Mia's Baker's Dozen

by Coco Simon

  I ran up and hugged him.

  “Hello, mija!” he said. “It’s good to see you.”

  Ava and my mom walked up behind me.

  “Hello, Alex,” my mom said. Her voice sounded friendly, but a little cold at the same time.

  “Hi, Sara,” dad replied, and he just sounded uncomfortable.

  Ava looked around. “Where’s my mom?” she asked.

  “She texted me and said she’s a little bit late,” Mom answered. “But we’ll all wait with you until she gets here.”

  And so we waited, and it was totally awkward. Mom and Dad were talking to me instead of each other.

  “Mia, how are you doing in school?”

  “Mia, is it colder in New Jersey?”

  “Mia, tell your father about your Valentine’s Day cupcakes.”

  I realized that this was probably the longest time my parents had spent in the same place since their divorce. No wonder it was awkward.

  Finally, Mrs. Monroe came rushing up. “I’m so sorry! The subways are so slow on Sunday.”

  “That’s all right,” Mom told her. “Thank you for letting Ava stay with us. She’s a pleasure to have around.”

  “And so is Mia,” Mrs. Monroe said. She smiled at me. “We’ll see you at the party soon. I can’t wait to try your cupcakes!”

  Ava gave me a quick hug good-bye. “I’ll text you later,” I said.

  Then Mom kissed me. “I’ll meet you back here at seven fifteen, okay?”

  “I’ll make sure she’s on time,” my dad promised.

  “Thanks,” Mom said, and managed a smile. She then rushed off, and it was just me and my dad.

  “Sushi?” I asked. That’s usually our tradition.

  “Well, since this is a special visit, I thought we should mix it up a little bit,” Dad said. “Try someplace new.”

  “Where are we going?” I asked him.

  Dad smiled. “I want to surprise you.”

  So we quickly found a cab outside and traveled downtown for a while. Then the cab stopped in front of a restaurant with a red awning. Painted on the window were the words SABOR TAPAS BAR.

  “We’re going to a bar?” I asked. “Isn’t that kind of inappropriate?”

  “It’s not that kind of bar,” Dad said, paying the cabdriver. “You’ll see.”

  We walked inside, and the place looked warm and cozy. Dark wood panels covered the walls, and the booths were made of wood too, with red cushions. The server showed us to one of the booths, and then Dad handed me a menu.

  “In a tapas bar, they serve small plates of food,” Dad explained. “And then you share. That way you get to try a little bit of a lot of different things.”

  The server, a woman with dark hair almost exactly like mine, took our drink orders, and then we looked at the menu. Everything on it looked delicious. I was starting to like this idea.

  “This is awesome,” I said. “But there’s so much to choose from! I can’t decide.”

  “I’ll order for us, then,” he said.

  The server brought our drinks, and then Dad ordered a bunch of tapas from the menu: shrimp with garlic and chilies, a potato omelet, sautéed spinach, and a bowl of Spanish olives.

  “Anything else, mija?” he asked.

  I looked at the menu, and one thing caught my eye.

  “Croquetas con pollo y plátanos, por favor,” I ordered. (That means “Croquettes with chicken and plantains, please.” I wasn’t sure what a croquette was, but I love plantains. They’re kind of like bananas, but not sweet.)

  “Bien. Creo que les gustará,” the server replied in Spanish. That means, “Good. I think you’ll like them.”

  “Creo que lo haré,” I replied, which means, “I think that I will.”

  The server left the table, and when I looked at Dad, he was beaming with pride.

  “Such good Spanish, mija,” he said. “Your Spanish teacher must love you.”

  I smiled, but I didn’t say a word. I know what you’re thinking. This was the perfect time for me to talk to my dad about my problems in Advanced Spanish. I know Ava told me I should ask for help, but I just couldn’t bear to disappoint Dad. Not now, anyway. I just wanted to have a nice dinner with him.

  And it was nice. It turned out that a croquette is a little fried ball-shaped thing, and it was superdelicious. All the stuff Dad ordered tasted good too.

  But it went way too fast, and soon it was time to get back to the train. Dad walked me to the platform, and Mom was already waiting there.

  “Get home safe,” Dad said, giving me a hug.

  “I’ll text you when I get home,” I promised.

  Mom got a funny look on her face. After Dad left, I found out why.

  “You always complain when I ask you to text me,” Mom said.

  Yikes. She had a point. I had to think about that for a little bit.

  “You have me most of the time, plus Eddie and Dan, but Dad is all alone,” I explained. “I feel bad for Dad sometimes.”

  Mom sighed. “It’s hard,” she admitted, “but please don’t worry about your dad, Mia. I know he misses you a lot, but he’s still your dad, no matter where we live. And we’re all a lot happier this way.”

  Happier? I had to think about that one.

  As the train sped toward Maple Grove, I stared out the window into the dark sky. Mom and Dad fought a lot before they got divorced. They tried to do it at night in their room, when they thought I was asleep, but I always heard them. So I guess they weren’t too happy then.

  But when they got divorced, things still weren’t good. Mom moved out and I stayed with Dad, but it felt weird and I missed her. And Mom and Dad still argued every time they saw each other. Then I moved into Mom’s new apartment, but that was extra weird because it was a whole new place.

  So was it still weird? I had to think about that. Living in Maple Grove was starting to feel like home. I had good friends. And Eddie and Dan were nice, and Eddie sure tried to make us feel like a “normal” family as much as possible. But happi-er? As in, more happy than before, when we were all together?

  Like I said, I’d have to think about that.

  CHAPTER 8

  Can I Start the Week Over Again?

  While I was still on the train, I called Katie. I wanted to reach her before it got too late.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” Katie replied. “Are you home?”

  “I’m on the train,” I told her. “Is everything okay? You seemed a little quiet at the meeting today.”

  “Everything’s fine,” Katie said, but I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was lying.

  “Good,” I said. I wasn’t going to press her about it. “So anyway, we’re still going to see The Emerald Forest next weekend, right?”

  “Of course!” Katie answered, and her voice sounded like the old Katie again. The Emerald Forest is a fantasy book series that we both love, and they finally made a movie out of it!

  “Awesome,” I said. “I can’t wait to see what kind of costumes they’re going to do for the emerald fairies. In the books, the description is totally beautiful.”

  “I can’t wait either,” Katie agreed. “We’re going on Saturday, right?”

  “Mom said she’ll take us,” I promised.

  We said good night, and I hung up the phone. When I got home, I was totally exhausted. I fell asleep dreaming of the Emerald Forest. . . .

  If only the rest of the week was as peaceful as that forest. But it was anything but. The next day was Monday, my least favorite day of the week.

  I was so tired in the morning that I left my gym uniform home by mistake, and I had to sit out of gym. And Señora Delgado gave us pages and pages of notes for our Spanish test the next day—on verbs.

  You have to believe me when I tell you that I studied like crazy. I went straight home after school and studied. I ate dinner and then went right back upstairs and studied. I didn’t even sketch! (Okay, I did doodle a pair of boots in the margin of my notes, b
ut I didn’t open up my sketchbook, I swear.) When I went to sleep that night, I dreamed of verbs instead of emerald fairies.

  I even studied at lunch on Tuesday before the test. I was feeling pretty good—until Señora handed me my test paper. The questions looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics to me.

  So I took the test, and I did my best. But as I handed it in, I knew I hadn’t done well.

  That night Mom asked me about it as we were cleaning up from dinner.

  “So how did you do on your Spanish test?” she asked. “You really studied hard for that one.”

  “I think I did okay,” I lied. I thought about spilling everything out, right then and there. Mom, I think I’m failing Spanish. I know I should have told you sooner. The advanced class is so difficult. I’m still having trouble no matter how hard I try. I opened my mouth to tell her, but I just couldn’t bring myself to say the words. I don’t know why it was so hard. Usually I could always talk to Mom about anything.

  It was then that I realized that Mom really was a lot happier. She smiled a lot, and she seemed more relaxed than ever, even though she was busy. And she really did seem to love Eddie. Then I wondered if my dad was as happy as Mom. Was I?

  Mom smiled at me and kissed the top of my head. “I’m so proud of you, Mia,” she said.

  Ugh. I felt bad about lying, and then something happened that made me feel ten times worse.

  “I have a surprise for you,” she said. “Come upstairs with me.”

  I followed Mom to her room. “So you know that Annie Chang has a line out for teens, right?”

  I nodded. Annie Chang is a popular fashion designer, and I absolutely love her clothes. I was psyched when I read that she was putting out a teen line. But I know they are kind of expensive, too, so I wasn’t holding out much hope that I’d convince Mom to buy me anything.

  Mom unzipped a garment bag hanging from her closet. “I met Annie at an event the other day, and I told her all about you,” she said. “So today she sent this just for you.”

  I gasped. Inside the bag was a totally cool mod-looking sweater dress with gray and black stripes.

  “That’s from her latest winter line!” I shrieked. “Oh, Mom, it’s perfect!”

  “Wear it with some black tights—or even a jewel-toned color, for that matter—and black boots, and you’ve got a killer outfit,” Mom said.

  I slipped the dress off the hanger and ran to my room. “I’m going to try it on!”

  I tried the dress with some solid red tights, and it looked awesome. I ran into my mom’s room and gave her a big hug.

  “Thank you, thank you!” I said.

  “You deserve it, with all the hard work you’ve been doing,” Mom said, and I felt a huge pang of guilt.

  You should tell her now, a little voice inside me said. But just like Dad and dinner, I didn’t want to ruin the moment.

  I loved the dress so much that I wanted to sleep in it, but I didn’t want to ruin it. So I wore it to school the very next day. At lunchtime, I was walking past the PGC table when Callie called out to me.

  “Mia? Is that an Annie Chang?” she asked.

  I walked over to her. “Yes, she gave it to my mom to give to me,” I said.

  “It’s really cool,” said Maggie, another one of the popular girls. Maggie’s actually pretty nice, but she does everything Sydney tells her to do.

  Sydney examined my entire outfit from head to toe. I could tell she was trying to find something wrong with it, but she couldn’t. So she just made one of her mean comments instead. “It’s nice of your mom’s friends to give you their castoffs,” Sydney said, tossing her perfect blond hair. I knew she was insulting me, but I didn’t care.

  I smiled sweetly at Sydney. “Yeah, well, Mom says that Annie is really nice,” I said. “And it’s actually not a castoff. It’s a sample. Like the kind they give models to wear. See you.”

  Then I walked away.

  My Cupcake Club friends liked my dress too, even though they didn’t know who Annie Chang was. Then it was time for Spanish class. Oh boy.

  Señora Delgado handed out our tests as soon as we sat down. I already knew how I did, but I was still shocked when I saw the big red F on my paper. I’ve never gotten an F in anything before.

  “Class, please turn to page fifty-seven in your workbooks and start that page,” she said in Spanish, as usual. “Ms. Vélaz-Cruz, please come to my desk.”

  Uh-oh. This wasn’t going to be fun. I walked up to her desk as slowly as I could. What was she going to do? Was she going to yell at me in front of everybody?

  Señora Delgado is petite, with short black hair, and she wears big eyeglasses. She looks like a very wise owl. And I know from science class that owls are predators. They eat cute little chipmunks and mice.

  “Mia, I think you might need some extra help in this class,” she said softly, in English. She wasn’t mean or angry at all. It seemed like she really wanted to help me. She started to write on a piece of paper. “I know some excellent tutors. Please give this to your parents and tell them to call me if they have any questions.”

  “Thank you, Señora,” I said quietly, and then I walked back to my seat. I couldn’t keep my secret any longer now. I’d have to give my parents the note. But I didn’t have to give it to them right away.

  I’ll give it to them, I told myself, when the time is right! Because they’re all too happy now for me to spoil it.

  CHAPTER 9

  Sydney Needs My Help. Really?

  Okay, so I technically couldn’t give my parents the note that night because my dad was in Manhattan and my mom was working late. It was just me and Eddie and Dan, and Eddie is technically my stepparent, not my parent. So I left the note in my Spanish book.

  We had a Cupcake Club meeting at Katie’s house the next day after school. Katie’s mom was there. Mrs. Brown has curly brown hair and Katie’s smile, and she’s really nice. She’s the one who taught Katie how to make cupcakes.

  “Come on in, girls, I’ve got it all set up for you,” Mrs. Brown said as we went into the kitchen. Katie’s kitchen is small, but it’s got everything you need to make cupcakes in it. Her mom has every kitchen gadget you’ve ever heard of—and some you haven’t heard of.

  We quickly got to work making a test batch of Ava’s snowy cupcakes. Katie and I made the chocolate batter, and Emma and Alexis worked on the extra frosting.

  “I want to get it extra fluffy,” Emma said as they put the ingredients in the mixer bowl. “So it looks like snow.”

  “Great idea,” I said. I opened up my bag. “Good news! My mom found the silver cupcake liners for us.”

  “She’s so nice,” Katie said, smiling at me, and I figured that whatever was bothering her wasn’t anymore. Maybe she was just uncomfortable around people she didn’t know, and that’s why she was quiet when Ava was visiting.

  As we baked the cupcakes we talked about school and stuff, and then Katie asked me, “So how did you do on that Spanish test?”

  I frowned. “I can’t bear to say it.” Instead, I used the wooden spoon in my hand to draw an F in the bowl of batter.

  “You failed? No way!” Katie cried. “But you studied so hard.”

  “I know,” I said. “Señora says I need a tutor.”

  “Will your parents get you one?” Emma asked.

  I bit my lower lip. “Well, they kind of don’t know yet. I’m waiting for the right moment to tell them.”

  “That must be so hard,” Katie said sympathetically.

  “You should tell them soon,” said Alexis, always the practical one. “They’re going to find out eventually. And the sooner you get some help in Spanish, the better. You’ve put this off long enough. I thought maybe if you studied a little harder, you’d be okay, but things are obviously getting worse instead of better.”

  “Just talk to your mom, Mia,” Katie said. “I’m sure once you tell her everything, it will be all right.”

  “I know, I know!” I said crossly. “Can we please ta
lk about cupcakes instead of school?”

  Nobody said anything for a while after that, and I felt kind of bad for losing it. But soon we were back in our groove again, and I was decorating our first test cupcake.

  “It’s perfect!” Alexis said, and I had to admit it looked pretty good. The silver liner was really pretty, the icing was nice and fluffy, and the sparkles looked good on top of the coconut.

  “Let me take a picture and I’ll send it to Ava,” I said.

  A minute later Ava texted me back.

  It’s pretty, but the coconut looks too big or something. Not like snowflakes.

  Alexis rolled her eyes. “Great. Another picky client.”

  “Hey, she’s my friend,” I reminded her. “Besides, she kind of has a point.”

  The coconut flakes from the package did look a little big. Luckily for us, Mrs. Brown walked in just then.

  “That’s beautiful!” she said.

  “Except Ava doesn’t like it,” Katie said, and then explained about the coconut.

  Katie’s mom looked thoughtful. “I think I have just the thing,” she said finally.

  She opened up the small pantry closet by the back door and came back with a weird-looking device.

  “It’s a veggie chopper,” she said. “Normally you could use it to chop onions into small pieces. But I bet it will work on the coconut.”

  She put a pile of coconut on a cutting board, put the chopper on top of it, and then pressed down a few times. When she picked up the chopper, the coconut underneath was very finely shredded.

  “That looks a lot more like snow,” Katie remarked. “Let’s try another one.”

  So Katie iced another cupcake, and I sprinkled the coconut flakes and glittery sugar on top.

  “Much better,” agreed Mrs. Brown. “I’m sure your friend will like it.”

  “Let’s see,” I said. I sent another photo to Ava.

  This time she was happy. Here was her reply:

  “She loves it!” I reported, and we all cheered.