Every second counted. Which was why Evie was watching her stepmom, Hannah, like a hawk. Once Hannah finished taking the order from the old couple at table nine and headed to the kitchen to fetch their lunch, Evie estimated she’d have around two minutes—just 120 seconds—before her stepmom would be back. Which should give me just enough time, she thought, to dash behind the counter and make the two Blueberry Blaster Slushie drinks for the teenagers at table two, which Hannah has forgotten to do!
The moment Evie had heard the teenagers order their drinks, she’d been itching to go make them. Evie LOVED making slushies. Especially Blueberry Blaster Slushies. There was something so satisfying about piling the fruit and ice into the blender and hitting the max power button so the machine whizzed and crunched and created the most delicious purple frothy drink ever! But her stepmom wasn’t wild about letting Evie help out in the family’s diner. Mostly because I spill stuff, Evie thought. But I’ve been practicing and today I’m Wonder Waitress! The slickest smoothie-making superhero in the world! And I’m going to show Hannah just how awesome I am.
Hannah had finished writing on her order pad now and was telling the old couple she would be back with their soup shortly.
Okay, begin countdown … Evie told herself … Ten, nine, eight, seven … Evie kept her eyes glued to Hannah as her stepmom turned and walked toward the kitchen, stopping to collect some dirty plates on her way.
Evie smiled as Hannah passed the diner counter, where she was supposed to be folding napkins. Three, two, one … YES! She’s out of sight! Go, Evie! Go! She zipped around the back of the counter, grabbed the blueberry box, reached for the watermelon chunks, and dumped the lot into the blender. Now for the crunchy bit! She pulled open the refrigerator and found a bag of ice chips, keeping her eye on the diner clock. Forty-five seconds gone. Quick, Evie! You mustn’t let Hannah see you, not until you’ve safely delivered the slushies to the customers.
You will need:
2 cups of frozen blueberries1 cup of watermelon chunks1 tablespoon of lime or lemon juice½ cup of sugar2 cups of ice chipsMethod:
Blend together the fruit, sugar, and lemon/lime juice.Add the ice chips and blend. Or put the chips in a sandwich bag and bash with a rolling pin to crush.Empty everything into a jug, stir well, and serve.Decorate glasses with slices of lime and tiny umbrellas!Evie hit the button on the blender and turned up the dial to max power. While it was whizzing and crunching, she found two smoothie glasses and some slices of lime to decorate the drinks with, as well as two tiny parasols. Evie loved the little umbrellas. They look like they’ve been left behind by forgetful fairies, she thought. Then—“Done!” Evie said, flicking off the blender and pouring out the thick, purple liquid. She added the decorations, then stood back to admire her work. Yay! Two super exciting, taste-bud tingling slushie sensations for the teenagers at table two. She placed the drinks on a tray, picked it up, and walked proudly around the counter to deliver them. Wow! she thought, checking the clock. Finished with twenty seconds to spare. I really am Wonder Waitress, the only superhero who can balance a tray of Blueberry Blaster Slushies on one hand without dropping a—
SMASH!
Everyone in the café turned to stare as the glasses crashed onto the tiles.
Uh-oh! Maybe I shouldn’t have tried the one-handed tray trick. Evie shut her eyes and crossed her fingers and wished extra hard that when she opened them again either she would have vanished, or all the customers would have gone. She opened one eye. Nope, that didn’t work. She bit her lip and tried to smile as everyone stared at her, mouths open like stunned goldfish.
“Evie! What on earth?” Hannah came dashing out of the back kitchen and did a double take at the sight of the shattered glass and purple slush now splattered across the floor. She looked at the customers. Then Evie. Then back at the customers again. “I am SO sorry, folks,” she said, smiling nervously. “I guess we’re still learning the ropes here. No harm done.”
As everyone turned away and the hubbub of chat picked up again, Hannah grabbed the brush and shovel she kept handy and got down on her hands and knees to clean up the mess. “You know you’re not supposed to be lifting trays,” Hannah said. “Or making orders! And especially not today when we’ve got the Best Café Contest judge coming any moment.” She sighed. “Why don’t you go out and play in the yard?”
“By myself?” Evie felt her lip wobble. Don’t cry, Wonder Waitress! she told herself. Superhero serving staff never cry! “But I LOVE helping out in the diner,” she said.
Hannah looked up. “I know, but—”
“And I’m so sorry about the mess. But making drinks and desserts is so fun. Did I tell you about the amazing new ice cream sundae I’ve invented? It’s got popping candy and—”
“Later, Evie,” Hannah interrupted. “Tell me at dinner, okay? But in the meantime, if you really want to help, maybe you could go stack the strawberry saucepots in the storeroom cupboard. I need to put a new stock order in today and it’ll be easier to count them if you pile them up.”
Evie blinked at her stepmom. Stacking saucepots in the back storeroom—ALONE? Her shoulders drooped and she felt the tears welling up in her eyes again. That’s almost as bad as playing in the yard. “Okay,” Evie mumbled, heading for the door to the kitchen. “No problem.”
Hannah was always doing this. Dreaming up desperately dull jobs for Evie to do to keep her safely out of the diner, like drying dishes in the kitchen, or polishing the cutlery, or counting the bags of little wooden spoons that they served with the ice cream. (For the record, they had 3,981 spoons last time Evie checked.) But checking stock in the storeroom was the most boring work of all. There’s no one to talk to, Evie thought as she walked down the corridor. And not even a window to see people passing by.
But five minutes later, as Evie was stretching up on tiptoes to add another bottle to her super-tall tower of strawberry sauce bottles, she heard a shriek. Huh? She listened. Uh-oh, that sounds like at least a six on the Scale of Super-Cranky Customer Meltdowns!
She dropped the sauce bottle she was holding and was about to bound through the storeroom door to go sort it out when she paused. Would Hannah want me to help after my purple slushie disaster? She chewed on her lip for a moment or two and considered. Probably not. She sighed. But then there was another scream. Even louder than the first. On the other hand, this definitely sounds like a job for Wonder Waitress! And she dived for the door.
Every customer in the diner had turned to look at the table in the middle of the room, where her stepmom Hannah was trying to calm a red-faced, screaming preschooler.
“I am so sorry,” Hannah was shouting, trying to be heard over the little boy’s cries. “I know it says we have gummy bears on the list of ice cream sundae toppings, but you see, we’ve run out.” Hannah pushed her curly hair out of her eyes and smiled at the little boy’s mom, who was doing her best to distract her son with a cuddly dog toy. “We’ve only been open a few weeks,” Hannah explained. “And we’ve never run a diner before, so we’re still learning about how to order the right things at the right time, and—”
But she was drowned out by the little boy howling even louder.
Okay, time for Wonder Waitress to take charge! “Hey—don’t cry,” Evie said, squeezing in front of her stepmom and smiling at the boy. “I can see you really like dogs,” she added, pointing to his shirt. “Me too!”
The boy stopped hollering for a moment and blinked at her, his bright red face glistening with tears. Then he looked down at the picture of the dachshund on his shirt.
“That’s such a cool dog,” Evie said. “I used to know one just like that. It lived next door to us before we moved here. It was called Peanut because that’s exactly what it looked like—a giant peanut on legs!”
The little boy giggled.
Evie’s stepmom coughed. “Um—thanks, Evie. But I’ve got this—see, I was just explaining to the folks here that we don’t have any gummy bears left today, but we do have … banana chips! Yummy!”
The little boy’s smile vanished.
Not yummy at all! Evie thought. I wouldn’t swap gummy bears for banana chips either— Uh-oh, he’s about to go into “full-on erupting volcano” mode again unless Wonder Waitress can put out the flames! “Wait!” she said, stopping him in his tracks. “How about I fix you one of my favorite desserts. It’s called a Pup Cone!”
The little boy cocked his head to one side. “What dat?”
“It’s a doggie dessert,” Evie said. “It’s made with chocolate ice cream and chocolate drops and it looks exactly like a puppy. Hey—maybe you could come up to the counter and help me make it?”
Hannah gasped. “Now, Evie, I really don’t think—”
“Oh, that would be wonderful,” the little boy’s mom interrupted. “Peter would love to make his own dessert. Perhaps we could get it to go,” she added, gathering up her purse and coat, “while I pay the check.”
Evie tried not to catch her stepmom’s eye as she led Peter behind the counter.
Evie rarely got to make ice cream sundaes. Which she thought was totally unfair, because, as Evie reminded her stepmom every day: “Kids have THE best dessert ideas on the planet,” and “Kids also eat the most desserts, so we know what tastes good.” But Hannah never listened. It was as though her ears were full of marshmallows.
“Here, stand on this,” Evie told Peter, as she slid a little step in front of him. “Because the counter is WAY too high. I think it must have been made for giraffes. Now, let’s get you a big scoop of chocolate ice cream,” she said, spooning out a giant ball from the ice cream trays in front of them. She slopped it onto a cone, then reached for the chocolate drop box. “Now, I’ll show you how to arrange the drops to make your pup’s ears and eyes and, oh yeah—we’ll need a squirt of strawberry sauce for its mouth.”
Scoop a big ball of chocolate ice cream onto a cone.Use mini marshmallows and chocolate buttons for the eyes and nose (stick onto your ice cream with chocolate sauce).Cover another chocolate drop or marshmallow with strawberry sauce, or use a red icing pen for the tongue.Use large chocolate buttons or edible wafer paper for the ears.Eat quick, before it melts!As the little boy set to work, Evie looked around the room. Uh-oh! There sure are a lot of impatient-looking customers today. That’s bad, what with the Best Café Contest judge arriving at any moment …
Evie’s stepmom had been talking of nothing else all week. The annual Golden Coffee Cup Best Café Contest was a big deal in Lime Bay, the town they’d recently moved to. “And winning the contest would put us on the map,” Hannah had explained. But the trouble was, they didn’t know what the judge looked like or when they’d appear.
Evie glanced over at a family of four in the corner: a mom and a dad and two blond-haired daughters who looked around Evie’s age. I wonder if those kids will be in my class at school? Maybe I could go say hi? She smiled at them, but they scowled back. Then the mom checked her watch and rolled her eyes. Oops, I hope that lady isn’t the Best Café Contest judge. Evie peered at the woman some more. Nah, probably only a regular customer getting a bit fed up waiting for her order. Evie looked around for her stepmom, but she had disappeared back into the kitchen. Evie puffed out her cheeks. If Hannah let me help more, then everyone would get served much quicker.
When Evie’s dad and stepmom had told her about their plan to move to the coastal town of Lime Bay and open a diner, it had all seemed like such a fairy tale. Sea, sand, and ice cream sundaes! But it turned out that owning a beach-front café did not mean you got to sit around eating desserts for half the day before heading off to play in the surf. Running a café was hard work, with demanding customers and lots of icky mess to clean up. And her parents got zero free time to hang out with her. Which is why I want to help more, Evie thought. It’s the only time I get to see them!
“Hey, want me to show you how to turn a napkin into a dog, too?” she asked Peter, who had now finished creating his Pup Cone. She picked up a paper napkin from the pile on the counter and began folding. “See, these are its ears, and this is its nose.” She reached for a pen. “And we can draw some crazy googly eyes on it, like this.”
You will need:
A square napkin (or trim a rectangular napkin into a square)A black felt tip penHow to do it:
Fold your square into a triangle shape.With the folded edge at the top, fold down the right-hand corner into an ear shape, then repeat on the left.Fold up the bottom points of the triangle on both sides.Then fold down the tip of the front triangle you just made to form the nose.Color the nose in.Draw eyes and decorate the ears.Peter giggled.
“Here, take it home with you,” Evie said, as the boy grabbed his Pup Cone and jumped down from the stool to go join his mom who was waiting by the door. Evie waved to them both as they left the diner.
“Hi, could I have our check, please?”
Evie looked around and saw a red-haired girl, about her own age, standing at the counter. She remembered seeing her come in earlier. The girl smiled at her. And Evie noticed a large gap between her two front teeth. It made Evie want to smile back even more.
“Um—sure.” Evie wasn’t supposed to sort out the checks by herself … But Hannah’s in the kitchen and I REALLY want to show her how helpful I can be. Especially today with the Best Café Contest judges about to arrive. “Er … table three, right?” Evie squinted at the board of checks. Trying to read her stepmom’s writing was like deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs. “I think this is it—”
But the girl already had the right money ready. “And this is for you,” the girl said, putting extra on the counter. “Bye.” She turned and raced off outside to join an older lady in a long flowery frock and a fancy hat with purple flowers on the top. Shame the girl was in a rush to go. She looked kind of fun.
Evie reached down to pick up the money, and that’s when she saw it. “Hey—wait!” she called after the girl. “You forgot your book.” But the girl, who was outside now, didn’t seem to hear her. Evie picked up the book and turned it over in her hands. The pages were made of thick cream-colored paper with golden edges. And on the front was a picture of three young women with long hair and fussy frocks. “Happily Ever After Stories,” Evie read the title aloud, and the book seemed to wobble in her hands. Huh? That’s weird!
“Excuse me!”
Evie looked up to find the mom from the table with the two blond girls, staring across the counter at her. “We’re STILL waiting for our order!”
Text copyright © 2022 by Sam Hay. Illustrations copyright © 2022 by Genevieve Kote
