Cupcake Club

by Sheryl Berk

  Now they were in fourth grade—and Ava was in middle school, probably computing Einstein-like equations there as well. If I were Lexi, Kylie thought, I’d be happy to be out of Ava’s shadow this year. But Lexi didn’t seem too thrilled. Ava was a really hard act to follow, and now everyone at Blakely was looking to Lexi to take her sister’s place. That was the last thing Lexi wanted. She preferred to remain invisible—even when she was really good at something.

  Lexi had gotten a perfect 100 percent on every spelling test. Yet when Principal Fontina told Lexi she had qualified to compete in the statewide spelling bee, she almost fainted. The very idea of standing in front of an audience and spelling words out loud…on TV, no less! She asked her mom to explain that her new braces were too tight and hurt too much for her to speak. No matter how much her parents and sister pleaded with her, Lexi refused to compete.

  Kylie felt bad for her, but Lexi’s shyness and art talent had given her a great idea.

  “Hey, Lexi,” she whispered, leaning over the top of her classmate’s easel. “Can I talk to you a sec?”

  Lexi didn’t look up. She just kept working intensely on her hydrangea painting. She didn’t even seem to notice that the ends of her long blond hair were dipped in the cup of sky-blue paint.

  “Lexi?” Kylie was persistent. “I have this baking club, and we could really use your artistic skills with our cake decorating.”

  Lexi didn’t answer.

  “Did you hear me?” Kylie spoke a little louder. “A baking club on Wednesdays after school.”

  Still no reply. So Kylie threw in, “We only have two members, me and Jenna Medina. So you don’t have to worry about a big crowd or anything.”

  Nada. Kylie took another piece of paper and drew a chocolate cake—or at least her attempt at a chocolate cake—with the word “please” on top in big, red bubble letters. She placed it on Lexi’s easel.

  “I know I’m a really bad artist,” Kylie said. “But that’s why I need your help! Please join our baking club!”

  This time, Lexi looked up. “A club?” she asked.

  “Yes, a baking club! It’ll be awesome!” She thought this was just what Lexi needed—a support system. Friends to stand by her so she wouldn’t be so shy and nervous all the time.

  Lexi thought for a moment—then nodded. Kylie wasn’t quite sure if that was a yes or a no, but she was hoping for the best. Two down, one more to go!

  Kylie dreaded gym class—mostly because she felt like she was the slowest, clumsiest person on her team. Honestly, she didn’t know where that came from. Her mom had been a tennis champ in high school, and her dad had been on the swim team and ran track. She couldn’t even walk sometimes without getting her feet tangled up. And there was just something about the pressure of competition. Even if she knew how to shoot a basket or hit a softball, when all eyes were on her, she inevitably did the wrong thing.

  Mr. Cangiano, the P.E. teacher, blew his whistle. “Give me twenty jumping jacks!” he shouted at the two fourth-grade classes gathered in the gymnasium. Kylie did her best, trying to jump high in the air and keep up with the count.

  “Miss Carson,” Mr. C. called. Oh no, thought Kylie, he knows my name! Teachers only knew your name if you were really good or really bad—and Kylie had a feeling she hadn’t wowed him with her physical abilities.

  “Let’s see a little more arm action!”

  Kylie waved her arms wildly in the air. “Like this?” She huffed and puffed.

  She heard giggling behind her. “I can demonstrate if you like,” Meredith offered. “My gymnastics coach makes me do one hundred jumping jacks to warm up for my meets.”

  “You think you can give us a hundred?” Mr. C. asked, scratching his head. He couldn’t figure out if Meredith was bluffing or not. “Okay, let’s see it.” Meredith shoved past Kylie and the class began to chant: “1-2-3-4-5…”

  Kylie couldn’t believe it. Meredith looked so effortless.

  “Show-off,” someone grumbled. Kylie turned around and saw it was Sadie Harris, looking bored. Sadie was tall—really tall—like a full head taller than most fourth graders, which made her the best basketball player in P.E. She could shoot better than any boy—even her two older brothers, one of whom was a high-school football star.

  The rumor (thanks to Meredith) was that Sadie was so tall because she was older than everyone in fourth grade. She should have been in fifth grade, but she was “held back.” Kylie didn’t know if that was true, but she did notice that Sadie struggled in class. When they were in third grade together, she sometimes she misread words or equations, and she worked with a special teacher in the library after school. Many of the kids teased Sadie and called her “Dummy” behind her back.

  “…98-99-100!” Meredith wasn’t even out of breath when she finished. She bowed to the crowd.

  “Very impressive, Miss Mitchell,” Mr. C. said, giving her a high five. “Now, kids, time to hit the hoops.”

  Kylie was on the blue team, and Jeremy Saperstone was the captain. Today they were pitted against the yellow team, headed by Sadie. Kylie saw Meredith pull on a yellow vest and give Sadie a nasty look. Meredith always wanted to be in charge.

  “Hey, Kylie.” Jeremy tapped her on the shoulder. “If you get the ball, just throw it to me, okay?”

  “Um, okay,” Kylie replied. Frankly, she hoped no one threw the ball in her direction at all. She wasn’t very good at dribbling either. Mr. C. was always blowing his whistle at her for traveling, which meant she walked or ran with the ball instead of bouncing it.

  When the clock started, Kylie found herself standing smack dab in the middle of a pack of running kids. She didn’t have the slightest idea which way she was supposed to go.

  “Over here! Over here!” Jeremy shouted. Kylie looked in his direction, then realized he wasn’t talking to her.

  “Move, Miss Carson!” called Mr. C. “Defense! Defense!” Kylie did her best to block the opposing team. But as she was running, she tripped and slid across the waxy wood floor, knocking Meredith down like a bowling pin.

  Meredith quickly got to her feet, her hands raised in two tight fists. But Mr. C. stepped in to referee: “Yellow, your ball.” He held it out to Meredith, and she grabbed it.

  For the rest of the game, Kylie tried to just stay out of the way. Sadie managed to sink almost every basket, and the yellow team was leading 10 points to 6.

  “Let’s get some baskets!” Jeremy said. But a boy on the yellow team already had the ball and was dribbling right for Kylie. She put her arms up in front of her face and hoped he wouldn’t run her over. Suddenly the ball slipped out of his fingers and landed at her feet.

  “Pick it up!” screamed Jeremy. “Throw it here! I’m open!”

  Kylie scooped up the ball and threw it with all her might at Jeremy. Instead it fell short, bouncing right off Meredith’s head and into Sadie’s hands.

  “Thanks for the ball!” Sadie called. “Nice throw!”

  Meredith was fuming. She stamped over to Kylie.

  “You did that on purpose!” she yelled. “You tried to hit me.”

  “I didn’t, honest,” said Kylie. “It was an accident!”

  Sadie sank the ball and the yellow team cheered. “At least your team got the point,” Kylie said, trying to calm Meredith down.

  “You’re a freak!” Meredith snapped and stormed back to her side of the court, where Team Yellow was celebrating its victory.

  Just what Kylie needed: another reason for Meredith to be mad at her. And her team wasn’t very happy either. Jeremy just shook his head and looked annoyed.

  At least Sadie was happy. She dribbled over to thank Kylie. “Sweet shot off Meredith’s big head,” she laughed. Kylie pictured Meredith’s face, beet red with anger, and had to laugh herself. It was a pretty sweet shot!

  Sweet! Kylie
had almost forgotten about her baking club. “Hey, Sadie, can I ask you something?”

  Sadie was still busy dribbling. “Yeah?”

  “I’m starting this baking club after school on Wednesdays, and I thought maybe you’d want to join. It’s going to be really cool.”

  Sadie stopped, held the ball under her arm, and scratched her curly brown hair with her free hand. “Um, what would I have to do for it?”

  “Nothing! We’re going to learn how to make cakes and cookies and stuff. It’ll be fun.”

  Sadie spun the ball on her fingertip. “I’m really not into stuff like that—you know baking and hair and makeup.”

  Kylie looked at what Sadie was wearing: a pair of sweatpants, a Mets shirt, and a pair of running sneakers. She got it: she had to convince Sadie that baking wasn’t just for girls.

  “Did you ever hear of The House of Wax?” she asked her.

  “Huh? No. What’s that?” Sadie replied.

  “Only one of the creepiest horror movies of all time. And The Pit and the Pendulum. Oh, and The Masque of the Red Death !”

  “Sounds cool.” Sadie stopped spinning her ball to listen.

  “Well, they all starred this amazing monster-movie actor, Vincent Price. He was actually the narrator in the ‘Thriller’ video too.” Kylie cleared her throat and did her best spooky-voice impression: “Darkness falls across the land…”

  Sadie’s eyes widened. “Oh yeah! I know that guy!”

  “Well, Vincent Price—besides being an incredibly scary dude and the King of Horror—happened to be a gourmet chef.”

  “No kidding?” Sadie said.

  “Seriously. He wrote a cookbook and everything.” For once, Kylie’s encyclopedic knowledge of monster movies was coming in handy.

  Sadie went back to dribbling the ball in and out of her legs, and Kylie thought for a moment she’d lost her. Then Sadie asked, “There’s like no test or anything to get into your club, right?”

  “No way! You don’t even have to know anything about baking.”

  Sadie took a shot from mid-court, and it landed with a swoosh right in the basket. “I guess it would be okay. I don’t really get to do much after school except practice basketball and work with tutors and stuff.”

  “Perfect! See you tomorrow! We’re meeting in the teachers’ lounge,” Kylie chirped. That was it—she had her four members! She couldn’t wait to tell Juliette and, even more, to start coming up with mouthwatering recipes for the club to bake. She was so happy that she forgot all about the P.E. disaster—and luckily Meredith had hip-hop club after school and wasn’t on her bus home to torture her.

  • • •

  When the bus dropped her off at home, Kylie practically floated through the door.

  “Well, someone’s in a great mood,” said her mom, as Kylie skipped around the living room. “Care to tell me why?”

  “You’re looking at the first president of the Blakely Elementary School baking club,” Kylie beamed.

  “Wow, that’s great, honey!” said her mom. “Were you elected?”

  “Sort of. More like chosen by my teacher. And I recruited all the members myself. First meeting is tomorrow after school.”

  “Well, good for you!” replied her mom, giving her a hug. “I’m very proud.”

  That night, after she finished her social studies and math homework, Kylie pored over her mom’s cookbooks, putting Post-its on dozens of recipes that seemed simply scrumptious: crème brûlée, tiramisu, pumpkin tart with anise-seed crust, frozen lemon gingersnap pie. Each one sounded more delicious than the one before it. She took a blank composition notebook out of her desk and wrote “Cupcake Club” with a purple Sharpie on the cover. It made her feel very official. On page 1 she made a list of her goals:

  1. Bake something new and yummy every week.

  2. Get kids at school to like me.

  3. Get Meredith to stop hating me.

  She thought for a second, chewing on her pencil eraser, then added:

  4. Make $ selling treats at a bake sale so I can buy a cool phone!

  She hadn’t started the club to make money, but why not? When she lived in Jupiter, she and her mom had always organized bake sales for her Brownie troop and sold pitchers of lemonade on their lawn in the summer. Her dad liked to say, “Smart business and money go hand in hand.” She supposed he was talking about his accounting clients, but why couldn’t she be a smart businesswoman too?

  Smart businesswomen needed to dress the part, so Kylie rummaged through her closet and dresser drawers, trying to find the perfect first-day baking-club outfit. She tried on a jean skirt and a navy sweater. Business-like but too boring, she thought. Then she remembered: the pink shirt her gram Bobbi had sent her for Valentine’s Day the year before. On it were a sparkly cupcake and the words “Life is Sweet!”

  At the time, Kylie had thought the shirt was a little babyish and she’d buried it in the bottom of her drawer. But now it seemed just perfect: bright, cheerful, and optimistic—and she loved the sweet message. She’d wear it with her best black pleated skirt, the one she wore to her cousin Zoe’s bat mitzvah, and a pair of cute black boots.

  Her mom poked her head in Kylie’s bedroom door and noticed the clothes scattered on her bed—as well as all over the floor.

  “Did a cyclone sweep through here?” her mom asked.

  “Just trying out outfits for my first baking-club meeting,” Kylie explained. “I’ll clean it up. Promise.”

  Her mom nodded. “I thought you might need something for your meeting.” She pulled a small wrapped present from behind her back.

  “For me? Thanks!” Kylie ripped off the wrapping paper. It was a tube of pearly lip gloss.

  “This is awesome!” she said, hugging her mom.

  “I was saving it for Chanukah—but I thought it was perfect for you now. The color is called Pink Frosting.”

  Kylie opened the tube and slicked some on her lips. She looked in her mirror and saw that it gave her smile a delicate pink shine. And it tasted like buttercream frosting!

  “Are you all ready for your big meeting?” her mom asked.

  “I think so,” Kylie replied. “I think I just need to borrow a few things.”

  Her mom raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean borrow?”

  Kylie went into the kitchen and began pulling stuff out of the utensil drawer. “Like this spatula—that would be great. Ooh! This cool whisk! We could use that for making meringue!” When she was finished, dozens of baking tools, a hand mixer, and a mini chopper were spread out on the kitchen counter. She wasn’t sure how much the school kitchen had—or what Juliette was bringing. So just to be sure…

  “Well, I guess with this big freelance writing project I have to work on, I won’t have much time for baking…or chopping,” her mom sighed. “Okay, you can borrow them. But honestly, Kylie, I think you’re better off starting small. One cake at a time?”

  “Don’t you and Daddy always tell me to dream big?”

  “Yes, we do. And you’ve definitely made a big mess of my kitchen and your bedroom.” She handed Kylie a wooden spoon. “Start packing it up, Madam President.”

  • • •

  Wednesday at school, Kylie could barely concentrate in class. All she could think about was the club meeting at 3:15 p.m. When Ms. Shottlan asked her to name the fiftieth state to join the Union, she accidentally blurted out, “Pineapple upside-down cake!” Her teacher looked puzzled as the class giggled.

  “I mean, Hawaii,” Kylie said, trying to cover. “You know, Hawaii has lots of pineapples? It’s kind of my trick for remembering it.” She hoped everyone was buying this lame explanation.

  “Okay,” Ms. Shottlan replied. “Hawaii, home of pineapples, is correct.”

  Science class went even worse. “What do plants co
ntain that makes them green?” asked Mr. Reidy.

  Kylie was busy daydreaming about whipping up the perfect buttercream frosting, stirring in the butter, the milk…

  “Kylie?” Mr. Reidy caught her off guard.

  “Sugar!” Kylie answered.

  The class roared with laughter—especially Meredith, whose hand shot up. “Ooh, I know! Mr. Reidy, I know! It’s chlorophyll.”

  Kylie tried to focus for the rest of the class, but she found herself watching the hands on the wall clock tick down to the last period bell. Finally, at exactly 3 p.m. it rang, and she raced back to her classroom closet to pull out two tote bags filled with baking tools and cookbooks. She dragged them down the hall to the teachers’ lounge and struggled to open the door with both hands full.

  “I’ve got it,” said Jenna, helping her inside. Kylie was thrilled to see her—and the other girls as well. They had all come, just as they promised. She rested her bags on the kitchen counter and heaved a sigh of relief.

  “I’m really glad you guys are here!” she said.

  Jenna peeked into the bags. “So what are we baking?”

  “Um, I have lots of ideas,” Kylie began.

  “Yeah, but what ingredients did you bring?” asked Sadie.

  “Ingredients?” Kylie couldn’t believe that with all her planning, she’d forgotten the most important thing of all: the stuff the club needed to actually bake!

  “Well, I thought we’d kind of talk about what we want to make—you know, plan it out?”

  Lexi shook her head—and Jenna dug into her backpack, pulling out a candy bar. “I thought the purpose of a baking club was to bake,” she said with a mouthful of caramel. “Lame.”

  “Seriously lame!” Sadie chimed in.

  Just then, Juliette walked in, and Kylie had never been so glad to see anyone in her life!