Katie and the Cupcake War

by Coco Simon

  “Your grandma is supernice,” Alexis said. “Maybe we should make her some get-well cupcakes. Free of charge, of course.”

  I smiled. Alexis may be all about business sometimes, but she has a big heart, too.

  “I hope everything goes okay, Katie,” Mia said. “I’m going to make your grandma a get-well card.”

  “You guys are the best,” I said, and I meant it. Then I leaned back on the blanket and looked up at the blue sky that peeked through the leaves of the tree. For that moment, everything was perfect.

  I really like it when that happens.

  CHAPTER 7

  I Can’t Believe She Did That!

  The next day we had school again, and now that Labor Day was over, it felt more real. Like summer was definitely over, even if it was still kind of hot out.

  The teachers were taking it seriously too, and on Tuesday, I got slammed with homework in every class. I didn’t want to mess up like I had with my English homework last week, so I made sure to write down everything in my assignment book.

  Something else happened on Tuesday too. That’s when Callie started acting totally different. Well, not totally different, but she wasn’t acting like the Callie I knew. The BFC Callie was acting even worse than the PGC Callie.

  Let me give you some examples. On Tuesday the Cupcake Club was eating lunch when Sophie and Lucy came over to our table. They’re mostly friends with Mia, but they’re nice to everyone.

  “Congratulations, Mia, you made the list,” Sophie said. But she didn’t say it in an excited way. She sounded more sarcastic.

  “What list?” Mia asked.

  Lucy nodded over to the BFC table. “Callie, Maggie, and Bella invited us to eat lunch with them today. So we said yes, and while we were there, they started making a list of who has the best hair today and who has lame hair. Can you believe it?”

  “That is so rude,” Alexis exclaimed, fuming.

  “Yeah, you and Katie are both on the lame-hair list,” Sophie told us.

  That made me mad, but I decided to make a joke about it instead.

  “Oh no! I guess my dreams of being a famous hair model are over,” I said, and everyone laughed.

  Alexis stood up. “I should go over there and tear that list to pieces.”

  “Don’t do it,” Mia said. “We can’t show them that it bothers us.”

  “Why should it bother you? You’re on the good list,” Alexis said.

  “It bothers me because you guys are my friends,” Mia said.

  “I must be invisible,” Emma said, twirling a strand of her blond hair. “I’m not even on the list at all. I think that’s even more insulting.”

  “Just thought you should know,” Sophie said with a shrug, and the two girls walked off.

  Alexis didn’t look mad anymore. She looked thoughtful. “Interesting,” she said. “I wonder why they invited Sophie and Lucy to sit with them.”

  “Maybe they’re recruiting new members,” Emma suggested.

  “They probably just want to find somebody to make their cupcakes for them, so they don’t have to do the dirty work,” I said, feeling cranky again.

  “I don’t know,” Mia said. “The PGC was always so closed off. Maybe Callie is trying to open things up and be a little friendlier.”

  Alexis snorted. “Right. The ‘new and improved’ BFC led by the ‘new and improved’ Callie.”

  So the hair thing is one example. Then there’s the whole flirting thing. In social studies, Callie and Maggie were whispering to each other before the bell rang. Then Tyler Norstrom, this tall boy on the basketball team, walked into the room. When he walked past Callie’s desk, I noticed she did this thing where she tossed her hair over her shoulder. Then she looked straight at Tyler and batted her eyelashes at him.

  You know, Callie is really pretty, and I guess she can pull off that kind of stuff if she wants to. But this hair-tossing person was not the Callie I grew up with. Now she was becoming more like Sydney every day.

  After school on Tuesday, I went right home and started on my mountain of homework. I decided to do my English first, so I wouldn’t forget it. I scanned the instruction sheet. We had to write about the assigned book we read over the summer. There were all these choices on what to write, and I picked writing a letter about the book. I wrote a really good letter, giving all the details of the book, and it was one page longer than Ms. Harmeyer asked for. I was pretty satisfied when I was done, because I knew it would impress her.

  The next morning I saw Callie in the hallway. She was at her locker with Maggie and Bella. Then my friend Beth Suzuki from Spanish class walked by. Beth has a kind of funky fashion style, like Mia. She was wearing black leggings and a black top, with a black-and-white scarf around her neck and red high-tops.

  I actually heard Callie say, “Red sneakers? Seriously?” It wasn’t a particularly funny or clever thing to say, but both Bella and Maggie laughed. I don’t think Beth heard them, though.

  And those examples aren’t even the worst. At lunchtime, I was in the hall, walking to the cafeteria, when Callie came over to me.

  “Hey, Katie,” she said. “Do you want to eat lunch with us today?”

  I felt like a bus hit me. What was Callie up to? I was really surprised. Then I realized she was waiting for an answer. Well, whatever her plans were, I wasn’t about to give her any satisfaction.

  “No, thanks,” I said. “I always sit with my friends.”

  Callie flinched, like she was shocked by my answer. “What gives?” she asked me. “I’m trying to be nice here.”

  “You mean nice, like when you put me on your lame-hair list?” I asked.

  Callie’s face turned a little red. “Maggie did that.”

  “Right. Because her hair is so awesome,” I said. I knew that was childish, but I couldn’t help it.

  “We were just goofing around,” Callie said. “Come on, sit with us.”

  On a scale of one to ten, my annoyance level with Callie was at a hundred.

  “If you’re trying to make things up to me, it’s a little late,” I said. “And don’t expect me to jump when you ask me to do stuff, like Bella and Maggie do.”

  “Wow, and I thought you were my friend,” Callie said, acting hurt.

  “I was your friend. Your best friend,” I replied. “And then you dumped me for Sydney. You let Sydney say mean stuff about me, and you didn’t stick up for me. Half the time you acted like you didn’t know me. So don’t tell me I’m not a good friend. I never did anything like that to you.”

  I could feel my eyes stinging, and I saw a few people staring at us as they walked by.

  Do not cry, I warned myself. You will never live it down.

  “You—you don’t know how much pressure I’m under,” Callie stammered. “I just wanted to be popular. . . . When Sydney asked me to join the PGC last year, I couldn’t say no. I asked her to stop teasing you in gym class, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “Then you should have stopped being friends with her,” I said flatly. “I wouldn’t be friends with somebody who was mean to you.”

  Callie shook her head. “You don’t understand. It wasn’t that simple. But Sydney’s gone now, anyway. So I thought—”

  “Sorry, Callie,” I interrupted. “My friends are waiting for me.”

  I turned and walked into the noisy cafeteria. My heart was pounding really fast. I felt hurt and sad and mad and good, all at the same time.

  I had wanted to say that stuff to Callie for months.

  CHAPTER 8

  A Totally Groovy Theme

  At lunch, I didn’t tell my friends what happened, because I was feeling kind of rattled. But I was in the mood to talk about it that night, when Mom and I were eating Chinese take-out. And yes, if you’re counting, that’s take-out again. What can I say, Mom was on a roll? But I love Chinese food, so I wasn’t complaining.

  “So, Mom,” I said, twirling a lo mein on my plate. “Something weird happened in school today. Callie asked me to eat l
unch at her table!”

  “That’s nice, honey,” Mom said.

  “No, it is not nice!” I insisted. “You know Callie has been ignoring me for a year so she can hang out with girls who are mean to me. And just because Sydney’s gone, she thinks I’ll just run over and sit with her. Can you believe that?”

  While I was talking, Mom was texting someone on her cell phone.

  “Mom! Are you listening?” I asked.

  Mom put down the phone. “It sounds like she’s trying to make things up to you. I’m not sure why you’re so upset.”

  “Forget it,” I said, and Mom picked up her phone again. Now I was upset about Callie and Mom. Why was everyone acting so weird?

  On Thursday night we had a Cupcake Club meeting at Mia’s house. Mia wasn’t going to be around for the weekend, because she stays with her dad in New York City every other weekend. Her parents are divorced, like mine, only I don’t get to see my dad. I think Mia’s pretty lucky, even though she has to sort of live in two different places. But she doesn’t seem to mind.

  Anyway, Mia’s house is fun, because she has two little fluffy dogs, Milkshake and Tiki. Plus, Mia’s mom and her stepdad, Eddie, let us have a dinner meeting.

  We ate pizza (with no veggies!) in the dining room as we tried—once again—to come up with plans for the school fund-raiser. But first I was finally ready to tell my friends about my face-off with Callie.

  “No way!” Alexis said when I was done with the story. “Who does she think she is?”

  “It’s kind of weird she doesn’t realize how much she hurt your feelings before,” Emma said.

  “I know, right?” I said. It felt good to have my friends back me up.

  “I don’t know,” Mia said cautiously. “I mean, it sounds like she tried to make up with you.”

  “She probably just wants to convert Katie to the BFC, so that she can bake the cupcakes,” Alexis said.

  I hadn’t thought of that. But it was possible that Alexis was on to something.

  “Well, that will never happen,” I promised. “Cupcake Club forever!”

  Alexis opened up her laptop. “Well, there might not be a Cupcake Club if we lose the fund-raiser,” she said dramatically.

  “Hey, Alexis, what happened to your notebook?” I asked.

  “In the Future Business Leaders of America we’re encouraged to use our laptops,” she said. “It’s more efficient.”

  “Maybe we could google some cupcake ideas,” Mia suggested.

  “I like that back-to-school cupcake that Katie’s mom made her”—Alexis flipped the laptop around to show the photo that I sent everyone—“but we might need to charge a lot for it to cover our overall production costs.”

  “Let’s start with a design,” Mia suggested. “Then we can pick a flavor that goes with the design.”

  “We have to think of something everybody likes,” I said. “What about the beach? Everyone likes the beach, right? Maybe we can do a tropical cupcake, and we can decorate the booth with beach balls and stuff.”

  “That’s fun, but it doesn’t feel like school, or fall,” Mia pointed out.

  I sighed. “I know.”

  Alexis was furiously surfing the Web. “You know, it’s the fiftieth anniversary of Park Street Middle School this year. Maybe we could do something with that.”

  “Like cupcakes with a big ‘fifty’ on them?” Emma asked.

  Alexis thought for a moment. “Hmm . . . so the school opened in the 1960s. Maybe we could do a sixties theme.”

  “Like a groovy peace-and-love kind of theme?” I asked.

  “That would be so cool,” Mia agreed. “We could do tie-dyed icing! And T-shirts to match!”

  “And we could decorate the cupcakes with peace signs,” Emma added.

  I really loved the idea. Anytime I get to wear rainbow colors, I’m happy.

  “If we do tie-dyed icing, we should keep the flavors simple,” Alexis said. “Chocolate or vanilla. Most people like simple flavors, anyway.”

  “How do we make tie-dyed icing?” Emma asked.

  Mia shrugged. “I’m not sure. But I bet we could figure it out.”

  “I’ll see if there’s anything online,” Alexis said, and started typing.

  “Mia, do you think your mom would mind if we baked?” I asked.

  Mia shook her head. “Nope. She even bought extra eggs and milk, just in case we wanted to.”

  “Then let’s clean up the pizza and get started,” I said. “I have an idea.”

  By now I think the Cupcake Club has baked thousands of cupcakes. Okay, maybe not thousands, but at least hundreds. So we can whip up a dozen vanilla cupcakes in no time.

  After about a half hour we had a pan of cupcakes baking in the oven. Mia’s stepdad, Eddie, came into the room and smelled the air.

  “Mmm, I love when you girls have Cupcake meetings at this house,” he said.

  “This is just a test batch, so you’ll definitely get some,” Mia promised him.

  Eddie smiled. “It’s my lucky day!”

  While the cupcakes baked, we mixed powdered sugar, butter, a little milk, and some vanilla together to make a basic vanilla frosting.

  “Mia, do you have food coloring?” I asked.

  “Sure.” Mia went to the cabinet and came back with a package that contained five little bottles of liquid food coloring. First, I put in a few drops of yellow. Then I swirled it around with the tip of my knife.

  “Ooh, pretty,” Emma said. “Can I try?”

  I nodded, and Emma put in some blue and then swirled it around the yellow. Then Mia did the same thing with red, and Alexis added green.

  “It looks pretty good,” I said. “Now we just have to see how it looks on the cupcakes.”

  After the cupcakes were done baking and we’d let them cool, we tried spreading the tie-dyed icing on them. But when we did that, the colors started blending together, and the color ended up looking like a depressing purplish brown.

  I frowned. “Sorry, guys.”

  “No, we almost had it,” Mia said. “I think it’ll work if we ice the cupcakes first, and then do the swirly food-coloring thing.”

  Emma frowned. “That will take forever, won’t it?”

  “It might, but we want to win, don’t we?” Alexis pointed out.

  “It won’t be so bad,” I said. “Besides, I think if we use the gel food coloring, the color will be easier to control.”

  Eddie came back into the kitchen and made a face. “What kind of icing is that?”

  “Ugly but delicious,” I told him.

  Mia handed him one. “You can taste test it for us. I know you love to do that.”

  Eddie peeled away the cupcake liner and took a bite. “It is delicious!” he said. “But I need some milk.”

  Eddie took five cups out of the cabinet, got the milk out of the refrigerator, and put everything on the table. “Won’t you ladies join me?”

  We all sat down. Mia poured the milk, and we all happily ate our cupcakes and drank our milk.

  “There’s nothing like cake and milk,” Eddie said. “It reminds me of being a little boy.”

  “Eddie, you were a little boy in the sixties, right?” Alexis asked.

  Eddie nodded. “That’s right. Why do you ask?”

  “I’ve got an idea,” Mia said. “We could sell milk to go with our cupcakes, just like in the old days.”

  “Old days? Hey, I’m not that old,” Eddie protested.

  “You know, my mom and I get our milk from this place that sells it in old-fashioned glass bottles,” I said. “We could pour the milk from those and then recycle the empty bottles. We can donate that money to the school too.”

  Eddie nodded. “It sounds like you girls have a good idea.”

  I grinned and made a peace sign with my fingers. “It’s not just good. It’s totally groovy!”

  CHAPTER 9

  Ugh! Another Poem

  The next day was Cupcake Friday. We started calling it that because that�
��s the day one of us brings in cupcakes for lunch. This week it was Mia’s turn.

  “Ta-da!” she said, opening up the small box she had brought. Inside were four perfect cupcakes. The icing on top was light blue and green, and it was piped on, so that it looked like ocean waves, or feathers, even.

  “They are so pretty,” I said.

  “They’re plain vanilla, but I’m practicing with those new decorating tips I got,” Mia said. “Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy.”

  “If you put candy fish on top, it could look like the ocean,” Emma suggested.

  “We need to keep a database of these ideas,” Alexis said. “Maybe someone will ask us to do a pool party or something. These would be perfect. We just have to remember.”

  “I have a file of stuff at home,” I said. “It’s full of recipes and pictures of cupcakes from magazines.”

  Alexis nodded. “We should scan all that in onto my laptop. Maybe we could do it this weekend?”

  I shook my head. “We’re spending the weekend at my grandma’s,” I said. Mom had told me last night.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” Mia said. “I made a card for her.”

  Mia dug into her backpack and pulled out a card made of folded scrapbook paper. On the front she had drawn a robin, Grandma Carole’s favorite bird, and surrounded it with lots of flowers.

  “I remembered the robin from when we made that birthday cupcake cake for her,” Mia said.

  “Mia, it’s so beautiful!” I said. “She’ll love it.”

  “Katie, Emma and I were going to make a card for her this weekend,” Alexis said.

  “You guys can sign this one,” Mia offered.

  Everyone signed the card. Then I put it away, so it wouldn’t get cupcake icing on it.

  “Oh, by the way,” Alexis said. “In French class today, Maggie and Bella were whispering really loudly about the BFC cupcakes. They kept saying it was a huge secret and everyone was going to be blown away.”

  “They can try,” I said. “But our cupcakes are going to be awesome.”

  The rest of the afternoon went pretty slowly, probably because it was Friday and I couldn’t wait for school to be over. The last class of the day was English, and at the start of class, Ms. Harmeyer handed back our homework from earlier in the week. I was excited, because I knew I did really well on the assignment.