Sugar And Spice (25 page)

“This is one of the reasons I’m sure Miss Jansen won’t mind filling in for us this year. If my wife and I weren’t expected at her sister’s, we’d be glad to shoulder the responsibility. Unfortunately, it’s a bit late to change our plans. We’ll be back here the day after Christmas to assume charge.”

What’s he talking about? Julie shot a silent question to her co-conspirator in late-night conversation, but Matt gave a little shrug of the broad shoulders she found so attractive. It seemed her partner in after-curfew crime didn’t know either.

“As always, we’re the last to know,” Dr. Caulder said with a sigh. “The reasons are varied, some legitimate and others…shall we say, impossibly lame?”

There were several titters from the older members of the staff. Julie shot another glace at Matt and was pleased to see that he looked almost as puzzled as she felt.

“Six unfortunate children will be staying here over the semester break,” Dr. Caulder went on to explain,

“three girls and three boys. That means two teachers, one male and one female, must be in residence to supervise them. This is where you enter the picture, Miss Jansen. Because you’re unmarried and have no pressing family obligation, I would appreciate it if you’d stay with the girls. Of course you certainly have the option to decline. And if you do, we’ll simply have to make other arrangements.”

Julie thought about it for a moment. She didn’t have anywhere she had to go for Christmas. Her parents were taking the Christmas cruise they’d always dreamed of, and she’d planned to spend the holidays with her older brother. They’d never been close, and David and his wife would probably be relieved if she canceled. Then her nieces wouldn’t have to double up to give her a bedroom.

“Miss Jansen?”

Julie drew a deep breath and jumped in with both feet. “I’ll be glad to stay, Dr. Caulder.”

“Excellent! All of us appreciate your sacrifice.”

Julie noticed with surprise that there were smiles and nods around the table. It seemed all she had to do to be accepted by the rest of the staff was to take a job nobody else wanted. She smiled back and waited for the other shoe to drop. Dr. Caulder needed a male teacher for the boys and there were only two unmarried male teachers on the staff. One was Mr. Leavenger, the math teacher. He was only a year or two away from retirement and a bit of a curmudgeon. Spending Christmas vacation with Mr.

Leavenger as her sole adult companion would seem endless, but she could handle it if she had to. The only other unmarried teacher was…dared she hope?

“Mr. Sherwood,” Dr. Caulder voiced the name that was dancing across the screen of Julie’s mind. “I notice that you have no family commitments. Would you mind staying here with Miss Jansen and supervising the boys?”

“Not at all.”

“I thought not,” Dr. Caulder said dryly.

Matt had answered so quickly, Julie’s cheeks felt hot and she hoped she wasn’t blushing. The kiss they’d shared at her door had been a lot more romantic than casual. And as far as Julie was concerned, it certainly beat their former colleague-to-colleague friendship. A little tingle of anticipation swept from the top of her head right down to her toes. If the speed of Matt’s answer was any indication, perhaps he was starting to feel about her the way she already felt about him.

There was the usual bustle as the parents arrived. Suitcases were dropped and spilled open, apologies filled the crisp air as parents collided in a headlong rush to hug their children, and students hollered out their good-byes to their friends. The first car left, followed by the second, and less than an hour later the last car drove away through the freshly fallen snow, leaving six dejected children and two concerned teachers in their wake.

Julie glanced down at the three girls she was shepherding. Six-year-old Hope looked more dejected than hopeful, her older sister Joy wasn’t at all joyful, and Serena, the oldest of the girls at almost thirteen, was about as far from serene as a girl could get. One look at Matt’s boys and Julie knew they were in big trouble. Spenser, who’d just turned fourteen, and Gary and Larry, ten-year-old twins whose parents were getting a divorce, didn’t look any more cheerful than the girls. She had to do something to take their minds off the fact that they wouldn’t be with their families this Christmas.

“Let’s plan something special for this afternoon,” Matt said, beating Julie to the punch. “We’ve got the whole place to ourselves and we can do anything we want.”

“Anything?” Julie asked him, winking at the girls.

“Well…almost anything. What did you have in mind, Miss Jansen?”

Julie gave him a mischievous smile. “I want to borrow a pair of roller skates and skate down the main hallway.”

“But that’s against the rules, Miss Jansen,” Serena pointed out. “It’s double demerits.”

“Then it should be double the fun. What do you have to do to get a single demerit?”

“Well…you get one if you eat in your room, and one if you run in the hall.”

“Okay. Let’s do those too! We’ll eat ice cream in our rooms straight out of the carton.” Julie noticed that this drew smiles from all the kids, so she went on. “I ran in the halls this morning when I was late to the teacher’s meeting, and it was great. We can line up and have a race from the front door all the way to Dr. Caulder’s office and back again. And when we’re done with that, we’ll let Hope decide what’s next.

How about it, Hope? What would you like to do?”

“I want to talk real loud in the library.” Hope’s eyes began to sparkle. “That’s against the rules.”

“And I want to dance on top of my teacher’s desk,” Joy chimed in. “What do you want to do, Serena?”

“I want to draw a mustache on Dr. Caulder’s picture.”

Larry gasped loudly. “You can’t do that! He’ll find out…”

“…you did it,” Gary took over his twin’s thought, “and he’ll give you a million demerits!”

“No, he won’t, not if I wash it off before he gets back. What do you want to do, Spense?”

“I want to climb up to the bell tower and throw snowballs.”

“Us too!” Gary seconded it. “Larry and I…”

“…always wanted to do that,” Larry finished the sentence for him.

“No way,” Matt said, and everyone turned to look at him. Was he going to be a stickler and enforce the rules? But then Matt started to grin, and everyone knew he’d been teasing. “I won’t let you climb up to the bell tower unless I get to throw the first snowball.”

“Deal!” the boys shouted, and Julie noticed that everyone was wearing a smile…everyone except Hope, who looked worried again.

“What is it, Hope?” Julie asked her.

“I saw Mrs. Dryer leave. Are we going to starve to death before she comes back?”

“Of course we won’t!” Julie reached out to give her a hug. “Mrs. Dryer made lots of dinners before she left, and she put them in the freezer for us. Dr. Caulder told me she even baked a ham for our Christmas dinner.”

“How about Christmas cookies?” Larry wanted to know. “The ones with colored…”

“…frosting that look like Santas, and Christmas trees, and stars and stuff,” Gary finished the description.

“Yes,” Hope chimed in. “It won’t be Christmas without cookies.”

“I’m sure she made those too,” Matt said, stepping up to take Julie’s arm. “Come on men. Let’s escort the ladies to the kitchen so we can find out what goodies Mrs. Dryer left for us.”

“Uh-oh.” Julie gave a little groan as she read the note the school cook had taped to the refrigerator.

“What’s the matter?” Matt left the children exclaiming over the menus Mrs. Dryer had written out for them and walked over to join Julie. “Mrs. Dryer didn’t bake your favorite?”

“Mrs. Dryer didn’t bake anyone’s favorite.”

“What do you mean?”

“She left a note apologizing, but she barely had time to make the entrees. She ordered Christmas ice cream rolls, with little green Christmas trees in the middle, but they didn’t come.”

“You mean…no desserts?”

Julie nodded, holding up the note. “She says there’s a whole case of Jell-O in assorted flavors and some canned fruit cocktail in the pantry, but that’s it.”

“No Christmas cookies?” Hope asked, tears threatening again.

“Of course there’ll be Christmas cookies,” Matt assured her. “Since Mrs. Dryer didn’t have time to do it, we’ll bake them ourselves. You bake, don’t you, Miss Jansen?”

“Actually…no,” Julie admitted, feeling a bit like crying herself. “I’m the world’s worst baker. I took home economics in high school. All the girls did. But the only one who could burn things faster than I could was Andrea Swensen. We were cheerleaders together at Jordan High, and they called us the Twinkie Twins.”

“Why?”

“Because every time they held a bake sale to raise money for the pep squad, every girl was supposed to bring something to school to sell. Andrea and I used to bring Twinkies, until her sister found out about it and then Hannah…” Julie stopped speaking and started to smile.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Matt wanted to know.

“Hannah baked like a dream, and all we had to do was tell her when the bake sales were and she’d bake for us. I can still taste her lemon meringue pie. It was just fantastic. But here’s the good part. The last time I talked to Andrea, she said Hannah was back home and she’d opened a bakery and coffee shop in Lake Eden.”

“Lake Eden?” Matt began to smile too. “That’s only twenty miles away.”

“Exactly. Why don’t I call and see if Hannah would bake us some desserts?”

“Great idea!” Matt said, and the kids all nodded.

“Okay. Then the only question is, how many desserts do we need?” Julie flipped over Mrs. Dryer’s sad little note about the absence of desserts and pulled out a pen.

“One for every night,” Matt said.

“Got it,” Julie said, her pen moving quickly across the paper. “Do you think we should order extra desserts, like cookies and muffins and cupcakes, for snacks? Or is that too much?”

Matt glanced at the kids and saw the six hopeful expressions. “It’s not too much. Let’s order an even dozen.”

If extra-wide smiles and grateful expressions could have been translated into dollars, Matt would have been a rich man. As it was, he and Julie were heroes of the day, and that pleased him much more than anything else he could think of.

“Counting Mr. Sherwood and me, there are eight of us,” Julie went on, “and that means everyone can choose a favorite dessert. Then we’ll decide on four others together, and that’ll make twelve. We’ll have the Twelve Desserts of Christmas, almost like the song.”

“That’s right.” Matt flashed Julie a smile that included their whole group. “We could even change the lyrics and sing it for our friends when they get back.”

“Willie’s gonna wish he stayed here,” Spenser said, grinning widely.

Serena nodded. “Liz too. She kept telling me about all the presents she was getting, but I bet she won’t have twelve desserts.”

“That means we’re special,” Joy added.

“We certainly are,” Julie confirmed it, smiling at each child in turn. “Let’s get busy so I can call Hannah.

Now who wants to choose tonight’s dessert?”

It seemed to be the morning for running late. Twenty miles away in the little Minnesota town of Lake Eden, Hannah Swensen was almost an hour behind schedule. “I’m really sorry, Lisa,” she apologized to her partner for the fourth time since she’d dashed into the kitchen at The Cookie Jar, their bakery and coffee shop. “I really didn’t mean to saddle you with all the baking this morning.”

“That’s okay,” Lisa said, passing a tray of Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies to Hannah. “Herb gave me a ride to town this morning in his squad car, so I got here early. Mayor Bascomb asked him to figure out how many tickets he gave for speeding in the school zone in front of Jordan High.”

“Why does Mayor Bascomb need to know that?” Hannah asked, placing the pan of baked cookies on the baker’s rack.

“The city council’s voting on speed bumps this morning and the mayor wants to prove that we need them.”

“Do you know what they call speed bumps in the Bahamas?” Hannah asked, turning to face her partner.

“No, what?”

“Sleeping policemen.” Hannah delivered the information and then stared hard at her partner. Either Lisa had developed a facial tick or she was doing her utmost to stifle a laugh. “You think sleeping policemen is funny?”

Lisa shook her head. “It’s more cute than funny.”

“Then why are you trying so hard not to laugh?”

“It’s your hair. It’s poking up out of your cap again.”

“Just call me Medusa.” Hannah gave an exasperated sigh and tucked her unruly red curls back under her health board mandated cap. “The phone started ringing while I was washing it and I didn’t get a chance to put on the conditioner. What do we have left to bake?”

“Just the Cherry Winks and we’re through.”

“Right. I’ll get the cherries.” Hannah headed off to the pantry to fetch the essential ingredient for the cookies her customers loved at the holidays. “Do you think it’s too early to do half red and half green?”

“I don’t think so. Almost everyone is already decorated for Christmas. Gil Surma put his lights up over three weeks ago.”

“Gil and Bonnie are always early. They want everything to look nice for their Christmas parties.”

Lisa glanced at the calendar that hung on the wall by the phone and saw the three new entries that Hannah had made. “Bonnie called you to set dates for the parties?”

“That’s right. We’re catering everything, just like last year.”

“She gave you the order for her Brownies?”

“Yes. And yes.”

Lisa looked a bit confused. “Why did you say two yeses?”

“She wants brownies for her Brownies.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense. Let’s make them in bon-bon papers the way my mother used to do. Then I can frost them and put half a pecan on each one.”

“The girls would love that, but are you sure you want to go to so much work?”

“I’m sure.” Lisa glanced at the calendar again. “What does she want for the Cub Scout party?”

“Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies. But the party’s not just for the Cub Scouts. It’s one huge party for the Boy Scouts and the Cub Scouts together, and it’s going to last all afternoon.”