Mia the Way the Cupcake Crumbles

by Coco Simon

  I shook my head. “I haven’t had a chance yet.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Alexis said. “Who wouldn’t like you?”

  “Sebastian!” Emma wailed. “Mia, can you please ask him?”

  “As soon as I can, I promise,” I told Emma. Now there was more pressure than ever on me to perform this awkward task. And what if Sebastian didn’t like her back? How would I break that news to Emma?

  Luck, don’t fail me now! I thought.

  CHAPTER 9

  Sebastian’s Story

  Mia! Why don’t I hear you moving around up there?”

  I slowly opened my eyes. Was that Mom calling me? Why hadn’t my alarm gone off? I looked at my clock: 7:00. I was supposed to be up fifteen minutes ago!

  “I’m awake!” I called out, and my voice sounded like a frog with a bad cold. I was far from awake, but I had to get moving.

  As I quickly showered, I thought back to the night before. After dinner, I had done my homework and then sketched an idea for a new fall coat that had suddenly popped into my mind. Then I’d fallen asleep . . . without setting the alarm. I had been waking up without it for so long that maybe somewhere, deep in my mind, I had thought I didn’t need it.

  Then I had a scary thought. What if my bad luck was coming back? Then I remembered the day I had missed my bus, and it had turned into a good thing. So maybe me waking up late was supposed to happen, in a weird way. Maybe that would turn into a good thing too.

  At least, that was what I hoped as I got ready for my morning. My blow-dryer didn’t break, but I still had to pull my hair back into a ponytail because I didn’t have time to make it look perfect.

  Downstairs, Mom didn’t bug me about being late, but I could tell she was annoyed.

  “Just grab some cereal, Mia,” Mom told me. “Eddie had to go in to work early, and I’m scrambling to meet a deadline for a client today.”

  I wasn’t in the mood for cereal, so I put a piece of bread in the toaster and then went to find a sweater to wear with my red pleated skirt and white shirt, because I could tell it was chilly outside. (Oh, I forgot to mention—Mom had the lenses put into my new glasses, so I could wear colors again that didn’t clash with my fuchsia frames.) I chose a black sweater, which was a pretty bold choice with the red and white, but with no time to spare, a bold move was my only option.

  When I went to retrieve my toast, it was as black as my sweater. I mumbled complaints under my breath as I scraped the black stuff off into the sink and then buttered the toast. It did that thing when all the little black bits just stuck to the butter. It did not look very appetizing, but I was hungry, so I wolfed it down.

  I barely had time to brush the burned toast off my teeth before I had to rush out to make the bus. I got to the stop just in time, puffing and panting.

  I must have still looked sweaty or cranky or something when Katie got on the bus, because she raised her eyebrows when she saw me.

  “Bad morning?” she asked.

  “How can you tell?” I replied.

  “Because you’re not your usually smiley self,” she explained.

  I sighed. “It’s not getting off to a great start. But I am not giving up hope. All this is happening for a reason. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

  To my surprise, Katie frowned. “I don’t like when people say things happen for a reason. Maybe some things do, but not everything. Like, I wouldn’t say that to somebody who lost their house in a flood, or got really sick. That just doesn’t seem fair. I think maybe sometimes bad things happen, and sometimes good things happen.”

  “Whoa, Katie, that is way too deep for this early in the morning,” I teased, but I had an idea she might be on to something. But I was still cranky and sleepy, so I closed my eyes.

  “Are you meditating?” Katie asked.

  “No, sleeping!” I replied with a yawn.

  I was still groggy when I got to school, and after homeroom when I went to open my locker, it was stuck! I had to ask Mr. Gregory, one of the janitors, to get it unstuck for me, and I was five minutes late to math class.

  After math I had gym, and I was totally off my game. Not only did I not make a basket, I tripped over my shoelaces and almost fell flat on my face! At lunchtime, I was slightly disappointed to see that my lunch was ham and cheese on white bread—which meant that Mom made it, because Eddie always remembers that I don’t like ham.

  Where is your luck today? asked Worried Mia.

  Hey, there’s nothing unlucky about a ham sandwich, I told her. I’m lucky I have lunch!

  Remembering that made me feel a little better, until I got to Mrs. Kratzer’s class. Things started off bad, and then got worse.

  “Thanks to that darned tooth, I got behind on my grading,” she told us when class started. “Here are your grades from your last pop quiz.”

  She passed out the papers to us, and there it was, right in my face: a D+! I am not usually the kind of student who gets failing grades. But there it was.

  And that’s when it got worse.

  “Some of you had trouble with that last quiz, so today I’m giving you another pop quiz!” she said with a happy grin. “Since I know you’ve all kept up on your reading, it should give you a chance to improve your grade.”

  This time I didn’t bother to complain. I knew that she was sending a message to all of us who hadn’t done our reading (or was it just me?), but I deserved it. I had done everything possible to avoid doing my reading, and now my mistake was coming back to haunt me.

  This is definitely bad luck! I thought, but Practical Mia had a different idea.

  This isn’t bad luck. This is your own fault, she reminded me, but I pushed that thought aside. It was much easier to blame bad luck than myself.

  So Mrs. Kratzer passed out the quiz, which was about more Chinese emperors who I hadn’t read about, so I guessed a lot and hoped that my guesses would add up to more than a D+ this time. But I didn’t have very high hopes about that.

  I was relieved when class ended, but then my locker got stuck again and I had to ask the janitor for help—again.

  “Not sure why it keeps getting stuck,” he said. “Just one of those freak things, I guess. No explanation.”

  “Just bad luck,” I said, and to my surprise, he nodded.

  “Nothing worse than bad luck,” he said. “That’s why I always carry my lucky rabbit’s foot.” He jangled the key chain around his waist, and I saw a white, fluffy thing dangling there.

  “Is this real?” I asked.

  “No, they only make fake ones these days,” he told me. “Otherwise, that would be pretty unlucky for the rabbit, wouldn’t it?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  I was still thinking about bad luck when Katie and I got on the bus. I took my lucky penny out of the special pocket in my backpack.

  “Does the luck in good luck charms run out?” I asked Katie.

  Katie looked thoughtful. “Maybe,” she said slowly. “But I guess you can’t know for sure, can you? I mean, I think your lucky bracelet is special, because it came from your family. But maybe the luck in a penny doesn’t last very long. We could look it up. Why?”

  “Well, after I got the azabache, I had some really great days, all in a row,” I said. “And then today, I woke up late because I forgot to set my alarm, and I burned my toast, and my locker got stuck twice, and Mrs. Kratzer gave us a pop quiz! Today was full of bad luck.”

  Katie looked thoughtful again. “It doesn’t sound so bad. I mean, it sounds like a lot of normal stuff, right? Like, yesterday I slipped in a wet spot in the hallway, and I burned my tongue on soup, but I didn’t think it was bad luck. It was just stuff that happened.”

  “I don’t know. . . . That kind of sounds like bad luck to me,” I said.

  Katie shrugged. “I guess it’s all how you look at it. You know, sometimes that’s how the cupcake crumbles.”

  “Wait, isn’t that what old people say? But I thought it was ‘how the cookie crumbles’?” I as
ked.

  “That’s what Grandma Carole always says, but I changed ‘cookie’ to ‘cupcake,’ ” Katie replied. “It’s more fun that way. And, anyway, it just means that sometimes that’s just how it is.”

  “I guess,” I said. “You’re right. Maybe today wasn’t a bad luck day after all.”

  That’s what I said out loud. But inside, I was still thinking about bad luck. After I got off the bus, I kept my eyes on the sidewalk, looking for another lucky penny, but I didn’t find one.

  When I got home, I went right up to my room and read my social studies book. The more I read, the more I realized how much I had gotten wrong on the quiz today. But I had to keep reading, and I got caught up by the time Mom called me downstairs for dinner.

  Sebastian was setting the kitchen table for us.

  “Are you living here now?” I asked him, half teasing. (The other half was seriously wondering about that. He was always hanging around!)

  Eddie placed a platter of pork chops on the table and answered the question for Sebastian.

  “Laura has been working late hours every night,” he explained. “She joined us right in the middle of a huge project. But her schedule should get back to normal soon.”

  “She says she loves it,” Sebastian told us. “I’m happy for her.”

  “That’s a sweet thing to say,” Mom said as she spooned green beans into a serving bowl.

  Dan was making salad but not adding to the conversation.

  “Can I help?” I asked.

  “You can put the glasses out, please, Mia,” Mom said.

  In a few minutes we were all seated around the kitchen table, eating pork chops, green beans, mashed potatoes, salad, and applesauce.

  “My favorite fall meal,” Eddie said, heaping lots of everything onto his plate.

  Sebastian was sitting next to me, and it reminded me that I needed to ask him about Emma. Asking him at dinner was kind of awkward, but I found a way around it.

  “So, Sebastian, did you meet any, um, girls that you like here?” I asked.

  “Actually, I have a girlfriend back in Puerto Rico,” Sebastian said. “Or maybe I should say I had a girlfriend. She wanted us to break up when she found out I was moving here. But I keep hoping we can make it work. We talk every night on the computer.”

  “That’s very romantic,” Mom said.

  Sebastian looked at me and grinned. “Why did you ask me? Is there somebody you think I should like?” he asked.

  Uh-oh. I wasn’t sure how to handle that question now. It sounded like Sebastian was hung up on his girlfriend—or ex-girlfriend, whatever she was—back in Puerto Rico. If Emma knew that, she probably wouldn’t want me to tell Sebastian that she liked him. Also, I had brought up the subject at the dinner table, which meant that everybody would know.

  “Um, no,” I said. “Just asking.”

  Dan put down his fork. “I bet it’s Katie. It sounds like she totally busts you when she’s around you, dude,” he told Sebastian. “Girls do that when they like you.”

  “I said, it’s nobody!” I insisted, but Sebastian was grinning like crazy, and I could feel my face getting red. My attempt at helping Emma was not working out at all!

  “Who would have thought that pork chops would get everyone talking about romance?” Eddie said. “I’ve never thought of them as a romantic food.”

  “Then what is a romantic food?” Mom asked.

  “Heart-shape pancakes?” I chimed in, glad that the subject had changed to food.

  “No, I’m thinking maybe spaghetti,” Eddie said.

  Mom and I laughed. “But spaghetti is so messy!” I said.

  “But it’s Italian, and Italian food is romantic, right?” Eddie asked.

  Mom kissed his cheek. “Any meal I eat with you is romantic,” she said, and I groaned. Dan just kept shoveling mashed potatoes into his mouth. He ignores them when they get all gooey like this, but I still feel like it’s my job to let them know when they’re making me uncomfortable.

  Sebastian seemed to understand. “So, what TV shows do you guys like to watch?” he asked, and Eddie immediately started talking about that show where people race around the world. I was relieved.

  I would just tell Emma about Sebastian’s girlfriend, and then I wouldn’t be in the middle of this anymore.

  It looked like my luck was turning around again!

  CHAPTER 10

  Just a Bump in the Road

  After dinner was over, I helped clear the table. I piled all the plates and then . . . crash! The top one slipped off and smashed onto the floor, breaking into pieces.

  “Everybody, stand back,” Eddie instructed. “I’ll get the broom!”

  “I’m sorry!” I cried. “I keep dropping things lately!”

  “That’s because you’re in your awkward stage,” Mom told me as I stepped back to let Eddie sweep up the mess. “You’ll grow out of it.”

  “Awkward? Really?” I asked. That sounded kind of insulting. “More like unlucky!”

  Eddie cleaned up the broken plate, and as I finished helping to put stuff to away, I was thinking again about lucky charms. I still had my azabache. I had found a lucky penny, just like Alexis had, but that luck seemed to have run out.

  I tried to remember what other good luck charms my friends had mentioned. Katie had found a four-leaf clover. I had no idea where to find one of those. And Emma had said that the first tooth that she’d lost was her good luck charm. Hmm.

  “Mom, did you save any of my baby teeth?” I asked her.

  Mom shuddered. “Why on Earth would I do that?”

  “I don’t know, maybe for sentimental reasons?” I suggested.

  “And what’s sentimental about teeth? I saved a lock of your hair every year until you were ten, though. I keep them pressed in a special book,” she said.

  Disappointed, I went back up to my room. I started looking around for something from my childhood that I could use as another good luck charm. I was digging around in my closet and got distracted by a pair of brown wedges that I had forgotten I owned when I spotted something: my first sewing kit.

  Mom had given it to me when I was about five. I’m not quite sure if I asked for it or if she was trying to encourage a love of sewing in me, but I do know that I fell in love with it. The kit came in a tiny wicker basket with a top quilted in pretty fabric that had little flowers on it. Inside was everything a beginning sewer needed: safety scissors with a pretty blue handle; a silver thimble; a pincushion shaped like a strawberry, with pins in it; and a little booklet that held sewing needles big enough for a five-year-old with limited motor skills.

  I remember that I first began by sewing together simple shapes out of felt and then stuffing them. Then I started making stuffed felt animals, and then, as I got older, dolls’ clothes. The sewing kit became filled with things I had gathered during my projects, like sew-on googly eyes for the stuffed animals, and scraps of fabric.

  Sitting on the floor, I looked through the contents. A pin or a needle seemed like a bad choice to carry around as a good luck charm.

  And then I spotted something—a pink button shaped like a flower. I remembered I had needed buttons for a dress for my doll, and Mom had taken me to a store in Manhattan that sold vintage buttons. I thought the pink flower buttons were the prettiest ones I had ever seen, and we bought six, all they had. I had only needed five for the dress, and I’d saved the extra one.

  “It’s perfect,” I murmured, holding it up. I could even put string through it and hang it from my bracelet with the azabache! And that’s what I did before I went to bed.

  Finding the button also reminded me that I needed to get buttons for our next cupcake job. I needed to find cute buttons that we could press into the fondant for decoration. Vintage buttons like my pink flower would be perfect. But how would I find them? Maybe there was a store in Maple Grove that sold vintage buttons. Mom would know.

  You should make a list, Practical Mia suggested, and I knew that was a good idea.
But then I looked around at my room, which had shoes strewn all around it from my lucky charm search. By the time I cleaned up the mess, I was supertired and went right to sleep.

  Before I knew it, Saturday came. My weekends in Manhattan with Dad always feel kind of rushed, because we’re always going to and from somewhere. Weekends at Mom’s are a lot more relaxed. On Saturday, I slept late, and when I came downstairs at ten, yawning, Mom reminded me, “Mia, do we need to go to the baking supply store today for anything?”

  “Oh, yeah, we do,” I said. “Can you take me?”

  Mom nodded. “Get dressed and we’ll go.”

  As I ate a bowl of oatmeal, I scribbled down a list on the paper Mom and Eddie use for shopping lists:

  Fondant

  Gel coloring for fondant

  Tiny cookies for spools of thread

  Skinny licorice for balls of yarn

  “Mia, I have an appointment early this afternoon, so if we can leave soon, I’d appreciate it,” Mom said.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said quickly, eating my last bite of oatmeal. Then I hurriedly showered and got dressed.

  Mom took me to the baking supply shop first. I could spend all day in that place. It’s filled with rows and rows of steel shelves filled with baking supplies. They’ve got decorating gels in dozens of different colors, and all kinds of molds to make shapes out of chocolate, and a whole row of cupcake holders and cupcake toppers.

  But we learned early on that to make money, we have to spend money carefully, so I got enough fondant for what we needed and just three new colors of gel. Then Mom took me to Food City to find tiny cookies and skinny licorice. Luckily, we found both pretty easily.

  “These cupcakes you’re making are going to be adorable,” Mom said.

  “Thanks,” I told her. “And thanks for taking me to get the stuff.”

  We went home, and Mom got ready for her appointment. Eddie was outside raking leaves, and I finished cleaning my room—actually cleaning it, not just shoving clothes under my bed. (Mom always looks there, so that might work with my friends’ moms, but not with her.)