by Sheryl Berk
“Now we commence with Operation Bake Me, I’m Yours,” answered Kylie.
Lexi watched Jeremy scooping more meatballs onto his plate. She noticed a few strands of spaghetti still hanging in his hair and it made her smile. Even covered in cafeteria food he was cute.
“I’m in,” she said.
After a conference with Ms. Santoochi, the assistant principal, Juliette gave in and allowed Mr. Higgins back in the drama classroom. He was, as Ms. Satnoochi pointed out, an expert on teaching Shakespeare to children. Even if he did have bad manners and a humongous ego!
“I’d like to welcome back Mr. Higgins,” she told the class through gritted teeth.
Mr. Higgins took over the Smart Board and began laying out the plot and characters of Romeo and Juliet. Lexi’s head was spinning from all the diagrams.
“There are so many names! Mercutio, Benvolio, Capulets, Montagues…how are we supposed to keep them all straight?” she asked Kylie.
But Kylie was most interested in the scheming Friar Lawrence character. “I totally want to play him,” she told Lexi. “He gives Juliet a potion that makes her appear dead when she’s really sleeping. That is so cool. Do you think something like that really exists?”
Lexi shook her head. “The only thing I can figure out is that Romeo and Juliet love each other, but their families are fighting.” She looked over again at Jeremy. “I don’t know what I’d do if I loved someone and my parents forbid me to see him.” She remembered her dad’s reaction to her staying with Aunt Dee—he freaked out and tried to convince her mom it was the worst idea in the world. He really didn’t like her, and she was a member of the family! What if he hated Jeremy? What if, like Romeo and Juliet, their stars were crossed?
“We’ll be announcing the casting at the end of the week,” said Juliette.
“What? No auditions?” Meredith protested. “I’ve been memorizing Juliet’s lines already!”
“No, no auditions. We’ll go around the room, taking turns reading the different parts aloud. Then Mr. Higgins and I will decide who plays what character and who will be helping with the important work behind the scenes.”
“So not fair!” Meredith grumped.
• • •
The first reading didn’t go very well. Jack Yu and Meredith acted the parts of Capulet and Lady Capulet—husband and wife, and Juliet’s parents.
Jack could barely get out a line with a straight face. “How now, kinsman!” he bellowed, slamming his fist on the desk.
“He’s yelling in my ear!” complained Meredith. “I refuse to work with amateurs!”
Kylie was next, reading the part of the friar. “Much I fear some ill unlucky thing!” she cackled like an evil, mad scientist and held her pen in the air, pretending it was a knife about to plunge into someone’s heart.
“Romeo and Juliet is a romance, not a horror movie,” sighed Mr. Higgins. “Next!”
Abby and Julia read the nurse and Juliet…and giggled through most of it. “Madame Julia, your mother craves a word with you!” chuckled Abby.
“It’s Juliet not Julia,” Mr. Higgins groaned. “Please stick to the lines on the page.”
“Why does Juliet need a nurse?” asked Julia. “Is she sick or something?”
“A nurse is a trusted family servant,” explained Mr. Higgins. “Like a baby-sitter. She’s cared for her since she was a baby.”
“Juliet still needs a baby-sitter?” Julia asked.
Abbey read her next line and burst out laughing. “What lamb? What ladybird?” She laughed so hard she fell off her chair. “This play is hilarious!”
Mr. Higgins banged his head against the wall. “All right, who do we have left to read?” He went down the class list, looking for names.
Lexi sunk under her desk. She knew there were only two kids left who hadn’t had a turn: her and Jeremy. Don’t call on me, don’t call on me…
“Lexi and Jeremy, you can read Juliet and Romeo’s balcony scene!”
Lexi felt like she was going to faint. Read a love scene with Jeremy? How could she? She’d die of embarrassment! She shook her head no and tried to hide behind her script.
Kylie leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Lexi, you can do it!”
She took a deep breath and forced herself to focus on the single page in front of her—not on her giggling classmates, not her teachers or Kylie, not even Jeremy, who was fidgeting uncomfortably in his seat.
“Romeo, Romeo…” she began softly. She pictured herself standing on a balcony in the moonlight, dressed in a flowing, white gown, peering down at Jeremy as he held his arms out to her. The words suddenly made sense: she felt Juliet’s pain—she understood how torn she was between her love for Romeo and her love for her family. And when she finished reading, there were tears in her eyes.
“That was excellent, Lexi,” said Juliette. “You really connected with your character.” Lexi nodded and looked over at Jeremy who gave her a thumbs-up and smiled. She felt her heart do a little skip.
“Okay, guys, that’s it for today,” said Juliette. “I don’t think Mr. Higgins can take much more!”
As the class filed out of the drama room, Lexi hoped Jeremy would hang back to talk to her. No such luck. He raced off with Jack to get to phys ed. Who was she kidding? Jeremy would never love her the way Romeo loved Juliet! He wouldn’t recite poetry in the moonlight. He wouldn’t even spell it out in Milk Duds.
• • •
On Thursday, Mr. Higgins handed out the cast list and script. “I do not want anyone complaining about the casting,” Juliette warned.
“Sometimes you get the starring role, and other times you get the chorus,” added Mr. Higgins. “At least that’s what I hear. I’ve always been the star…”
Lexi was hoping that her teachers put her in charge of scenery. She would be great at painting backdrops to look like the bustling streets of Verona.
“No way!” shrieked Meredith, reading the casting list. “I’m the old nurse and Lexi is Juliet?”
Lexi grabbed the yellow sheet of paper on her desk and saw her name at the top of the list. Beneath it was Jeremy’s name…as Romeo.
“Oh no,” she whispered to Kylie. “This cannot be happening!”
“Woo-hoo! I’m the friar!” Kylie cheered. “I get to poison you!”
“Kylie!” Lexi grabbed her hand. “You’re not listening! I’m supposed to stand on a stage and be the star of a play? I’m supposed to kiss Jeremy in front of the entire school? I’ll die!”
“Yup,” replied Kylie. “Juliet does die in the play. So cool! You have to make it look really gory when you plunge the fake dagger into your heart.”
Lexi buried her head in her hands. This was the worst thing that had ever happened to her in her entire life. Even worse than the time she threw up in the middle of her fourth-grade book report! She raised her hand. “Mr. Higgins, I really can’t play this part,” she pleaded.
“Of course you can,” he replied. “You did an excellent job the other day, and I have no doubt you will make a great Juliet.” That made Lexi feel a tiny bit better…until she saw Jeremy’s face. He looked as scared as she did.
Juliette came over to her desk to offer more encouragement. “Lexi, no one read Juliet the way you did. You totally get her, and I think doing this play will be really good for you. It will help you come out of your shell.”
Lexi sighed. She didn’t want to come out of her shell. She liked it just fine in there. In fact, she wanted to crawl back in right now, like a turtle, and stay tucked away till the play was over.
Lexi tried to forget about the entire day as she piped strawberry frosting into delicate swirls on a cupcake. A client wanted three dozen that looked like tutus for a ballet recital, and they had only a few hours after school to bake and decorate them.
“Don’t talk
about it,” Kylie whispered to Jenna.
“Talk about what?” asked Jenna, popping another tray filled with white chocolate chip batter into the oven.
“You know what,” whispered Sadie.
“Oh, you mean the play!” Jenna blurted out. The frosting in Lexi’s hand squirted up and out of the top of the bag.
“Hmm, my mom’s not going to be happy with pink polka dots on the ceiling, but I think it’s pretty.” Kylie tried to lighten the mood.
“Sorry,” Lexi sighed. “I’m just freaking out over this whole play thing. I can’t play Juliet. I’ll forget my lines. Or throw up. Or pass out. Or fall off the balcony.”
“Well, I’m on scenery, so I’ll make sure I build you a nice cushy tree to break your fall,” joked Jenna.
“I mean it, guys, I can’t do this!” Lexi cried.
“Lex, you say that every time we give you a new cupcake to decorate for an order, and you wow us,” said Kylie. “Do I have to remind you about the hedgehog cupcakes?”
Sadie nodded. “The toasted oats and coconut for the spiky fur was pure genius.”
“You said you couldn’t do that either, and you did,” Kylie insisted. “You can do this too. We’ll be right there, cheering you on.”
“Thanks,” said Lexi, picking up her pastry bag again. “But my mind’s made up. I’m going to tell Juliette tomorrow that I won’t do it. Let her give the role to Meredith or someone else.”
“You want someone else kissing Jeremy?” Jenna gasped.
“No. But what choice do I have? Sadie, what about you?”
Sadie looked up. “What about me?”
“You’re Lady Capulet. Can’t you just switch parts with me?”
Sadie shook her head. “I’m nervous enough having to memorize all those lines with my dyslexia,” she said. “Juliet has twice as many. Sorry, Lexi. No can do!”
• • •
That night, Lexi’s Aunt Dee called to find out how the first few weeks of school and the cupcake club were going.
“Okay, I guess,” Lexi replied.
“Okay? Just okay? Not fantabulous?”
Lexi smiled. She loved how Dee always put two words together to make her own new word, like fantabulous (fantastic and fabulous), splendiful (splendid and wonderful), and gramazing (great and amazing). Shakespeare had nothing on her! Aunt Dee was an original, and people were drawn to her, as Lexi’s mom said, “like bees to honey.” Lexi wished the same was true for her. Why couldn’t she have more confidence and charm? A certain “somethin’-somethin’,” her aunt called it. Lexi pictured it as a magical neon sign that sat over your head and flashed, “I’m special! Everyone loves me!” But she was pretty sure if there was any sign over her head it read, “I’m a disaster. Run as fast as you can!”
“Go ahead, I’ll TiVo the new episode of Dancing with the Stars,” said Dee. “Spill!”
Lexi hardly knew where to begin! “Well, first Kylie didn’t like my idea for the back-to-school cupcakes, then Jenna was teasing me about liking Jeremy, then I got the lead in the school play, and I have to tell him I love him in front of the entire universe!”
“Is that all?” Aunt Dee laughed. “Girlfriend and boyfriend trouble! Lexi, honey, you’ve got your hands full!”
“I know! What should I do, Aunt Dee?”
“About the boy or the play?”
“Both. I’m supposed to be Juliet and Jeremy is Romeo. I can’t go onstage in front of a whole auditorium filled with people!”
“Can’t is not a word in my vocabulary,” Dee replied. “I believe you can do anything you set your mind to. If you asked me a year ago if I could speak Japanese, I would have said, ‘No, I can’t.’ So I took a few courses, and now watashi wa nihon go wo hanashimasu!”
“What does that mean?” sighed Lexi.
“It means I speak Japanese and you play Juliet,” Dee insisted.
“Fifth grade stinks,” said Lexi. “And it’s just barely getting started!”
“Honey, fifth grade will be funificent if you just give it a chance. Besides, you’re not going to deprive me of seeing my niece do Shakespeare, are you? I’ll be right there in the front row. Just look for the big pink hat.”
Lexi giggled. “Thanks, Aunt Dee. You’re pretty amazeriffic.”
Lexi had to admit she did feel a little better after her aunt’s pep talk. Maybe she was blowing this entire Romeo and Juliet thing way out of proportion. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a big deal. Maybe Jeremy was actually glad she was his Juliet. He did give her a thumbs-up, didn’t he?
Lexi pulled out her sketchbook and flipped to a page in the middle. There was only one way to tell—and it had a big heart-shaped marshmallow on top.
Lexi inspected the ingredients the girls had gotten for Jeremy’s brownie cupcake. “Are you sure this is the best semisweet chocolate? This cupcake has to be fudgilicious,” she explained.
“Fudgiwhat?” asked Sadie. “Is that a word?”
“It’s an Aunt Dee word,” Lexi said. “It means delectably fudgy, like biting into a chocolate dream.”
Jenna sampled a corner of a chocolate square. “I read that chocolate contains more than 500 flavors, which makes it more complex than any other food.” She offered Lexi a taste.
“I don’t want complex. I want yummy,” Lexi replied. The Belgian chocolate melted in her mouth.
“Well?” asked Jenna. “Yummy enough for Jeremy?”
“Let’s hope so!” Lexi replied. As the girls worked to melt the chocolate and butter together in a small saucepan, Lexi carefully chose the cupcake liners (pink with red hearts) and placed them in the muffin pan.
“How many walnuts do you want?” asked Sadie, chopping them into tiny pieces. “The recipe calls for a cup.”
“I think too many nuts will overpower the fudge factor,” Kylie answered thoughtfully. “Let’s go with three-quarters of a cup.”
When she poured the batter in, Lexi saw that it looked dark and glossy. She placed the pan in the oven, set it for exactly twenty minutes, and crossed her fingers. She stared at the oven door.
“We’ve made brownie cupcakes before,” Jenna assured her. “They’ll be great.”
“They have to be perfect,” Lexi said, nibbling her nails. “I want Jeremy to think these are the most delicious cupcakes he’s ever tasted.”
“Well, they’re created by PLC, so they will be,” Kylie bragged.
When the timer dinged, Lexi stuck a toothpick in the center of one of the hot cupcakes and checked it. It came out perfectly clean.
“It’s ready!” she said, and raced to her box of piping tips to select one.
Kylie beat the dark chocolate frosting until it was creamy and smooth. Jenna stuck a finger in the bowl to take a lick. “Dios mío! Muy delicioso!” she exclaimed. “I don’t have any English words to describe how good this is!”
Lexi filled the pastry bag with frosting, then began to expertly pipe a swirl of chocolate on each cooled cupcake. The frosting formed a beautiful ruffle around the edges.
“Gorgeous!” Kylie watched Lexi work her magic. She delicately placed a pink, heart-shaped marshmallow on top of the fluffy peak in the center.
When all twelve cupcakes were done, Lexi looked them over, selecting her favorite and placing it in a red cardboard cupcake box with a clear plastic window. On the lid, she attached a sticky note: “To Jeremy, From Your Secret Admirer, L.P.” The girls dug into the rest of the cupcakes.
“Are you sure you don’t want to sign your name?” Sadie asked, licking her fingertips. “So he knows for sure who gave him the cupcake?”
Lexi looked nervously at Kylie. “Do I want to?”
Kylie thought for a moment. “No, you should create a little air of mystery, a little suspense. Keep him guessing!”
“This isn’t
a movie,” Lexi said. “I’m not a monster who’s going to pop up out of the dark and scare him!”
“You never know,” giggled Jenna. “Kylie could probably lend you some fangs and fake blood.”
Lexi rolled her eyes. “Guys, this is really important to me.” She wanted everything to be just right and was worried her friends were not taking it seriously.
“We know,” Sadie assured her. “It’s gonna be great. I’ll put the cupcake on top of Jeremy’s backpack while he’s busy playing chess in the library.”
“He’ll take a bite and have to meet the cupcake baker of his dreams!” Jenna chimed in.
“You think?” Lexi said. She wasn’t sure. What if Jeremy thought the cupcake was just okay. What if he didn’t care who baked it for him and just gobbled it up because he was hungry after school?
“We’ll do the big reveal the next day in drama class,” Kylie suggested. “You’ll go over to Jeremy and ask, ‘Did you like the cupcake?’”
“That’s it? That’s all I have to say?” Well, that was a big relief! Lexi thought for sure the girls would tell her to recite a Shakespearean love sonnet.
“That’s it. The less said, the better,” insisted Kylie. “My mom’s a great tennis player, and she always says to put the ball in someone else’s court. Let him be the one to tell you how he feels.”
Lexi nodded. She guessed she could do that.
“And if you freeze up, you can always pass him a note,” Jenna suggested. “It’s a piece of cake, Lexi. I mean, a piece of cupcake.”
• • •
The next afternoon, just as planned, Sadie excused herself from her reading tutor in the library to go to the bathroom. She made sure Jeremy was distracted and studying his opponent’s move on the chess board before she slipped out the door. Lexi, Sadie, and Jenna were all waiting for her in the hall.
“Here ya go,” said Kylie, handing Sadie the red box containing Lexi’s cupcake.
“Make sure you don’t smush it,” Lexi pleaded.
“Have I ever smushed a cupcake?” Sadie asked.