Mia a Matter of Taste

by Coco Simon

  “That is so cool,” Chris said. “I asked Dr. Payne about those, but she said they won’t work on my kind of teeth. I guess I have mutant teeth or something.”

  I laughed. “Your teeth look perfectly normal to me.”

  “I wish,” Chris said, and I could tell he looked nervous. “So do those clear ones hurt?”

  “A little, at first. But I heard it’s the same with metal ones. They hurt at first, and you can get them adjusted, but then most of the time you don’t feel them.”

  “That’s what Dr. Payne said, but I didn’t believe her,” Chris confessed.

  I remembered what Emma’s brother Sam had said. “Even when it hurts, it’s not so bad, because you can ask for ice cream for dinner,” I told him.

  Chris grinned. “That doesn’t sound too bad.” He took a deep breath. “Okay, maybe I can do this.”

  Chris’s mom and my mom came over and then sat by us at the same time. Chris’s mom is short, which was kind of funny because Chris is so tall. But I noticed they had the same green eyes.

  “Mom, this is my friend Mia,” Chris said.

  “I remember Mia,” Mrs. Howard said, smiling at me. “You two went to the pep rally dance together, right?”

  Chris and I both nodded.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Mom said, smiling and shaking Mrs. Howard’s hand.

  “You too,” she replied. “I’m very glad we ran into Mia today. I couldn’t help overhearing their conversation. Chris was nervous, but Mia has been so helpful and reassuring. Thank you, Mia.”

  I think I blushed a little, and so did Chris.

  “Um, you’re welcome,” I said, a little shyly.

  From the corners of my eyes, I could see our moms smiling at each other.

  Aaaagh! They think we’re cute together! I thought, and then, thankfully, the receptionist called my name.

  The appointment was really fast. Dr. Payne said everything looked good, and I didn’t have to come back for six weeks. As we left, I waved good-bye to Chris, and he smiled at me.

  “Good luck,” I called. “It will be fine.”

  “Thanks!” he said, but he still looked a little nervous. “Ice cream and milk shakes, right?”

  “Yes!” I said. “For breakfast, lunch, and dinner!”

  He grinned. “Cool. We can have ice cream together for lunch!”

  Did he just say that? He did!

  “Awesome!” I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I kind of stood there for a minute, and then I realized I was just standing there grinning like an idiot. Mom was smiling really hard, like she was trying not to laugh. I gave Chris another little wave and almost ran out of the office.

  Then Mom took me right to Katie’s house, where Katie, Alexis, and Emma were already starting to decorate.

  “We get to decorate twenty-five cupcakes each,” Alexis informed me. “We saved yours.”

  She pointed to a tray on Katie’s table with an assortment of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry cupcakes on it. There were bowls of icing and all the decorations we had played around with the week before, plus more.

  “This is awesome!” I said, taking a seat. I picked up a bowl of icing that had been dyed blue and started to frost a vanilla cupcake with it. I thought I’d do a sky with fluffy marshmallow clouds.

  “Isn’t this the best?” Katie asked, making a pattern of colorful candy-coated chocolates on top of a chocolate-iced cupcake. “I think I could make a thousand of these, and they would all be different!”

  “Totally,” I agreed.

  We were so into what we were doing that we didn’t talk much, except to show off what we had done. I decorated my cupcakes one by one and then put them in the cupcake carrier. I just had one last little cupcake left, a vanilla one. I spread some vanilla icing on top, looked at it, and then packed it.

  “Aren’t you going to decorate that one?” Alexis asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied. “It’s ‘Come as You Are,’ right? So maybe someone wants to come, you know, plain. Like an almost-naked cupcake.”

  “But you don’t like plain anything!” Katie exclaimed.

  “True,” I said. “But sometimes plain is all you need. No embellishment required.”

  Alexis nodded. “Perfect. Now we really have something for everyone.”

  “And even if it’s not perfect, it’ll still be good, right?” I teased, thinking about the twins’ party.

  Alexis smiled. “Of course!”

  And I guess that’s kind of how I was feeling about myself. I wasn’t perfect anymore (and I probably never was to begin with). I had braces. I had glasses. That sure wasn’t perfect.

  But it was still really good.

  CHAPTER 19

  Come as You Are

  Wow, it looks really awesome this year!” Katie said.

  We had just pulled up to the school in Katie’s mom’s car. Emma’s dad parked next to us in his van. We had a lot of stuff to set up.

  The carnival was on the school field, which was filled with colorful booths, tents, and games. As we carried our stuff to our table, we passed a dunk tank with a sign over it that read DUNK THE TEACHER. There was a big board with balloons on it for dart throwing, a cotton candy machine, and a cart selling cold drinks.

  “Maybe we can take turns selling cupcakes, so we can all explore the carnival a little bit,” Katie said, looking around.

  “Let’s set up first, and then we can make up a schedule,” Alexis suggested.

  The school clubs were assigned tables under a big canopy. We found a table with a paper sign with CUPCAKE CLUB written on it and then put our stuff down.

  “Oh boy,” Alexis said, nodding to the table next to us. “Looks like the BFC are our next-door neighbors.” She didn’t sound happy.

  “I hope they’re not doing cupcakes again,” Katie said. Once, the BFC had decided to make cupcakes at the fall fund-raiser to compete with us.

  “Probably not,” Emma guessed. “It didn’t work out too well for them last time.”

  “Come on, let’s get everything ready,” I urged. I was anxious to see how things were going to look.

  We covered the table with a plain white tablecloth, because we wanted a neutral background for our colorful cupcakes. But I had made an equally colorful sign for the front of the table.

  A SUMMER OF CUPCAKES

  COME AS YOU ARE!

  Eat what you want!

  The Cupcake Club

  I had written the letters in all different colors, and all around the sign I had drawn some of the designs from our cupcakes: rainbows, hearts, stars, smiley faces, sad faces—everything I could think of. It looked really cool when we hung it up.

  Then we arranged our one hundred cupcakes in a spiral.

  “Awesome!” Alexis said.

  “It looks like a crazy kaleidoscope,” Katie added.

  I took out my phone and then snapped a picture. “We totally did it!”

  Alexis began to set up the cash box and calculator, and then Callie, Maggie, Bella, and Olivia walked up to the BFC table. Callie had on her funky glasses, and she looked totally cute.

  “Hey,” I said. “What are you guys doing?”

  Callie put a big plastic tub on the table and then opened the lid. “Friendship bracelets,” she said, and I looked inside. The tub was filled with braided friendship bracelets in all different colors and patterns.

  “Oh my gosh, that’s so cool!” I said. “It must have taken forever to make those.”

  “Hours and hours,” Maggie piped up. “But we’re the Best Friends Club, so friendship bracelets are perfect, right?”

  Katie walked over. “These are really sweet. You know, our booths kind of go together. You’ve got all different kinds of friendship bracelets, and we’ve got all different kinds of cupcakes!”

  Olivia rolled her eyes. “That is sooo corny.”

  I ignored her. “We would look really good wearing friendship bracelets at our booth. How about a trade? Bracele
ts for cupcakes?”

  “What?” Alexis asked, alarmed, looking up from her cash box.

  “Come on, Alexis,” I said. “We’ll still make plenty of money with our other cupcakes. And it’s good to support fellow entrepreneurs, right?”

  My strategy worked. “All right,” Alexis agreed. “Let’s trade.”

  So we looked through the bracelets, and the BFC looked through our cupcakes. Since we were all wearing our Cupcake Club T-shirts, which are mostly pink and yellow, we found bracelets to match.

  At our table, Maggie took one of Katie’s rainbow cupcakes. Bella found one that Alexis had made with purple icing and black jelly beans. Olivia and Callie picked out ones with edible glitter on top.

  “Mmm,” Maggie said, biting into her cupcake right away. “Your cupcakes are so good!”

  “And these bracelets are awesome,” I replied. “Thanks!”

  And then people started pouring into the carnival. A lot of people came up to our table and had fun picking out cupcakes. I was busy helping a cute little kid pick out a cupcake when I heard a familiar voice.

  “Hey, Mia.”

  I looked up. It was Chris!

  “These cupcakes look good,” he said, and as he talked, I could see the metal braces on his teeth. And you know what? He looked just as cute as ever.

  “Oh my gosh, you got them!” I exclaimed. “How do you feel?”

  “Really sore,” he admitted. “I would love a cupcake, but I don’t know if I could eat it.”

  “I have just the one,” I said, and I searched the kaleidoscope until I found the almost-naked cupcake I had made. “This one’s got no toppings. It’s nice and soft and mushy. Sometimes plain vanilla is just what you need.”

  Chris smiled. “Thanks,” he said, fishing in his pocket to pay me. “You’re the best.”

  And then the thing I said next just kind of came out. “So, maybe we could hang out sometime?” I said. “When your braces aren’t hurting.”

  Chris smiled again. “Definitely. I’ll text you, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Chris walked away, and I felt like I was floating on a cloud. It wasn’t just because of what happened with Chris. It was because I felt like me again. I looked at the “Come as You Are” cupcakes and smiled. Because from now on I knew I could just be myself and everything would be okay—with four eyes, a mouth full of braces, or even with plain vanilla.

  Want another sweet cupcake?

  Here’s a sneak peek of the fifteenth book in the

  series:

  Emma

  sugar and spice

  and everything nice

  Poor Jake

  Please, Emmy! Just one more lick!”

  My younger brother, Jake, was whining at me, which always drives me crazy. I sighed in exasperation.

  “Come on, Em, don’t be such a tough guy,” said my best friend Alexis. Though Jake’s the only person I’ve allowed to call me “Emmy,” lately everyone’s been calling me “Em,” though my full first name is Emma.

  “Great, now you’re on his side?” I complained.

  “I’m always on his side,” said Alexis, winking at my little brother.

  The Cupcake Club—my best friends, Alexis, Mia, and Katie, plus me—was having a baking session in my kitchen. Whenever we bake at my house, my little brother, Jake, always comes scrounging around for tastes and licks of the batter and frosting, and he’s so high maintenance that it drives me crazy.

  Jake smiled up at me now with his most winning grin. Alexis put her arm across his shoulders.

  “Come on, Em,” she said.

  “Fine, but he’s eating up our profits, you know,” I said, trying to appeal to Alexis’s astute business sensibility. “Here, at least use a clean spoon. You’ve had a sore throat.”

  “I always have a sore throat!” cried Jake, gleefully scooping a big lump of buttercream frosting out of the mixing bowl.

  “Strep again?” asked Mia, her brow wrinkling in concern.

  I sighed. “Probably.”

  Jake was right; he does always have a sore throat. And usually an ear infection to go with it. The doctor says Jake’s just prone to infections, because of the way his throat and ear canals are built.

  I can’t think about things like ear canals too much because I get really queasy with body stuff, especially if it comes down to words like “pus,” or needles, or most especially, blood (even the word, never mind the sight of it!). Lately, I’ve even started to faint at the doctor’s office and twice, almost, at the dentist’s. Most people don’t know this about me, because I’m pretty embarrassed about it. It just seems weak and a little babyish, especially at my age. Alexis was at the doctor’s office with me once when I had to get a shot and a blood test, so she knows all about it, but no one else really does.

  Anyway, I do feel bad for Jake, with all the ear and throat problems, but I am a tiny bit jealous sometimes that he gets to stay home from school so much. Mom makes him soup and pudding, and he watches cartoons in his cozy clothes all day. It looks like heaven, and a sore throat seems like a small price to pay.

  Just then my older brother Matt walked in, calling out a hello as he dumped his backpack in his locker in the mudroom. (Yes, we have lockers at home. Kind of pathetic, but my mom says it’s the only way to contain the chaos with four busy and athletic kids in the house.) Matt’s only a grade ahead of me, so we see each other a lot at school as well as at home, obviously, but Jake doesn’t see him that much, so he gets bowled over with excitement when Matt shows up.

  “Matty! Come see my drawing I did of the Miami Heat!” says Jake, dropping his spoon with a clatter into the sink and taking off without even a backward glance.

  “Hey! What about us?” asked Mia, who is Jake’s special buddy.

  But he didn’t even hear her.

  “The second you arrive, we’re dead to him,” joked Alexis, who has a crush on Matt. The same can be said about you, my friend, I thought, suppressing a giggle.

  Matt smiled and shrugged, palms up in the air. “Hey, I can’t help it if the kid worships me. Either you’ve got it or you don’t got it, you know?”

  “Trust me, you don’t got it,” I said, turning to the sink to start the cleanup.

  Jake came tearing back in, a piece of drawing paper flapping in his hands. “Look! Look, Matty, isn’t it cool? See that’s LeBron, and that’s Ray Allen, and here’s the basket, and here’s you and me in the stands. . . .”

  Matt glanced down at it. “Sweet,” he said, barely standing still for even a second. He passed by Jake and went to get a glass from the cabinet and poured himself some juice. Jake stood still in the middle of the kitchen, unsure of whether or not to follow Matt.

  “Hey, can I see it, Jake?” asked Katie, swooping in to mask Matt’s lack of enthusiasm. She reached for the drawing, but Jake snatched it away.

  “No! It’s just for boys! It’s basketball!” said Jake, all snotty.

  “Jake! That’s rude!” I cried. “Katie’s just trying to—” I caught myself before I said “make you feel better.” Phew. “Um, see how far your drawing’s come this semester,” I finished lamely.

  “No,” said Jake. “Matty, what are you doing now?”

  There was a pause as Matt finished gulping down his juice. “Homework,” he said, clearing his throat and giving a huge burp.

  All the girls groaned, but Jake giggled gleefully. “Good one!” Jake said.

  “OMG, he even worships your burps,” I said. “Pathetic.”

  Matt smiled and shrugged again. Then he reached out and tousled Jake’s hair. “See ya later, little buddy.” He grabbed his backpack from the mudroom and then went upstairs.

  Jake sat down in a kitchen chair, his drawing hanging limply at his side. He put his forehead in his hand, like he always does when he’s thinking really hard.

  “Want to draw with me?” asked Mia, who’s very artistic. Jake loves drawing with her. She’s so good, she can draw anything and have it look like what it’s s
upposed to, unlike me. Everything I draw ends up looking like a chicken.

  Jake shook his head.

  “What are you thinking about?” asked Katie, all perky and trying to cheer up Jake.

  He looked at her and then kind of snapped out of his trance. “How I can draw better so Matty will like it.”

  We all looked at one another in pain. The poor kid. He so looks up to Matt and our oldest brother, Sam, but they are just too busy for him. I’m the one who spends time with him, but he couldn’t care less about me, unless I have something sugary he wants to eat.

  “Jake, you’re a great artist!” Mia declared.

  “Not that much,” said Jake. He put his drawing on the kitchen table. “I’m going to watch TV,” he said, and left the room.

  “Okay, my heart is officially broken,” said Mia once he was out of earshot.

  “I know. It’s sad,” I agreed. “But he is high maintenance, and after a while it gets old.”

  “It would never get old for me,” said Katie, who’s an only child.

  “Me neither,” agreed Mia, who has only her older stepbrother, Dan.

  I sighed heavily and sat down at the table, drying my hands on a dishtowel.

  “I get it,” said Alexis. “I still think it’s sad, but I do get how Emma feels.”

  I alternated between feeling very sympathetic toward Jake or very frustrated with him, sometimes within seconds. Like now.

  “Okay, enough about Jake,” I said. “Let’s talk about what jobs we have lined up for the Cupcake Club.”

  We all sat at the table, and Alexis, who is our CEO, took out her laptop and began our meeting.

  “Let’s see, we have Mallory Clifford’s birthday party this weekend. Three dozen Mud Pies. Plus Mona tomorrow . . .”

  Mona is one of our regular customers. She owns The Special Day bridal salon and has a standing order for four dozen all-white mini cupcakes each Saturday. They’re for her brides to eat, so they don’t get all hungry and cranky while they’re trying on dresses.

  “Any modeling jobs coming up for you?” asked Katie.

  I shook my head. I’ve done a bunch of modeling this year for Mona—mostly trunk shows, where I walk around in sample junior bridesmaid dresses—but also a little bit of print work, which is really just another word for a newspaper or magazine ad. I got started doing a print ad for Mona, and other clients saw it. “There’s not much this month. It’s kind of the off-season for trunk shows,” I said. Even though I was kind of happy for the break (modeling is hard work, believe it or not), I could use some money. A little job would be okay right about now, especially some print work. The cash is good.