by Coco Simon
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not sure if I’m allowed.”
George turned and yelled to Emily, “Hey, text your dad and see if you can come to the park with us!” Emily looked surprised at first, but then she quickly got out her phone.
George grinned at me. “See how easy that was? Now are you coming or not?”
“Let me see,” I said. I quickly texted my mom.
It’s okay with me if Jeff says that Emily can go, she texted back.
Then Emily ran up to us. “My dad says it’s okay if Katie’s mom says it’s okay.”
“That’s what she said!” I told her. “I mean, just reversed. So I guess we can go.”
I texted Mom again, and she said she would pick us up at the park on her way home from work.
“We’re good,” I told George.
“Cool,” he said. “Chris is going to grab a basketball from his house and then meet us there.”
The park where everyone likes to play basketball is just a few blocks away from the school, so we walked. Besides me, George, Mia, and Emily, a bunch of kids started walking with us. That usually happened when people decided to go to the park. My friends Lucy and Sophie came with us, and Ken and Aziz, and Eddie Rossi, who’s the tallest kid in our grade. He’s good at basketball, which I guess is lucky, because everyone somehow expects you to be good at basketball when you’re tall.
When we got to the park, Chris was already there, bouncing the ball on the court and shooting hoops. When he saw Mia, he smiled really big. I swore the sun glinted off his braces, almost blinding us. I wasn’t being mean; those things were just really shiny.
“Okay, let’s pick teams,” George said, and then my stomach sank. I had been so psyched about going to the park with George and everybody that I forgot actually playing basketball was involved.
Here’s the thing: I am just not great at most sports. It’s not like I haven’t tried. I even went out for the softball team once and made it. I guess I’m not very competitive, and I get really nervous and stuff. So then I started running, which I am good at. I’m pretty fast. And I was happy with that.
But when we played games in gym, it was a problem. I always got picked last for a team. In volleyball, I covered my face with my hands when the ball came toward me. And when we played basketball, I didn’t think I’d ever made a basket during a game once. Maybe that was because no one ever passed me the ball. But still . . . it was embarrassing.
While I was worrying about all this, George and Chris picked the teams.
“Okay, so, Katie, you’re with me, Emily, Eddie, and Sophie,” George said.
I snapped out of my mental vacation. “Aw, Mia’s not on our team?”
“Chris picked her first,” George said with a wink. He knew Chris and Mia liked each other. I guess everybody in our middle school did.
Then it hit me—did everybody in school know about me and George, too? They had to. But before I could feel weird about that, we started playing.
Here was what I did in the basketball game: I ran around with my hands in front of me in case somebody threw me the ball. It wasn’t very effective.
“Katie, cover Mia!” George yelled. Good. I needed direction. I ran over to Mia and started hovering in front of her with my hands up in the air.
“I feel like a nervous gorilla!” I cried.
But I guess my nervous gorilla thing worked, because when Chris tried to pass the ball to Mia, she couldn’t reach past me to get it. George recovered the ball, and then, to my surprise, he passed it to me. I caught it and hugged it to my body.
“Shoot it, Katie!” he yelled.
I was right by the basket, so I guessed he’d figured I had a good shot. I aimed and threw the ball—and it bounced off the rim and back onto the court.
“Nice try!” George called out.
Emily got to the ball first. She aimed, shot, and swoosh! Two points.
George ran up and high-fived her. “Good one!”
She just got lucky, I thought. I mean, no way Emily could possibly be good at basketball, too. She was the youngest and shortest one playing. Then again, her dad was the basketball coach. Maybe she just had an unfair advantage.
But then, a few minutes later, Chris tossed a pass to Eddie, and even though he’s twice as tall as Emily, she jumped up and caught it before he could. Then she quickly made another shot. This one hit the backboard and went right into the net.
“Go, Emily! You’re on fire!” George yelled.
After that, George and Sophie started passing the ball to Emily a lot. I didn’t even get a chance to make another basket, but that was probably because I’d stopped trying. I was moping around the court, keeping my arms folded across my chest most of the time. Everyone else was laughing and having fun, but I’d shut off that part of my brain.
All I could think was, Why does Emily have to be great at basketball, too? And why does George have to think she’s so great?
When the game was over, our team won. George high-fived Emily again. “You should go pro! You are the team MVP!”
Emily looked really happy, but I was feeling the exact opposite. That’s when I had my second freak-out of the day—well, sort of. While everyone was talking and laughing, I walked off and sat under a tree by myself.
Maybe I am becoming a drama queen, I thought, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t control how I was feeling.
George came over and sat down next to me. “Why so sad? We won!”
“Yeah, thanks to Emily,” I muttered, poking a twig into the dirt.
“She’s pretty awesome,” he said. “I guess it’s lucky that Mr. Green’s daughter didn’t turn out to be a jerk, right?”
“It’s worse!” I blurted out. “She’s perfect! Everyone thinks so. My mom. Everyone in the Cupcake Club. Even you.” I felt kind of silly saying that out loud, but it felt good to get it out, too.
“Nobody’s perfect,” George said.
“Emily is,” I said. “She’s good at art, which is why Mia likes her. And she’s a way better basketball player than I am.”
“Everyone’s a better basketball player than you are,” George teased, and I gave him a light punch in the arm.
“Gee, thanks,” I said, moping.
“Do you really think I care about who’s a good basketball player?” George asked. “I was being extra nice to her because she’s, like, your little sister now or something. That’s what you do with your friends’ brothers and sisters. Like that day my little brothers came with us to the park. You pushed them on the swings and everything. That was nice.”
George was making a lot of sense. I always made sure to be nice to his little twin brothers. (Especially since I accidentally insulted them the first time I met them, but that’s another story.) And I was always extra nice to Emma’s little brother, Jake, even when he was kind of annoying. I did it because I loved Emma. And he was pretty cute, too.
“That’s probably what your friends are doing with Emily,” George pointed out. “Maybe even your mom, too. She wants to be nice to Emily because she’s in love with Mr. Green. Or should I say . . . Jeffie!” He spoke in a high-pitched squeal, imitating, I guessed, what he imagined a girl in love would sound like.
“Ew! They are not in love!” I yelled, but I knew that might be a lie. They were spending an awful lot of time together, and Mom always looked superhappy around him. George paused for a moment, as if he were choosing his next words very carefully. And when he looked at me again, he looked at me shyly, then he looked down.
“And, anyway, you are so awesome in so many ways,” he said, looking at the ground. “It would be very hard for Emily to be more awesome than you. In my opinion, anyway.”
I knew I was blushing. It was nice to get a compliment from George. Plus, he had given me something to think about.
“Thanks,” I said. “I, um . . . You’re awesome too. I think that.” (Did I sound ridiculous or what?)
George grinned. “Yeah, a lot of people tell me that.”
“Except when you do puppets,” I teased.
George shook his head sadly. “You do not appreciate Mr. Cheddar.”
Then I heard a car horn and looked up—Mom was there.
“See you tomorrow,” I said, and then I ran off and said good-bye to everybody else. Emily and I got in the car.
“Did you guys have fun?” Mom asked.
“Yes,” Emily answered. “Katie’s friends are nice.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Your dad is running late, so I thought I’d order us all some Chinese food,” Mom said. “I’ll order from Panda Gardens.”
“You can order from Golden Palace,” I told her.
Mom looked at me. “Really?”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s get some Chicken Amazing.”
I turned around and grinned at Emily in the backseat. Emily smiled back at me, and that made me feel kind of good. I’m not saying that talking to George had magically cured all my bad feelings.
But it was a start.
CHAPTER 13
Finally!
Emily came home with me from school one more day that week. The next time, I stayed downstairs and did my homework with her. Emily actually had a question about one of her math problems for me, and I was able to help her.
You should have seen the smile on my mom’s face when she came home.
“It’s so nice to see you two girls working together,” she gushed, and she was so cheerful that I almost wished I had gone up to my room. I mean, sheesh! Why did she have to make such a big deal about everything?
When Jeff came to pick Emily up, he had some news.
“I’ll be able to take Emily home tomorrow,” he said. “And by Friday, her mom will be back.”
Emily’s face lit up. “Really? When is she flying in?”
“In the morning,” Jeff told her. “And she said she’ll pick you up from school. She’s missed you.”
“I miss her, too,” Emily said.
Until then, it hadn’t even occurred to me that Emily might be feeling sad about being away from her mom. I didn’t know what that was like. My dad was never part of my life, so I didn’t have to shuttle back and forth between two parents, like Emily and Mia did. Mia said you get used to it, but still, it had to be hard, right?
Then Emily turned to me. “Thanks for your help, Katie,” she said, and I could see that Mom was totally beaming at Jeff, like Look! Isn’t that sweet? Once again, sheesh!
And even though I was getting over the whole being jealous of Emily thing, I was relieved her mom was back. For one thing, that meant she wouldn’t be at our Friday night baking session.
It was going to be a mammoth one, because we had to bake ten dozen cupcakes for the talent show on Saturday night. Alexis said we could bake at her house, since her kitchen has a big island in it that gives us lots of room for making batter and filling up pans. We needed to get an early start, so we were all going to Alexis’s house after school.
Mom and I had shopped for the ingredients the night before and then dropped them off, along with extra cupcake tins and two-toned cupcake inserts. We also needed two dozen eggs, extra flour, butter, and sugar, and we were out of vanilla again. Mia took care of getting the fondant and the tiny star-shaped cutters.
“So I’ve worked out a strategy,” Alexis said, once we were gathered in her kitchen. “Let’s all start on batter and filling the baking cups. Once everything’s in the oven or ready to go into the oven, Katie and I can do icing while Emma and Mia cut out the stars. Sound good?”
“How about Mia and I do the lemon batter and you guys do the vanilla batter?” I asked.
“Sounds like a plan,” Emma said. “I brought over my stand mixer so we can whip up two batters at once.”
Emma has this amazing pink stand mixer that she saved up for. It’s very cool. If they still made one in purple, I would probably buy the same one.
So we got to work, cracking eggs and measuring flour and squeezing lemons. Alexis said, “It’s too bad Emily’s not here with us. We could use some extra hands tonight.”
You might be thinking that I freaked out again when she said this. Well, I almost did. And I saw Mia look at me like Uh-oh. But I remembered what George had said, and I stayed calm. In fact, I did something that I should have done before—I talked to my friends about how I was feeling.
“Um, listen,” I said. “You guys could probably tell, but this whole Emily thing is kind of weirding me out.”
Mia nodded. “I thought so, but you weren’t saying anything, so I wasn’t sure.”
“It’s just—” I put down the measuring spoons I was holding. “I like Emily. She’s nice. There’s nothing wrong with her. But it’s, like, now she’s in every single part of my life. I’m just not used to it.”
Alexis nodded. “I can understand that. I mean, Dylan’s been my older sister my whole life, so I’m used to her. But if she suddenly showed up now and started bossing me around and criticizing my clothing, I’d be like, who is this?”
“Exactly!” I said. “And, Mia, I know you had to get used to Dan, but I mean, it’s not like he hangs out with us or comes to Cupcake meetings. But Emily—it’s like everybody expects me to do everything with her. Especially my mom. If Emily was really my sister, I’d have had ten years to get used to her being around. It’s like my mom wants me to feel like I’ve known her for ten years in only one week. And she’s always around. Like, always.”
“Your mom is probably being extra nice to Emily because she likes Mr. Green,” Emma said.
“That’s what George said!” I practically yelled. “And then—well, I was kind of jealous of the way you guys liked her so much.”
“Oh my gosh, are you serious?” Mia asked. She spun around to stare me, and she twirled so fast, she forgot that in one hand she was holding the open flour container, and a cloud of flour filled the air.
I laughed. “Yes, I’m serious. She’s so good at art and everything, just like you.”
“So you thought I liked her better than you?” Mia asked. “Katie, duh! You’re my best friend!”
I was kind of embarrassed about how silly I felt. I mean, Mia was right. We were best friends. Why had I even worried that Emily would come between us?
“And by the way, Emily is probably not perfect,” said Mia. “Look, I kind of know what you’re going through. There are things about Dan that drive me crazy, as you know. Like how he loves to blare heavy metal music in his room—usually when I’m trying to study. But all in all, he’s a pretty great brother. And the same goes for Emily. Just think of what she might have been like. She could have been mean, she could have been nasty. She could have been like Olivia Allen!”
I shuddered, suddenly realizing how lucky I was and how awful my life could have been.
“Well, I was just being extra nice to Emily because she’s Mr. Green’s daughter, and she’s, like, connected to you now,” Alexis said. “I would always be nice to someone who you were friends with or related to. Not that you are related yet or anything.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I finally figured that out. But it shouldn’t even matter why you’re being nice to her. I mean, you guys can be nice to whoever you want.”
“But if you don’t want Emily to come to any more Cupcake meetings, we understand,” Emma said. “Trust me. I love my brothers, but I like having time away from them. So I get how you feel. We won’t invite her anymore.”
I thought about that. “I’m not sure she can’t come to any meetings,” I said. “I mean, she is really good at decorating and stuff. But I don’t think I want her here all the time, you know? Maybe just once in a while.”
“What about tomorrow night?” Mia asked. “We really could use some help selling cupcakes. I have a feeling it’s going to get crazy.”
I nodded. “That makes sense. I’ll text her.”
I wiped my hands on a towel and texted Emily.
Can u help us sell cupcakes 2morrow night at the show?
She tex
ted me back right away.
I just asked my mom and she said yes! Thanks!
I looked at Alexis. “Do we have any extra Cupcake T-shirts?” I asked. Mia had designed a logo for us that said THE CUPCAKE CLUB, and we had them put on T-shirts. They were really cute, and we wore them to different events.
Alexis nodded. “It was cheaper to order a large quantity, so I have extras.”
“Can Emily have one?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “Everyone who sells cupcakes should wear one. And we should also discuss giving Emily a portion of our profits tomorrow.”
Whenever we do an event, some of the money goes into a fund to buy supplies, some of it goes into savings, and the rest of it gets divided between the four of us.
“It shouldn’t be a full share since she’s not baking,” Alexis said. “How about I give her half of my share, since I’m not selling?”
“That sounds good to me,” I said, and Emma and Mia nodded in agreement.
I quickly texted Emily.
You will get a T-shirt and we will pay you too.
And she texted back:
“She really is pretty nice,” I said. “I guess if I am going to have a little sister, she’s not so bad. I just don’t know if I’ll ever get used to things. I mean, it’s always just been me and my mom. Everything’s different. It’s like I’m starting my whole life from scratch.”
“Well, you know, stuff that’s made from scratch is much better than stuff that comes from a box,” Alexis pointed out. “That’s why we don’t make cupcakes from a mix.”
“Speaking of cupcakes, we’d better get baking,” I said, stifling a yawn. “I know it’s early now, but I don’t want to be up all night doing this.”
It didn’t end up taking us all night, but it did take a long time, especially since we were doing the two-toned cupcakes. We had to pour one batter into the mold at a time, move the mold again, and pour again. Then we had to mix up more batter. We had a real assembly line going. By the time we had the last cupcake pan in the oven, we had been baking for three hours.