by Simon, Coco
“Aaargh!” I groaned. Maybe Sam wasn’t the greatest brother ever!
On the day of Mia’s mom’s wedding the Cupcake Club, minus Mia, was meeting at my house to put the final touches on the bridal cupcakes and the groom’s cake, which was the bacon cupcakes, of course. I now thought of them as my lucky recipe.
Mia’s mom had decided to go with the sheet of minis in the shape of a heart for her wedding dessert. She had sampled some at Mona’s during her final fitting and found them irresistible. The club decided to do them just like Mona’s: angel food cake, white fondant frosting, and white sugar flowers as decoration. There would be a heart made of raspberry cupcakes with pink frosting in the center of the sheet of cupcakes on the buffet.
At eight thirty that Saturday morning, I heard a quiet knock on the back door. It was Alexis. She had already been to The Special Day and dropped off Mona’s cupcakes that we’d made the night before. Now she was ready to work some more.
“Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi,” I whispered back. “We don’t have to whisper. There’s no one here.”
“Where is everyone?” whispered Alexis.
“Practice,” I said in a normal voice. We both laughed.
There was another knock on the door. It was Katie.
“Hey,” she whispered.
“No whispering,” whispered Alexis. We started laughing really hard. Katie gave us a look that said she thought we were cuckoo, and she came in.
We each ate a big bowl of cereal and then got down to business. I was making the bacon, and Katie was making the fondant frosting for the white minis; she would set aside a bit of my buttercream frosting and tint it pink with raspberry jam for the pink cupcakes. Alexis was working on the edible sugar flower decorations, which were kind of hard, but Alexis did them perfectly, of course.
“Anyone talked to Mia yet?” I asked.
“I e-mailed her this morning to say good luck,” said Katie.
“I think they were going to a spa this morning with her aunts and cousins,” said Alexis. “Group rate, I bet. Probably a wedding package.”
I rolled my eyes at Katie, and we both giggled. Oh, Alexis.
The bacon was done, nice and crispy. I set it on paper towels to dry and turned to make the buttercream. We were tripling the recipe, which meant three boxes of confectioners’ sugar, six sticks of softened butter, three teaspoons of vanilla, and almost a half a cup of milk. The hand mixer groaned and strained against the ingredients and gave off a light smell of burning plastic. This was nothing new, but it was all part of the reason I still wanted that new pink mixer.
It felt so good to be with my friends again. But I guess we were talking so much that we kind of lost track of time.
“Oh no!” cried Alexis as she looked at the clock. “How will we get this done?”
I started to panic. “I can . . . I will . . .” Then I stopped.
Mom, Jake, Sam, Dad, and Matt came in.
I took a deep breath. “Mom!” I cried. “Mom, we need help!”
Mom smiled. “Okay, whatever it is, we can handle it. Come on, guys,” she said, gesturing to the boys. “Everybody’s in on this one.”
“We can do this!” said Alexis, and she smiled at me. “Emma and I can figure out a plan.”
And we did. Mom whipped up the buttercream, Dad began packing frosted minis, Jake crumbled the bacon (“Yes, you can taste it. But only once, or I’ll arrest you!” I said), Matt helped Katie frost the bacon cupcakes as soon as they were ready, and Sam started carrying boxes out to Dad’s station wagon. Alexis and Katie rushed to help him.
With everyone else running around I suddenly realized I didn’t have much to do. The kitchen was a hive of busy activity, and everyone was doing his or her job well. I went to check my e-mail. Mia had sent all the club members an e-mail asking us to be at her house a shade earlier. I also had an e-mail from Williams-Sonoma, announcing a new version of the stand mixer. It cost $199! A price reduction! I smiled. The day just kept getting better and better. Someday, I thought, you really will be mine!
CHAPTER 14
The Special Day
I couldn’t wait to put on the dress. Mom buttoned me up and helped brush out my hair. She got a little teary again. Then I went downstairs, where Dad, Sam, Matt, and Jake were all waiting.
“Wow!” said Dad.
“You look so pretty,” said Jake.
I blushed a little bit. I wasn’t used to everyone looking at me.
“You do look good,” said Sam.
Matt nodded.
Dad snapped a few pictures, then we picked up Alexis and Katie and got to Mia’s house right on time. Mia opened the door in her matching dress.
Behind her, Ms. Vélaz came floating down the stairs, and we all just stared at her. I’d never seen anyone look more beautiful.
“Come on, my beautiful bridesmaids,” she said. “We’re off to get married!” We all giggled and followed her outside to the limousine, which would take us to the ceremony. We had never been in one before, and we were all excited.
I tried to take in everything, but it all went so fast. First we posed for pictures, and then we lined up to go down the aisle. I was a little nervous, but I did it slowly like Mom had practiced with me and I smiled, just like Mia’s mom told us. We stood under the canopy and I was looking around and then—bam—it was over and we had to walk back up the aisle.
The party got underway, and we all sat together at a table with lots of pink roses. We were having such a good time. I had never been to a fancy party like this before. Then the band started playing, and we all jumped up to dance.
The cupcakes were a big hit. Everyone loved them, and everyone really chowed down on the bacon cupcakes. “Oh,” a woman said, stuffing a few in her purse, “these are divine.”
“Did she say ‘divine’?” Alexis shrieked, and we all burst into giggles.
“What can I say,” said Alexis. “You were right about the bacon!”
“Hey, in a house with three brothers, I know bacon!” I said.
“Emma,” said Mia. “You have to promise us something.”
I looked up, a little worried by her tone. Katie and Alexis were looking at me too.
“You have to promise us that whatever it is, good or bad, you won’t keep secrets from us. Friends tell one another everything, and they help out. I want you to promise that you won’t be embarrassed about anything and feel like you can’t talk to us.”
“I know,” I said, hanging my head. I still couldn’t believe all that they did for me. I looked down at my beautiful dress. “I’m really sorry. I won’t keep anything from you again.”
“Honey, this is for you.” Mia’s mom was at my side. She handed me a white envelope. “It’s just a little something I’m giving to each of you as a traditional bridesmaid gift. Thank you for helping to make this such a special day.”
“Oh, Ms. Vélaz . . . I mean Mrs. Valdes!”
“I know!” said Mia’s mom, rolling her eyes. “I went from Vélaz to Valdes! It’s going to confuse everyone.”
“I don’t know what to say!” I blushed. I hadn’t expected a gift.
Mia’s mom planted a kiss on top of my head. “Don’t say a word,” she said. “Just get yourself something you’ve really wanted.” Then she winked at me. She handed a box to Alexis and one to Katie before gliding off.
I looked down at the envelope. I put it on my lap, not wanting to appear greedy, but I was really curious.
“Open them!” said Mia.
Alexis opened a beautiful set of stationery, a journal, and notepads. “So good for making lists!” she said.
Katie opened three new cookbooks.
I slid open the envelope with my finger. Inside was a gift card.
The gift card was for Williams-Sonoma. And it was for fifty dollars!
I looked up and caught Alexis’s eye, then Katie’s, then Mia’s. They all grinned. “But . . . ,” I asked, confused. “How did she know . . . ?”
Alexis blushed. “Well, some secrets you do keep from friends. But just for a little while!” And we all laughed. I tucked the envelope into the purse Mom had let me borrow, and I smiled.
The wedding was going by so fast but so had the past few weeks. A lot of things had been burned, rushed, worried over, and hidden. All bad. I looked around at Mia’s beautiful mom, all the pretty pink flowers, and saw how happy everyone was. Now everything was pretty good. I had my friends. I had people who loved me. I had brothers who weren’t half bad most of the time.
“A toast!” I cried, lifting up my glass of lemonade.
Alexis, Katie, and Mia held up their glasses too.
“To friends!” I said.
“Here, here!” cried Mia.
“To no more secrets!” said Katie.
“To helping each other out always!” said Alexis.
“And,” I said with a little bit of a giggle, “to the divine pink mixer that will soon be mine!”
Contents
Chapter 1: My Sister Takes the Cake
Chapter 2: Earth to Alexis
Chapter 3: Project M. T.
Chapter 4: Can He See Me Now?
Chapter 5: Collecting Data
Chapter 6: Mall Madness
Chapter 7: My Sister Really Takes the Cake!
Chapter 8: Hello, New Me!
Chapter 9: The Beckers Try Harder
Chapter 10: Is She Really My Sister?
Chapter 11: Slam Dunk!
Chapter 12: Confession
Chapter 13:BF not F
Chapter 14: Nothing > Friends!
Chapter 15: Later that Night . . .
CHAPTER 1
My Sister Takes the Cake
My name is Alexis Becker, and I’m the business mind (ha-ha) of the Cupcake Club. The club is a for-profit group that my best friends—Mia, Katie, and Emma—and I started, and we make money baking delicious cupcakes!
I love figuring out how to run a business and putting together the different building blocks—math, organization, planning—that’s why the girls can count on me for this kind of stuff. Plus, as you can tell, I love math-related puns! My friends are more creative with the cupcakes, so they come up with the designs and other artistic stuff. My one specialty, though, is fondant. I am very good at making little flowers and designs out of that firm frosting. Otherwise, I’m mostly crunching numbers and wondering how to make money. Mmm . . . money!
If the Cupcake Club was an equation, it would look like this:
(4 girls + supplies) x clients = $$$$
Or really, more like this:
(Profit - supplies) / 4 = $
We actually have lots of fun doing it. Most of our clients are really nice people, which is much more than I can say for our latest client: my sister, Dylan. I can practically still hear her fuming.
“It is my party, I am the one turning sixteen, and I have budgeted everything down to the last party favor. I know exactly what I’m doing!” She was talking to our mom behind closed doors, but I heard every word since I was right outside her bedroom!
Dylan never gets out-of-control mad; she’s always in total control. Except that ever since she’d started planning her sweet sixteen party (which was now four and a half weeks away), she’d been cranky a lot. But she never raises her voice when she gets mad. She lowers it to a whisper, and you can hear the chill in it as if actual icicles were hanging from the words. I had to put my ear to her bedroom door to hear everything that was being said. Knowledge is power; that’s one of my mottoes, and I need all the information I can get. About everything.
My mother was sounding kind of amused by the fight, which was about two things: the guest list for the party and the cake. I had an interest in the outcome of both, since I wanted to be able to invite my best friends, and we wanted to bake the dessert for the party. (It wasn’t about the money as we wouldn’t charge a lot; it’s just that it would be great exposure for our business!)
I could picture Mom trying not to smile and to take Dylan seriously. “Darling, I know how careful you are, and I am impressed, as always, by your work,” she said. “I admire your attention to detail on these spreadsheets. However, not everything will be according to your plan, as your father and I also have a say in what works best for this family. Now let’s take a look at this guest list again.”
I grinned. Mom was on my side.
There were some muffled comments and I strained to hear them. Maybe I’d hear better if I put a glass against the wall like I’d seen people do on TV. Or maybe I should lie down and listen through the crack under the door. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, and then lay on the hall rug outside the door.
“The Taylors! Mom! The whole family? That wasn’t in my head count!” The Ice Princess was losing her cool, but I didn’t focus on that. All I could think of was that Emma’s whole family might come. And that was very interesting.
Emma has three brothers. They’ve always all been in the background of things—rummaging around their mudroom looking for a lost cleat or watching TV in the living room. They’re kind of like furniture. When we talk to them at all, it’s just stuff like “Please pass the ketchup” or “Hey! We were watching that!”
Jake is much younger, so he’s cute but not exactly a pal of mine, and Matt and Sam are older, so we don’t really pay attention to them, and they don’t pay much attention to us.
Until recently, that is.
What changed everything was that I had a little direct contact with Matt. He’s eighteen months older, but only one school year ahead (he’s in eighth grade at Park Street Middle School). Usually I am with Emma when her brothers are around, so I guess I see them from her point of view.
But this time I had to call Matt for help with something for Emma, and it wasn’t until he said “Hello” on the phone that in one strange, sudden moment, everything changed.
So what happened? First off, I am very efficient. When something needs doing, I just do it. When someone needs calling, I just pick up the phone and dial. And that was what I had done, without even thinking about it.
But Matt’s voice sounds much deeper on the phone than it does in person, and when I heard it, it threw me off and I panicked, like, Who is this person I am talking to? and Why did I call him, exactly? I kind of had an out-of-body experience. I suddenly realized I’d called a boy, and I almost dropped the phone!
But thanks to caller ID he already knew who was calling, so I couldn’t exactly hang up. Then, just to confuse me further, in the course of our (very brief) conversation, Matt told me how worried he’d been about Emma, and that he felt bad for some things she was going through at the time.
I was shocked!
I didn’t think boys worried about anyone! And feeling bad for someone? That is just unheard of! Suddenly Matt seemed like . . . a real person. With feelings! In the end, it was I who rushed us off the phone. I suddenly got really, really nervous and couldn’t believe I’d had the guts to call Matt in the first place. You know in the old cartoons when the coyote runs off a cliff and his feet are still spinning, but he’s in midair and he only falls when he realizes it? That’s what happened to me.
And now, when I heard Dylan talking about the Taylors, all I could think of was Matt. And that gave me a funny feeling, like fish were swimming in my stomach.
I hope he comes to Dylan’s party, I thought. Or maybe I don’t. Ugh! I don’t know what I want!
Suddenly the door flew open, and Dylan shrieked when she saw me lying on the floor. I blinked as the bright light from her room hit me.
“I hate this family!” Dylan wailed, stepping over me. She stomped down the hall to the bathroom and shut the door as hard as possible without actually slamming it.
“Alexis, honey, what are you doing there?” my mother asked in her “patient” voice.
I rolled up on one side and propped my head on my fist. “Just interested in the outcome of everything,” I replied.
My mother smiled at me and shook her head.
“W
hat?” I said in my most innocent voice. “I just want to make sure that we get the job.”
“You’ll get the job, all right, but these better turn out to be the prettiest and tastiest cupcakes you’ve ever baked,” Mom said. She’s pretty tough. She’s not a CPA and a CFO for nothing.
“Mom, please. We run a very professional outfit.”
Dylan came stomping out of the bathroom and glared at my mother. “This is the person you’d like to entrust my dessert to? This . . . worm, lying on the floor like a two-year-old?”
“That’s enough, Dylan. Don’t speak like that about your sister,” Mom warned. (She went to parent training when we were little, and she has all these certain voices and techniques she uses on us.)
“Yeah,” I added. “I’m not two. Or a worm!”
Dylan drew back her leg like she was going to kick me, and I rolled away and sprang to my feet.
“Girls! Counting to three!” Mom yelled.
Dylan shook her head in disgust and stormed into her room, where she collapsed dramatically onto her bed. “The Cake Specialist said they’d even give me a discount,” she muttered. “I would be the first discount they’ve ever given. They said I drive a hard bargain.”
Mom patted Dylan. “I would expect nothing less, darling. But we need to support a business that is in our family. And I know the Cupcake Club will do a wonderful job for you.”
“Wonderful!” I repeated, raising my arms in victory.
“Argh!” cried Dylan as she pulled a pillow over her head. “Just leave me alone!” After a moment she added, “And just make sure whatever you Cupcakers propose is in my party’s color scheme of—”
My mother and I answered together, “We know, we know, black and gold!”
I put up my hand and my mother gave me a stiff-handed, silent high five. (She’s not the high-fiving type).
“I saw that!” accused Dylan from under her pillow.
My mother and I exchanged a guilty smile.
“They’d better be the best black-and-gold cupcakes you’ve ever made!” said Dylan. “Or else!”
I rolled my eyes, and we left Dylan to her moping.