by Sheryl Berk
“Have a taste,” Juliette said. “I baked it myself from scratch. My grandma Gaga’s recipe. Now red velvet is my favorite.”
Kylie took a lick of the frosting, and it melted in her mouth. It had a hint of maple flavor that reminded her of her mom’s pancakes. Then she bit into the moist red cake; it was rich, chocolaty heaven.
“This is amazing!” Kylie said.
“Glad you think so. Because I have an idea, and I think you’re just the person to pull it off.”
Kylie licked the last bits of frosting from her fingertips. She’d practically inhaled the scrumptious cupcake. “Me?”
“You see, when I was being picked on, Gaga taught me how to bake. I would bring in delicious cakes and treats for my class. And guess what?”
“What?” asked Kylie.
“Pretty soon, everyone—even the mean kids who picked on me—were begging me to bake more for them.”
Kylie mulled it over. “So what you’re saying is, if I bake cupcakes, kids will like me?” It was a little hard to believe.
“I’m saying give it a try. I was thinking of starting a baking club after school. Will you help me? Recruit some kids for the first meeting next Wednesday? And you can be the first member—the president!”
Kylie liked the sound of that. “Um, okay,” she said. “I guess I could make some flyers and put them up.”
“Fabulous!” said Juliette. “I bet our club will be the most popular club in school in no time.”
Early Monday morning, Kylie woke up in a great mood. She danced around her bedroom, rocking out to the radio. The dream she’d had the night before about the baking club was amazing. She was wearing a white puffy chef’s hat and presenting a giant baby-shower cake shaped like a baby bottle to Ms. Valentine.
“Oh, Kylie! You shouldn’t have!” Ms. Valentine gushed in the dream. “This is the most beautiful cake I have ever seen!”
Everyone in the auditorium applauded and gave Kylie a standing ovation. She bowed and waved to her adoring fans. Wouldn’t that be nice? she thought as she skipped out of her room.
“What’s the rush today, Smiley Kylie?” her dad, Peter, teased. “You even beat me to the Cheerios box!”
Kylie gobbled up her breakfast, leaving just a few O’s swimming in her bowl. “Can you drive me to school today on your way to work, Dad?” she asked. “I want to get there super early. I have some posters to hang up.”
“Sure,” her father replied, checking his watch as he grabbed a banana from the fruit bowl. “But this ship sets sail in three minutes. Are you on board, matey?”
Kylie saluted. “Aye-aye, Captain Pete!” she giggled. Sometimes her dad treated her like a little girl instead of a fourth grader, calling her Smiley Kylie and still assuming she liked to play pirates like they did when she was five. But he made her laugh—especially when he limped out the front door, pretending to have a peg leg. She felt so happy and energized this morning that nothing—not even her dad singing, “Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of Snapple!” in the car on the way to school—could bother her.
After her dad dropped her at the school steps, she raced inside to post a bright yellow sign on the cafeteria bulletin board: “Baking Club Meets This Wednesday! Sign Up Now!” She’d made the poster herself, dotting each “I” with a sparkly cupcake sticker and including twenty lines for kids to write their names. The students were just beginning to file in, and Emily from her class peered over her shoulder.
“Do you want to join?” Kylie asked her hopefully.
“Well…” Emily began.
But Meredith jumped in. “What’s a baking club?” she said with a sniff. “I’m on the gymnastics team, in the hip-hop club, on the student council…” She turned to Emily. “Who has time for a lame baking club?”
“Yeah,” Emily reconsidered. “I’m pretty busy. Ballet three times a week.”
“Oh,” said Kylie. “Okay.” She couldn’t mask her disappointment. Emily had looked genuinely interested until Meredith butted in.
When Kylie checked back at recess, no one had signed up yet. At the end of the day, there was only one name on the poster: “Ivanna Throwup.” As Kylie was crossing out the nasty joke, a little girl walked up and stared at the poster.
“What’s your name?” asked Kylie.
“Brynn,” the girl said, shuffling her feet.
“Do you want to join?” Kylie practically begged.
“Um, I’m in kindergarten,” the girl replied.
“That’s okay!” said Kylie. “K-5 is welcome!”
“I can’t read. I don’t know what the sign says. I just liked the cupcake stickers.”
Kylie sighed, peeling off a chocolate one. “Here ya go,” she said. Brynn beamed and skipped off.
Kylie found Juliette in the drama classroom. “This is not working,” she complained, handing the stack of flyers to her teacher. “Nobody wants to join. Maybe baking was popular in Quebec, but it’s not in Connecticut. We should just forget the whole thing.”
“Hmm, very surprising,” Juliette replied.
“That no one would join?” Kylie asked.
“No,” said her teacher, “that you’re a quitter. I never thought you would be.”
“I am not a quitter!” Kylie protested. “It’s just…”
“It’s just that sometimes things don’t happen right away. Stick with it, and you’ll find kids who want to belong to a great club.”
“But everyone says they’re too busy,” Kylie explained.
“Maybe some kids are too busy.” Juliette handed Kylie back the flyers. “But some kids aren’t. All you need are four members, and Principal Fontina will let us use the kitchen in the teachers’ lounge to meet.”
“Okay, I’ll try again.”
“Good!” said Juliette. “I knew I wasn’t wrong about you.”
From then on, Kylie decided to take matters into her own hands. No more flyers or posters—she was going to personally ask all her classmates, one by one if she had to, and find members for the Blakely baking club. Together, they’d bake the most amazingly delicious treats, just like she had dreamed the night before. And not even Meredith could take that away from her.
Jenna Medina was sitting alone on a bench in the school yard while the fourth graders hung out at recess. She was heavier than most of the girls at Blakely—and she got teased about it all the time. Kylie had overheard girls in the bathroom making fun of Jenna. They called her Thunder Thighs, Bubble Butt, even Jenna-normous.
Kylie was very impressed that Jenna ignored the name-calling, held her head high, and walked right past the girls as if they weren’t there. She didn’t get angry or burst into tears, and she didn’t apologize for looking different. She was a bigger person, and she was going to act like the bigger person, no matter how mean the kids acted toward her.
Beyond appearances, Kylie didn’t know much about Jenna, except that she came from a family of five kids who lived in a small house on the edge of town. She’d heard her mom mention that after she came home from a PTA meeting: “That Mrs. Medina seems like a nice person, but she has an awful lot on her plate. Five kids to raise alone!”
When Kylie asked where Jenna’s father was, her mom had shrugged. “She didn’t really say—but I hear he just took off and left one day. It’s really sad.” Her mom also told Kylie that Jenna had two older sisters and twin younger brothers—which put her smack in the middle.
Kylie suspected the Medinas didn’t have a lot of money: Jenna’s clothes always looked worn out and a little baggy on her—probably hand-me-downs from her big sisters, who were already in middle school. Nonetheless, Jenna seemed okay with it.
When Kylie approached Jenna in the yard, she was eating a six-pack of Oreo cookies. She had cookie crumbs all over her jacket and in the corners of her mouth. It was a good thing she wore her long br
own hair in a braid, thought Kylie, or she would’ve had a cookie-crumb ’do too!
“Hi, I’m Kylie,” she said. “Can I sit down?”
Jenna inched over on the bench, making a spot for her.
“Um, you like cookies?” Kylie began.
Jenna looked puzzled. “Are you making fun of me?” she asked.
“No! I would never do that to anyone. I hate when people make fun of me,” Kylie protested.
Jenna nodded. “Oh yeah—they call you Freak, right?” she said. “That’s probably worse than Fatty.”
Kylie’s cheeks flushed. Had Meredith gotten to everyone in the school? She was humiliated, which is why Jenna quickly added, “Maybe you should buy Meredith Mitchell a dictionary or something—so she can come up with some new names to call you. Freak’s getting pretty old, don’t you think?”
She paused…and smiled mischievously. “Oh, wait! That won’t work. Meredith has to be able to read to use a dictionary!”
Kylie laughed. So Jenna didn’t think she was a freak after all. In fact, she was taking Kylie’s side and trying to make her feel better.
“Thanks,” she said. “Not a lot of kids would be brave enough to say anything against Meredith.”
“She doesn’t scare me,” Jenna said. “If she gets too mean…well, I’ll just smush her like a bug.” She stamped her feet for emphasis, and the entire bench shook. Kylie inched a little farther away, but then Jenna smiled and handed her a cookie. “Relax! I don’t really mean it!”
Jenna was tough on the outside, that’s for sure. But Kylie suspected that deep down inside she was really a softie. Kind of like an Oreo cookie sandwich with a sweet, creamy filling.
“How do you do it?” Kylie asked.
“Do what?”
“Just not let them get to you. I try, believe me. But sometimes—”
“You want to just tell the world to leave you alone and…bug off?” Jenna swatted at a fly trying to get near her Oreos.
“Exactly! But if I do, Meredith always twists it. She’s much better at this mean-girl thing than I am.”
“My advice: don’t sink to her level,” Jenna replied. “That’s what my big sister Gabby always tells me. That’s how bullies work—they want you to see you crumble. Meredith just wants to make you mad or scared, and when you are…well, you embarrass yourself in front of everyone. Why let her win?”
“Because she does make me mad and scared. I’m really bad at hiding it.”
“Hmmm. Okay, call me something really mean,” Jenna volunteered.
“Huh? You want me to make fun of you?”
“Yup. Take your best shot. And make it original—I am all about originality. Jack actually called me grande in Spanish class yesterday, and I was really impressed. You get extra points if you insult me in another language.”
Kylie bit her lip. She didn’t want to hurt Jenna’s feelings.
“I mean it. Let me have it: Fatso, Chubby-Wubby, Big Stuff…”
Kylie winced. “Oh no! I just can’t.”
“I won’t be upset, I promise. This is practice for how to deal with Meredith. Go!” Jenna elbowed her in the ribs.
Kylie closed her eyes and tried to think of something mean to call Jenna. “Cream puff!” she shouted.
Jenna cracked up. “Cream puff? Seriously? Is that supposed to be insulting? I love cream puffs!”
“I’m sorry,” Kylie apologized. “I have baking club on the brain. It was the only thing I could think of!”
“Okay, I’ll pretend it’s mean. Try again.”
Kylie repeated, “Cream puff!” and watched Jenna’s expression change. Her mouth transformed from a smile into a hard, straight line. Her face became cold, stony, and unbreakable. Kylie gulped. It was pretty scary!
“You see? That’s how you do it. The next time Meredith tosses one at you, you give her that face. She won’t know what hit her—and I guarantee it will shut her up. At least long enough for you to walk away.”
Kylie nodded. “Thanks. I can’t do that face as well as you, but I’ll try.” Then she remembered why she had approached Jenna in the first place. “Do you want to join my baking club?” Kylie asked.
Jenna took another bite of cookie. “Maybe,” she replied. “I do like my mom’s baking. She makes the most awesome dulce de leche cake!”
Kylie handed her a flyer. “I promise you won’t be sorry!” she practically begged. “It will be really fun.”
“Hey, if we make devil’s food cake, we can ask Meredith to join us,” Jenna joked. “Get it? Devil’s food?”
Kylie laughed. “I get it. You crack me up, Jenna.”
“I try,” she replied. “And I’ll try to make it to your baking club meeting tomorrow.”
Score! Kylie felt like jumping up and down, but she kept her excitement to herself in case anyone was watching. She had her very first member! With just one day to go before the first meeting, she needed to recruit two more.
In art class the next period, the baking club was all Kylie could think about—which is why when Ms. Bayder asked the class to do a still life, Kylie painted a giant chocolate-chip cookie.
“That’s, uh, interesting, Kylie,” Ms. Bayder said, eyeing her work. It looked like a big yellow blob with brown polka dots.
Then her teacher walked to the easel behind Kylie’s and gasped. “Lexi! What an amazing work of art!”
Kylie looked up from the brown dots on her canvas to see Ms. Bayder holding up a flawless painting of blue hydrangeas in a vase. They looked so real that Kylie could almost smell the flowers in bloom. Then Kylie focused on Lexi Poole and realized she was mortified. Lexi looked as white as a ghost. When Ms. Bayder finally put Lexi’s painting down, the panic left the girl’s face and she went back to work.
Poor Lexi. She was shy and just hated to be the center of attention. Kylie had seen her panic so many times in art class or when Ms. Shottlan called on her. In early October Ms. Shottlan had asked Lexi to give a book report in front of the class. All Lexi could do was sputter out the title of the book, The Lightning Thief, before she turned green, clutched her stomach, and hurled. It was pretty gross, but Kylie still felt sorry for her. Lexi had spent the rest of the day in the nurse’s office recovering.
For her expert presentation, Lexi had passed out twenty copies of a report—complete with color photos—she had written on Impressionist art. Ms. Shottlan scratched her head. “This is very uh, impressive, Lexi, but can you please stand in front of the class and share with us?”
Lexi had thought of that—and she had a plan that required minimal speaking, minimal embarrassment. She rested a large canvas on the Smart Board ledge. A hush fell over the room. It was a breathtaking watercolor of a lake filled with water lilies peeking out from behind a curtain of weeping willow trees. It kind of reminded Kylie of Lexi—like the water lilies, she liked to stay hidden away.
Lexi cleared her throat and said quietly, “My favorite paintings are Claude Monet’s water lilies. This is how I would paint them.” Then she took her seat.
Ms. Shottlan nodded. “That was short, sweet, and to the point, but your art speaks for itself. Just gorgeous, Lexi. Why doesn’t everyone take a few moments to read her report and then we’ll discuss it.”
Lexi’s cheeks flushed—especially when she caught Kylie staring at her. Kylie looked away. She didn’t want Lexi to have another throw-up incident on her account. Instead she looked at the painting. It was truly beautiful—especially the rays of sunlight dancing on the lake’s surface. Lexi was super-talented. If I could paint like that, Kylie thought, I’d tell everyone. I’d paint a billboard!
But she understood a little why Lexi chose not to brag. Most geniuses are loners—like Dr. Frankenstein when he was building his monster or Dr. Jekyll when he was perfecting his potion. Brilliance never likes company. Then again,
all those people were also pretty crazy. She hoped Lexi wasn’t a horror movie fan too. Kylie wouldn’t want her to get any ideas!
“Meredith? Do you have a comment about Lexi’s report?” Ms. Shottlan asked suddenly.
“Um, sure. It’s great.” Meredith smiled sweetly. “I bet her portraits are even more beautiful.”
Kylie had always wondered why Meredith didn’t pick on Lexi too. Then she spotted the picture taped inside Meredith’s loose-leaf binder. Meredith had asked (well, actually commanded) Lexi to draw her in a pink, flowing evening gown on a red carpet accepting an Academy Award. When Lexi handed Meredith a portrait in colored pencils, she loved it—so she was leaving Lexi alone for the time being. Lexi might not have had any enemies, but her shyness made it impossible for her to make friends.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, her big sister was legendary at Blakely. Ava Poole had been captain of the math team and had an entire shelf of trophies dedicated to her in the library. At graduation the year before, Ava, of course, was chosen to give the “Moving Up” speech in front of the entire school in the auditorium. She explained how school was like a math equation: all the years at Blakely added up to the perfect sum of what you need to go to middle school.
Her speech was pretty clever, Kylie recalled, but it could have used a little more excitement. Maybe a few sound effects? She’d looked around and noticed that some of the kids were falling asleep in their seats.
But the teachers had loved it—they gave Ava a standing ovation. Principal Fontina gushed, “What will we do without you?”
Then Kylie had caught a glimpse of Lexi in one of the last rows. She didn’t look proud or happy for her sister. She looked nervous—as if her sibling’s speech might somehow cast a spotlight on her.
At the end of presentation of diplomas, everyone had rushed the stage to congratulate the graduates. Kylie didn’t know many of the fifth graders and had to go to the bathroom badly. That was where she recognized a pair of Keds sneakers, elaborately colored with markers, poking out from under a stall door. It was positively Lexi. Kylie thought about saying something—then reconsidered. If Lexi had wanted someone to talk to, she wouldn’t have hidden in the bathroom.