eyes closed. Worthless worthless worthless. He’d wrecked the apartment with his stupid Talent. Worthless. He’d tried to fix it. Worthless.
“Do you know why human beings need to spit?” the man in the gray suit asked suddenly.
Zane popped his eyes open. “Huh?”
The man pointed a finger at Marigold, still hunched over the side of the basket, practicing her new Talent. “It’s mucus,” he said. “Your body builds up mucus, which is teeming with bacteria, which can cause your body harm. So we spit.”
Zane raised an eyebrow.
“If you think about it,” the man went on, “spitting is a beautiful thing. Healthy. It’s just that it can sometimes take a bad direction. It might, for instance,” the man said, brushing a speck of dust from one of his gloves, “be shot at a person as he was piloting his hot air balloon. That would not only be unhealthy, but downright dangerous.”
Zane’s eyes went wide. “I’m—I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “I—I never meant—”
To Zane’s surprise, the man in the gray suit chuckled. “Don’t worry, young man, I’m not angry,” he said. “I was flying much too close to your building in any case, and I survived the crash without a scratch, now didn’t I?”
“But I really didn’t—”
The man stood up, cutting Zane’s thought in half. “I think,” he told him, “that you are a young man with very good intentions.” He lifted his hand up to the propane valve and tweaked the knob. “Healthy.” He tweaked it a little more. “But perhaps you sometimes shoot in the wrong direction.”
Zane thought about that. “I’m still sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have done it.”
The man grinned a sideways sort of grin. It was a grin that suggested he knew more about the world than he was letting on. “I appreciate that,” he told Zane. And then he lifted up both gloved hands and fiddled with the valves until the balloon made a steep descent.
Marigold whirled around. The cut on her cheek had stopped bleeding, but the skin was still red, swollen. “What’s going on?” she asked.
The man in the gray suit pulled his hands from the knobs. “We’ve reached our destination,” he announced cheerfully.
Zane peered down over the edge of the basket, where the expansive glass walls of the New York City convention center gleamed in the sunshine. “That’s not the police station,” he said. “This is Cady’s cake contest.” Even from here, Zane could make out the enormous banner: WELCOME TO THE FIFTY-THIRD SUNSHINE BAKERS OF AMERICA ANNUAL CAKE BAKEOFF!
The man in the gray suit began uncoiling the thick length of knotted rope from the corner of the basket. “Well, ballooning is not an exact science, you know. Besides, you might be needed here.”
“Needed?” Marigold asked.
The man in the gray suit whipped the rope over the side of the basket, where it unfurled to the sidewalk below with a loud fwop!
“This is where your ride ends, I’m afraid,” the man informed them. “It’s been a pleasure having you both aboard.”
“What did you mean, needed?” Marigold asked again.
“Let me help you down.”
Zane waited until Marigold had both feet safely on the ground before he hoisted his leg over the edge of the basket, clinging tight to the rope. Every inch of his body was still angry at him after his run-in with the Owner. Zane took a deep breath, focused his eyes on his fingers, and began his descent.
“Young man?” The man in the gray suit leaned over the basket.
“Yeah?” Zane said.
“I would advise you not to worry so much. I’m sure your next year at McDermott Elementary will go much more smoothly than the last.”
Zane tensed the toes of his sneakers tight against the rope. “Actually,” he said, his throat doing its best to catch at the words as he
spoke them, “I don’t think I’m going back. My parents are probably going to send me to—” He paused. “How did you know I go to McDermott?”
The man in the gray suit frowned. “Didn’t you mention? Somehow I thought you had. No matter. When I read in the paper today about the preparations your new principal was making for the school’s—”
For just one moment, Zane thought his fingers might lose their grip on the rope. “New principal?” he said.
“Hadn’t you heard?” the man in the gray suit replied. “It seems the school’s last principal was deemed—how was it phrased?—‘unfit to head the school.’”
At that, Zane smiled. He looked down the length of rope once more to the sidewalk, where Marigold was waving at him. “Maybe it won’t be such a bad year after all.”
“I have a feeling, in fact,” the man in the gray suit told him, leaning farther over the basket to talk to Zane in conspiratorial tones, “that you might just find it to be very . . . worthwhile.”
49
Miss Mallory
“MA’AM, I’M SORRY, BUT I SIMPLY CAN’T LET YOU IN WITHOUT A ticket. In any case, the competition is already well under way.”
Miss Mallory sucked in her breath at the large woman in the chef’s hat who was too busy ma’aming her to listen to what she had to say. She had gotten to the convention center much later than she’d planned, due to an unprecedented traffic jam on the highway. She’d tried to tune in to the radio to see what was causing the delay, but all she’d gotten was nonsense about an influx of Talented squirrels, stopping traffic with their amazing acrobatics and unnatural abilities. Apparently there was even one squirrel who could whistle.
“I told you”—Miss Mallory kept her voice calm—“I can’t find my ticket. I must have lost it somehow. But my contestant is inside. And it’s very important that I—”