Stars So Sweet by Tara Dairman

tell her about everything she’d missed from the first French Club meeting. “And could you get me any handouts, too?” she said, glancing up at the wall clock. “Shoot, I’m gonna be late for tennis. Have a good weekend, Giselle!”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    Gladys spent Saturday morning searching online for recipes for the soccer bake sale and planning out a list of ingredients. She also raided the kitchen for the right kinds of baking utensils and pans. She was happy to have access to Aunt Lydia’s things, since her own collection was not complete.
    Then, that afternoon, she and Sandy headed to Mr. Eng’s to shop for ingredients for the next battle in the War of Gross Foods.
    â€œYou don’t think he sells fried crickets, do you?”Sandy asked. “I was doing some research online, and people eat them for snacks in Cambodia. One blogger said they tasted just like popcorn . . . only with legs that sometimes get stuck in your teeth.”
    â€œI don’t know,” Gladys told him. “I mean, Mr. Eng imports a lot of interesting stuff, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen any bugs there.”
    When they reached the shop, things seemed even more chaotic than they had been on Gladys’s last few visits. The aisles were crowded, shelves were half bare, and Mr. Eng was fielding a line ten customers deep at the cash register. But instead of hurrying around to help customers or restock, Aunt Lydia was standing near the door, a large plate of cheese in her hand.
    â€œFree sample?” she asked customers as they entered the store. “Would you like to try our new Danish blue? It’s very robust.”
    Customers, of course, stopped to try the cheese, which was creating a bottleneck at the store’s narrow entrance. Gladys noticed that the light in the cheese refrigerator was
still
out, though it seemed that half of that fridge’s contents were now cubed or sliced up on Aunt Lydia’s sample platter.
    â€œGladys! Sandy!” Aunt Lydia cried. “
Bienvenue!
Would you like to try some cheese?”
    â€œYeah!” Sandy cried, barreling straight over. “Which one’s the grossest?”
    Aunt Lydia looked slightly taken aback by thisquestion, but recovered quickly. “Well, this aged Limburger is rather bodaciously funky, if that’s what you’re looking for . . .”
    She grabbed a toothpick from the tray and speared Sandy a generous chunk. He sniffed at it and almost gagged. “Oh, yeahhhh,” he said. “That’s the stuff!”
    Though she was happy to see Aunt Lydia help Sandy find a food for his battle, Gladys was also concerned at the amount of food her aunt was giving away for free. “Um, Aunt Lydia,” she said quietly. “Did Mr. Eng ask you to hand out samples?”
    â€œTechnically, no,” her aunt responded, passing a toothpick of sharp cheddar to another customer, “but I’m sure he’ll appreciate my taking the initiative. Well, if he ever makes it out from behind that register, that is. I’m afraid I might run out of samples and have to cut some more up before he even notices!”
    Gladys highly doubted Mr. Eng would be pleased if he did find a moment to spot what was going on. “You know what?” she said, trying to keep her voice light. “I think you’ve been generous enough. I mean, you’ll want to leave some cheese for the customers to
buy,
right? Speaking of which, it’d be great if they could see well enough to read the labels. Did you notice that the light in the cheese fridge is out?”
    Aunt Lydia glanced over in the fridge’s direction and frowned. “Hmm. Someone really ought to change that bulb.”
    Yes, someone should,
Gladys thought exasperatedly.
You!
    Gladys loved her aunt, but she couldn’t ignore the fact that she did not seem to be doing anything Mr. Eng asked of her. Had she been this bad