Katie and the Cupcake War (8 page)

There is a black cloud in my heart.

When it rains, I cry.

Nothing is fair.

Nothing is fair.

Why do people get sick?

Why do friends fight?

I
won't write the whole poem here now, because it's kind of long, but you get the idea. Once I realized I didn't have to rhyme, then it was kind of easy. I just concentrated on my feelings. Plus, I made sure to put in some metaphors and similes, to make Ms. Harmeyer happy, so I could get a good grade.

I have to admit that I actually felt better after I wrote the poem. Kind of like my angry feelings
left me and attached to the paper or something. Running makes me feel better too, but in a different way. When I run, worries and other feelings leave my body, but I guess with poetry, those feelings float away into the air.

The next day, it was hard to even look at Callie, though, because my stomach flip-flopped every time I thought about having to stay with her. Thank goodness for my friends. At least they understood.

“That's just awful!” Emma said when I told her and Alexis about it during lunch. Mia sat next to me and nodded sympathetically.

“You could stay at my house,” Alexis offered.

“Or mine,” Emma added.

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I already tried seeing if I could stay at Mia's. Mom's being totally unfair about it.”

“It'll go by fast,” Mia said.

“Bring headphones with you,” Alexis suggested.

I sighed. “I'll just be glad when this is over.”

“Hey, Mom said we could do the test batch at our house tonight,” Emma said. “Is seven okay?”

Everyone said that would be fine.

“Mom and I bought the ingredients over the weekend,” Emma continued.

“I hope you saved your receipt,” said Alexis.

Emma rolled her eyes. “Of course! I know you would never let me forget it if I didn't.”

I suddenly felt nervous. “It feels like we still have a ton of things to do,” I said. “What about the decorations and everything?”

“I made a tie-dyed tablecloth for us at Dad's last weekend,” Mia reported. “Ava helped me.”

“And my dad's going to get the milk for us on Saturday morning,” Alexis said. “He's going to donate the milk, since it's for a good cause.”

“Oh, and we found the cutest striped straws to put in the cups of milk!” Emma reported. “They're rainbow colored, to go with the tie-dyed theme.”

“And we're going to wear aprons that we can decorate with peace symbols and stuff,” Alexis said.

“Wow,” I said. “You guys did all that?”

“We were texting all weekend,” Alexis said. “We didn't want to bother you at your grandma's.”

For a second I didn't know if my feelings should be hurt, but then I decided they shouldn't be. I'm glad I spent the weekend with Grandma Carole instead of worrying about the fund-raiser.

“Thanks for doing all that,” I said.

“Besides, Katie, we're counting on you to make the cupcakes as groovy as possible,” Mia added.

I nodded. “I'll feel better after we do the test batch.”

Mia frowned. “I've got to go back to your mom after school today. I hope I can still get my homework done, or I might not be able to come.”

“Don't worry about it,” Alexis said. “It's just a test. Friday night is when we'll need all four of us to really work.”

I made a fake-sad face. “Now I have to ride the bus by myself again!”

“Well, at least you won't have metal tools in your mouth,” Mia said.

“Good point,” I agreed.

I still had four classes to go before the bus, and at least I had Mia with me for social studies and science. When we got to science class, I whispered the story of what had happened with Eddie the day before. Mia nodded.

“I
told
you he likes you!” she whispered back.

I shook my head. I still couldn't believe it.

Then in drama class we learned some interesting stuff about the history of theater in ancient Greece, and in English class I handed in my poem to Ms. Harmeyer. This time, I was
sure
I had done a good job. I couldn't wait to get it back.

When school was out, I slid into my usual seat
on the bus: the sixth row from the front. Then something very surprising happened. George Martinez sat next to me!

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said back. I felt a little nervous all of a sudden. What could George want?

“So, with that social studies homework, are we supposed to answer all those review questions or just the fill-in ones at the top?” he asked.

All right,
I thought.
He's just asking about homework. That's cool.

I took out my assignment book and looked through it. “All of them,” I told him.

George sighed. “Man, I hate those questions on the bottom. They take so long to do.”

“I know,” I agreed. “Do you think Mrs. Kratzer even reads all those answers?”

“I bet she does,” George says. “She looks like she loves to read. I bet her house is full of books.”

“Just because she wears glasses?” I asked.

George shrugged. “I don't know. It's just . . . that's how she looks.”

That reminded me of something. “We were watching this old TV show at my grandparents' house, and there was this episode where this guy loved books, and then the world ended or something.
But he was happy, because he could read all the time. And then his eyeglasses broke!”

“The Twilight Zone,”
George said. “My dad loves that show. He has them all on DVD. That was a good episode.”

I shuddered. “That show is supercreepy. I'd rather see a funny show.”

“Did you see that new cartoon about the chicken that's trying to rule the world?” George asked.

I nodded. (Yes, I still watch cartoons sometimes.) “That show is hysterical. Like when he tried to attack the city with that giant omelet?”

“‘More onions! More onions!'” George yelled, imitating the chicken, and we both started cracking up.

Then I realized something. George and I were having an actual conversation, just like I would have with Mia or Alexis or Emma. We weren't just goofing around or teasing each other. It was kind of nice.

I was laughing so hard that I almost missed getting off at my bus stop.

“Hey, Katie!” the bus driver yelled. “You're up.”

I grabbed my backpack. “See ya,” I told George.

As the bus drove past, George waved to me
through the window. I couldn't help thinking about what Mia had said on the first day of school.

I think they both like you!

It was all so strange. I definitely didn't know how I felt about Eddie liking me, if he did. But when I thought about George liking me, I decided I didn't mind so much.

Aaaaah!
My face was getting red just thinking about it.

L
ater that night, Alexis, Emma, and I did a test batch of the cupcakes (Mia couldn't make it after all), and this time the icing came out perfectly. So when Friday rolled around, we were ready for a marathon baking session. First we'd bake our cupcakes for Mona and then work on our contest cupcakes.

My mom dropped me off at Mia's at four o'clock. Our car was packed with stuff: my sleeping bag; a big duffel bag full of my clothes; my school backpack; four cupcake pans; four cooling racks; a box of stuff for the booth; and a Crock-Pot filled with veggie chili and a basket of corn bread, because Mom felt bad that Mia's mom and stepdad had to feed us dinner again.

“You didn't have to do this, Sharon,” Mrs. Valdes said as she and Mia helped us unload the car. “I know you've got so much to do these days.”

“I don't mind,” Mom said. “I wish I could help out more. Thanks so much for hosting the girls tonight and for letting Katie sleep over. Did you get the phone numbers I sent you?”

Mia's mom nodded. “We'll take good care of Katie, we promise. I hope everything works out all right with your mother.”

Mom smiled. “Me too,” she said with a sigh. “Thanks.”

After we got everything into Mia's house, I walked with Mom back to the car.

“Now, don't forget. Mrs. Wilson is going to bring you home after the fund-raiser tomorrow,” Mom reminded me.

“I know,” I said glumly.

Mom hugged me. “I love you,” she said. “Don't worry. Everything will be okay.”

I knew Mom was talking about Grandma, and that made me feel good. But Mom still didn't really understand, or didn't really care, how I felt about staying with Callie. That definitely did
not
feel okay.

I went back inside, and Alexis and Emma
showed up a few minutes later. We all gathered in Mia's kitchen. It's nice and big, with an island in the middle, so it's a good space to make a ton of cupcakes.

“Okay, troops, it's time for battle!” Alexis announced. “We've got a lot to do if we're going to beat the BFC.”

I saluted. “What's the plan, General?”

“First, we bake,” Alexis said. “While the cupcakes bake, we'll make the icing. When the cupcakes cool, I was thinking you and Mia could ice them while Emma and I work on the aprons.”

Emma held up a plain white apron. “I brought some fabric pens, so we can draw peace signs and stuff on them.”

“Awesome,” I said. “I'll start loading the cupcake tins.”

Between the four of us, we had eight cupcake tins. I lined them up on Mia's kitchen table. Mia came over with a paper bag.

“Look what I found at that fancy bake shop,” she said. She pulled out two packs of cupcake liners with a tie-dyed pattern.

“Oh my gosh, they're perfect!” I cried. “But wait a second. This is a fund-raiser, right? How are we paying for all this?”

“Well, my mom and dad donated the baking supplies,” Emma said.

“And my dad's getting the milk,” Alexis reminded them. “We'll have to pay for the aprons and cupcake liners out of our general fund. But I like to think of it as advertising. We could get a bunch of customers out of this.” Then she frowned. “Rats! I made a flyer for us to hand out, but I forgot to print it. Let me text my mom.”

Pretty soon we were in our usual cupcake-making groove. We made a batch of batter in Mia's stand mixer. We filled the tins. Then we made a new batch. We kept baking until we had two hundred and four cupcakes cooling on the table—that's seventeen dozen!

That's when Mia's mom came in. “I think it's time you girls had a break,” she said. “Dinner's ready in the dining room.”

We washed up and then headed into the dining room, where the table was set for seven: the Cupcake Club; Mrs. Valdes; Eddie; and Mia's stepbrother, Dan. Besides Mom's chili and corn bread, there was a big salad on the table.

“You girls are busy bees in there,” Eddie said, and he started scooping the chili into bowls.

“We have sooo much left to do,” I lamented.

“I think you girls are doing great,” said Mia's mom. “It's not even seven o'clock yet.”

“When do we get to taste them?” Eddie asked.

“Soon,” Mia promised. “We already made one batch of icing. Then Katie's going to do her swirly tie-dyed magic on the cupcakes.”

“It's easy,” I said. “You'll be able to do it too.”

Dan didn't say much—he never does. But maybe that's because he was busy eating. He ate three bowls of chili and four pieces of corn bread. I glanced at Mia after Dan went for his fourth bowl.

She shrugged. “He's working out a lot lately. Getting ready for basketball season.”

Dan nodded. “Besides, this stuff is awesome.”

Dan was still eating when we got up, cleared our plates, and got to work on icing the cupcakes. Mia put a smooth coat of vanilla icing on the first cupcake and then handed it to me.

I was armed with a box of toothpicks and several tubes of gel color. I put a tiny drop of yellow onto the icing and then swirled it with a toothpick. Then I swirled on a drop of green and then a drop of blue.

“Awesome!” Mia said. “That looks perfect!”

“See? You can so do it,” I told her.

Mia nodded. “I'll ice and you swirl, and then we'll switch.”

Mia and I got busy with the icing, and once the dining room table was clear, Alexis and Emma used it as their work space to do the aprons. We had four dozen cupcakes done by the time Emma walked in wearing one of the aprons. It had peace signs and flowers with big round petals all over it.

“Wow, that's fantastic!” Mia said.

“Spectacular!” I agreed. “Our booth is going to look very groovy.”

Alexis joined us. “You know, we forgot to talk about how we're displaying them. I guess we can just use our round plastic trays.” The trays are our go-to display method. They're supercheap to buy, and we can use them again and again. But thanks to Mom, I had something better.