Jess's Story by Christine Heppermann

Author:Christine Heppermann
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

“Probably just a bat left over from . . . Well, never mind. Here.” She pulled the bag toward her. “Let me.” Out came the bowl-shaped mortar with ginger, garlic, and cilantro nestled inside.

“The cilantro is fresh from your mother’s garden. Would you like to work with that or grill the tofu?”

“I would rather eat my tennis racquet.”

Ms. M acted as if Jess hadn’t said a word. “I’ll mince a few things and then you can grind them a bit.”

Using the cleanest part of the picnic table, the witch chopped and minced efficiently. She swept the pieces into the mortar, which she handed to Jess along with the pestle. “Introduce the ingredients to each other gently,” Ms. M advised.

“What?”

“Don’t pound too hard.”

With the fatter, rounded end of the pestle, Jess rhythmically mashed the contents of the bowl. Ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum. As she worked, the air around her began to smell like another country. Somewhere tropical and kind of mysterious.

Ms. M stopped slicing tofu and inhaled. “I love the combination of ginger and garlic,” she said. “So pungent and intriguing.”

“You sound like my mom.”

“Tart, savory, umami,” said the witch. “Smoky, peppery, luscious. Cooking is a whole other language, isn’t it?”

“Like Dog.”

Ms. M laughed. “With a bigger vocabulary.”

She set the tofu slices on the grill, reached into her bag again, and came up with a small cauldron, about the size of a soccer ball. “Let’s put your ingredients in here. We’ll add the coconut milk, the peanut butter, and those veggies I chopped earlier and let it all cook for just a minute.”

“Where did you get that little thing?”

The witch looked at the cauldron and frowned. “Probably some supernatural foods store.” Then her face brightened. “Oh, now I remember. Ethel and I picked it up at an outdoor market in Costa Rica.”

“Are you going to keep looking for Ethel?”

“Of course. I’ve been getting messages about her lately.”

Jess peered down into the cauldron. The soupy mixture blurped back at her. “Messages from who?”

“From everywhere. The air is always full of messages. Most people are too busy to pay attention.”

The witch took two slices of tofu off the grill, slipped them onto a paper plate, and placed it on the table in front of Jess.

“One piece is really enough,” she said. “More than enough.”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.