Turning Up the Heat Read online

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  chapter 1

  chapter 2

  chapter 3

  chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  chapter 6

  chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  chapter 11

  chapter 12

  chapter 13

  cooking tips from the chef girls!

  For Jean Lemmey-D.M.

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario,

  Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,

  Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre. Panchsheel Park,

  New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310,

  New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

  Text copyright © 2002 by Diane Muldrow. Interior illustrations copyright © 2002 by Barbara Pollak. All rights reserved. Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, Hew York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. S.A.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the original edition

  eISBN : 978-1-101-15374-1

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2002102950

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  chapter 1

  Molly and Amanda Moore were hanging 130 feet in the air. Swaying back and forth under the hot sun. Going nowhere on a Ferris wheel that was older than their grandparents.

  “Aaaagh!” cried Molly. The twins’ caged car suddenly dipped, rolled back up, and stopped with a jolt.

  “I can’t look down,” whispered Amanda, Molly’s twin. “I feel sick. Stop this thing!”

  “It has stopped.” Molly replied. “You can open your eyes now, Manda!”

  Amanda squeezed her eyes shut even tighter.

  “Come on, we have a great view of the ocean from up here!” Molly said.

  Amanda shook her head.

  “Anyway,” continued Molly, “you shouldn’t have had an entire hero. Or the saltwater taffy after that!”

  “I know,” Amanda mumbled. “Don’t remind me.”

  Suddenly, the car dipped.

  “Whoa!” Amanda shouted. Her face turned almost as green as her T-shirt. She grabbed her sister’s arm. Hard.

  “Ouch!” yelled Molly. “Your nails!”

  “Sorry,” Amanda said, loosening her grip.

  The Ferris wheel, or Wonder Wheel as it was called at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York, stopped again.

  “Hey, look!” said Molly. “I see Shawn and Peichi.” She waved to their friends down on the ground. “I think they’re laughing at us!”

  “Now I know why they didn’t get on with us. They’ve been on it before,” Amanda said.

  Finally, the girls’ car made it to the bottom.

  “Get me out of here!” cried Amanda as the tattooed ride operator unlocked the car door.

  She ran out and took a deep breath of air. She reached in her back pocket for a scrunchie and put her thick brown hair up into a high pony, just like Molly’s. Now Molly and Amanda looked more like the identical green-eyed, fair-skinned, freckled twins that they were-identical, that is, except for their clothing styles. Amanda was wearing lime-green beaded bracelets halfway up her arm, white short shorts, and a glimmering green top with a big butterfly on the front. Her beaded flip-flops matched the color of her top and bracelets.

  Molly, whose real name was Amelia, loved wearing comfy clothes—like baggy jeans. Lately she was into collecting boys’ canvas low-top sneakers in every color she could find: fire-engine red, mustard yellow, pine green. Today she was wearing her favorite faded cutoffs, orange low-tops, an orange sparkle T-shirt that said “Rock Star” on it, and a blue camouflage bandanna over her dark brown hair.

  “Okay. I feel better now,” announced Amanda.

  “Come on,” Molly said, poking her sister. “Tell me you didn’t have a little fun. I mean, Mom rode this same ride when she was a kid. That’s kind of cool, isn’t it? ”

  Both girls smiled as they pictured Mom as a goofy kid in her long braids and funny 1970s striped shorts, the ones she wore in an old camp photo. The girls kept that photo in their bedroom, in a frame on their dresser.

  Amanda shrugged and put on her shades. She looked toward the boardwalk. “Where’d Shawn and Peichi go?” she asked. “I don’t see Mr. Jordan, either.” Mr. Jordan was Shawn’s dad.

  Molly stood up on her toes and stretched her neck. “I see them. They’re talking to someone, but I can’t tell who.” Molly grabbed her sister’s arm, pulling her through a group of rowdy kids and up a ramp to the boardwalk. They found Peichi and Shawn talking to Connor and Omar, two boys they knew from their summer cooking class, and a bored-looking teenager who looked as if he were Omars brother. Mr. Jordan was a few yards away, in line to buy something to drink.

  “Hi!” called Peichi as the twins got closer. “Omar was just telling us that there’s a sideshow around the corner!”

  “A sideshow?” Molly asked. “What’s that?”

  “It’s like a theatre, but really wacko! It’s called Sideshows by the Seashore,” Omar explained.

  “Yeah,” Peichi said. “They saw this guy, he had tattoos all over, even on his face, and he hammered a nail into his tongue!”

  “Oooh, gross,” exclaimed Amanda.

  “No way,” said Molly, rolling her eyes. “It’s a trick!”

  “No it isn’t!” insisted Omar. He looked at Connor for help. “Tell them, Connor!”

  Connor nodded. “He really did it!” he exclaimed. “Go see him! He’s called The Human Blockhead. He eats glass, too! And there’s other cool stuff. Like a snake charmer who walks around wearing this humongo python.”

  Shawn shuddered. “Get outta here!” she exclaimed. “Is it alive?”

  “Oh, yeah!” replied Connor. “It’s the fattest, longest, biggest snake I’ve ever seen.”

  “Check it out,” suggested Omar. Then he nodded at his big brother, who was beginning to look impatient, and said to the girls, “We gotta go. Later.”

  “See you in class,” said Molly and Amanda. They looked at each other and laughed. They were doing their “twin thing” again. That’s what they called saying the same thing at the same time, or reading each other’s minds.

  “Yeah, later,” said Connor. “Let’s get something to eat, guys.” The boys walked off.

  Shawn turned to the girls and giggled. “I hope they don’t go home and try eating glass!”

/>   “Let’s check out the sideshow!” cried Peichi. She looked around at all the girls. “Do you think your dad would take us, Shawn?”

  Shawn giggled. “I doubt it. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing my dad would want me to see! He’d probably make that face.” She raised one eyebrow and pursed her lips, imitating how Mr. Jordan looked when he didn’t approve of something.

  The girls laughed. It was hard to picture serious Mr. Jordan at a sideshow, peering through his thick, preppy eyeglasses at a gigantic snake or The Human Blockhead. Then again, he had been cool enough to bring them to Coney Island, and take them on the scary old wooden Cyclone roller coaster. He’d insisted that they sit in the last few cars, which was the scariest place to be when it clackety-clacked slower and slower up to the highest point, then seemed to plunge straight down the other side. The girls had never heard Mr. Jordan laugh so loudly. Of course, while he was laughing and raising his arms above his head, they were screaming.

  Molly dug into the pockets of her cutoffs. “We’re out of money, anyway,” she announced, looking at Amanda. “We can’t do anything else unless it’s free!”

  “We can walk on the beach,” suggested Mr. Jordan, who came up behind the girls and handed out cold bottles of water. “That’s free. Come on, I’ll take a picture of you.”

  “Great!” exclaimed Peichi. “I’m so hot! I can’t wait to put my feet into the water!” She reached down to take off her sandals.

  Holding their shoes, the girls followed Mr. Jordan down the steps from the boardwalk. Their feet sank into the sand.

  “Ouch! The sand’s burning my feet!” cried Shawn. She began to run toward the water, and everyone followed her, dodging sunbathers lying on their towels. Finally, the friends reached the ocean, and they turned around to face Mr. Jordan. They put their arms around each other, shrieking at the feel of the cold water rushing over their feet.

  Click! went the camera.

  “Work it, girls!” joked Mr. Jordan. He kneeled on the sand and pretended to be a fashion photographer as the friends posed and laughed. Click! Click!

  I hope Shawn gives us copies of these pictures, thought Molly, to remember this summer by.

  This was the best summer yet, Molly decided, even though it had started out with her and Amanda being bored and kind of lonely. But so much was going on now.

  First, Molly and Amanda had found out about kids’ cooking classes being held in their Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood of Park Terrace. They signed up right away. And so did Shawn. They met Peichi at class, although they really didn’t meet her-they had all been in school together forever, but never really knew one another until now. Peichi was lots of fun to have around. And she had a pool!

  They were all having a great time in class, learning how to make things like homemade pasta and roasted chicken.

  Then one day, there was a fire at Justin McElroy’s house. The McElroys were new to the neighborhood, and Amanda thought Justin was pretty cute. He was the twins’ age and would be going to Windsor Middle School with them in the fall.

  With Mrs. Moore’s help, the twins, Shawn, and Peichi had cooked a ton of food for the McElroys. It really helped the McElroys, because their kitchen was off-limits while it was being repaired. And that led to the girls deciding to form a cooking club! They cooked once a week, on Sunday afternoons. They were also writing a cookbook that was sort of like a diary of everything they were learning to cook, at class and at home.

  Plus there were pool parties at Peichi’s. Trips to the New Jersey shore to see the twins’ grandpa, Poppy. Adventures in cooking class. And the girls were getting to be closer friends, all of them.

  “Earth to Molly! Hello-o-o!” called Amanda. Molly had that faraway look in her green eyes again, which drove Amanda crazy. “Molly!”

  Molly finally heard her name and jumped. She looked at Amanda and her friends. They’d been giggling as they’d watched her daydream. Molly blushed. “Uh, what?” she asked.

  “We’re gonna get something to eat at Nathan’s restaurant,” called Shawn, who was already walking ahead with her dad. “Come on! Dad’s treating everyone!”

  The girls ran along the sand back to the boardwalk, and put on their shoes for the quick walk to Surf Avenue. It was time for one of the best things about Coney Island—the hot dogs!

  “I love hot dogs,” stated Mr. Jordan, once everyone had filed into Nathan’s Famous. “Did you know that the hot dog was invented over 130 years ago? And Nathan’s has been here since 1916! That’s when they held the first July Fourth hot dog eating contest.” He pointed at some old photos on the wall. “See, here’s Nathan’s way back when...look at all the men wearing suits, and the ladies in their big hats and long dresses and shawls. Can you believe that’s what people wore to the beach back then?”

  “Mr. Jordan, you know everything,” Molly said.

  “Well, I just think all this stuff is interesting,” said Mr. Jordan. He turned to Shawn and smiled. “I’m not embarrassing you, am I, Shawn?”

  Shawn smiled shyly and looked down. He could read her mind! “No, Dad.”

  Mr. Jordan was always embarrassing Shawn somehow. But Shawn loved her dad more than anything. She was proud of him, too. He had written a book. It was a history book about jazz music in New Orleans. Shawn liked reading sections of it from time to time, and looking at the photo of her dad on the book jacket. Like Molly’s and Amanda’s mom, Mr. Jordan was a college professor. And he could also play the guitar, a cool type of music called the blues.

  Since Shawn’s mom died a few years ago after a long illness, Shawn and Mr. Jordan had to rely on each other more. It hadn’t been easy to adjust to life without her mom, but now she and her dad were closer than before. Sometimes Shawn wished she wasn’t an only child. But luckily, Molly and Amanda were almost like sisters to her. That helped a lot.

  “Here’s our order,” said Mr. Jordan. “Quick, let’s grab those two tables.”

  Everyone brought their food to the tables in front of a window. Actually, the tables were more like tall, round counters.

  “How come there aren’t any seats?” Amanda wanted to know.

  Mr. Jordan laughed. “This is fast food—they want you in and out, so the next customer can come in!”

  “Mmmm, this is great,” said Peichi. She licked off some bright yellow mustard from the corner of her mouth. “I’ve never had a Nathan’s hot dog before!”

  “Never?” asked Mr. Jordan. He dropped his mouth open, pretending to be shocked. “A Brooklyn girl like yourself? Well, young lady, it’s about time you did! How about another?”

  “Um—okay! That would be great!” replied Peichi. Everyone laughed. No one could ever accuse her of being shy.

  “Anybody else want anything?” asked Mr. Jordan, looking at each girl. “Shawn? No? What about you, Amanda? You’re always game for seconds!”

  “That’s for sure,” Molly said, rolling her eyes.

  “I’d better not, Mr. Jordan,” replied Amanda. “I’ve had a lot of stuff here today. But thank you.”

  “Molly?” asked Mr. Jordan. “How about you?”

  Molly smiled. “No thanks, Mr. Jordan,” she replied. “I’m stuffed.”

  “Suit yourself,” said Mr. Jordan. “Peichi, I guess it’s just you and me!”

  As Mr. Jordan walked to the counter, Shawn’s dark brown eyes followed him.

  “He seems to be, um, more like—himself now,” said Molly awkwardly. “The way he used to be.”

  “What?” asked Shawn, turning back to look at Molly.

  Amanda spoke up. “Your dad seems, you know, happier now.

  Shawn smiled, a little sadly. “Yeah. I think he’s feeling a little better these days.” The friends saw tears well up in Shawn’s eyes, behind her purple cat glasses. “But you know, he still misses my mom,” she quickly added.

  “Of course,” said Molly. She, Amanda, and Peichi nodded understandingly. “He always will, Shawn. But it’s good that he’s doing better now.”

&n
bsp; No one said anything.

  Molly cleared her throat. “So, Mom’s birthday is the day after tomorrow,” she said, changing the subject. “What are we doing for her?”

  Amanda shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said. “Dad hasn’t said much about it. She’ll probably just want to go out to dinner.”

  Molly’s face lit up. “We should have a surprise party for her!” she said.

  “Yeah! You should!” said Peichi. “That’s a great idea!”

  A surprise party? Amanda was thinking. But surprise parties are so hard to keep secret. Plus, they’re really hard to plan.

  “You could have it in the garden,” suggested Shawn. “And you could have—”

  “Hot dogs!” interrupted Molly with a giggle. “It could be a cookout.”

  The three girls looked at Amanda as if to say, Well? What do you think?

  “Yeah, a cookout,” she said slowly. “That’s what I was going to say.” She didn’t want to be the only one who thought it would be too hard to do. Mr. Jordan, who’d returned with the hot dogs, gave her a quick smile. He seemed to understand how she felt.

  “You could come to Mom’s party, too, Mr. Jordan,” said Amanda. Mr. Jordan and Mom had known each other since high school.

  “Thank you!” he said. “But I think you two need to check with your dad first and see what he’s planning.”

  Molly giggled. “You know what? He probably forgot about Mom’s birthday. Dad’s kind of like that.”

  Amanda smiled. “Yeah, it’s true,” she said.

  “My dad’s like that, too!” said Peichi. “My mom has to write everything down for him on a big calendar we keep in the kitchen.”

  “Well,” said Molly, “I think this calls for an emergency meeting of the fabulous Chef Girls! Manda and I can’t do this party without you.”

  That’s for sure, thought Amanda.

  “Dad will pay for Mom’s party,” said Molly. “So we can meet tomorrow for sure. Hey, I know! We can have the party tomorrow. That way mom will be really surprised!”