by Coco Simon
Emma said all sarcastically, “Oh, Olivia, are you here to help clean up? Or is that a new lunch tray for Alexis? That’s so sweet!”
I laughed, and Olivia’s face turned red and she walked away.
“Even better than turning the other cheek!” I said to Emma. “Thanks.”
“She is too much,” said Emma, shaking her head in dismay.
After I apologized to the maintenance man (he waved it off and said, “Happens every day,” which I think was him just trying to be nice), Emma and Katie led me over to the table, and Mia followed right behind us with a new tray for me. I sat down and spied a pile of red and pink stuff on the table.
“Hey, what’s all this stuff?” I asked.
“Valentines, silly!” Katie laughed. “Duh!”
“Who gave you valentines?” I asked stupidly.
“We gave them to one another. Here are yours,” said Mia, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and pushing three little items over to me.
“But . . . I didn’t get you guys anything!” I said, my face turning deep red again. I was so ashamed. I should have realized, that day at the stationery store, of course they were buying things for all of us. I was just so distracted by my Matt drama that I didn’t get them anything! My eyes welled with tears.
Emma laughed incredulously. “Oh, Alexis! Don’t cry! It’s okay. We still love you!”
“I am such a bad friend,” I wailed quietly. “And you guys are so good! I am so selfish! And clumsy!”
Katie scooted over and patted me on the back. “Shh. Don’t cry. And if you’re really upset, you can get us something later, and all the valentine’s stuff will be on sale!”
I perked up a little at this. I do love a bargain. I sniffed hard and patted my eyes with a napkin. “This has just been a bad couple of days. I am so sorry.”
“Besides the falling down and us not being able to go skating yesterday, is it something else?” Mia asked.
I sighed. I didn’t really want to get into the Matt/cupcake thing right now, especially in front of Emma. I felt the most embarrassed about it in front of her. It was all so very humiliating.
Luckily, George Martinez walked up just then. I sat up straight and tried to blink my eyes back to normalcy, but he busted me immediately.
“Sweet tray spill, Becker,” he teased. Then he looked more closely at me. “Jeez, you aren’t crying about it, are you? I mean, I dropped my tray on chili day! Chili and banana pudding day! It was such a mess, and it got all up my pants, and it was so uncomfortable. . . . Seriously! Have you ever had pudding in your pants?!”
He started mimicking a funny dance, like he was trying to get pudding out of his pants, and everyone started laughing really hard, even me.
“Hey, did you come over here to bring Katie her valentine, George?” asked Mia.
“I don’t see any flowers or candy,” said Emma, craning her neck like he might be hiding something behind his back. “Maybe you wrote her a poem?” Emma suggested.
Katie blushed a little, but she knew it was all good-natured fun, and besides, she was a bit curious to see how George would respond.
“A poem!” George shouted. “How did you ever guess? In fact, I’ll recite it right now.” He cleared his throat dramatically.
“Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I like you, Katie.
And your silly arms, too!”
He then took a long exaggerated bow as we all laughed and applauded. “That was fun,” George said. “So much so, I almost forgot why I came over here. Oh, yeah! A bunch of us are going to see Liam Carey’s new film when it opens this Thursday afternoon, on Teachers’ Improvement Day. It’s got everything: Epic chase scenes, lots of fighting, and I think there’s even a love story, so you girls will like it.” George cleared his throat and then said in a high falsetto voice, “I love you, MATT!” And then he deepened his voice to an exaggerated masculine tone and said, “And I love you, ALEXIS!”
All the girls giggled, but after the tray drop and Olivia’s mean comment and Matt’s lack of a response to my valentine, it was all just too much for me to handle. I grabbed my books and rushed out before I started crying again in public. In the hall, I ducked into the girls’ bathroom to hide until my next class. It was almost like I needed to just cry and get the tears out. I’d been holding it in for almost two days now. In the stall, I hung my book bag on the hook, grabbed a huge ball of tissues, and wept.
About a minute and a half later, I heard the door open. I knew it would be one of my friends, but I wasn’t expecting Emma.
“Lex?” she said.
I sniffed deeply. “Yes?” I croaked.
“Want to come out?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
“Ever?” she asked.
“No!” I insisted. “Not ever.”
There was a brief silence, and then Emma said, “Want me to take you to the nurse, and she can let you go home?”
Leave school early without being deathly ill? It was unthinkable. I slid the lock and opened the door. I’d rather die than go home sick, especially if I wasn’t! Emma sure knew how to get me.
I sighed heavily. “I am such a loser,” I said, leaning against the side of the stall.
Emma laughed. “You are insane. You’re not a loser! Seriously? You’re the biggest winner of us all! You get the best grades, you’re involved in running a business and your business leaders extracurriculars, and you’re a great singer and dancer . . .”
“But I’m a terrible ice-skater. And no one loves me,” I said, moping.
“Alexis Becker. You’ve got to come clean with me. I’m your oldest friend in the world. Is there something going on that I should know about?” Emma asked sternly.
I hesitated.
“Is this about Matt?” she asked gently.
I finally broke down and told Emma all about the valentine cupcake I had given Matt and how I had never heard from him about it. Unsurprisingly, Emma was furious.
“I know he isn’t the mushy type, but to not even say thank you . . . that’s just so rude and so wrong,” she said. “Just wait until I see him tonight!”
“Noooo! Emma, please! That will only make me feel worse,” I cried. “Please, don’t say a word—promise me!” I begged. “That’s why I didn’t say anything to begin with!”
Reluctantly, she agreed, but she huffed, “Okay, but I still think it’s rude. And honestly, it’s pretty out of character. I just can’t believe he wouldn’t even acknowledge it. Even if he only liked you as a friend. It’s just weird.”
“Do you think I just totally scared him off?” I asked, wincing.
Emma thought for a minute. “No. Definitely not. Boys like it when girls like them, you know. And it’s not like you’re some weird nerd. . . .”
“Thanks. Thanks a lot,” I said, and we giggled, which felt good.
Emma corrected herself. “You’re a total babe, and he’d be lucky to have someone as great as you as his valentine!”
Turning red again, I said something else that was really bothering me. “Do you think George or any of Matt’s friends in our grade will tell Matt about my embarrassing fall?”
Emma thought for a second. “I don’t think George will—it’s not as good of a story as him getting pudding out of his own pants!”
“Oh, thank goodness!” I sighed with relief. “That would have been the icing on the cake.”
“Or the cupcake!” said Emma, and then we both giggled. Emma gave me a big hug. “That’s better,” she said. “Don’t worry about stupid boys, anyway. We have lots of fun coming up this week. The new Liam Carey movie on Thursday, the Family Skating Party on Friday . . . you valentine’s shopping the bargain basement sale for us!”
I put my head in my hands. “I am so mortified about that.”
“Oh, Lex, I’m just kiddin’ ya!” said Emma. “Come on. Let’s go, valentine!”
I grabbed my book bag and we exited the bathroom.
“By th
e way,” said Emma with a sly grin, “George said to tell you that Matt is going to the movies on Thursday. I’m just saying!” She put her hands in the air, palms out, like Don’t shoot the messenger!
“Well, then I’m not going,” I declared.
“Hey, you can’t lead your life like that,” Emma scolded. “Stop worrying about embarrassment and just get on with your life. Have fun. Seriously. Who cares what Matt—or anyone—thinks? Where’s the bold, brassy future business leader who I know and love?”
“In hiding,” I said. I saw her point, but I still wasn’t sure.
“You have all these friends who love you, and a great family, and that is pretty awesome,” she said as we reached her classroom door.
“You sound like my mom,” I whined.
Emma wheeled around to face me. “Then that’s a compliment, ’cause your mom is one smart cupcake!” she said with a grin, and she strode into her class.
I went to my next class like a tentative baby chick, hoping no one would bring up the tray drop or anything else for the rest of the day. Or my life.
I wasn’t ready to commit to the movie or the skating party at this point. Bargain valentines shopping for my besties, maybe.
CHAPTER 8
Time Out
That night, after I finished my homework, I spent some time on YouTube, toggling back and forth between Olympic gold medal skating programs and “How to Skate” videos. Both were discouraging. The Olympians looked so much like ballroom-dancing stars that I had to keep reminding myself that they were doing everything while simultaneously gliding on a sharp blades across hard, slippery ice at twenty miles an hour! It was pretty incredible when I looked at it that way. I couldn’t imagine the endless hours Sasha had spent at an ice rink perfecting her skills. I didn’t have that kind of time before Friday’s party.
It must’ve been ESP, because while I was doing that, Katie sent a group chat to say the Cupcake Club had been hired by the PTA to bake ten dozen Chinese-themed cupcakes for the bake sale at the skating party on Friday! Now that was the kind of news I liked, because there’s nothing I find more fun than making money with my friends.
Since I was already online, I volunteered to google around and come up with a couple of possible Chinese cupcake ideas. I had two criteria: the ingredients couldn’t be too expensive, because the PTA had set a small budget for the job, and the design and assembly couldn’t be too fussy, or it would take us too long to make them. Sometimes when we have an elaborate job or a huge order, we will do it over a couple of days, but I honestly think our cupcakes taste best when they are superfresh: made, decorated, and eaten all in one day.
When I went on Pinterest to look for Chinese cupcake ideas, what I found was gorgeous, but waaaaay too complicated for us. They looked like something from one of those Cake Boss shows we all loved so much. We’d need scaffolding and blowtorches and stuff to make some of those ideas.
I thought of doing a clear or white glaze across a white cupcake, so that it might look like skating “ice” (get it? “Icing”?!), but the more I thought about it, the more I thought people wouldn’t get the joke and also—worse—wouldn’t think the cupcakes tasted any good. Taste had to come first.
Then I stumbled upon the perfect idea: panda cupcakes! Pandas are a big thing in China, right? So I started searching all the panda cupcake images I could find (they are so cute—try it sometime!) and finally found one that looked simple enough. We’d only need plain cake (maybe do five dozen yellow cake and five dozen chocolate cake), plain white or silver foil wrappers, white frosting, tubes of brown frosting for piping (maybe a gel, if it looked opaque enough), and brown M&Ms for ears. They’d be easy to make—just frost the cake in white, pipe on the facial features in dark brown, and pop in two M&M’s for ears. Done!
I attached a photo to an e-mail and sent it to the others, and within minutes everyone had agreed it was perfect. I volunteered to go buy the supplies, since I was heading to the mall the next day, anyway—for some, ahem, bargain valentines—and everyone agreed.
I closed down my computer for the night with a feeling of deep satisfaction that held my mortification about Matt and the tray drop, as well as my anxiety about skating, at bay for the rest of the night.
I managed to avoid thinking about Matt the whole next day at school, which was a relief to know I could do that. For lunch, I had Mia bring me a sandwich that I could eat in the library to avoid another spill in the cafeteria, and I read some articles about the physics of balancing on ice-skates. It was kind of fun, I had to admit.
After school, I rode my bike to the mall and texted my mom to pick me up after. I’d just put my bike on the rack. I expected I’d have some big packages, and anyway, I am not crazy about riding my bike after dark alone, even though I have a helmet, reflectors, and two flashing lights on it. (Dylan calls me a nerd on wheels when she sees me in full safety gear, but I just don’t care. Better dork than dead, I always tell her.)
At the mall, I locked my bike and headed in. My first stop was the stationery store, and I hit the jackpot! There was a whole wall of valentine stuff, and I almost didn’t know where to begin. I had set a budget of twenty-five dollars for everything, and I was in luck. Everything was 75 percent off for clearance. First, I got each friend a sweet card for about a dollar each. Then I found these adorable little white baskets filled with assorted red candy, topped with a red ribbon that had tiny white polka dots all over it. So sweet. They were marked down from fifteen dollars to just five dollars each! I was thrilled. I made a mental note to tell the others that next year we are celebrating Valentine’s Day on the sixteenth of February. We’d be crazy not to!
I was in heaven as I paid the clerk (same lady as the other day!), and then I headed to Baker’s Hollow on the other side of the food court. As I crossed through, I could have sworn I saw someone who looked just like Matt standing at the Panda Gardens counter, but I quickly looked away as my stomach clenched in fear. I tried to steal another glance, but I was at a bad angle, and he might be able to catch me looking if I did. So instead I kept my head high and continued on, my heart pounding and my butterflies fluttering even more than usual.
Breathless, I reached Baker’s Hollow and barreled inside. The sweet old lady at the counter gave me a funny look and said, “Everything all right, dear?” I huffed and puffed and tried to calm myself down. I gulped. My heart was beating so fast!
“Yes.” I gasped. “I’m fine. Sorry. Just ran here . . .”
She giggled kindly. “Well, we’re always glad to hear our customers run to our store! Now just let me know if you need anything.”
I thanked her and grabbed a basket. My list was short and clear. A pound and a half of dark brown M&M’s (generic brand, of course) from the dispensers. Ten tubes of brown decorating frosting with a fine-point tip. Plain cupcake papers. I considered buying some edible googly eyes that were really cute and would save us some time and labor, but when I looked at the price, I gasped aloud. They were $19.99 a pound! No can do, googlies!
I went to pay the lady, and as I looked over her shoulder and out the plate-glass window, I saw him again. Definitely Matt. Ugh! I could feel my face turning bright red, and I tried to maneuver myself behind a display of bread makers, so I couldn’t be seen from outside.
“Sweetie? Are you not finished shopping?” called the lady.
“Oh, sorry! Just remembered one other thing!” I buried myself deep in the store for a moment, and then I returned to the register, frantically scanning the “sidewalk” outside the store. He was gone. The coast was clear. I breathed a large sigh of relief.
“Phew,” I said. Accidentally out loud. Oops.
The lady gave me a strange look and told me my total. I could feel her still looking at me closely as I counted out my change, and finally, she leaned across the counter and put her hand on mine and said in the kindest voice, “Listen, dear, if there’s someone out there who is bothering you, please feel welcome to stay in the store while I call security. I
s it a bully from school?”
I looked up, confused for a moment, and then I laughed. Hardly. In fact, the opposite! Now it was the lady’s turn to look confused.
“Thank you so much,” I said. “That is so nice of you. I’m just . . .” I lowered my voice and decided she seemed like the type who could handle the truth. “I gave a boy a valentine and he never acknowledged it. And I just saw him out there”—I shrugged—“so, you know . . . I’m avoiding him!” I stage-whispered.
The saleslady stage-whispered back conspiratorially, “You know, I had the same thing happen when I was young. Maybe a bit older than you, but still. I gave a boy a valentine, and he didn’t reciprocate. Turned out it was because he had bought something for me that seemed shabby in comparison, and he didn’t know what to do. He wanted to get me something better, but he couldn’t afford it, so he was stuck. So sweet.”
“Oh, that’s so cute!” I said. “So what happened?”
“I married him!” She laughed.
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Wow! That story sure has a happy ending!”
She smiled. “I know. All I’m saying is, there’s often more than meets the eye. Most boys are good people, so don’t read too much into it. I should know, because I ended up having four boys of my own!”
“Lucky you,” I said.
She nodded and handed me my bag. “Come on back and let me know what happens, okay? My name’s Sadie.”
“I’m Alexis. I hope my ending is as happy as yours!”
“Me too. Good luck, now, and thanks for shopping with us.”
“Bye!”
On my way out of the store I looked left and right, and the coast was clear. He’d surely left by now.
I looked at my watch. Ten minutes till my mom was due. I’d have just enough time to pop into the bookstore and see if they had Figure Skating for Dummies. I needed all the help I could get!
I hitched the two bags up over my shoulder, satchel style, and trooped back across the food court to the bookstore on the far side. Just in case, I kept my eyes locked straight ahead, looking neither left nor right. If Matt was there, I’d never know, and I’d spare him the horror of having to speak to me.