Alexis the Icing on the Cupcake

by Coco Simon

  “Whoa!” she said, holding her palms up toward me. “I do love a challenge,” she said after a pause. “I have just the thing!” She turned and left the room.

  “Just the thing, just the thing. Ha!” I muttered. “Unless it’s Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak!” I tapped my foot angrily and decided I’d give her exactly one minute before I pulled on sweats and called it a day.

  Thirty-seven seconds later, Dylan came back with a triumphant look on her face. She was holding something behind her back and said, “They really should do a reality show about me. Like, Wardrobe Smackdown or something. Close your eyes and put out your hands.”

  Annoyed, I played along and closed them.

  I felt her lay something in my arms, and she said, “Okay.”

  I opened my eyes and there was the most adorable, supersoft, thick, brushed-cotton, blue-and-white-striped T-shirt dress. Did I mention how soft it was?

  “Is this a nightgown?” I asked, holding it up and shaking it out to its full length.

  Dylan shook her head. “It’s from one of those French sailor shirt companies. They’re making dresses now. Remember when I got it for my birthday from Grandma? I’ve been saving it.”

  “Oh,” I said, moving to hand it back to her. But she pushed it back toward me.

  “No,” she said. “You really need it today. Just be careful with it, okay?”

  I hesitated. Did I really want the responsibility of wearing Dylan’s new dress? I looked at her, and she was smiling at me. I thought again of my mom’s advice to let people do nice things for you, and I smiled back.

  “This is really awesome, Dylan. Thank you. Thanks so much!” I impulsively hugged her, and she hugged me back. “Easy! I’m still sunburned,” I said with a laugh. Dylan pulled away and I stared at her. “Why are you being so nice?” I had to ask.

  Dylan sighed. “Because I remember what it feels like when your body betrays you. It stinks.” She laughed a little. “I wished I had a big sister who could’ve helped me, back then.”

  “Huh,” I said. “Sorry. And thanks.”

  “No problemo,” said Dylan, and she left the room, calling over her shoulder, “Wear it with your blue Tom’s!”

  I slid the dress on over my head, and it looked awesome and felt even better. My mood improved immediately by about 100 percent. I jammed my comfy Tom’s onto my feet, grabbed my backpack, and headed out without answering Mia’s or Katie’s texts.

  At Emma’s, we drilled each other on vocabulary for a whole hour. She did well and I did not. We took a break to eat some chocolate-chip pancakes Mrs. Taylor had made, and I brought up the bake sale.

  “Oh yeah, I saw that. What do you think?” asked Emma.

  I cut a bite of pancake and chewed thoughtfully. “I suppose it would be good PR for us. . . .”

  “Wait, that means ‘public relations,’ right?”

  I nodded and swallowed. “Yes. Good to get our name out there, good to have the Cupcake Club be seen as charitable. I mean, the only bummer is we can’t take a tax write-off for the donation because we don’t pay taxes!”

  Emma laughed. “Wait, what? You are way ahead of me, sister!”

  I shook my head and smiled. “Never mind. Just thinking out loud. Business talk.” Then I dropped my voice to a whisper to make a confession. “You know, I like the idea of being charitable as much as anyone, and I think it’s superimportant. It’s just sometimes it’s kind of a hassle, you know? Like the timing of this thing, right after tests, right when we have to bake for the barbecue too? Not the greatest.”

  Emma shook her head at me and wagged her finger scoldingly. “You are bad, missy! Think of all those little critters who need our help!” Emma loves animals; she even has a dog-walking business on the side.

  “I know,” I agreed with a sigh. “Don’t tell anyone what I said, okay?”

  “I promise,” said Emma. “So we’ll say yes?”

  I nodded. “Yes. And let’s make them cute while we’re at it. Maybe little doggy and kitty faces on top?”

  “Totally! That would be cute!”

  “We just need to figure out which night to bake them. I’ll text the others when I get home. And I have to do that proposal for the barbecue, too.”

  “And you need to do your schoolwork, which is really more important! But I don’t need to tell you that. You’re the most organized of us all!”

  “Hmph,” I said. “I’m not so sure these days. I’m feeling a little distracted.”

  “Maybe you’re just overtired . . . ,” teased Emma. My mom’s big explanation for all of our grouchiness or bad behavior growing up was that we were overtired.

  I giggled at the reference. “Yeah. Or maybe I forgot to take my vitamins!” That was her other one. I sighed and stood up to clear our plates.

  “Thanks,” said Emma. “Ready for round two? I have a half an hour more till I have to leave for my aunt’s house. I’ll quiz you.”

  “Okay . . .” I sighed again as I put the dishes into the Taylors’ dishwasher. It was unlike me to be so unmotivated to study, even if it was vocabulary.

  “Are you okay, Lexi?” asked Emma, looking at me in concern.

  I nodded. “I’m just really tired, is all.” And it was true.

  She nodded sympathetically. “Probably all that growing.”

  “Yeah, plus all the work ahead of me: the vocabulary exam, my history paper, the barbecue proposal, baking the samples for that, baking for the animal shelter. Then on top of that, I really need to clean out my closet and find a few new things to wear, which sounds unimportant but is probably the most important of all! Not having even the simplest thing to wear that fits is really frustrating!”

  “Can I help?” asked Emma.

  I shook my head. “Not right now. I’ll let you know.”

  “Don’t forget, we can do some baking without you, since you’re always doing the extra work on the office side and the purchasing.”

  “Thanks,” I agreed. “I might actually take you up on that this week.”

  Emma picked up her vocabulary book and wiggled it at me. “Ready?”

  “Ready as I’ll ever be!” I chirped, all fake-energetic.

  “Oh boy, I hope not!” Emma laughed.

  CHAPTER 6

  Teen Angst

  That afternoon, instead of working on my history paper, I worked on the Cupcake Club’s proposal for Mrs. Dreher’s barbecue cupcakes. I had to call Katie to get some estimates on quantities of the “sand” sugar, and that took a little while because we chatted about other stuff. Then I had to go on another website to get some pricing for cocktail umbrellas, and then I found these cute cupcake wrappers, and pretty soon I was looking at teen clothes websites, and the next thing I knew, I had wasted an hour and a half. Yes, me! Alexis Becker! Wasting time. Imagine that.

  When I realized how much time had passed while I was online, I quickly got organized and whipped up the proposal. Luckily, I sent it to the others for proofreading because Mia quickly caught the fact that I hadn’t priced out the frosting!

  What was the world coming to?

  Alexis Becker wasting time? Making business mistakes? What next? Getting Fs in school? I sure hope not.

  I edited the proposal and e-mailed it to Mrs. Dreher, then I got to work on my history paper. When my mom called me down for dinner at exactly 6:30 p.m. (as always), I was happy for the break. But when I discovered we were having kale with our fish, I was not as happy.

  “Mother. I cannot eat this stuff. It smells like a dead animal,” I said dramatically.

  “Alexis!” my father said sharply. “Do not be rude to your mother. She has worked hard to put this food on the table, and I won’t have you being disrespectful.”

  I sighed. He was right. “I’m sorry, Mom, but seriously. Do I have to eat it?”

  “I love it!” said Dylan, wolfing it down. She’s majorly into veggies and healthy food, too, these days. It’s all part of her acting grown-up thing. I rolled my eyes.

 
My mom turned to me and said, “I guess you don’t have to eat all of it, but you must take a bite. Research shows that it can take up to seven times of trying a new food before children start to like it. Anyway, I always thought you were my good little veggie eater, Lexi!”

  I made a face and decided to get the bite over with. But first I announced, “I am not going by ‘Lexi,’ anymore, Mother.”

  My parents exchanged a look that annoyed me.

  “Why?” asked my father with a small smile.

  “It’s babyish,” I declared.

  “Ah,” said my father, nodding. He looked like he was going to smile again, but he didn’t. I looked at my mom, and she had the same kind of expression on her face, which bugged me.

  I pinched my nose with my fingers and gulped down a smallish bite of kale. But uh-oh! The taste came through, even with my nose pinched shut, and I couldn’t help it, but I gagged.

  “Alexis! For heaven’s sake!” cried my mother as I spit the kale into my napkin.

  “Sorry!” I croaked as I hurriedly took a sip of my milk to get ride of the taste.

  “Alexis, what’s gotten into you this week?” my father asked seriously. “I hear you’re forgetting books at school, falling behind in your work, forgetting your sunscreen . . . now you’re being rude at the dinner table and asking us to change what we call you. Oh!” He smacked his hand on his forehead and shook his head, rolling his eyes to the ceiling. “What am I thinking? It’s teen angst. Of course!”

  “Oh no! Not again!” cried my mom, glancing at Dylan.

  Dylan looked huffy. “Don’t drag me into this!” she said indignantly.

  “I’m not even a teenager yet!” I protested.

  “Here we go,” Dylan said, rolling her eyes.

  “Chronological age has nothing to do with the onset of teen angst,” said my mother knowledgably. “That’s what they say at parenting class.”

  “Well, I have no angst,” I said. “I just hate kale.”

  My mom and dad looked at each other and then burst our laughing.

  “You two are so annoying,” I said, and I finished my halibut and asked to be excused to clear my plate. As I left the room, I heard my mom remark, “One finally coming out of teen angst and now one heading into it.”

  “We can’t catch a break,” replied my dad.

  “Hey! I’m not the problem!” Dylan said.

  I rolled my eyes and went back upstairs to try to finish my homework and studying.

  Now, I am all about efficiency and order and neatness. A place for everything and everything in its place. A stitch in time saves nine. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Those are some of my mottoes.

  But maybe they shouldn’t be anymore.

  Like, first, I forget my vocabulary book, then I forget my sunscreen, and now there’s the growing pile of clothes that don’t fit me. It was on my bed, but by the time I had finished my work and was ready to crawl in to go to sleep, I really didn’t feel like dealing with the pile. So I kind of scooped it up and dumped it in the corner of my room. The next morning, when I was getting dressed for school, I discovered that another pair of my shorts didn’t fit, so I chucked them on top of the pile. Things were definitely not in their place, and no stitches were being saved. Where was the old me, and who was this new person I was becoming?

  Another one of my mottoes is: Quack! I know it sounds dumb, but it’s something my mom always tells us. When something is bothering you, sometimes you just need to let it roll off your back, like water rolls off a duck’s back. Now we just say “Quack!” as shorthand for that expression.

  But at school that morning, I was on my way to my class from my locker when I passed Olivia Allen, the head of the BFC (Best Friends Club, which I am decidedly not in. It’s sort of the cool girls–mean girls club, and Olivia sets the tone).

  Olivia looked at me and burst out laughing. “Alexis! OMG! Haven’t you ever heard of sunscreen?” She looked around to see if any of her buddies were there to share in her laughter, but they weren’t.

  “Whatever,” I muttered, and kept on walking, but inside, I was enraged. I thought my burn had faded enough by now, but maybe it was just that I had gotten used to it. Also, I thought Olivia and I had made peace, so I wasn’t sure why she was launching some new assault. I knew I should just say “Quack!,” but she’d caught me off guard, and I was pretty vulnerable these days.

  “Those are some serious freckles!” she continued.

  Wait, freckles?

  My second class was English, and I was really feeling skittery and nervous about the vocabulary test, but I did a quick detour to the girls’ bathroom to look in the mirror.

  I stared at my skin, tilting my head every which way. I’ve always had freckles, as far as I know, but maybe they were a little more . . . pronounced all of a sudden? Were they darker? Were there more of them? And if so, was there anything I could do about it? Oh, who knows!

  I hurried out and ran the last few paces to my English classroom, just as Mrs. Carr was beginning to close the door.

  Now, I am a numbers person, and though my parents tell me all the time that being good at numbers doesn’t mean you’re not good at words, I kind of disagree, just based on how my friends and I all do at school. I mean, of course I usually get honors grades in the writing classes, like history and English, but more like B pluses than As. But today, I realized with a sinking feeling that I might not even be getting a B plus.

  As I progressed through the test, I felt like I hadn’t even seen some of these words before! See, usually, I would have made flashcards from the book and tested myself that way. And maybe it’s the act of writing the words down that helps cement them in my mind or something, but without the book at home this weekend, I couldn’t do that. As my already-shaky confidence slipped, I started to really tank. I actually thought I might cry at one point when I looked around the room, stumped for the third time, and saw everyone scribbling away on their papers, as if they couldn’t get their right answers down fast enough. This was just not me! Alexis Becker doesn’t do badly in school!

  I finished up the best I could, guessing when possible and giving partial answers. At the end of the allotted time, I was just glad to be finished with it. I gave Mrs. Carr a mournful look as she collected my test, but she didn’t notice. I sighed heavily.

  After class, I went to Mrs. Carr’s desk to explain that I had forgotten my book. Luckily, I am usually a diligent student so teachers don’t really look at me as a slacker.

  “Um, Mrs. Carr?” I said.

  “Yes, Alexis?” She smiled at me pleasantly.

  “Uh . . . I think I kind of tanked the test,” I said, feeling a deep blush rise to the roots of my hair. Maybe she wouldn’t notice because of my darn sunburn.

  Mrs. Carr chuckled. “I’m sure you did just fine,” she said. The flip side of being a good student is that you get a bit of a reputation as a perfectionist. This would not be working in my favor right now.

  “Well, I forgot to bring the book home this weekend, and though I did study, I wasn’t able to do my usual study system.” That sounded good. I looked at her hopefully.

  She shuffled the papers into a pile and tapped them on her desk to even them out. Then she looked me right in the eye. “Alexis, why don’t I give your test a look tonight, and we can see what happened. I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as you think.”

  “I’m sure it was, but okay.”

  “If it’s a fail, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” she said kindly.

  A fail? OMG. I have never failed anything in my life! I gulped and then smiled nervously. “Thanks.” I walked blindly to my next class, my knees feeling like jelly.

  At lunch, I was superdistracted.

  “Cute shirt!” said Mia.

  “Thanks. It’s my mom’s,” I said absently.

  “Still having problems with the clothing?” she asked.

  I nodded.

  “Why don’t I come over and help you clean out your clothes
?” she suggested excitedly. “Then we can figure out a few things you should get to fill in.”

  I looked at her. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. To have Mia’s eye laser-focused on my wardrobe? People would pay top dollar for that one day. Normally, I would jump at the chance, but I was feeling so swamped. “Thanks! That would be great. I wish we could do it soon, but it’s kind of a crazy week.”

  “I know. Thanks for saying yes on the animal shelter bake sale, by the way. We don’t have to make a lot. We’ll just have a massive baking session on Friday. We’ll do the Mona minis, the shelter, and maybe bake the cupcakes for Sunday, but we can decorate them on Saturday? Then, while stuff is baking, I can help you with your clothes, okay? We’ll get organized!” She grinned at me, knowing that getting organized is usually my favorite thing on Earth.

  But right now it kind of sounded like a hassle.

  Katie joined us and did kind of a double take when she saw me. “Oh, Lexi! When did you get so many freckles?” she asked.

  “Ugh. Thanks for reminding me!” I said. “Olivia was the first to point them out this morning. Great way to start the day.”

  “Sorry!” said Katie. She glanced uneasily at Mia. “It’s just . . . I never really noticed them before. Maybe now that the burn is fading . . .”

  “It’s not that bad. Don’t worry, Lexi—” Mia said.

  Katie smacked her forehead. “Gosh, should I just start over? Can I go back and put my lunch away and come in again?” She laughed, and we all laughed then, and the tension was put to rest. Katie’s too nice for me to get mad at her for real.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said generously. “Things may be tough, but I still have my sense of humor! And my freckles!” I joked. We all knew that despite my cranky little challenges, this was not a tough life.

  Emma joined us, and we went through the weekend plans and then discussed our week’s worth of exams. With my history paper ready to turn in, and the vocabulary test behind me, what was left was just the stuff I was prepared for, so I did feel a bit better.