The Stars of Summer by Tara Dairman Page B

it!”
    Gladys hadn’t even had time to react, but for once she could admit that Charissa was right—that did sound like the perfect assignment for her. “Wow, thanks,” Gladys said, taking her card.
    â€œNow, I have to warn you: Our camp cook can be a little . . . prickly,” Charissa said. “Like, she insists that we call her ‘Mrs. Spinelli,’ even though all the other counselors go by their first names. And, well”—Charissa glanced toward the kitchen, then lowered her voice—“her last couple of CITs haven’t exactly worked out.”
    â€œOh,” Gladys said.
    â€œBut you have
so
much more cooking experience than they did,” Charissa continued, “so I’m sure she’ll love working with you. And who knows, maybe you can even teach her a couple of new recipes! I mean, our food is
fine,
” she added quickly. “Camp Bentley would never serve anything horrible. But there’s definitely room for improvement, and I think you’re just the CIT to do it.”
    Gladys grinned. “Challenge accepted.” She couldn’t wait to see the camp’s kitchen. If it fed two hundred campers a day—plus the counselors and staff—it had to be much bigger and better than her kitchen at home. Gladys pictured gleaming stainless-steel appliances, counters covered with thick cutting boards, an assortment of razor-edged knives.
    And she was pretty sure she’d be able to handle this Mrs. Spinelli—after all, she’d seen every episode of
Purgatory Pantry,
the cooking competition show on Planet Food. No one could be meaner than Head Chef Rory Graham, who was famous for making contestants cry—usually with her sharp tongue, though sometimes with actual sharp kitchen utensils, which had a tendency to slip out of her hands when she got angry.
    â€œThe kitchen is right next to the lunch patio,” Charissa said, pointing to a small building near where Hamilton was writing. “Ugh, you’ll have to walk past
him
—but I’m sure he’ll be gone by the time lunch is served. I’ll catch up with you then, okay? I need to get to the office.”
    After waving good-bye, Charissa took off across the field at a jog, and Gladys made her way to the lunch patio. Hamilton didn’t even look up as she passed.
    She let herself into the kitchen through a screen door and found a much smaller space than she’d imagined—just one counter by the window and an island in the center. The room smelled a lot more like bleach than food, and the appliances on the counter were older and less gleamy than Gladys had hoped. In fact, the only thing that really appeared to be gleaming was the sweaty forehead of the sunken-cheeked woman who stood next to the island, ripping open bags of white bread and laying the slices out in an enormous grid-like pattern.
    The door creaked shut behind Gladys, and the woman looked up.
    â€œHi!” Gladys said as cheerfully as she could. “I’m Gladys, your CIT.”
    The slice of bread in the woman’s hand fell to the countertop. “You have
got
to be kidding me,” she said in a voice that seemed way too big for her skinny body. “I asked them for a boy! A big, strapping boy who could haul fifty-pound bags of French fries out of the walk-in freezer. And this is what they send me—some little shrimp who can’t even reach the top shelf?” The woman’s hands moved to her aproned hips as she looked Gladys up and down. “How tall are you, girlie, three foot two?”
    â€œI’m—I’m four foot nine,” Gladys sputtered.
    A curly, graying lock fell out of the cook’s hairnet as she shook her head. “That won’t cut the mustard in this kitchen,” she said. “Now, you march right on over to that front office and tell ’em that Mrs. Spinelli says thanks, but no thanks. What I need is an experienced prep