With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo
Crunch Time
Thanksgiving is a week away, and two weeks after that is the Winter Dinner. We have only a handful of weeks to finish raising the money for Spain. The lunch sales have been going steady and we are almost at twenty-five hundred dollars. But winter break is coming, and the deposit is due a few days after the Winter Dinner.
Even though he tries to look super chill, I know Chef is nervous that we still have over six thousand dollars to raise. The school will pay us a thousand for the Winter Dinner, but that still leaves too much we might not be able to raise in December alone. I’ve sure gotten a lot better at math since I’ve taken on tallying up our sales every week to see where we are in the fund-raising.
When I walk into class the third week in November, I see that there are no recipes on our boards. I button up my jacket and stand next to Richard. “Today we’re going to come up with some creative solutions to the problem we are having. Emoni has been doing a great job brainstorming ideas to raise money, but I think this last push needs a collective effort. We want to go to Sevilla, yes?”
As if our heads are attached to puppet strings, we all nod.
Malachi raises his hand. “What if we built onto what we already have? I don’t know how the Winter Dinner is done every year, but wouldn’t that be a good time to do more than just cater?”
“My father does landscaping,” Richard says. “What if we auctioned off his services? People donate money for that sort of thing, right?”
Amanda nods. “What if we also made the dinner open to the public, not just family and friends? My sister has over thirty thousand followers on Instagram and I’m sure my parents would promote it to their clients. If we moved it to the gym instead of the cafeteria we could fit more tables.”
No one I know can offer much but I begin taking neat notes of the suggestions. Chef Ayden claps his hands and he looks like he’s about to shut down our brainstorming. The thought of adding anything more to our dinner is probably giving him a conniption, but these ideas are too good to stop now. I rush in before he says anything. “I think we should expand the dinner. What if we asked the graphic design kids to make us a flyer and we posted on social media? My friend Angelica would do it.”
Someone from the back yells, “Word! We could tag some famous folks. Meek Mill sometimes promotes things like this to his fans, and Joel Embiid might show love.”
Chef Ayden looks like he wants to interrupt, but people keep calling out other suggestions and my hand flies over my notebook as I record them all. When the recommendations die down I raise that same hand and wait on Chef Ayden to give me a nod. “As the fund-raising chair, I want to propose we bring our ideas to Principal Holderness. We don’t have much time, but the worst that could happen is he says no. Sometimes you have to ask anyway, right?”
Chef gives us a long nod. “I have some friends from my culinary school days and colleagues who might be willing to attend or contribute. It doesn’t hurt to ask.”
By the time we leave class, I think we’re all feeling a bit high. Not only might we raise the money we need, but this is also an opportunity to show off our chops to the school and our families, and possibly the whole city.