Murder in the Marigolds by Dale Mayer (best young adult book series .txt) 📕

She said, “Fine. So Nan told me to put the eggs in the measuring cup, so I did. She failed to mention the part about taking the eggs out of the shell.”

He looked at her for a long moment. Then his shoulders started to shake, and his lips quivered even faster, as he tried to press them tightly together. Then his shoulders really started to shudder, until finally he couldn’t contain his mirth and burst out laughing, tried to stop, and then gave up and eventually sat on the deck beside her, while she lounged in the rocker, howling with unchecked glee.

She glared at him. “You weren’t supposed to laugh at me,” she snapped.

“I’m not,” he said, gasping for air. “I’m laughing … with you.”

“Do I look like I’m laughing?” she asked.

“You should be,” he said, sitting up, “because, … oh my, that one is priceless.”

She looked at him, and a smile twitched at the corner of her lips. “Nan handled it very well.”

“I’m sure she did,” Mack said, sitting up and looping his arms around his knees to stare up at her. “That would have been worth the price of a ticket.”

“Well, it was priceless but also educational. I guess you make those mistakes every once in a while in order to realize that you really don’t know what you don’t know.”

“Exactly,” he said. “And you’ve already tried it out, from what I see.”

“Well, we had to taste it,” she said, opening her eyes wide in mock innocence. “How else would we know if it’s any good?”

“Exactly,” he said. “Do I get to try some?”

She immediately frowned at him. “Oh, it was supposed to be dessert.”

“Well, in that case, have you got some food first?” he asked, with an eyebrow up.

“Sadly, no, I do not,” she said. “Didn’t you bring something?”

He burst out laughing. “Yes, I did,” he said, “and it’s not what I had planned to bring either.”

“What did you bring?” she asked.

“Well, you might be sick of it because of all we had when the guys were here, working on the deck.”

She looked at him and then groaned. “Are you talking about pizza?”

He laughed. “Yes, but this is a little different.”

She hopped to her feet. “Well, let’s not let it get cold,” she said.

“No, no, no,” he said, jumping lightly to his feet and stepping in front of her, leading the way. “This is pizza that we make.”

She stopped at the doorway. “We make it?” she asked. “Is that possible?” He looked at her, lips twitching, but then she held up a hand. “Don’t say it.”

“I won’t,” he said, “but the answer is yes. It’s possible. In this case, I bought the dough from the little Italian deli down off Birch. They have beautiful homemade crusts.” He pointed out the one he had placed on the counter, as he continued to unpack the groceries.

“Wow,” she said, looking at it with interest. “It’s got all these little fingerprints inside it.”

“Yeah, but they have a purpose.”

“If you say so. Why do you want people to already have poked it full of holes though?”

“They just punched in finger holes,” he said, “better to hold the oil and sauce.” She watched as he carefully poured a little bit of olive oil on it and spread it all over the top. “I brought ham, some tomatoes, fresh basil, and mozzarella.”

Immediately she lit up like a Christmas tree. “And that’s all going on top?”

“Yes, if that’s okay with you,” he said, looking at her.

“Absolutely! I was afraid you would have deluxe or supreme or whatever those kinds were last time. There just wasn’t anywhere near enough meat, way too much crust, and way too greasy. Plus, just something about fast food makes my stomach feel like I’ve swallowed a rock.”

“Some people thrive on fast food.”

“Not me,” she said, “but this looks very different.” She watched with interest as he laid all the ingredients carefully on the top. “You put a white sauce underneath all this?”

“Well, I figured you might prefer a ranch dressing sauce on it,” he said. “Whenever I make that spaghetti sauce next, we can take out some of the sauce, before it’s done, and spice it up with Italian seasoning and fresh basil and keep that for pizza sauce too.”

“Oh, wow,” she muttered. “It seems like, if you know what you’re doing, you can make one batch of something and have it for several different things.”

“That’s at the heart of cooking,” he said, nodding.

Before long the entire thing was fully dressed, and it was bright red with fresh tomato slices and lots of white pieces of fresh mozzarella and fresh green basil leaves.

“It looks lovely,” she said.

He grabbed the salt and pepper, and then, for good measure, he tossed some parmesan all over the top. Afterward he said, “Now, this can rest like it is for a while, or we can put it into the oven right away, but, either way, we’ll need to heat it up.”

“The oven might still be a little warm from the cake,” she said. He walked over and turned it up to the temperature he wanted.

“Generally pizzas need high heat,” he said, “so we’ll put it up over 400 degrees because I think this one of yours runs a bit hot. I also brought some beer, and, if you don’t mind, I’ll put a couple in the fridge to get cold.”

She nodded. “It’s not like any were left from when the deck work was done.”

“Nope, and you can’t really expect guys who are working hard to leave any beer behind.”

“So does that mean you’ll be working hard tonight?”

“Heck no,” he muttered. “I need some time off. But beer and pizza are too good to pass up.”

When he had the beer in the fridge, he looked at the cake and then at her expectantly.

She shrugged and said, “Well, you showed me how to make pizza, so sure.”

He went and carefully cut himself a slice, poured a large glass