Grace Read online

  For Capucine

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: A Good Idea

  Chapter 2: A Change of Plans

  Chapter 3: Bon Voyage!

  Chapter 4: Flowers on the Wall

  Chapter 5: Paris by Bike

  Chapter 6: Lost!

  Chapter 7: A New Friend

  Chapter 8: Bastille Day

  Chapter 9: Baking with Colette

  Chapter 10: The Puppet Show

  Chapter 11: To the Palace

  Chapter 12: A Sweet Surprise

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Glossary

  Preview of Grace Stirs It Up

  Copyright

  n my pajamas, I raced downstairs and slid a few yards across the kitchen floor—just as Mom stepped through the back door.

  “Whoa, Grace. Slow down!” Her face matched her bright pink running shirt. “It’s only the first day of summer vacation. You have almost three months ahead to do all those things you want to do.”

  “But I just thought of a way to make Grandma’s muffin recipe even better,” I said.

  “Ah, another good idea,” said Mom as she bent to untie her running shoes. “You may use the oven, but can I get a ‘good morning’ first?”

  “Oh, sorry. Good morning!” I said. “I’d hug you, but—” I blew her a kiss instead.

  “I know. I’m sweaty, but I did seven miles this morning,” Mom announced proudly. “It’s only a couple of months till the half marathon.” She sat down in front of the computer to log her progress, which she did after every run.

  I am just like Mom that way. I like to have a plan.

  I preheated the oven and then opened the fridge to pull out a blue ceramic bowl. Last night, I’d whipped up a thick batter with eggs, sugar, flour, and yogurt. Now I gently grated the rind of a lemon to make lemon zest—my new secret ingredient—and folded the zest in along with fresh blueberries. Then I spooned the batter into the muffin pan and turned to Mom.

  “Can I bike with Maddy and Ella? We want to meet at the bakery for Grandma and Grandpa’s anniversary celebration and then ride the bike trail.”

  Mom was setting out bowls, milk, granola, and bananas on the table. “As long as you stay within the boundaries we’ve discussed. And give Grandma and Grandpa a hug for me, okay? Thirty years in business is a long time!”

  “I will,” I promised as I put the pan in the oven and set the timer. I was anxious to see how Grandma’s recipe—with my secret ingredient—would turn out!

  While I waited, I took my turn on the computer in the corner and checked my online calendar:

  Today, June 17th

  8:30 Bake muffins

  10:00 Help Grandma and Grandpa celebrate!

  11:00 Ride bikes with Ella and Maddy

  3:00 Go to library to check out books

  Then I took a brimming bowl of cereal to the deck outside, where I would still be able to hear the oven timer. A minute later, Mom joined me. Beside us, the azaleas bloomed deep purple, and somewhere high in the towering oak above, a robin sang its heart out. Then came a familiar clink, clink, clink!

  I spotted Dad on the other side of the maple tree, tinkering with the ancient stone wall. “Hi, Dad!”

  “Mornin’, lovely ladies!” he called, peering over his shoulder.

  “Fresh muffins soon,” I promised him.

  “Just say when,” he said, and then went back to chinking out a broken stone. Our stone wall doesn’t quite date back to the Industrial Revolution—when mill towns cropped up along the Blackstone River here in Massachusetts—but pretty close. Besides cross-country skiing and building quirky birdhouses, fixing up that stone wall seems to be Dad’s main hobby. It is a break from his therapist work, listening to people all day. But he once told me that stones whisper, too, if you listen closely.

  Next door, the neighbor’s golden retriever, Zulu, gave a friendly bark. I dashed over to the wall. She stood on her back legs to greet me, and I scratched her head and behind her ears. Then her owner, Mrs. Chatsworth, called for her, and she took off again.

  When I sat back down with Mom and returned to my cereal, I said longingly, “Mom, can we please get a dog this summer?”

  She laughed. “Oh, Grace. Before you know it, I’ll be back teaching fifth-graders. You’ll be starting fourth grade, which I can hardly believe. For a busy family like ours, a dog’s a huge responsibility.”

  I groaned. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  “It seems right now,” she continued, “that you have the best of both worlds. You can give Zulu attention when you feel like it, without the daily work of taking care of her.”

  I was about to protest when the timer buzzed from the kitchen. “I’d better check the muffins,” I said, hopping up.

  “And I need a shower,” Mom said. “What I do know,” she added as she followed me inside, “is that you sure inherited the baking bug. You and your Aunt Sophie.”

  Aunt Sophie is Mom’s younger sister. She went to Paris a few years ago to study pastry making and ended up marrying a French baker—and moving there for good.

  “I love baking! I do,” I agreed. “But I love dogs, too. And I can’t wrap my arms around a muffin or a cookie.”

  Mom chuckled. “Good point.” She reached for a hot pad and helped me pull a steaming muffin pan from the oven. The smell of those muffins pushed dog wishes from my mind. Did my secret ingredient make a difference? I couldn’t wait to find out!

  I parked my bike outside First Street Family Bakery and stepped inside. Air warmed by ovens and scented with baked goods filled my nostrils. I breathed in deeply. Yum! I could live for a hundred years and never tire of that smell.

  “There’s my favorite girl!” Grandma said, beaming from behind the glass bakery counter, its racks filled with fresh cinnamon rolls, caramel rolls, doughnuts, and various breads. Faint country-western music played from the kitchen behind her.

  Grandma shook her head of feathered gray hair. “You’re coming at a perfect time. I haven’t gotten the hang of this thing yet,” she said, gesturing toward her new laptop. “Grandpa and I aren’t exactly up to speed on technology.”

  “You’ll get it, Grandma. It just takes practice.”

  She adjusted her red glasses and smiled. “Are you sure? You know what they say about old dogs.”

  I thought for a second. “Hard to teach an old dog new tricks?”

  She grinned at me and nodded. “Now, what do you have there?”

  I had almost forgotten about the paper lunch bag in my hand. “For you and Grandpa,” I said, holding it out toward her. “Let me know what you think. Be honest.”

  Grandma peered into the bag and pulled out a lightly golden muffin. “Ah, you tried the muffin recipe!”

  I nodded.

  She took a bite, looked at the ceiling, and then smiled. “Mmm, it’s wonderful! What did you add this time?”

  “Lemon zest,” I announced proudly. “I love getting recipes from you and playing around with them. It makes me feel like, well…” I struggled to put it into words.

  “Like you’re carrying on the family tradition?” Grandma offered.

  I nodded. “Exactly.”

  “Someday,” Grandma said with a wink, “you won’t even need recipes. You’ll come up with your own.”

  “Think so?”

  “I know so. You’re already experimenting with adding new ingredients. That’s my Grace—always full of ideas.”

  Just then, Grandpa stepped through the kitchen’s swinging door. His denim shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and in his big hands he carried a plate of assorted cookies. “Hey-ya, Grace! Come to help us celebrate?”

  Today was First Street Family Bakery’s anni
versary. In the front window, a big banner read: “Celebrating 30 Years of Baking in Bentwick, Mass.”

  “Yes!” I told Grandpa. “What can I do to help?”

  He handed me the tray. “You can offer a cookie to customers, if you’d like.”

  “Absolutely.”

  When the door opened and a white-haired couple stepped inside, they looked up at the bouquet of balloons on the counter.

  “Thirty years,” said the man with a wag of his head. “That’s even before we moved here to Bentwick.”

  “Would you like a cookie?” I asked, holding out the plate.

  He smiled, thanked me, and picked one.

  “There are napkins on the counter,” I said with a nod of my head toward the balloons.

  “So many businesses come and go,” the woman said to my grandparents, “but you two are still at it. That’s really something!”

  Grandpa nodded. “Well, we never gave up. We started with just a few dollars. We rented at first, but eventually we bought this old brick building. Put in a lot of elbow grease to get it shipshape. It wasn’t easy. Took a while to get used to getting up at three a.m., but I’ve never regretted it.”

  “We’ve sure met some wonderful customers,” Grandma added. “It’s fun to do what you love and share it with others. It makes for a good life.” She linked arms with Grandpa and smiled at him.

  As more customers strolled in, I offered them cookies, too. Grandpa usually works in the kitchen, but today he lingered by the counter with me, visiting with everyone.

  In between customers, an idea that had crossed my mind before suddenly tumbled out of my mouth. “Someday, I want to start a business, just like you two.”

  For a moment my words—“start a business”—hung in the air like shirts on a clothesline. Clean and fresh.

  Grandma and Grandpa shared a knowing look and a smile, as if they understood me perfectly. And then Grandpa said, “Well, why not? You get to be your own boss. You get an idea, and you can just run with it.”

  “That’s the part that seems really fun!” I said. “Plus, I love to find something that interests me and jump on the computer to learn more. I just wish I could do something right now.”

  Grandma reached for a copy of the Boston Globe behind the counter and started paging through it. “We just read something recently about kids who’ve started their own businesses…”

  “Really? So maybe I don’t have to wait to start something?” Excitement bubbled up in me like a carbonated drink. Shake it up and look out!

  “Sure. You just have to come up with an idea that you can make work,” Grandpa said.

  “But what would I do?” I wondered aloud.

  “Brainstorm,” Grandpa said. “Keep your eyes and mind open, and you’ll come up with something.”

  His confidence was contagious—in a good way.

  I could do this. I really could!

  hen the bell above the door jingled, I turned, expecting more customers. But instead, my friends stepped in, right on time. “Hi, Maddy! Hi, Ella!”

  Red curls in a ponytail, Maddy bounced across the tiled floor and squeezed my waist. “First day of summer vacation! I’m so excited.”

  Ella hung back for a second by the door, and then she stepped forward and chimed in. “Hey, Grace!”

  Ella has a look about her—deep bronze skin, thick black eyelashes, and the kind of hair you see in shampoo commercials. She could grow up to be a movie star, except that she’s super shy—until you get to know her.

  From outside the door came a deep “Woof! Woof! Woof!”

  “Murphy,” Ella said with a toss of her head that sent her long waves swooshing. “Sorry. He’ll just keep barking, so I guess I’ll go back outside.”

  “Do you want a cookie first?” I asked.

  But Grandma held out a tray of glazed doughnuts instead. “Wait, go ahead and pick one. I know you girls love these. My treat.”

  I picked chocolate with coconut sprinkles. Maddy, I knew, would pick the cherry doughnut with pink frosting, and Ella, as always, went for the cinnamon-sprinkled doughnut.

  With a chorus of thanks, we headed outside.

  When Murphy spotted Ella’s doughnut, his black nose twitched under a mass of shaggy gray. A medium-sized dog, he had come from the local animal shelter. When anyone asks about his breed, Ella just says, “He’s a lovable mutt.”

  She handed him her last morsel, and Murphy took it softly from her fingers.

  “He’s such a good dog,” I said. “You’re lucky.”

  Ella patted Murphy’s head and then unhooked his leash from the lamppost. “I have to walk him back home quick and get my bike.”

  As Maddy and I rode slowly alongside Ella and Murphy, I shared my latest idea about starting a business someday. “But my grandparents made me realize, why wait? I could start something now.”

  “Hey,” Maddy said, her eyes shining with enthusiasm. “Why don’t we start a business…together?”

  I shot her a smile. “Oh, that would be so fun!”

  “We could sell stuff online,” Maddy said, starting to talk faster. I always know that when her words speed up, she’s getting more and more excited. “I’m good at art and computer stuff. And these days, everybody’s online.”

  “Even my grandparents,” I said with a smile. “At least they’re trying.”

  “I’m okay at math,” Ella said, her voice just above a whisper, as she waited with Murphy at the light.

  “You’re okay?” I straddled my bike. “Ella Petronia, you were only the top of the third grade last year!”

  Ella looked down, but the corners of her mouth turned upward. “Okay, I’m pretty good. If we start a business, I could handle numbers and money.”

  I wondered what I had to offer. Then I remembered my talk with Mom on the deck. “Hey, I love to bake,” I said, feeling that fizzy energy bubbling up again. “Let’s start with a bake sale!”

  Maddy made a funny face. “But everybody does bake sales. There’s too much competition. Plus, it sounds a lot like the lemonade stand you started last summer.”

  I shrugged. “I guess you’re right. But fresh-squeezed lemons seemed worth trying.”

  “This time,” Ella said, “we need to make more money than we spend.”

  I laughed. “Yes! That’s the goal!”

  When the light turned green, we headed toward Ella’s house, which was about two blocks away.

  “So, what else could we do?” I said. “Wash cars?”

  Maddy rolled her eyes. “The high-schoolers always wash cars to raise money for something or other.”

  “Weed gardens?” I suggested. I pictured us leaning over flower and vegetable gardens all day. Hot, sweaty, dirt under our nails…I looked at my clean hands. “Ah, maybe not.”

  “Mow yards?” Maddy added.

  “I have it!” Ella said. “We could tutor kids in math!”

  “Um,” Maddy said, as if considering it, “you could tutor kids in math. Not me.”

  We turned in at the white-fenced yard and green two-story house with yellow trim. Ella put Murphy in the house and retrieved her bike from the garage. But the moment we started pedaling down the street toward the bike trail, the chain on Ella’s bike started to squeal. Schweek! Schweek!

  “Oh, it’s so embarrassing,” Ella said. “It sounds like a parrot!”

  Schweek! Schweek!

  “A sick parrot!” Maddy laughed.

  “A dying parrot!” I added, pulling to a stop. “But I bet Josh can fix it.”

  We schweeked our way seven blocks to my house. Like many mill houses near the river, the original house is over a hundred and fifty years old, with newer additions, like the garage. The garage door was open, and what looked like a thousand bike pieces were spread out on newspaper. Josh, my fourteen-year-old brother, was definitely here somewhere.

  Deep piano chords floated out from the living room window, which meant he’d somehow gotten distracted from his work on the bike.

  “I
’ll go get him,” I said.

  I headed in through the garage, past the laundry room, and into the living room, where Josh was playing our upright piano. I tapped his shoulder. “Hey, Josh,” I said. “Can you take a look at Ella’s bike?”

  He played a few more chords, and then found a resting spot with his long fingers and stopped.

  “Sure. What’s wrong?” Dark hair fell across his eyes, and he pushed the strands back. My friends say my brother is really cute, but to me he’s just Josh. I followed him back out to the garage, where my friends waited.

  “It sounds terrible,” Ella said.

  “That bad, huh?” he said with a tilt of his head toward the house.

  Ella blushed. “No, not the piano. That was nice.”

  “Her bike,” Maddy said.

  “I’ll take a look,” Josh said, rolling the bike into the garage.

  As we waited in a patch of sunlight in the driveway, Ella said, “I’d like to ask for a new bike so I won’t feel so embarrassed, but my parents will say no.”

  Maddy studied her bike, which was short with pink tassels on the handlebars. “And I’m tired of my little-kid’s bike. I want a real bike!”

  “Me, too,” Ella said. “But my dad would say“—she deepened her voice—”‘There’s a difference, Ellie, between want and need.’”

  “Then you know what?” Maddy said with a smile. “A new bike needs me!”

  We laughed.

  I didn’t need a new bike, but a dog…I couldn’t find anything wrong with wanting one. Someday.

  When Josh silently rolled Ella’s bike back onto the driveway, I couldn’t believe it. No more squealing. Plus he’d wiped it down so that it glistened, almost like new. “You fixed it that fast? You’re really good!”

  “Oil.” He held up an oil can. “It’s out here anytime you need it.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  Josh passed the bike to Ella. “No problem,” he said. “But hey, if you want new bikes, just find ways to earn extra money. I make a few bucks fixing bikes for Cycle Sports.”

  “We’re already starting our own business,” I said, standing a little bit taller.

  “A business?”

  I nodded. “The three of us.”