The Cupcake Queen

by Heather Helper

  seems to make the colors of the sphere stand out even more than the yellow light of the headlight. We pull off our helmets. I climb off the four-wheeler and

  walk around toward the finished side of the ball. “Can I touch it?” I ask.

  “Of course,” Marcus says, walking toward me. I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach even the bottom of the ball. It’s cool to the touch as I run my fingers

  lightly over one of the seams between colors. I step back slightly and look at the face of it. A huge reddish patch stares out at me from close to the bottom

  of the sphere.

  “It looks like an . . . eye,” I say. Suddenly I realize what this is. “Jupiter,” I say. I look over at Marcus. He smiles at me and then looks back at the planet.

  “It’s amazing. Who—?”

  “My dad,” Marcus says. “Well, and me a little, but all I do is haul materials and hold things while he’s welding.”

  All I can think of is what Blake told me about Mr. Fish trying to contact aliens. For a second I wonder if he was right.

  I step back and look again. “It’s really amazing,” I say. Marcus smiles. “Have you done any of the other planets?” I ask.

  Marcus nods and steps close to me. He points off into the distance, toward one of the hills. “If you look closely, you can see Venus from here.” I look

  where he is pointing, at first frustrated that I can’t see it, then it’s there. A yellow ball way in the distance. “The rest are scattered around us in the hills.

  They’re all hidden in the trees. You can see the edge of Neptune from here in the daytime, but it’s too dark now. The others are too far to see.”

  “The others?” I ask. “Does all this land belong to you?”

  Marcus laughs and shakes his head. “No, all of this is state forest,” he says. “My dad had to get all sorts of permits and inspections. They finally let him

  because he convinced them that it was ‘a value-adding project.’ ” He looks over at me and laughs at the look on my face. “Their words, not mine. Pretty

  much, Dad just got lucky. The state senator is a space nut.”

  “I guess I’m a nut, too,” I say. “Because this is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.” I look back at the face of Jupiter, tracing the bands of

  color with my eyes.

  “There are three kinds of copper,” Marcus says. “And steel and aluminum.” He points to each stripe as he speaks. “It was hard finding the red. My dad

  had to special order it from a foundry in upstate New York.”

  “And it’s just the two of you doing this?” I ask. Marcus looks away, but not before I see his eyes get shiny.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to—”

  Marcus turns back to me. “You didn’t,” he says. “It’s just still hard to talk about.” He walks around the side of Jupiter, toward a huge rock that is

  suspended above a drop-off. He sits, dangling his legs over the edge. I sit beside him, and we look out toward the hills and beyond, where the water is lit

  by the moon.

  “It was my mom,” he says, looking down at his feet swinging high over the trees below us. “She was the one who had the idea to build all this. She was

  really into it, mapping it all out, dragging me up here all the time to put in these stakes with purple ribbons tied to them.” He looks at me, his eyes still sad.

  “It’s all to scale,” he says. “One mile equals one astrological unit.” He smiles at the confusion on my face.

  “Earth is one astrological unit or ninety-three

  million miles from the sun. Pluto is forty astrological units from the sun.”

  “So, you can’t see her Pluto from here,” I say.

  Marcus smiles and shakes his head. “Not without a really good telescope.”

  “Your mom was an astronomer?” I ask.

  “Amateur. She was actually an English teacher, but she loved astronomy. Anything about stars or planets. She was crazy for it.”

  “I can see why,” I say, looking back at Jupiter.

  He slides closer to me and nudges my foot with his. He gazes back out over the hills. “When my mom died, my dad went kind of nuts. He’d walk the

  beach all day, come in to sleep for a few hours, then he’d be back out there again. It was like he couldn’t get enough of the beach. And then one day he

  was just done. He hasn’t been back since. He turned to this instead.”

  “How long has he been working on it?” I ask.

  “Over a year.” Marcus looks at my face and smiles slightly. “I know. He’s out here almost all the time. If he’s not at the dairy, he’s here. If he’s not here or

  at the dairy, he’s asleep.”

  “That must be hard,” I say, feeling guilty about how I’ve been thinking about my mom. At least she hasn’t completely lost it.

  Marcus shrugs. “This is better than the walking. At least he’s doing something.” And maybe he’s right. Maybe creating all of this has given him something to grab onto. “Building this must make him feel closer to her,” I say.

  Something about tonight is making me say things that I would normally just keep to myself.

  Marcus nods. “It does. It gives him something to do, not just feel.”

  “It’s a pretty awesome tribute.” I think about the kind of love that inspires people to do great things.

  Beautiful things. I can’t imagine either of my parents

  being so devoted.

  Marcus looks out over the trees and says almost to himself, “I hope she can see them.”

  “Well, they’re certainly big enough,” I say playfully. I worry a little bit that he’ll think I’m making fun of him, but then he chuckles softly. “How many more do

  you have to build?” I ask.

  “Just this one and Saturn.” He looks out toward a hill to our left. “He’s probably out at the Saturn site tonight. He’s been clearing brush there for the last

  couple of days.”

  “He’s almost done, then.”

  “Yeah,” Marcus says softly. “That’s what I’m worried about.” I look back at Jupiter again. The moonlight reflecting off the different metals makes them seem to glow.

  “I bet he’ll be fine. I bet this has made both of

  you stronger.”

  “Yeah, you should feel my muscles,” he says, his eyes crinkling.

  Now it’s my turn to chuckle. But this time I don’t say what I’m thinking: I would love to!

  Marcus reaches over and loops his pinkie finger over mine. We sit like that, just our pinkies linked, looking out over the trees to where the water meets

  the sky.

  “I should probably get home,” I say, finally. I don’t want to worry Gram, who I am sure is waiting up both to make sure I’m safe and to see if she can get

  any details about Marcus.

  “I should probably get back, too,” he says, pushing himself up to standing. He extends his hand and helps me up. “Thank you for tonight,” he says, still

  holding my hand as we walk over to where the four-wheeler is parked.

  “You’re welcome,” I say, but it seems weird, because I feel like I should be thanking him. I’m grateful he trusted me enough to bring me here. Trusted me

  enough to tell me about his mom. For the first time since I’ve been here, I feel connected, and not just to Marcus, but to everything. I can understand why

  people say this place is where life is like it should be. No bright lights and pretty wrappings, just life with its sadness and its happiness all mixed together.

  I pull my helmet on and climb on behind Marcus. He squeezes my hand again before turning on the engine. “Hang on,” he says, but this time he doesn’t

  need to, because I’m already hanging on—tight.

  chapter twenty

  Miss Beans says that to get better at something, you have to do it every day. She doesn’t care what you draw, just that
you do. A sketch a day. So far this

  week I’ve drawn the view of the beach from Gram’s house; one of Poppy’s witch balls; Oscar asleep in the window seat in the kitchen; and my foot. In art

  on Fridays, once we turn in our sketchbooks for the week, we can work on our other projects. I’m fiddling with my float design, but I keep getting distracted by thoughts of Marcus. Luckily, by the time he dropped me off last night, my mother had already disappeared into her bedroom. I just wanted to float along

  for a bit without her sending me crashing back to Earth.

  I glance over at Tally, who is trying to finish three days’ worth of sketches in one clas s period. This is the first time I’ve been able to talk to her without

  Blake around. I think I already know the answer, but I have to ask. “What was Blake talking about with Marcus at the bakery?”

  Tally stops drawing and looks over at me. She pauses for a moment, like she’s considering what to say.

  “Just tell me,” I say.

  “Blake said he saw Charity with Marcus at the soccer field.”

  “Oh,” I say, pretending to study my drawing. “That’s what I thought.”

  “He said she was just standing around watching him.”

  “Still . . . ,” I say.

  Tally squints her eyes at me. “Forget about it. It’s obvious he’s totally into you.” I smile down at my paper. “Maybe,” I say. It helps to hear Tally confirm it. We couldn’t both be wrong, could we?

  “Besides,” Tally says, “Blake put him on notice.” She mimics Blake’s weird hand gestures, pointing first to her eye and then toward the door. She is so

  good at imitating his intense look that I start giggling. Miss Beans looks over at us, making me laugh even more.

  Tally tries to peek at my work. “Stop,” I mouth at her, hunching over my paper to block her view. She just smiles and winks at me. Today she’s wearing a

  navy blue sweater and a short skirt with ballet flats. Her plain brown hair is pulled back from her face with a blue-and-green-plaid headband. It’s weird how

  she’s completely bought into this whole pageant thing. I know she said it’s for the ARK, but she seems to be enjoying it, too. I squint over at her. “Are you

  wearing lipstick?” I ask. She makes her eyes go big and tries to peek at my paper again. “Stop,” I say. She smiles again but goes back to her own

  drawing. I have my basic float design sketched out. I just want to add a little color before I turn it in. I shade the tomatoes red, adding green leaves for

  contrast.

  “Come to the library with me after lunch,” Tally says. “I have to show you what I’ve added to the Web site.”

  “Can’t,” I say. “I have to go see Madame Framboise.”

  “Why?” Tally asks.

  “Apparently I’m not doing so well in French.”

  “Poisse,” Tally says.

  I nod. Bummer is right. The bell rings just as I am finishing the shading on the sprinkles.

  “Okay, let me see,” Tally says. She walks behind me and looks over my shoulder. “Whoa,” she says. “It’s really good. Random, but good.” I slide it into

  the manila envelope Miss Beans gave me.

  “Now I just wait.” I reach down and pick up the rest of my books. Tally follows me to the door, where I add my envelope to the growing stack in Miss

  Beans’s box. We walk to my locker first. I spin the lock and pull it open.

  “They’re just getting lame,” I say, reaching in. I take out the carton of sour milk and drop it in the trash.

  “It’s like they’re not even trying anymore.”

  “What was it last time?” Tally asks.

  “Shaving cream.” That took me a while to clean up. “Maybe they think to get better at it, they have to do it every day.”

  This makes Tally laugh. “They’ll get tired of it eventually. I told you. Just act like you don’t care.” I nod and pull out my lunch and click the locker shut. I stopped requesting new lockers when I real ized that somehow they were able to find out the

  combination within a day or so of me switching. Plus they told me in the office they’d run out of empty lockers.

  “Besides,” Tally says, “if you act disinterested, they won’t suspect our evil plans.” She rubs her hands together in an imitation of a movie villain.

  We head to the lunchroom and toward our table. I figure I’ll eat fast and then go see Madame Framboise. At least then if the news is really bad, I can

  take it on a full stomach. As we walk past where Charity and her friends are sitting, we notice that almost all of them have a cup of sticky-looking white

  stuff on the table in front of them. I have to hand it to Tally. She nailed it. For over two weeks now they’ve been at it, sucking down cup after cup of lard.

  Charity is the worst, though. She even got caught sneaking some in science class, earning herself a detention. Just to make sure no one bails on the diet,

  Tally and I’ve been holding our covert meetings in the bathroom, giving each other our diet reports, telling each other to hang in there. That the bloating is

  temporary. Charlotte must be living in the restroom, because every time we go in there, she’s holed up in the last stall. An added bonus is that we’ve

  noticed that there seems to be a weird pimple epidemic among Charity’s gang.

  “I didn’t even think about the zit factor, but I should have seen that one coming,” Tally says. “You can’t eat that much fat without your body starting to do

  weird things.” Tally and I sit at our table, where Blake is already halfway through his second sandwich.

  Peanut butter and grape jelly. No lard. He’s

  completely immersed in some thick paperback with a dragon on the cover. He nods at us when we sit down, then goes right back to reading. I look over

  to where Marcus is sitting with the rest of the soccer players. He’s laughing at the guy sitting across from him, who has a straw stuck up his nose.

  Tally sees them, too. “Boys are so stupid,” she says. She glances at Blake when she says it, but he doesn’t even look up from his book.

  I stare down at my sandwich. I wish I had the nerve to go over and talk to him, but I don’t. Right now he’s the other Marcus, the school Marcus. He

  doesn’t even look my way when I throw out my garbage in the can closest to him. I don’t get it. I thought last night would change things.

  Madame Framboise is sitting at her desk when I walk into the room. She’s eating a sandwich and reading a magazine. It’s always so weird when you

  see teachers doing normal things, like when you run into them at the grocery store. I just don’t want to know that my teacher likes Nutter Butters and Eezy

  Cheez.

  “Penny,” she says, flipping the magazine closed and putting it facedown on the desk. She dusts off her hands and lifts a file folder from her desk. “I’m

  glad you stopped by.” Teachers are always saying stuff like that. Like I had a choice. “I know you’ve been really struggling this semester. Before things

  head south, I think we should consider tutoring.” She flips through the file in front of her, pulls ou t a sheet, and hands it to me. I scan the names and phone

  numbers on the list. I recognize a few names—juniors and seniors mostly. She leans forward and taps the first name on the list. “This is who I would

  recommend. She’s quite fluent, and I think she could really help you grasp the subtleties of the language.” She sits back and looks at me.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I mean, merci.” I slide the list into the front of my notebook. “I really appreciate you suggesting this.”

  The bell signaling the end of lunch rings as I step into the hall. I do think tutoring is a good idea. I’m just not so sure about Madame’s choice of tutors.

  Even if she is fluent in French, I don’t think Charity would be a good match for me.

  Tired of being passive,
I decide to walk up to Jupiter. Of course, I need a reason to go, so I enlisted Gram’s help. First I borrowed a book from the library

  with photographs of all the planets.

  “I can’t believe they decided Pluto wasn’t a planet after all,” Gram says. She’s been mixing icing colors for me for half an hour. There are a lot of

  different colors in our solar system. “So one day Pluto’s up there, floating around, minding his own business, and he gets the call that he’s been demoted.”

  I laugh at the image of Pluto with a phone to his ear, looking shocked. “I’d be mad,” I say.

  “That kind of news should be delivered in person,” she says, adding a few more drops of food coloring to the royal blue she’s been making. “Speaking

  of phone calls . . .”

  “Were we?” I ask. Gram isn’t the best at being subtle when she has something on her mind.

  “Have you spoken to your father recently?” she asks.

  That makes me stop smiling. “We’ve been e-mailing.”

  “That’s not the same as talking,” she says. “And I can’t say you’ve been communicating much with your mother, either.”

  I have to force myself not to shake my head at her. I don’t know which is worse, hearing what they have to tell me, or not hearing what they should be

  telling me.

  When I don’t say anything, Gram continues to push it. “You can’t avoid them forever, you know.” She walks around the table and rubs my back. “I know I

  sound like a nosy old lady, but I’m just worried about you. If you continue to keep it all bottled up, you might explode someday.”

  I can feel tears coming on, so I take a deep breath before sayi ng, “Could I finish decorating these cupcakes before we talk? This one’s kind of tricky. . .

  .”

  It looks like Gram isn’t going to let me off the hook that easily, but just then the bells on the front door jingle. She goes to wait on the customer, leaving

  me to navigate the solar system alone.

  There are ten cupcakes in all. One sun, eight planets, and Pluto. I thought about making a couple of the moons to round out the dozen, but I ran out of time.