Vote for Cupcakes!

by Sheryl Berk

  “Am not!” Delaney felt her cheeks burn. “It’s important to me. And it should be important to you if you’re my friend.”

  “I am your friend,” Kylie pleaded with her. “But I’m worried you’re blowing this out of proportion.”

  “You just don’t like anyone else to be a president,” Delaney protested. “You don’t want anyone else to have power.”

  “Laney! That’s not true and you know it!” Kylie cried. Just then, her phone dinged with an email. “Uh-oh,” she said, reading it. “Major 911 at Blakely. Herbie needs help. His snow machine went crazy, and now it’s snowing all over the third floor!”

  “I’ll drive you girls you there,” Mrs. Noonan volunteered when she heard the girls panicking. “Delaney, make sure you listen for your brother and sister. They’re napping in their cribs after the ride you gave them at the market.” She placed a baby monitor on the kitchen counter.

  “Great, just great,” Delaney said, pouting. “So now we have to stop what we’re doing to help Herbie clean up the mess he made? I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Delaney!” Sadie said, looking shocked. “How can you abandon your team?”

  “You can do what you want, Laney,” Kylie said, getting her jacket. “I’m going to help Herbie. He’s our adviser, and we stick together.” The rest of the girls followed, leaving Delaney and Sophie in her kitchen.

  “Now what?” Sophie asked. “We haven’t even made the batter for your cupcakes and they left.”

  “Who needs any of them? I’ll do it myself,” Delaney said. She pulled out Kylie’s binder and found the recipe for Black Bottom Cupcakes.

  “Hand me the cream cheese,” she told Sophie.

  Sophie rummaged through all the paper bags of groceries but found no cream cheese. “I don’t see it. Did you forget it?”

  Delaney thought for a moment. She remembered grabbing the other items she needed in the dairy section, but no packages of cream cheese. Maybe Kylie was right that she should have written a shopping list. But she wasn’t about to admit she’d made a mistake…

  She went to the refrigerator and searched. “No cream cheese, but we have a lot of Greek yogurt,” she said, finding two large containers. “This will have to do.”

  “Are you sure?” Sophie asked. “That’s not what the recipe says.”

  “Sometimes you just gotta wing it,” Delaney said. “We’ll make it work.”

  Just then, she heard Charlotte and Tristan fidgeting upstairs on the baby monitor. “Ugh, if my baby brother and sister let me work!”

  • • •

  When the girls arrived at Blakely, all the halls were pitch-dark. Kylie switched on the flashlight on her phone.

  “Herbie?” she called. “Where are you?”

  “Up here!” came a voice from up the stairs. “I think I blew all the fuses.”

  “I can fix that,” Sadie said. “My dad showed me what to do when we blow a fuse and he’s at work.” She pointed Kylie’s light toward the fuse box on the wall and flipped a few of the switches. All the lights came on.

  “Yay, Sadie!” Lexi cheered.

  “Thanks,” Herbie called down. “Now I can see…although I’d rather not.”

  They climbed to the third-floor landing and opened the door to the robotics lab. When they peered inside, they saw soupy white foam all over the floor and Herbie standing knee deep in it. Next to him was a huge metal machine with a giant hose and fan attached. On the front was a barometer of sorts, and the arrow on it was spinning wildly.

  “I think I overestimated the snow maker’s pressurizer,” he said.

  “What on earth happened here?” Kylie exclaimed.

  “One time, my little brother Manny put too much laundry detergent in the washing machine and it looked like this in our basement,” Jenna said.

  “It’s kind of the same thing,” Herbie explained. “I put in a little too much water and turned the cannon up a little too high.”

  “None of this is little!” Sadie exclaimed.

  “How do we even clean this up?” Lexi asked. “It’s like a bowl of snow soup up here!”

  “Principal Fontina will freak,” Kylie said. “And I don’t mean that in a good way.”

  “We need a giant vacuum to suck it all up,” Sadie said. “Either that or a really big straw.”

  “A vacuum is not a bad idea,” Herbie said. “If I can reverse the pressurizer to draw in the snow instead of blowing it out, I think we’ll be in business.”

  He fiddled with the machine, making a few adjustments with a wrench and a screwdriver. “Stand back, everyone,” he said. “This will either be a huge success…”

  “Or an epic fail,” Kylie said, closing her eyes and crossing her fingers.

  Herbie threw a switch, and the snow maker sputtered to life. Little by little, it began vacuuming up the sloshy snow, until they were standing only ankle deep in it. After about ten minutes, only a few puddles remained.

  “That was genius, Herbie,” Lexi said.

  “It would have been genius if it worked in the first place. I suppose I’ll have to go back to the ol’ drawing board.” He sounded sad and tired.

  “We’ll get some paper towels and mop up the rest of the water,” Kylie assured him. “It was a good try, Herbie.”

  Their adviser shrugged. “Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

  Kylie shuddered. “Please don’t mention Rome. We had Julius Caesar barking orders at us all afternoon.”

  “Delaney is on a power kick, big-time,” Lexi explained to Herbie. “It’s like nothing matters to her except winning the student government race at Weber Day.”

  “She’s bossing us around,” Jenna added. “And I thought my big sisters were bossy!”

  “I see,” Herbie said. “Have you talked to her about it? Told her how you all feel?”

  “She won’t listen,” Kylie said. “And she’s making double work for us. Now we have both her debate cupcakes and the Winter Fest cupcakes to get done.”

  “And no display for either of them,” Lexi reminded the group.

  “You leave the displays to me,” Herbie said. “I can fix this—and I can come up with a real showstopper for Delaney as well.”

  For the first time, Kylie didn’t argue with him. “Sure, Herbie. Go for it.”

  “Really? You’re trusting him with Delaney’s display?” Lexi whispered.

  Kylie shrugged. “Delaney said she wants a big, flashy display.”

  “And a big, flashy display is what she’ll get!” Herbie proclaimed, overhearing her. “That’s my specialty.”

  Delaney peeled back the wrapper on a cupcake from the first batch out of the oven and took a bite. Liquid oozed out of the middle. “Ick!” she cried. “It’s supposed to be rich and moist, not drippy.”

  “They can’t be that bad,” Sophie insisted, taking a bite as well. She made a face. “Or can they?”

  “Okay, let’s not panic,” Delaney said, pacing the floor. She had set up the twins’ playpen in the kitchen, and they were now giggling happily.

  “They don’t even smell good.” Sophie sniffed the air. “Oh, wait… I think that’s Tristan’s diaper…”

  “We have to make this work somehow,” Delaney said, ignoring her. “What would Caesar do if he were in my shoes?”

  Sophie shrugged. “Order takeout?”

  Delaney tried to think of all the things Mr. G had taught her. “He would never give up. He would never abandon the fight.”

  She decided the best strategy was to go back to the drawing board. “I’ll have to find another cupcake that has yogurt in it,” she said, flipping through pages of recipes. She noticed one that Kylie had circled in bright-red pen: honey yogurt cupcakes.

  “This is it!” Delaney said. “We’ll do these instead.”

  After they had carefully blended
the batter and popped the cupcakes in the oven, she raced upstairs to change her little brother’s diaper.

  “This has to work. It just has to,” she told him.

  He cooed enthusiastically.

  “You think I’d make a good fifth-grade president, don’t you?”

  Tristan kicked his feet in the air.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  As much as she hated to admit it, maybe Kylie had been right. She should have written a grocery list so she wouldn’t forget the cream cheese. What if she had wasted all these ingredients—and all the club’s money—and had no campaign cupcakes to show for it?

  She put Tristan back in his playpen with his favorite toy dinosaur just in time for the cupcakes to finish baking. Charlotte was cheerfully banging together two plastic measuring cups that Sophie had given her. “Look, Charlotte wants to be a baker too!”

  When the timer dinged, Delaney took the pan out of the oven and poked a cupcake in the center with a toothpick. “They don’t seem runny this time,” she said. “You want to take a taste?”

  “You go first,” Sophie said, crossing her fingers. Delaney gently removed the wrapper and sampled a tiny bite. Then she took another, and another. “It’s good! Really good!” she said. “Kylie’s recipe rocks. It’s light and moist and totally delish!”

  Sophie sighed. “Good, because there was no way I was going to start all over again.” She tried to finger comb the clumps of cake batter out of her hair. “This cupcake business is hard work. I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”

  “It’s a lot of fun when we’re all working together, cranking up the music, and singing in the kitchen,” Delaney explained. “And everything goes so much quicker when we form an assembly line.”

  “So you do need your club,” Sophie pointed out.

  Delaney considered. “Well, yeah, we’re a great team. But not when Kylie is being bossy.”

  “You mean when you’re being bossy—and not getting your way,” Sophie added. “Just sayin’.”

  “I wasn’t bossy…” Delaney considered. “Was I?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Sophie chuckled. “Big-time.”

  Delaney thought for a moment. “I guess I did kind of push Jenna around in the supermarket. And I did interrupt Kylie’s agenda at the meeting and tell everyone they had to pay for the ingredients for my cupcakes…”

  “Oh no, you didn’t!” Sophie gasped. “Laney, that’s awful!”

  “I know, I know,” she finally admitted. “And when Kylie tried to tell me that, I cut her off. I didn’t want to listen.”

  Sophie put an arm around her friend. “I think you know what you have to do,” she said. “My work here is done.”

  • • •

  After they put the finishing touches on several dozen cupcakes and Sophie went home, Delaney called Kylie to apologize.

  “How’s Herbie?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”

  “I thought you didn’t care,” Kylie replied.

  “I do care! I just cared about my campaign cupcakes maybe a little bit more? I’m sorry if I got carried away.”

  “Carried away? You were presidentially possessed!” Kylie insisted.

  “I forgot one of the ingredients—the cream cheese,” Delaney admitted. “So I subbed in yogurt, but the first batch was a total disaster!”

  “I bet,” Kylie said.

  “It had to be either Greek yogurt or baby food,” Delaney said. “I didn’t have a choice. But I found your recipe for honey yogurt cupcakes.”

  “Those are so good,” Kylie replied. “I was going to have the club bake them for the Greek folk festival in the spring.”

  “They are good, and if it wasn’t for your recipe, I would have no cupcakes at all,” Delaney continued. “I’m sorry, Kylie. I shouldn’t have been such a bossy pants.”

  “It’s okay. I forgive you,” Kylie said.

  “Good!” Delaney replied, relieved. “Now can I ask you a little favor?”

  Kylie knew exactly what her friend was going to say before she said it: “You still need help baking two hundred cupcakes for your debate.”

  “No, not exactly,” Delaney said. “I need help baking 152 cupcakes. Sophie and I got four dozen done before she had to go home and do her homework.”

  “We’ll be there tomorrow, no worries,” Kylie reassured her. “If we all pitch in, we’ll get it done.”

  “What about Winter Fest—and Herbie’s snow machine?” Delaney asked.

  “I think he’s got it under control now,” Kylie said. “At least I hope so. It was more of a Slush Fest than a Winter Fest.” Then she remembered how angry she had been—and what she had told Herbie to do.

  “Um, Laney, I kind of said Herbie could make your display. Don’t hate me!”

  “Hate you? That’s awesome!” Delaney said. “Can you just imagine how cool the fifth grade would think I was if I made a mountain of slush in the auditorium?”

  “I wish we could come see your debate Friday,” Kylie said. “But we have to set up for Winter Fest.”

  “I was thinking of live streaming it so thousands of viewers could tune in around the country,” Delaney said.

  “What?” Kylie gasped.

  “JK! Just kidding! Gotcha!” Delaney laughed. It was so easy to pull Kylie’s leg! “I’ll hurry over to Blakely to help as soon as I put Olivia in her place.”

  “Deal,” Kylie said. “Just remember to be your Zany Delaney self, okay? The one you posted on Instagram this morning. That’s who everyone loves. The crazy girl who dances around my kitchen with fruit on her head and always makes me laugh.”

  It took PLC the entire afternoon and well into the night to bake and decorate the campaign and Winter Fest cupcakes. Kylie kept them on a tight schedule, and Delaney boosted their morale whenever they complained.

  “My hand is getting tired from whipping these eggs,” Sadie groaned. “Can’t we just make eight hundred cupcakes and call it a night?”

  “Now watch me whip, whip. Now watch me bake, bake,” Delaney suddenly sang while she broke into a crazy dance, spinning like a top around the kitchen. She grabbed Sadie and gave her a twirl. The other girls joined in and somehow forgot how exhausted they were—and Kylie got it all on video.

  “I’m so posting this on our website,” she said. “Crazy cupcake bakers in action.”

  When all the cupcakes were finally finished and packed up, and the girls had all gone home, Delaney realized she didn’t have a lot of time left to prepare for the debate. She raced upstairs to her bedroom and settled in at her desk, where she began outlining each of her important issues on an index card: what the problem was and how she intended to solve it.

  She didn’t realize what time it was until her mom poked her head in to check on her. “It’s way past your bedtime, Laney,” she said. “You’ve been awfully busy in here. Everything okay?”

  Delaney nodded. “I’m just trying to make sure I know what to say when Olivia challenges me,” she explained. She handed her mom a card. “Here, you pretend you’re my political opponent and ask me where I stand on an issue.”

  Her mom sat down on the bed and read the card out loud. “Shortage of spoons in the cafeteria.”

  Delaney cleared her throat. “My fellow Weber Dayers, how many of you have had to eat your Jell-O with a fork? Or scoop your rice pudding with the edge of your knife? Why, I ask you? Why should we suffer with less-than-satisfactory silverware? Where are the spoons? Where are the spoons?”

  She smiled and bowed. “How was that?”

  “Impressive,” her mom said.

  “Okay, give me another.” She handed her mom a stack of cards. “Pick a really tough one.”

  “Madame Candidate, where do you stand on the issue of no talking in the library?”

  “Communication,” Delaney began. “It is the basis of our g
reat nation. It is the link that joins all of us together. It ends wars and keeps our relations with other foreign powers thriving. And yet in the library, Mrs. Lederman shushes us every time we even speak above a whisper! That is unfair and un-American! We need to communicate! Freedom of speech is one of our commandments!”

  “I think you mean amendments—as in the Constitution,” Mrs. Noonan said.

  “That too!”

  Her mom placed the cards on Delaney’s nightstand and pulled the blanket up to tuck her in. “No more politics for tonight,” she said, planting a kiss on Delaney’s forehead.

  “But what if I don’t win?” Delaney asked.

  “Then you don’t. It wouldn’t be the end of the world,” her mom said.

  “It would for me,” Delaney said. “I really want this bad.”

  “Then try your very best. That’s all you can do. And I’ll be proud of you whether you’re fifth-grade president or just an average citizen.”

  Delaney sighed. She could just picture Olivia rubbing it in her face: “I’m better than you! I’m president…and you’re not!”

  She drifted off to sleep and had a bad dream. She was standing in front of the entire auditorium at the debate, dressed like a giant cupcake.

  “Ha-ha!” Olivia snickered. “Zany Laney is so weird!” All her classmates—even Sophie—laughed and pointed at her.

  Mr. G was there as well, looking furious. “Delaney! Haven’t I taught you anything in history this year? You have to take things seriously!”

  “But I did!” she cried in her dream. “I prepared and I studied and I really gave a lot of thought to what the most important issues are.”

  Suddenly, a shower of tater tots poured down over her head. Herbie waved from the wings of the stage. His invention was a Tot-o-Matic!

  “That’s what you call an important issue?” Olivia cracked up. “OMG! You are so pathetic!”

  “I’m not! I wanna be president! I wanna be president!” Delaney shouted.

  She woke to her mom gently shaking her. “Honey, you were having a nightmare. It’s okay.”

  Delaney shook her head and wiped away her tears. “It’s not okay,” she insisted. “I just have to win the debate tomorrow. I just have to!”