Lois Lowry - The One Hundredth Thing About Caroline

"You don't even know Mr. Keretsky," Caroline said angrily. "Mr. Keretsky happens to be a world-renowned scientist."

"Scientist ha," said J.P. "You call dinosaurs a science ?"

Caroline grabbed a candle and took aim. "Don't throw that," warned her mother. "It'll break, and I don't have any others."

"And I hate Stacy Baurichter," J.P. continued, jumping up to grab the top of the door and dangle himself from it. "Stacy Baurichter is a big fake-o jerk."

"Quit doing that to your door," said Joanna Tate. "You'll break the hinges."

"Stacy Baurichter told me that she thinks you're cute," said Caroline sarcastically. "Cute cute cute." She began to fold napkins.

"Liar," muttered J.P. He dangled for a moment and then let himself drop.

"And I expect you both to be polite to Fred Fiske," Mrs. Tate said. "Don't forget to thank him for the cannolis."

"BE POLITE TO WHOM?" asked Caroline, dropping a napkin on the floor.

"Fred Fiske," said her mother. "I invited him to join us. There's plenty of food."

"Oh, great, " said J.P. "That's just great, Mom. Now I definitely want to eat in my room."

"No way," said Joanna Tate in her don't-argue-with-me voice. "I'm going to finish washing the salad stuff. Caroline, you set the table. For six. That's S-I-X. Six." She went to the kitchen.

Glumly Caroline began to put six napkins around the table. J.P. stood in his doorway, watching. "I'm going back to my electronic invention," he said finally. "Because I'm going to use it. Tonight. "

During the afternoon, after Caroline had set the table for dinner and dusted the living room once more, she helped her mother in the kitchen. Together they baked a chocolate cake and forced each other not to open the oven every five minutes to peek at it. Caroline removed the strings from what seemed fourteen million string beans; she sliced them into a saucepan. "A normal vegetable," she said. "About time."

Her mother peeled potatoes. "Where's J.P.?" she asked. "What's he doing? He usually peels potatoes for me."

"I'll check," said Caroline, and she slid down from the kitchen stool. She went to J.P.'s closed bedroom door and listened. Inside, she could hear mysterious buzzes and crackling noises. She knocked on the door.

"Don't come in," said J.P.

"It's only me," called Caroline softly. "Mom wants to know what you're doing."

J.P. opened the door, motioned her inside, and closed it behind her. On his desk she could see a tangle of wires and switches.

"Look," whispered J.P. He gingerly picked up one green wire with an exposed copper end and touched it to the end of a red wire. Sparks flew, and a tiny column of smoke curled up into the air.

"Zap," muttered J.P. "If you touched that, Caroline, you'd turn into a grilled cheese sandwich."

"I have no intention of touching it," she replied, moving farther away from his desk. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Show me which chair Fiske is going to sit in at dinner," he said. "I'm going to wire it. It'll be a do-it-yourself electric chair."

Caroline backed away even farther. "Oh, no, you're not," she said. "No way. You're not going to kill anybody at my dinner party. Not even that Tyrannosaurus Frederick Fiske."

J.P. looked at her impatiently. "Of course I'm not going to kill him, stupid; do you think I'm crazy? I don't have enough juice to kill him, anyway. I'm just going to stun him. Then, when he's stunned, sitting there helpless and stupefied, we'll confront him with all the evidence—in front of witnesses—and we'll call the police."

"But, J.P., it's a dinner party! It's going to be gracious dining, with candles and everything! Couldn't you do it another time?"

J.P.'s voice was determined. "How many chances do you think we'll get, Caroline? His deadline's the first of May—you know that."

He opened his door and peeked out. "How long will Mom be in the kitchen?" he whispered.

"A while. The cake's almost done, and then we have to make the frosting."

"You keep her in there, okay? And show me which is his chair."

Reluctantly Caroline pointed through the crack in the door. "The one at the end. Opposite Mom. You and Stacy will be on the side by the wall, and I'll sit with Mr. Keretsky on the other side."

J.P. eyed the distance between his door and the chair where Frederick Fiske would sit. "Okay," he said. "Got it."

"J.P.—"

He interrupted her. "Make sure Mom stays in the kitchen while I wire the chair."

"Does it have to be during the dinner party?" Caroline almost wailed. "We're having mashed potatoes and chocolate cake and—"

"I won't do it till the end of dessert," J.P. said. "If you're sure it's chocolate cake."

Caroline trudged back to the kitchen. "Cake should be done, Mom," she announced with phony cheerfulness. "Tell me how to start making frosting. And you stay right here and watch me, okay? I don't want to mess it up."

Glancing behind her, she could see J.P. on all fours, crawling from his room to Frederick Fiske's chair with some wires in his hand.

Gregor Keretsky was the first to arrive. Caroline met him downstairs at the front door and nodded when he asked in a low, concerned voice, "Is this necktie all right?"

"Brown and beige, with some yellow squiggles," she told him. "It will go with the candles."

He was carrying a bouquet of daisies. "For me?" asked Caroline in delight.

"No," he said, smiling. "For your mama. Because she is so kind to invite me for dinner. For you I have something else, something special." He patted the pocket of his jacket.

Mrs. Tate arranged the flowers on the table with pleasure, after she had been introduced to Mr. Keretsky. "Look," she said. "Don't they look beautiful with the yellow candles?"

Gregor Keretsky just smiled. When Joanna Tate had turned away, he winked at Caroline and shrugged. It was their secret: that the flowers, the candles, even his necktie, were all simply gray to him.

It's nice to have a secret with someone, she thought. Then she cringed, thinking of the secret she had with J.P. At the foot of Frederick Fiske's chair, curled unobtrusively around the metal leg, was a knotted ball of wires; from there they went under the rug and reappeared again on the floor leading into her brother's bedroom.

And now she had another awful secret, this one with her mother, who had made her promise not to tell. When they'd been frosting the cake together, her mother had whispered, "Guess what, Caroline. I have an absolute, full-fledged, major crush on Frederick Fiske."

Caroline had continued to swirl chocolate frosting around the sides of the cake. Her heart sank. She managed a small half-smile.

"You know the fifty-third thing I love about you, Caroline?" asked her mother happily. "You're so inscrutable."

Caroline didn't even know what inscrutable meant. But she was fairly certain it didn't mean someone who was planning to turn her mother's heart throb into a grilled cheese sandwich.

Mrs. Tate was pouring Gregor Keretsky a glass of wine when the front doorbell buzzed again, and Caroline ran downstairs to let Stacy in.

"COMES BY BUS, LEAVES BY CAB," Stacy announced. "I promised my mom that I'd get a taxi home, because it'll be dark." They bounded up the stairs together. "What's for dinner? And is your brother going to be here?"

J.P. came out of his bedroom when Stacy arrived. To her surprise, Caroline saw that he was wearing his sports jacket and his only necktie. "All of a sudden there's a dress code for electronic events?" she murmured in his ear as she passed him on the way to the kitchen. But J.P. paid no attention. He also paid no attention to Mr. Keretsky, beyond a polite how-do-you-do. He paid a lot of attention to Stacy Baurichter, who began to giggle and fool with her hair.