The Stars of Summer (11 page)

ZOMBIE BREAKFAST

A
S IT TURNS OUT, NOTHING CLEARS A
packed subway car faster than someone tossing their cookies.

“Eurgh!”

“Blech!”

“Quick, before she does it again!”

People jumped, dived, and sidestepped to get past the puddle by the doorway and the large man who stood in the middle of it, his face turning redder by the second.

“These shoes are real alligator!” he roared. “Who is responsible for this girl? Someone must pay! Someone—”

But Gladys didn't stick around to hear any more. With her stomach finally emptied, she was feeling pretty good again, and capable of fleeing. Which, after grabbing hold of her bewildered dad's hand, was exactly what she did.

“Gladdy—wait—no!” her dad huffed as she dragged him toward the nearest staircase. “You have to go back and apologize to that man! We don't just barf and run in this family!”

“Dad,” she cried, “do you have any idea how much alligator-leather shoes cost?”

His expression hardened. “Good point. And he pushed you, didn't he? Let's go.”

Together they tore down the stairs and across Penn Station's vast underground lobby, dodging columns and commuters as they made their way to their track.

“Last call for the five twenty to East Dumpsford,” an announcement declared. They raced down one last set of steps and leapt onto their train as the beeping doors started to close.

Slumping against the Plexiglas divider in the entryway, Gladys and her dad gasped for breath as the train trundled out of the station. Then, at the same moment, they both began to laugh.

“Did you—see—his face?” Gladys's dad squeezed out between guffaws. “It was as red as a fresh-boiled lobster—covered in marinara sauce—with a side of beets!”

“Perfect description,” Gladys said between giggles. Her dad had recently started watching
Purgatory Pantry
with her; she had thought he only liked it for the yelling, but it sounded like he was learning something about food, too. “Anyway,” she continued, “I think he deserved what he got for shoving me out of his way.” She left out the part where she had also seen his comment about her in his book. She was going to have to think more about that later.

Gladys and her dad spent the rest of the train ride rehashing the day's events and flipping through his cell phone pictures of their hot dog–eating adventures. Gladys asked him if he'd had a favorite, hoping that he might help her pick a front-runner in her Top Dog quest, but he wasn't much use in that department. “They all tasted pretty much the same, to be honest,” he said. “A hot dog's a hot dog.”

Gladys was discouraged to admit that she agreed completely.

• • •

In bed that night, she looked over the notes in her journal. They'd been written in short spurts while she tried to keep out of sight of her dad, but Gladys didn't need to read them to know that she had not found the best hot dog in New York today—not even close. She was going to have to get back into the city, armed with a better plan.

But something even bigger was bothering her. Why had Gilbert Gadfly written in his notebook that Gladys's two published reviews had been “mistakes”? She had been a fan of his writing since she had learned how to read, but he clearly didn't feel the same about her.

Did Fiona agree with him? Was that why she had taken back the Ristorante Massimo assignment, sending Gladys on this crazy hot dog quest instead?

She wished she could just ask her editor, but Fiona would be unreachable for three more weeks. And she wished she could talk to Sandy about it, but he seemed to be just as far off the grid.

It looked like Operation Top Dog was still very much a solo project.

• • •

The next morning, Gladys tackled her stress the best way she knew how: by cooking. While her parents slept in, she baked cardamom-almond muffins; simmered a potful of plums with sugar to make jam; and layered berries, yogurt, and granola into pretty parfaits. By the time her parents stumbled downstairs in their bathrobes, Gladys was feeling calmer, and the jam was just about cool enough to serve.

“Please have a seat in the dining room,” Gladys told them, “and I'll bring out your first course!”

She came into the dining room a minute later, her attention focused on the tray of parfaits balancing in her hands. Her dad let out a low whistle. “Well, look at this!” he said.

“
Very
impressive!” her mom agreed.

Gladys smiled and glanced up over the rims of the parfait glasses—but then realized that her parents hadn't been talking about her culinary creations at all. In fact, they hadn't even seen them! Her dad was hunched over an open copy of the newspaper, and her mom was perched on the arm of his chair, reading over his shoulder.

Gladys cleared her throat as she lowered the tray to the table, but they were both so engrossed in whatever they were reading that they didn't even look up. Annoyed now, she
thunk
ed a parfait glass down in front of each of her parents. Her dad reached over and picked his up mechanically, digging a spoon in and taking a bite without shifting his attention away from the paper.

Gladys's mom's parfait remained untouched. “Truly remarkable,” she breathed.

“
What
,” Gladys snapped, “is so interesting?”

“Gladdy!” Her dad finally looked up. “Look at this. Did you know that we have a famous author in our midst, right here in East Dumpsford?”

Gladys's heart froze in her chest. What newspaper were they looking at? Was it the
New York Standard
? Could it be Wednesday's
Standard
—with her review of Fusión Tapas in it?

Trembling, Gladys took a step closer . . . but when she saw the article they were looking at, a mixture of relief and exasperation flooded through her. The newspaper was, of course, the
Dumpsford Township Intelligencer—
and right there, splashed across page two, was Hamilton Herbertson's face.

He wore his black fedora and black-rimmed glasses, and he wasn't smiling, exactly; in fact, he looked kind of bored. But that boredom clearly hadn't translated to Gladys's parents.

“He's only twelve!” Gladys's dad exclaimed. “Your age, Gladdy, and he's written an entire best-selling book! Have you ever heard of anything so extraordinary?”

Now Gladys tasted bile rising in the back of her throat. She understood that most people would find Hamilton's accomplishment impressive, but she wouldn't have expected her own parents to feel that way. They were always pushing her to “have more fun” and “enjoy being a kid.”

“Well,” she said, “he must not have much time for being a regular kid if he's busy writing novels.”

“Oh, but he does!” Gladys's mom replied. “Look, it says right here that he's enrolled for the summer at Camp Bentley, where he enjoys ‘playing in the pool and socializing with other children his own age.'”

Socializing? In the pool?
Gladys thought.
Ha!

“Do you know this boy?” Gladys's mom continued. “From camp? His name is Hamilton Herbertson.”

“I've seen him around,” Gladys mumbled.

“Ooh, I have a great idea!” her mom said. “We can run out right after breakfast and pick up a copy of his book. Then on Monday, maybe you could take it with you to camp and get it signed!”

“Wait until Robbins gets a load of
that
,” Gladys's dad said excitedly. “A signed copy of
Zombietown, U.S.A.,
with a story about how
my
daughter is friends with the author. That'll put him in his place once and for all!”

“We're not
friends
—” Gladys started, but neither of her parents were listening. They had gone back to exclaiming about details of Hamilton's impressive life.

“One of the youngest number one best sellers ever!”

“A million copies in print!”

And when they ran out of impressive details, they even got excited over the less impressive ones.

“A Sagittarius!”

“Born in Syracuse!”

Gladys's parents wolfed down their parfaits and hardly seemed to taste their second course of muffins and jam. Then, after getting dressed with a speed usually reserved for weekday mornings, they hustled Gladys into the car for a trip to East Dumpsford's local bookstore.

It had been a while since Gladys had visited The Book Dump—she usually found all the reading material she wanted at the library. But the store looked very different from how she remembered it. In the past, the front window had displayed all different kinds of books. Now, one whole window was taken up with a poster of Hamilton (
LOCAL AUTHOR
! the tagline cried), and every remaining inch displayed copy upon copy of
Zombietown, U.S.A.

Inside the store, things weren't any better. The black jacket of
Zombietown, U.S.A.
was the only one on the “New Fiction” table, and apparently Hamilton's book was also a Mystery, and a Travel Guide, and a Romance. Even the Children's Corner, which Gladys remembered as having a giant comfy chair and plenty of picture books, was almost completely given over to copies of
Zombietown
(
WRITTEN BY A TWE
LVE-YEAR-OLD
! the sign proclaimed). Seated in the old comfy chair was a life-size plastic zombie with the book in his hands and fake blood drooling out of his mouth as he “read.”

Gladys's mom gazed around. “Isn't this delightful? Just look at how the store is supporting one of our own!” She and Gladys's dad shuffled around for a while, like they were possessed with a zombie virus themselves. Finally, they picked up two copies of the book.

“I think we'll each need one so we don't fight over it,” Gladys's dad said. “Do you want your own copy, too, Gladdy?”

“No!” Gladys was truly getting fed up. She couldn't remember the last time her dad had read something other than the newspaper, and her mom's bookshelf held at least three times as many real estate–selling manuals as novels. Now they were going to buy
two
copies of Hamilton's book?

Gladys's outburst woke her mom from her zombielike trance. “Now, honey,” she said, “there's no need to be jealous of this Hamilton boy. Just because he's had a book published doesn't mean you're not a very good writer, too. That essay your teacher read us over the phone was very impressive!”

Gladys couldn't help but let a tiny smile cross her face. That
had
been a good essay—and Fiona Inglethorpe had thought so, too.

“Life isn't a race, you know,” Gladys's mom continued. “There's no prize for being the first kid to be a published writer.”

“Actually, there is!” Gladys's dad pointed to a shiny silver sticker on the cover of
Zombietown, U.S.A
. “Finalist for Best Kid Author at the Kids Rock Awards!” he read.

Gladys groaned. As if Hamilton wasn't already insufferable enough, now his book had gotten him nominated for a big award.

The Gatsbys made their way to the checkout counter, which was festooned with
Zombietown, U.S.A.
bookmarks and pencils. Gladys's dad pulled out his beloved Super Dump-Mart rewards card, and her mom picked out a black pencil with a hideous zombie-shaped eraser. “This'll fit in perfectly with my collection!” she exclaimed. The computer desk at home was already covered with her fuzzy, pink monster pens.

As they walked to the car, Gladys imagined the monster pens coming to life in the night and ganging up on the zombie, obliterating him in a storm of fluffy pastel feathers.

OIL AND WATER(CRESS)

G
LADYS'S PARENTS WERE SO EN-
grossed in Hamilton's book that they hardly left the house the rest of the weekend. In fact, if Gladys hadn't brought them meals, they probably would have forgotten to eat. But at least the distraction meant that Gladys could get onto the computer as often as she wanted. She checked her e-mail on Saturday afternoon, and Saturday night, and again on Sunday morning—but there was still no word from Sandy.

By Sunday night, she couldn't wait any longer; it was time to take matters into her own hands. Clearly, there was no way she could visit every hot dog cart in New York. But how could she narrow the offerings down to a more manageable list of places?

Gladys thought back to her first-ever trip to New York City with her aunt Lydia, when she was seven. They hadn't eaten any hot dogs that day, but they had visited an Ethiopian restaurant, a kosher restaurant, and a Chinese restaurant. “If there's a specialty cuisine from somewhere in the world,” her aunt had told her, “then there's a place in New York City that serves it.”

Maybe narrowing things down wasn't the way to go at all, Gladys thought. Maybe she needed to expand her search instead.

She closed her DumpMail window and opened up a search engine. So far, Gladys had purposely avoided doing a web search for “New York's best hot dog.” She knew there had to be lists and articles out there, but reading someone else's rankings would be cheating. She wanted to design her own quest, and maybe even discover a hot dog that no New York food writer had tried before. So Gladys quickly typed in
world's best hot dogs
instead. If she could figure out what kinds of amazing hot dogs existed in the world, then maybe she'd be able to find them for sale in the city!

Gladys only had to scroll through a few pages of search results to realize there were way too many for her to follow up on. She would have to go about this a different way. Who did she know who traveled extensively, and tried lots of foreign cuisines? There was her aunt Lydia, of course, who lived in Paris, and Gladys knew that Sandy's mom had traveled a lot when she was younger, too. Mr. Eng knew a lot about foreign food, so she should probably ask him . . . and Parm was the best-traveled of her friends, since she went to India every winter with her family.

It might not amount to much, but talking to these people would at least give Gladys a place to start.

• • •

When she walked into the camp kitchen after her swimming lesson the next morning, Mrs. Spinelli was standing over a large cardboard box with an apoplectic look on her face.

“This is
not
what I ordered.” Her gray bun whipped from side to side in its hairnet as she shook her head. “Not what I ordered at all!”

Gladys's ingredients had come in.

Play it cool,
she told herself. “What's the matter, Mrs. Spinelli?”

“The food supply company messed up my order, that's what,” the cook growled. “I specifically requested seven bags of sesame seed buns, and look what they sent me!” She held up a plastic bag. “Sesame
seeds
! Ridiculous! What do they expect me to do, stick them to the buns myself?”

Gladys could have said something about the joy of baking your own fresh buns, but quickly decided against it. She needed to approach this situation cautiously—and for now, the best response to Mrs. Spinelli was to sympathize. “That
is
ridiculous,” she said. “I can't believe they messed it up!”

“I know,” the cook said, “but that's not even the half of it! I asked for five hundred mini bags for holding fruit slices. Look what they sent instead!” This time, she held up an armful of small, crusty-looking loaves of bread.

“Mini . . . baguettes?” Gladys asked.

“Exactly! French bread!”

“Geez,” Gladys made herself say. “Don't they know this is America?”

Mrs. Spinelli let out a “Hmpf!” of agreement as she dumped the baguettes back into the box. “That's a good one, girlie. That's exactly what I'm going to say when I get these jokers on the phone. And look—look at this!”

Instead of frozen chicken pieces, they had sent chick
peas
. Instead of garlic salamis, there were heads of garlic and thick wheels of a fancy Argentinean cheese called Sardo. There were fresh lemons instead of prepackaged lemon bars. And instead of bottled water, the company had sent several packages of one of Gladys's favorite leafy greens: watercress. Gladys had made sure to choose substitute ingredients that were close to Mrs. Spinelli's choices alphabetically, so it might actually look like the company just made a series of mistakes.

“That's the last time I order from these bozos,” Mrs. Spinelli concluded. But then she slumped against the counter. “What am I going to serve for lunch today, though?”

Gladys's big moment had come. “Mrs. Spinelli,” she said. “I think I could come up with something.”

The cook paused at rubbing her temples and gave Gladys an incredulous look. “You?”

Gladys took a deep breath. “Yes, me. I'm actually familiar with a lot of these ingredients, and I think I could make something that everyone will like.”

Gladys waited. Would the cook agree and give her the run of the kitchen—or chase her out with the wooden spoon for even proposing such a crazy plan? They seemed like equally likely outcomes.

Mrs. Spinelli stared at Gladys for what felt like long enough to turn a barrel of fresh milk into finely aged cheddar. At last, she said, “All right. It's too late to send everything back, so what choice do we have?”

Gladys's heart pogo-bounced in her chest, but she did her best to look calm on the outside. “Thank you for this opportunity, Mrs. Spinelli,” she said. “I won't let the camp down!”

“Oh, I expect you will,” Mrs. Spinelli said. “I know what kids like, and it ain't nothing in that box. But you go ahead, girlie, and give it your best shot. I'm off to talk to the Bentleys about changing food-supply companies.” She removed her hairnet, tossed it into the nearest garbage can, and stalked out of the kitchen.

For a moment Gladys felt bad for Foodstuffs, Inc., which really hadn't done anything wrong and was probably about to lose the camp's account. That is, unless they'd kept a copy of her doctored order form, in which case she'd be the one in trouble.
But,
she told herself,
if I can make this work, maybe the Bentleys will let me keep cooking and keep ordering from Foodstuffs.
Everything now depended on her lunch.

There wasn't a moment to lose. Stuffing her hair into a net and yanking on a pair of gloves, Gladys grabbed several bags of sesame seeds out of the cardboard box and poured the contents onto baking sheets. Her sandwiches would be spread with fresh hummus instead of Mrs. Spinelli's gloppy mayonnaise. But to make hummus, she needed a sesame paste called tahini, and to make tahini, first she needed to toast a huge amount of sesame seeds.

When the oven was heated, Gladys placed the sheets on all three racks and set the timer for ten minutes. Her next task would be to blend the toasted seeds with oil in the huge food processor.

Unfortunately, the only oil within easy reach in the pantry was a giant plastic container labeled
FRYING OIL
. Gladys searched high and low for an alternative, and finally spotted a small bottle of olive oil on the topmost shelf—but there was no stepladder.

She returned to the kitchen, grabbed Mrs. Spinelli's longest spoon, and hurried back to the shelf, hoping she could use it to nudge the bottle toward her. But even when she leapt in the air, she could barely tap it.
Fudge.
Now Mrs. Spinelli's complaints about Gladys not being a tall, strapping boy were starting to make sense.

But wait—there
was
a tall boy nearby! As much as Gladys didn't want to ask Hamilton for help, she couldn't stand the idea of her entire lunch failing just because she couldn't reach some oil. She raced out to the covered patio.

“Hamilton,” she said. “Could you reach something for me in the pantry?”

Hamilton looked up from writing, and for a moment, Gladys thought he might shout at her for interrupting. But a smile spread across his face instead.

“Gladys Gatsby!” he said. “What a pleasure. You know, not every author gets a visit from his muse during a writing session.”

“His . . . what?” she said.

“Muse! It's from the Ancient Greek. Muses are goddesses who inspire great artists in their work.”

“O-kay,” Gladys said. Hamilton was being as weird as ever, but she'd better not be too mean to him since she needed a favor.

Hamilton continued. “The other day, when you saved me from missing our first swimming lesson, you inspired me to add a new character to my sequel to
Zombietown, U.S.A.
,” he explained. “She's based on you!”

Suddenly, the oil on the top shelf was the furthest thing from Gladys's mind. “You're basing a character in your new book on . . . me?”

“Yes,” Hamilton said. “But don't worry—I've changed your name for privacy purposes. The drudge in my book is named Glynnis, not Gladys.”

Gladys's brain felt like it had stalled. “I'm sorry,” she said, “but what was that word you just used to describe me?”

Hamilton's expression shifted from beaming to slightly frustrated. “
Muse,
Gladys. I just gave you a definition, but if you want it again—”

“Not that one,” she snapped. “The other one.
Drudge
?”

“Ah, yes, drudge,” Hamilton said. “It means ‘menial worker.' A drudge is a person who does dull work.” Before Gladys could react, he went on. “From my spot out here on the patio, I've been watching you work in the kitchen. I've seen you lugging supplies around, spreading condiments, and doling lunches out to unappreciative campers. If that's not drudgery, I don't know what is.

“So, my new character, Glynnis—she's a drudge, too. The only difference is that she works as a zombie slayer rather than as a kitchen assistant. But the idea is the same. Day after day, she kills zombies. And does anybody thank her for the hard work she's doing?”

Gladys stared at Hamilton, not sure whether she was supposed to be impressed or insulted by what he was telling her.

Just then, the
bong
of the camp clock reverberated over the field. It was ten thirty—only an hour and a half before lunch, and unless Gladys planned on serving plates of toasted sesame seeds, she needed to get a move on.

“Time for my hourly stretch,” Hamilton said. He stood up and started to reach his long arms into the air when Gladys grabbed one.

“Come on—I know a better place where you can stretch,” she said, and yanked him toward the kitchen.

“This is highly unusual,” Hamilton protested. “The muse usually visits the artist's place of work, not the other way around.”

“Yeah, well, this muse thinks you'll be more inspired if you can see how she works up close.” With her free hand, Gladys pulled open the pantry door.

Hamilton followed her inside. “Hey,” Gladys said, trying to keep her voice casual, “as long as you're in here, would you grab me that olive oil?”

Reaching overhead like it was the easiest thing in the world, Hamilton brought down the bottle. “You see, it's the repetitive nature of your work, and the lack of skills or education required, that's given me insight into—”

“Thanks,” Gladys said, cutting him off as she took the bottle out of his hands. “Now, you'd better get back to work.”

For a split second, Hamilton looked shocked at being interrupted, but then he brought his hand up to his fedora in salute. “As you command, Madame Muse!” he cried. Then he marched back out to his patio table.

“Good gravy,” Gladys muttered. But at least she had her oil now, and she was pretty sure she wouldn't need any more supplies off the top shelf today.