Pearl came home from school with me that afternoon.
Because it was a Monday.
And Pearl always came home from school with me
on Mondays.
Wednesdays, too.
(Because her mom was still at work.)
We loved those afternoons.
We usually trained my little dog, Antoine.
And did our homework.
And baked, when we had time.
That Monday
we had time.
So we decided to make chocolate cupcakes.
My very nice babysitter, Natalie,
preheated the oven,
then left the room for a minute.
Antoine sat right behind us,
ready to lick or chew anything that fell.
"We can't drop any chocolate," I reminded Pearl.
"It's poisonous for dogs."
"Right!" Pearl said.
She pushed the cocoa to the back of the counter.
Then we took turns measuring ingredients
and dumping them in a bowl
and mixing them together.
We had no problems at all.
Until
it was time
for the salt.
I should've measured the salt over the sink.
But we'd done everything else so perfectly!
I figured I could do the salt perfectly, too!
So, with my right hand,
I held a teaspoon over our bowl.
And with my left hand,
I tilted a big salt container,
with a fast-pouring spout,
over that little teaspoon.
One second later,
a mountain of salt appeared
on top of our beautiful batter.
"Aaagghhh!" I cried,
watching as that mountain started sinking.
"Oh no, oh no!" Pearl cried.
Natalie rushed in. "What happened?" she said.
Then Antoine ran over to Natalie,
but Natalie didn't see him,
so Natalie tripped on Antoine,
and Antoine yelped a terrible yelp.
Both Pearl and I cried, "Antoine!"
and turned to comfort him.
But as I turned,
I hit the wooden spoon we'd been using in our batter.
Our chocolate batter.
And the chocolate-covered spoon flew
out of the bowl and onto the floor.
Antoine must not have been hurt at all.
Because he zoomed to that spoon
and started licking up the chocolate!
"No, Antoine!" I cried. "It's poison!"
Natalie grabbed one end of the spoon,
but Antoine held on to the other
and they ended up playing tug-of-war.
"Drop it, Antoine!" I cried. "Drop it!"
But he didn't listen.
Then Pearl,
who is a dog-training genius,
grabbed a bag of Antoine's treats
and held it open,
right under his nose.
"Come, Antoine!" she said, backing up. "Come!"
Like a miracle,
Antoine dropped the spoon
and went to Pearl.
She fed him lots of treats,
and we both hugged him
while Natalie called the vet.
"He's going to be fine," she told us,
after she'd hung up.
"He might throw up a little later,
but that'd just be a sign
that he's getting bad things out of his system."
After that happy news,
Pearl and I turned back to our cupcakes.
We tried to take out the thin layer of salt
still resting at the top of the batter.
Then we finished everything else.
We'd just gotten the cupcakes in the oven
when my dad came home.
He was whistling "Hey Jude," by the Beatles.
(My dad loves the Beatles.)
And
as soon as he saw me and Pearl washing dishes,
he started making up a song to that tune.
He sang:
"He-ey Pearl, in my kit-chen.
Baking sweet things
with my El-ea-nor."
I stopped him then.
Because he was being ridiculous!
Also, he does not sing well.
Pearl laughed, though.
And my dad gave us both hugs.
A little later,
when Pearl's mom came to pick Pearl up,
my dad said,
"You can't have her! She's ours."
He liked saying that, every Monday and Wednesday.
I liked hearing it, too.
Because I loved thinking of Pearl as ours.
