The Mapmaker and the Ghost(47)
Goldenrod looked around to make sure no one was watching her. Luckily, they all seemed much more interested in the interrogation taking place than in the patient visit happening on the side. She did catch Brains’s eye, but him she wasn’t worried about so much. She took the jar with the blue roses out from her backpack, quickly unscrewed it, and delicately touched a petal to the exposed skin on Lint’s ankle. His skin glowed for a moment, and she could tell from the jolted look that appeared on his face that suddenly his pain was gone. He looked down. His leg was all bandaged up, but Goldenrod had a feeling that the paramedic was going to have a bit of a surprise when she unwrapped it.
She and Birch quickly and quietly slipped away before Lint, or anyone else, had a chance to say anything.
As Goldenrod kneaded a particularly stubborn piece of dough, she smiled to herself, thinking about the jar of blue roses that was now safely tucked away in one of her desk drawers.
She had plans to show the flowers to her father, the scientist, and her mother, the gardener, very soon, of course. After all, they wouldn’t keep in that jar for much longer, and they absolutely needed to get properly discovered. But there was just one more thing she and Birch needed to do before they could get to that.
It was the weekend and, since their dad was home, Goldenrod and Birch had convinced him to spend it baking batches upon batches of cookies.
Baking with Mr. Moram was always fun, as he seemed to consider the art more of a chemistry experiment than a culinary one. He loved testing out all sorts of new flavor combinations, or rising agents, or simply a new way to sweeten a sweet. Whenever he baked, he would pour the entire contents of the pantry out onto the countertop to assess the ingredient situation. Then he would line up measuring cups, beakers, pots, pans, and utensils like an army battalion on the opposite countertop. After a brief “pep talk”—this is what Goldenrod chose to call her father’s process of walking round and round the kitchen muttering to himself—he would begin the attack: chopping, mixing, kneading, beating, slicing, dicing, toasting, roasting, and sometimes flambéing on his way to possible pastry nirvana.
Goldenrod and Birch loved every minute of it. But, on this day, although they were glad as always to be a part of their father’s kooky chemical warfare, they realized part of the reason they were baking was a rather sad one.
Their mother had been inconsolable for a whole day now—ever since she had woken up to discover that the entire garden and lawn was a wasteland of wilted plants. The grass hadn’t just dried up; it had basically disintegrated so that all that were left were small patches of cropped, dark brown stalks. The chrysanthemums, hydrangeas, dahlias, and tulips were just blackened silhouettes of themselves. Only a few lone goldenrod stalks had survived Brains’s very effective attack, looking like a couple of sad flowers stuck on a badly balding head.
Cookies were just one item in a long list of ideas the rest of the Morams had cooked up in order to try and make Mrs. Moram feel better (various crayon drawings, “#1 Mom” mugs, and even a plastic dancing flower that moved when you whistled Pachelbel’s Canon quite precisely had all preceded it).
But Mr. Moram looked hopeful as he peered at his kids through his safety goggles. “This could be it, kiddos. This could be the cheering potion your mom needs.” He took a big bite out of a nutmeg-basil-jelly roll, and screwed up his face as he chewed slowly and thoughtfully. “Hmmm,” he finally said. “I’m not sure the basil is cooperating here. Perhaps it’s time to call in the parsley!” And with that he had dashed off to round up the leafy green and attempt a new blend.
But even if Mom doesn’t like that one, Goldenrod thought, there are so many others to choose from: strawberry-cranberry-lemon snaps; peanut-butter–popcorn clusters; choco-vanilla–oyster-cracker crumbles. And with every batch, Goldenrod made sure to take the most appetizing, scrumptious-looking ones and set them aside in a large brown cardboard box that she and Birch had hidden in one of the lower cabinets.
By midafternoon, the Morams were out of supplies, and all they had managed was a very weak smile out of Mrs. Moram as she had bitten into an oatmeal-carrot-cinnamon concoction. Goldenrod and Birch still felt pretty awful, but it gave them more of a boost to put the second part of their baking plan into action.
Around 3:00 p.m., they told their mom they were going to go bike riding, promising to stay close. They took the big brown box full of cookies with them.
Goldenrod strapped it down straight to the handlebars of her bike, first wrapping the box in tissue paper and then using a large wad of duct tape. It was extremely important that the box and cookies looked as pristine and delectable as possible.
Then they set off with Goldenrod leading the way. They rode slowly so as not to disturb the cookies. It took them almost half an hour to reach the block they wanted.
As soon as they turned the corner, Goldenrod stopped her bike.
“Okay, Birch. This is my stop. You sure you’re cool with doing this?”
Birch nodded. “I’m ready.” He hopped off his bike and started to help unduct-tape the package from Goldenrod’s handlebars. The tissue paper left the box looking perfect.
“And if he answers the door?” Goldenrod asked.
“Well … then I guess he’s just gonna have to face me again,” Birch said.
Goldenrod laughed. “All right, I’m going to hang back here. She can’t see me. But I can see you from here. And you know the signal if you need help.”