NC EOG Practice Test 14

The Secret Ingredient

CHARACTERS: FARAH, age eleven; JAMAL, her brother, age fourteen; GRANDMA BEA, their grandmother

SETTING: Grandma Bea's kitchen on a Friday evening in October. The counter is covered with flour, mixing bowls, and a pile of sweet potato peels. The county fair's baking contest is tomorrow morning.

¹(FARAH stands at the counter, stirring a bowl of orange filling. JAMAL enters, sniffing the air.)

²JAMAL: Is that Grandma's pie? The one for the fair?

³FARAH: (quickly sliding a small jar behind the flour canister) It's a pie. For the fair.

⁴JAMAL: What was that?

⁵FARAH: What was what?

⁶JAMAL: (reaching around her and holding up the jar) Ground ginger? Farah. Grandma's recipe doesn't have ginger. It has cinnamon, nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. That's it. I've watched her make it about a thousand times.

⁷FARAH: I know what's in it. I just thought a little ginger would make it taste brighter. Like the pie is waking up.

⁸JAMAL: Pies don't wake up. And you can't mess with a classic. That recipe has won a ribbon three years in a row. It's practically carved in stone.

⁹FARAH: It won when Grandma entered it. This year I'm entering it. I want it to be a little bit mine.

¹⁰JAMAL: Then make your own pie! Don't change hers.

¹¹(GRANDMA BEA enters from the back porch carrying a basket of eggs. She stops when she sees them.)

¹²GRANDMA BEA: I could hear you two from the henhouse. Even the chickens were taking sides.

¹³JAMAL: Farah put ginger in your pie.

¹⁴FARAH: (looking at the floor) A little ginger. Half a teaspoon.

¹⁵(GRANDMA BEA sets down the basket. She takes the spoon from FARAH's bowl, tastes the filling, and is quiet for a long moment.)

¹⁶GRANDMA BEA: Do you know where that recipe came from?

¹⁷JAMAL: From you.

¹⁸GRANDMA BEA: From my mother. Except when she made it, there was no nutmeg in it. Just cinnamon and salt. When I was about Farah's age, I sneaked some nutmeg into the bowl while she was hanging up the laundry.

¹⁹FARAH: (looking up) Did she get mad?

²⁰GRANDMA BEA: Oh, she fussed. Said I'd ruined good sweet potatoes. Then she ate two slices and asked me how much I'd used. (She chuckles.) She wrote it on the recipe card herself, right under her own handwriting.

²¹(GRANDMA BEA opens a drawer and pulls out a stained, yellowed index card. She hands it to JAMAL.)

²²JAMAL: (reading) "One-quarter teaspoon nutmeg. Bea's idea." (He turns the card over and back again.) I never noticed this.

²³GRANDMA BEA: A recipe isn't a statue, Jamal. It's more like a garden. You keep what grows well, and every so often somebody plants something new.

²⁴JAMAL: (slowly) So ginger is allowed?

²⁵GRANDMA BEA: (handing JAMAL the spoon) Taste it and tell me.

²⁶(JAMAL tastes. He frowns, then tastes again.)

²⁷JAMAL: It's actually good. It's kind of sharp at the end. In a good way.

²⁸FARAH: Like it's waking up?

²⁹JAMAL: (rolling his eyes, but smiling) Fine. Like it's waking up.

³⁰(GRANDMA BEA takes a pen from the drawer and holds it out to FARAH.)

³¹GRANDMA BEA: Well, go on. Write it down. Right under mine.

³²(FARAH takes the pen. The lights fade as she bends over the recipe card.)