From the Desk of Zoe Washington(7)

Mom and I watched the show together, and we never stopped rooting for Ruby. She didn’t pretend to know everything, and she worked really hard at every challenge. She also liked helping other people. There was one time she finished a cookie challenge early, and another baker, Tessa, was running behind. Tessa had taken her sugar cookies out of the oven when there were only five minutes left and still had to decorate them. Ruby helped her out by piping on some of the icing. Tessa didn’t get sent home that episode, and it was all because Ruby helped her.

There was one challenge where Ruby had to make pie, and she ended up in the bottom two. She’d gotten flustered while baking, so her pie crust design looked messy. Plus, they also had to make ice cream and hers didn’t turn out so well. I was literally at the edge of my seat watching that episode. But then this other girl Lindsey went home instead, because her pie crust was still raw. Ruby looked so relieved and shocked. She ended up winning the next challenge and made it to the finale against Frankie. Everyone was surprised that she won, but I knew she had it in her all along.

Looking through the cookbook made me want to watch Ruby’s season again, so I grabbed my laptop. I opened up the Kids Bake Challenge! website and was about to click on the Full Episodes button when a banner on the side of the page caught my attention.





I was twelve now. I could audition for the show myself!

I clicked on the button, which brought me to the application. Mom or Dad would have to fill it out for me. Mom knew how good of a baker I was and even told me I could be the first Black girl to win the show one day. I’d told her I wanted to compete when we watched it together, and she said we could talk about it when I was old enough.

I spun around in my desk chair again, but this time it was a happy, excited spin.

I’d seen every single episode more than once, so I knew how the competition worked. I could spend the summer practicing baking to get ready, which would give me something to do without Trevor.

If I won, I’d be just like Ruby Willow! It would be a dream come true. I never saw many Black pastry chefs on the shows I watched, or in the cookbook section of the library, but I was still determined to be one when I grew up.

I read through the application and rules for applying as I imagined myself on the cover of my own cookbook. Then I turned on an episode of the show, peeking out of the window every once in a while to see if Trevor and his friends were still outside.

In the middle of watching my second episode of Kids Bake Challenge!, I finally heard the boys go inside Trevor’s house. I paused the episode so I could sprint to the mailbox.

I was covered in sweat when I was done, but at least my letter to Marcus was on its way.





Chapter Six


If I was going to keep Marcus’s letters a secret from Mom and Dad, I had to make sure I checked our mail before they did. This wasn’t hard during the week when they were at work and I was home with Grandma. I paid special attention to our mail delivery for three days, and figured out that our mail carrier always came to our house between twelve and twelve thirty p.m. I set an alarm on my phone for noon so I could look through the mail as soon as it arrived.

On Saturdays I would have to make sure I got to the mail before my parents did. On the first Saturday after I mailed my letter to Marcus, my parents and I went to breakfast at the Broken Egg. It was a hole-in-the-wall place in Davis Square whose menu had twenty different egg dishes and another twenty pancake varieties. We always got there early, before it filled up with college students. The three of us squished into a tiny wooden booth in the corner of the restaurant. When our food arrived, it took up the whole table. Dad got eggs Benedict with a side of potatoes, and Mom got a veggie omelet with fresh avocado on top. I got the triple-berry pancakes, which were sprinkled with powdered sugar. They were the fluffiest pancakes ever, and I loved that they were both sweet and tangy—my favorite combination.

“I want to ask you something,” I told my parents between bites.

“The answer’s yes,” Dad said.

How did he know what I was going to ask?

But then he said, “You do have powdered sugar on your nose,” and smiled.

“Dad! That wasn’t my question!” I laughed. Still, I wiped my nose off with my napkin. “Okay, so, you know Ruby Willow, the girl who wrote the cookbook Trevor gave me, is twelve like me,” I said. “Well, actually, I think she’s thirteen now, but she was twelve when she won the baking show.”

Mom picked up the creamer and poured some into her coffee mug, which had the restaurant’s logo: an illustration of a cracked egg with a smiley face. “Of course. She won the Kids Bake Challenge!”

“Yes! That’s her.”

“That’s the show where that one kid made a brownie look like a hamburger, right?” Dad asked. He didn’t usually watch the show with us.

“Right!” The episodes where the contestants had to make “dessert impostors”—desserts that looked like savory foods—were always my favorites.

“So Ruby Willow won. And she got twenty. Thousand. Dollars.” I said it slowly, for effect.

Dad almost choked on his orange juice. “Did you say twenty thousand dollars?”

I smiled. “Yup. The winner also gets to publish their own cookbook. Like Ruby Willow’s.”

“Wow. Well, that is impressive.”