"Oh, he can tell," Dad said. "He came over and sniffed the tote as soon as it came out of the package. He was looking at the picture and saying 'Rock on, that looks like my brother!' "
"He did not say 'Rock on,' " I told them, putting a sticker on one of Finn's prewrapped lemon squares.
"He barked when Dad put on the T-shirt," added Mom. "And you know he never barks. He was telling us how much he liked it."
"Fine."
"Ooh, what have we here?" It was Mr. Fleischman, waddling up to the counter.
"Emulsions!" I yelled, because I knew it would make him happy. "Lemon emulsion, sour-cherry emulsion, cream-cheese-frosting emulsion. Take your pick. They're all made with science!"
He chuckled and rubbed his hands together.
"Mr. Fleischman," I went on, "these are my parents, Kevin and Elaine Oliver."
They all shook hands and Mr. Fleischman bought a sour-cherry square and a slice of carrot cake with three layers of cream cheese frosting. "Do you want anything from the bake sale?" I asked my parents.
My dad looked to my mom as if for permission. She gave a slight nod and he said, "Yes, I'll take a coffee cake."
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"Two dollars. Mom, you want anything?"
"Nothing for me, thanks," she said, patting her tote. "I have a dehydrated banana-barley cookie in here if I get hungry before lunch."
Then, hand in hand, they wandered off in the direction of the art studio, where there was a display of student work.
"They seem like delightful people," Mr. Fleischman said. "I always get along with dog lovers."
Meghan sighed. "Your parents still hold hands. That's adorable."
"I'll sell 'em to either one of you for a dollar fifty," I said.
Meghan and I worked the bake sale table from eight to eleven and sold a ton. Finn's lemon squares were seriously, seriously delicious, though he put me off my feed by French-kissing Meghan behind the Baby CHuBS table. The coffee cake sold out, and by ten-thirty we had nearly run out of other breakfasty stuff. We were expecting a new influx of more desserty things around eleven, and sure enough, on the dot Archer showed up to take her shift behind the counter.
Only, she was not holding a tray of deliciousness. She was holding a tray of marshmallow Easter bunnies and-I kid you not-Jesuses.
The Jesuses were built like snowmen, standing three mallows high and crucified on crosses made of sugar cookies with chocolate frosting. "I meant to bring these earlier," Archer said, displaying them proudly, "but I had trouble getting the crosses to stand up properly. I stabilized
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them with clear gumdrops. I don't think anyone will mind, do you? You can barely see them."
Meghan and I looked at the bunnies and Jesuses. Archer had clearly spent hours on them. The bunnies had floppy ears made from strawberry Fruit Roll-Ups, tiny licorice-drop eyes, and tails made of white dinner mints. The Jesuses had hair and beards of chocolate, and each was dressed in a loincloth made from green Fruit Roll-Up. Yes, a loincloth, even though they each only had a single marshmallow at the bottom instead of legs.
"I see you're sparse here," said Archer, surveying the table.
We were sparse, because of the people who didn't bring their stuff, but I threw back my shoulders and told her, "People have been buying everything, that's why. We have more coming in to put out for the after-lunch crowd. This is just the end of breakfast."
Gwen shook her head. "I'm worried these items you've got here are not going to move, Ruby. Frankly, I'm surprised you let people bring in"--she gestured at the sour-cherry squares-"blobs of red stuff on pastry when the evidence of previous sales, and in fact the entire tradition of CHuBS for years back, is that cute sells."
"I told you we were going for deliciousness," I said. "I told you we were doing Tate Boys Bake."
"Yeah," she answered, "but you didn't say you were abandoning cute. It's hardly CHuBS if you abandon cute like this!"
"The lemon bars are amazing," piped up Meghan. "Two people came back and bought seconds. And the
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coffee cake sold out within a half hour 'cause we had such good word of mouth."
Archer ignored her. "At least I have my bunnies and Saviors," she said. "We can price them high and maybe that'll save your bottom line."
I was furious. How dare she come in after all my weeks of hard work and disparage my bottom line without even looking in the cash box? How dare she hand this whole project over to me and then criticize the way I did it? She wasn't even listening! She hadn't even tasted anything!
She wasn't considering how we'd gotten all these boys to become involved in the sale, how we'd gotten the word out about Happy Paws; she wasn't considering anything we'd done except how she wouldn't have done it that way.
And now she wanted me to sell Jesus marshmallows.
"Gwen," I said. "I don't think we can sell what you brought."
Archer's eyes widened. "What? Of course we can. Three fifty each, I think."
"I know Easter is in a few weeks," I said, "and Tate is certainly Christian-centric enough to have a Christmas dance for the middle school, even though people here are Jewish and atheist and Muslim and Buddhist. But I'm not going to have Saviors and bunnies at my bake sale unless we're representing other religions too."
"No one's going to mind," said Archer.
"There are parents here," I said. "Non-Christian parents of non-Christian kids. I don't think we should get religious
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about our baked goods at a school function unless we show some diversity."
"Besides," added Meghan. "I'm not sure about marshmallow Saviors, anyway. No offense, Gwen, but the Jesuses are a little much."
"They are not!" cried Archer. "They're cute and inspirational!"
"I think they're borderline offensive." It was Jackson, sliding into his usual seat on the far right of the table and opening the ledger in which he kept his Handicap bets.
"Exactly," said Meghan. "Even the Christians aren't going to like them."
"Clarke, why are you always ragging on me?" Archer barked.
Jackson shrugged. "It's fun?" He went back to his notebook, but poked my leg under the table in sympathy.
"Fine, don't sell the Saviors. I'll bring them to my church group this weekend," said Archer. "They'll appreciate them."
"We're not selling the bunnies, either," I told her. "Why not?"
"Because that's not what you signed up to bring." I flipped through my notebook. "You signed up for dulce de leche brownies and white chocolate cupcakes with raspberry filling."
"I changed my plans," she said. "I'm sure lots of people didn't deliver exactly what they signed up for."
"That's not the point," I told her. "The point is, you knew what deliciousness meant."
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"So?"
"You made marshmallow bunnies not to save my bottom line but to try and prove to me that you knew better. You're not trying to help me, you're trying to take control of my sale and prove I don't know what I'm doing."
"Go, Ruby," Jackson muttered.
Just then, three of Archer's senior CHuBS compatriots showed with trays of cutesy cupcakes: green ones with shamrocks that said "Kiss Me, I'm Irish"; vanilla ones with yellow lollipop flowers; pink ones with ice cream cone hats and smiley faces.
"See?" I said. "Those were not on the sign-up sheet. You're trying to take over!"
"Look, Oliver," said Archer as her minions began moving my deliciousness to make room for cuteness. "I've been on CHuBS since I was a freshman, and the sale I ran in December was the most successful ever. I only let you do Baby CHuBS because you seemed like a team player and last year you had good ideas for cupcakes. We have a legacy to protect. I told you, there are lots of moms here today who were CHuBS twenty-five years ago. They're not going to be happy seeing the whole thing looking ordinary, with lemon bars and brownies. Here you are, going against tradition with your whole deliciousness boy-crazy thing, and meanwhile, rumors are going all around school about you-and now CHuBS is going downhill."