Ansley's Big Bake Off

by Kaitlyn Pitts

  Suddenly I jumped at the sound of someone knocking on my door. It was weird to hear since I was the one who usually did the knocking early in the morning. Then I heard, “Are you ready yet? Come on! It’s time for breakfast!” It was Cammie.

  “I’ll be right there!” I yelled through the closed door. “I just need to do one last thing!” And, pressing my lips together, I determinedly tied the bow into my hair before joining my sisters downstairs.

  Once I got to the kitchen table, I noticed all my sisters sitting on one side of the table, with Cammie holding up a phone, recording my entrance into the kitchen. Then I noticed something else: all three of my sisters were wearing hair bows too. I gasped.

  Lena grinned. “After hearing what happened yesterday, we decided we weren’t going to let you face Taylor alone.”

  “I hope you don’t mind us copying you,” Kitty said, looking up at me with serious eyes.

  My heart felt warm and soft. “No, I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all. This is so cool of you guys. Thank you!”

  “Together four-ever!” Lena started to chant.

  “Together four-ever!” The rest of us joined in. “Together four-ever! Together four-eveeeeerrrr!”

  Once we were dropped off at school and the twins dashed off to meet their friends, Lena gestured for me to follow her under the shade of a nearby tree and away from running, laughing, and chattering students.

  “I’ve been wanting to thank you again for praying with me the other night,” she said in a low voice, since our conversation was private. “You must have some powerful faith. Look what’s happened since then! I’m going to be singing with Mallory Winston! On stage! In front of an audience and everything!” She got a faraway look in her eye for a minute before returning to the present moment. “Anyway, I wanted to return the favor and pray with you. Especially about this Taylor situation. Would you like to?”

  “Sure!” I put out my hands so that she could take them in hers.

  Lena closed her eyes. “Dear God, thank you so much for hearing my sister Ansley’s prayer for me and for showing me the path you’d like me to follow. I am so grateful for your love and guidance. Now Ansley and I come together again to pray for someone else.

  “We pray for Taylor because she is a child of yours that you love very much. We don’t know if she is going through any struggles right now, but if she is, we pray that you send her the strength she needs to handle them and the comfort she needs to deal with them. We also ask that you please use Ansley as an instrument to help Taylor and to remind Taylor that you love her. We also ask, Lord, that you please soften Taylor’s heart so that it can be more like yours and she can be kinder to my sister. We praise you and thank you for all your blessings. Amen.”

  When she was done, we let go of one another’s hands and fell into a hug.

  “Thanks, Lena,” I said, my chin resting on her shoulder.

  “Anytime, Sis.”

  As we both headed toward school, we noticed something a little strange: a number of girls seemed to be wearing bows in their hair just like us. I felt like I must be imagining it, but when I turned to Lena I could see her scanning the crowd with a quizzical expression on her face.

  “Do you see what I see?” she asked me.

  “Yeah . . . all the hair bows?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you tell other people to wear them too?”

  “No,” Lena said. “I promise I didn’t. That’s why I’m surprised to see—” She stopped speaking because at that moment Krista ran over to us—and she was wearing a pink, sparkly scarf as a bow.

  “Hi, Ansley! Oh, hi, Lena!”

  “Hi,” I said. “I . . . like your bow.”

  Krista flushed red. “Thanks. I just liked yours so much yesterday that I wanted to try the look for myself. So, I, uh, kinda copied you.”

  “It looks really nice,” I told her truthfully.

  Krista gestured at the kids on the grounds. “Obviously I wasn’t the only one who liked your bow yesterday.”

  I could see by Lena’s face that a thought was occurring to her. “You know what, Ansley?” she began to laugh. “I think you started a trend!”

  “What?”

  Krista nodded as we all looked around at the seemingly growing number of girls milling about the entrance to the middle school who were wearing bows made of scarves in their hair.

  Lena pointed to her own head. “It’s even hit the high school.” She winked at me. “Gotta run. Have a great day at school, you guys!”

  “Thanks, you too, Lena!” We waved as she dashed away from us.

  “Oh, look, here comes Taylor,” Krista said. “She didn’t get bit by the bow bug, I see.”

  I smiled to myself. I hadn’t expected her to!

  “Hi, Taylor!” Krista grinned at her straight-faced friend. “What, you didn’t get the memo?” she joked. “We’re all wearing head scarves now.”

  Taylor stopped in her tracks. “Well, I’m not.”

  Krista looked a little deflated at Taylor’s lack of enthusiasm, but I was feeling so lighthearted to see so many other girls wearing bows that Taylor’s attitude didn’t bother me at all.

  Then I suddenly had a flash of insight that Taylor might be feeling like she wasn’t cool because she wasn’t wearing a bow. This made me feel a little bad for her, which surprised me, so I said, “Taylor doesn’t need to wear a bow. She has a style all her own.” And I gave her a genuine smile.

  Instead of smiling back, Taylor just stared at me. Then the school bell rang.

  “Time to go in!” I said. And I practically skipped as I led them inside the front doors.

  Taylor didn’t say a word about my head scarf all homeroom long. And when the bell rang, we went our separate ways since I was taking Spanish while she was taking French, so I didn’t have to see her until lunch time.

  Only I didn’t see her at lunch time, because she didn’t show up.

  “Where did Taylor go?” I asked, taking my peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of my bag.

  “Beats me,” Guadalupe said.

  “She had to go to the doctor,” Krista said, “so her grandma picked her up.”

  Guadalupe clutched her cross pendant. “The doctor?”

  “Why?” Nikki asked.

  “Is she sick?” I squeaked.

  “No, not that kind of doctor.” Krista scooped up a sporkful of the tuna salad she had purchased in the cafeteria. “The kind you talk to about your feelings.” She dropped her spork and covered her mouth. “Ooh. I wasn’t supposed to say anything. Please don’t let her know I told you guys.”

  “You mean like a counselor?” I asked. My sisters and I went to one to talk about our feelings about our mom.

  “Yeah. But Taylor doesn’t like to talk about it,” Krista said.

  “Oh.” So my sisters were right. There was something bothering Taylor.

  The table got a little quiet. Then Nikki said in a soft voice, “That’s why my dad always says that we should always choose to be kind toward others because ‘everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.’”

  “I don’t understand,” Guadalupe said. “What do you mean, ‘battle?’ Who is Taylor fighting?”

  “It’s not ‘who,’ necessarily, it’s ‘what,’” Nikki said. And she reminded me a little bit of her preacher father when she explained, “It means that everyone has their share of suffering. You know, bad things in their lives that they have to get through. Things they might not be telling other people about. They could be battling against sadness, or anger, or a situation in their lives that’s hard or scary. And since all people suffer, we should try to remember that and help each other out. To help make each other’s lives better instead of worse.”

  “You mean love your neighbor,” I said, then added under my breath, “and your enemies.”

  “Exactly.” Nikki nodded.

  “Then let’s all try to be more kind to Taylor,” Krista announced.

  “Yes, let’s!”

/>   “Good idea!”

  “Kindness helps,” I said, thinking about all the ways people had been kind to me and my family after my mother died. “It really helps a lot.”

  After school, I went to Grace-n-Power with Guadalupe and Nikki and practiced my two tumbling passes for the Gracelet performance. We kept them short and simple since there was no time to work on something fancy. Plus, Coach Flip didn’t want me doing anything too complicated or that wouldn’t go well with the choreography of the routine. In the end, it was only a few seconds of stage time in a routine that was only about three minutes long anyway. We just wanted to make those seconds count.

  When we were back in the locker room changing, I heard both Nikki and Guadalupe humming the Mallory Winston song we had used in the routine and I blurted, “You wanna know something really cool? Mal—” Then I snapped my mouth shut.

  I didn’t want to tell them that Mallory Winston had called my house. That she had played a new song for us—a song she had written especially for my mom. I would sound like a show-off again. Plus, Mallory’s appearance at the fair was supposed to be a surprise.

  Guadalupe and Nikki blinked at me, waiting.

  “Well?” Nikki asked finally.

  “Never mind,” I said. “It’s something about my sister and the fair this weekend, but—”

  “I know what you were going to say,” Nikki said with a knowing smile.

  “You do?” I was shocked. How could she know?

  “Yes.” Nikki undid her bun and changed it into a high ponytail. “You heard us humming that Mallory song and it made you remember that the high school choir is going to sing a Mallory Winston song at the fair, didn’t you?”

  She was kind of right, actually. So I just nodded silently.

  “And your big sister’s in the choir, isn’t she? I think they are supposed to perform right after we do. So we’ll have back-to-back Mallory Winston songs—not to mention back-to-back performances by the Daniels sisters. Is that what you were going to say?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “But you didn’t want to sound like you were boasting again.” Nikki was sure she had it all figured out. “Don’t worry. It’s totally okay to be excited about the performances. And we don’t mind if you talk about Mallory Winston, do we, Guadalupe?”

  “It’s fine,” Guadalupe agreed.

  “Thanks, guys.” I said. I was grateful to have such understanding friends. “So, after our performance, can you guys stay with me to hear the choir sing?”

  “Sure,” Guadalupe said. She zipped up her duffel bag and slung it on her shoulder.

  “Of course!” Nikki agreed.

  “Great. I’d like for both of you to hear Lena sing. She’s really good.” I led the way out of the locker room, proud of myself for not giving away Mallory’s surprise. “And I think her performance will be something you won’t want to miss.”

  Chapter 16

  On Friday, Taylor was back in school and back to her old tricks. Or at least she tried to be. But when Bethany came to homeroom wearing a yellow head scarf tied in a bow, Taylor seemed to decide against whispering to her about me behind my back. Instead, she resorted to either ignoring me or glaring at me.

  I actually preferred the ignoring to the glaring. All during homeroom, I felt like she was shooting lasers at me with her eyes, and I kept rubbing the back of my head. I especially felt the “burn” when she overheard Krista telling me how her grandmother, Hunni, would be driving the two of us to her baking party at Lynda’s Lovin’ Oven later that afternoon. She seemed to soften, though, when Krista added, “Wait til you see the place! It’s the cutest bakery ever!” And I had to admit that I really was looking forward to going despite Taylor’s behavior.

  After lunch, it was prayer journal time. Ms. J-J put some music on real low and reminded us to write about the one time in the week we felt closest to God and the one time we felt furthest away. When I opened my journal and saw the words, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening,” it made me stop, close my eyes, and ask God for help.

  Remembering the time I felt furthest away was easy. It was when I had acted boastful about Mallory, so I wrote about that. But when I felt closest was harder because I had so many times to choose from: making my sisters happy with the after-school snack surprise, my sisters all trying to help me with their advice, praying with Lena both times. There was a lot of love in my family, and where there was love, there was God.

  Then it struck me. The time I felt closest to God this week was when I first heard Mallory’s song “Happy Reunion.” It had made me feel closer to my family as we listened to it together, closer to my mom in heaven since it was about seeing her again, and closer to God, because it made me feel washed clean about boasting since it was Mallory who had called and sang it to us. It had lifted my soul. That, I thought with a nod as I bent over my journal, is definitely the moment to write about.

  And when I did, I felt like my soul was uplifted again! It was a good feeling.

  When I was done, there was still some time left. I was looking around the room absentmindedly when my eyes fell upon Taylor, scribbling in her book. I was surprised to feel a pang in my heart at the sight of her. I turned back to my journal.

  Dear God, I wrote. Please let Taylor have a good time at her party today. Please don’t let her think I’ve ‘ruined’ it by coming. Just let her have some fun. I think she could use it. Amen.

  It was raining when Hunni picked us up after school, and the windshield wipers of her car squeaked the whole drive over. Luckily, the rain wasn’t too hard, and the ride wasn’t too long. And when Hunni pulled up beside a storefront with a pink and white striped awning, I didn’t need her to say “Here we are!” to know that we had arrived.

  After Krista and I scrambled out of the car and said goodbye to Hunni, we took a moment under the awning to smooth ourselves down and get a better look at the place. The bricks of the building were painted in creamy white. The window displays were stocked with pink trays of neatly arranged frosted cupcakes and shiny breads so fresh that you could smell them from the street. And the logo in the window was a cartoon drawing of a sweetly smiling stove with hearts for cheeks that was rubbing its oven-belly and licking its lips (not that it really had any).

  I followed Krista through the front door, and a little bell chimed to announce our arrival. The inside of the store was painted a ballerina pink, and the walls were dotted with gold-framed chalkboards that listed all the pastries and their prices in white or pink chalk. The glass display cases were stocked with goodies, and a girl behind the counter was sliding a new batch of cookies into it. The chocolate chips in them still looked warm and slightly gooey.

  “Everything is so cute!” I squealed. Maybe one day I’ll open a bakery of my own, I thought, inhaling the competing scents of sugar, vanilla, and butter. After I’ve retired from gymnastics, of course. But what would I call it? And I imagined a logo of a girl walking a balance beam while holding a loaf of bread in one hand and a multi-layered cake in the other. The Balanced Bakery? Cakewalk?

  There were people sitting on white chairs arranged around small pink tables, drinking tea from rose-patterned cups, and eating dainty cakes from matching plates. A girl in an apron that matched the awning outside directed us toward a curtain near the back of the store. “You’ll want to go that way. There’s a private room.”

  Behind the curtain was a room with a dining area furnished with mini picnic tables painted in white. A mural depicting a parade of happy, smiling cupcakes, croissants, eclairs, layered cakes, and milkshakes decorated the longest wall. Next to it was a white kitchen that bustled with workers. “This is cool,” I said.

  Taylor was standing behind a counter in the kitchen area, scanning the girls seated at the tables with a concerned look on her face. I noticed she was wearing a pink and blue scarf around her head, tied in a bow. My mouth dropped open. She looked really cute, actually, but I could still barely believe it.

  She spotte
d us and smiled. I shut my mouth to smile back, but as usual she wasn’t really looking at me. She was looking at Krista, whom she ran over to, grabbed by the hand, and dragged back to the kitchen area with her. I shrugged to myself, found Nikki and Guadalupe at one of the tables, and sat down with them. Then, to my surprise, Bethany sat down next to me. She smiled at me, and I smiled back.

  An older woman with short, styled red hair and wearing an apron that said, “Cookies make everything better” came out from the kitchen and greeted all of us. “Hi! Most of you already know me, but for those of you who don’t, I’m Lynda, Taylor’s grandma, and the owner of Lynda’s Lovin’ Oven! Welcome to my bakery and to Taylor’s Back-to-School bakery party. Taylor, why don’t you tell the girls what we’ll be doing today?”

  Taylor’s face turned red and she looked down at her shoes for a moment. Then, after clearing her throat, she said in a voice so low that it was hard to hear her, “Thank you for coming, everyone. We’re going to have lots of fun, um, baking cookies and decorating cakes.” She walked to the first mini picnic table and her voice got a little louder, “This is the Mixing Station. This is where we will mix up and spoon out Grandma’s Famous Super Dough. It works for all kinds of cookie recipes.” She stepped over to my table. “This will be the Creative Station. As you can see, there are all sorts of things to mix into the cookie dough: chocolate chips, sprinkles, peanut butter, marshmallows, caramel, white chocolate, and so on.

  “This next table is the Decorating Station.” It was obvious that it was Taylor’s favorite station, since her voice got louder and more excited. “This will be for decorating cakes we’ve already made.” Taylor pointed to the kitchen counter behind her. “With frosting, marzipan, white chocolate, or my favorite, fondant.

  “And then we’ll clear all of the stations and eat all the goodies!”