Mia a Matter of Taste (2 page)

“Okay, I can take a hint!” Mr. Taylor said as he backed out of the room.

Katie and Alexis slid into seats at the kitchen table with us.

“So how was the game?” Alexis asked.

“We won!” Emma reported happily.

I made a face. “No thanks to me,” I said. “I was off my game this morning.”

“You were fine,” Emma said, trying to make me feel better.

I shook my head. “No, I was distracted,” I said, and then I decided to break my big news. “I found out yesterday that I might need to get braces!”

“No way!” Katie exclaimed, surprised. “My mom didn't say anything to me about it.”

“Well, she really can't,” Alexis pointed out. “Doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“I have to go see the orthodontist,” I continued. “Then I'll know for sure.”

“Well, maybe Katie's mom is wrong,” Emma said. “My dentist said I might need braces, but the orthodontist said I didn't.”

I turned to Katie. “Gee, I hope your mom is a terrible dentist!”

Emma turned bright red, but thankfully, Katie just laughed.

“It's okay. I hope she's wrong too,” Katie said. “I mean, who wants to get braces?”

Emma's oldest brother, Sam, walked into the room. Katie and I both have a little crush on him, even though he's in high school, so we know crushing on him is just ridiculous. But it's hard
not
to like him. It's not just that he has awesome wavy blond hair or that he's a star on the basketball team, but he's supernice.

Sam opened the refrigerator and then took out a carton of milk. “Who needs braces?” he asked.

I raised my hand. “Me. Probably. Hopefully not.”

“I had them,” Sam said. “They're not that bad.”

I couldn't imagine someone as cute as Sam having braces.

“You used to complain all the time about how much they hurt,” Emma reminded him.

“That was just to get extra ice cream from Mom,” Sam said. “Seriously, Mia, they hurt for a while when you first get them adjusted, but most of the time you can hardly feel them.”

“Thanks,” I said. “That makes me feel better.” And honestly, it did.

Sam chugged right from the milk carton and then threw the empty carton into the garbage can. “Man, Dad's protein bars are superdry!”

I waited until Sam left to confess my major fear to my friends.

“It's not just the hurting stuff that bothers me,” I said. “Can you imagine me with a mouth full of metal? That is fashion death.”

“You know,” Alexis said, “you can get those clear braces. They don't show as much.”

Katie agreed. “Yeah, I've heard Mom talk about how popular they're getting.”

“Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about those!” I said. “I could maybe deal with braces if they were clear.”

It was like I suddenly saw a rainbow in a stormy sky. I went from hopeless to hopeful in less than ten seconds. Aren't my friends great? They always know exactly how to make me feel better.

“So, anyway,” Alexis said, “we need to get ready for that party tomorrow.”

“We're doing three dozen, right?” Katie asked, and Alexis nodded.

“I dropped off the frosting colors here last night,” I offered.

Emma stood up. “Let me just clear off Dad's granola bar mess, so we can start baking.”

The cupcakes we were baking were our most basic combination—vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing—but they were going to look really special when we decorated them. As we started the batter,
we talked about the party that was coming up.

“I can't believe we're running another kids' party,” Katie said, making a face. She's an only child—like I was before I got my stepbrother—so she freaks out around little kids sometimes. But Katie is sweet and fun, so she's actually really good with kids. They love her! She's just got to get used to them, I think.

“It's good for business,” Alexis pointed out. “For any business to grow, it needs to branch out.”

“Besides, this is going to be a fun party,” Emma added. “It's so cool the twins wanted a music-dance theme.”

“How do they know what they want? They're only four,” Katie said. “When I was four, I wanted to be a dinosaur.”

“Come on, Katie, all little kids like music,” I said.

One of the moms from our school, Mrs. Watson, had approached us at a PTA dinner about throwing a party for her twins, who were turning five. Alexis followed up with a phone call, and when she found out that the twins loved music, she came up with the dance party idea. We'd have a dance floor and do fun dance contests and teach them some silly dances we looked up online, like the Pony. (That's basically when you move your feet up and down
in one place, like you're galloping, and hold your hands in front of you, like you're pretending to ride a horse.)

And, of course, there would be cupcakes. Even though they were plain vanilla cakes, we were doing the icing in different colors and arranging them to look like one of those cool light-up dance floors. Then I was going to pipe music notes on them with black frosting.

“Mia, did you make that playlist for the party?” Alexis asked.

“Yep. I got a list of the twins' favorite songs from Mrs. Watson, plus, I downloaded some of those songs to go with the special dances.”

Alexis nodded. “Good. I brought a checklist we can go over when we're done.”

A couple of hours later we had three dozen perfect cupcakes safely stored in the special cupcake carriers we use, and Alexis had checked off every single box on her checklist.

“I can't believe how organized we are for this party,” she said, looking really happy. “This is going to be our most perfect event yet.”

Emma made a face. “Don't jinx it!”

“Anyway, we still need to practice,” Katie added.

“Practice what?” Alexis asked.

“Our dancing!” Katie replied. “Come on, let's do the Twist!”

She started twisting her hips from side to side. We all joined in, dancing around Emma's kitchen, until her other older brother, Matt, walked in.

“Girls!” he said, rolling his eyes, and we started laughing so hard, we couldn't dance anymore. And for the first time in twenty-four hours, I wasn't even thinking about braces. That's how awesome my friends are!

T
he four of us got to Mrs. Watson's house to set up for the party at ten the next morning. Luckily, it was a beautiful spring day with no chance of rain.

“Oh, the cupcakes are perfect!” said Mrs. Watson, a friendly looking woman with a round face and curly blond hair. “All my friends are going to want to hire you for their parties!”

“Thank you,” Alexis said, and then she turned to us and gave us an
I told you so
look.

I pointed to a blue canopy that had been erected over the lawn in the backyard.

“Is that where we can set up the dance area?” I asked.

Mrs. Watson nodded. “I thought that would be best. And please just put all the cupcakes on the
table on the deck with the rest of the food.”

“Perfect!” Alexis said, and I knew she just loved hearing the sound of that word. “We'll take care of everything.”

Emma and Katie brought the cupcakes up to the deck, leaving them covered until the party started. Then we all got to work decorating the dance area. We tied balloons to the poles holding up the canopy, and then we took out cardboard music notes I had cut out and covered with glitter. We hung those with strings from the support poles underneath the canopy. We had to stand on chairs to do it, but it was worth the effort.

“Ooh, this looks so amazing!” Emma said, stepping back to admire it all.

“It's perfect!” Alexis said, emphasizing the word again.

Emma frowned. “We can't say it's perfect until it's over.”

Alexis shook her head. “You're just being superstitious. We can be confident because we are organized. That's the beauty of organization.”

“I just need to set up the music,” I said, and Katie helped me find an outlet so I could plug in my iPod speakers.

When it was almost time for the party to start,
Mrs. Watson brought the twins over to meet us.

“Claire and John, meet Alexis, Emma, Katie, and Mia,” their mom said, introducing us. To go with the music theme, the twins wore T-shirts—John's was blue and Claire's was green—with music notes on them. They both had the same green eyes and light brown hair. There's just something super adorable about twins. Their cute factor sky-rocketed when they started to talk.

“We're going to have a party!” John informed us, excited.

“Yeah, and we're going to dance!” Claire said, and then she began bopping up and down. Her brother started dancing with her.

“Oh my gosh, you guys are soooo cute!” Emma cooed.

Katie leaned over and whispered to me. “I have to admit it, they are pretty adorable.”

I grinned. “Maybe this party will be perfect after all.”

The place quickly started filling with kids—twenty in total. At first I was worried it might be too much for us, but Alexis was right. We had the party organized really well, and things went smoothly. First, Emma did this craft where the kids used beans and recycled containers to make fun
shakers. Then we helped Mrs. Watson feed the kids round sandwiches that looked like CDs. Finally, it was time for the big dance party.

Alexis and I stayed on the deck to clean up the food while Katie and Emma kicked things off.

“Everyone under the tent!” Katie yelled. “It's time for the dance party!”

The kids ran like crazy to the canopy and started to jump up and down. Emma called up, “Mia, which playlist do I choose?”

“It's the one called ‘party playlist,' ” I called back down to her.

“Thanks!” Emma turned on the speakers, selected the playlist, and hit play.

Then a sound like a pack of wild dogs barking in a thunderstorm filled the backyard.

“We are the army of the night! We will always stand and fight!”

Emma's blue eyes got wide, and she sort of froze. Alexis started screaming, “Turn it off! Turn it off!” After about three of the longest seconds ever, Emma snapped out of it and shut off the iPod.

The kids were confused, and Mrs. Watson ran up to Alexis.

“What on Earth was that terrible racket?” she asked.

And then the horrible truth hit me: I had taken the wrong iPod off the charging station in the kitchen this morning. This had to be my stepbrother's, Dan's. Our iPods look the same, but the contents are different; he constantly listens to heavy metal music.

“Oh no!” I cried. “I'm so sorry. It's the wrong iPod.”

“Well, where is the right one?” Alexis asked.

I thought quickly. “It might still be home. Let me call my mom.”

I dialed her number and started talking a mile a minute when she picked up.

“Mom it's an emergency I took Dan's iPod by mistake and left mine at home and if I don't have my iPod the whole party is going to be ruined!”

Luckily, Mom understands me when I talk that fast. “I'll be right there, Mia. Text me the address.”

I obeyed and put my phone away, relieved. “Mom will be here with my iPod soon,” I told Alexis.

“Okay. But what will we do until then?” she asked, nodding to the kids below. They were starting to get wild, running all over the yard.

Think fast, Mia,
I told myself.
This is your fault. You've got to fix it.

And then I figured it out. “We don't need an iPod to make music. Come on.”

I grabbed Alexis by the hand, and we ran down the stairs into the yard. Then I started to sing the first song I could think of.

“The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round . . .”

Katie, Alexis, and Emma got the idea and began to sing along with me. We went around the yard, grabbing kids by the hand and leading them back under the canopy. Then we started doing the hand motions to the song, and the kids joined in.

That lasted about a minute. “What next?” Alexis hissed.

Luckily, Emma started wiggling her fingers in twinkly motions and singing “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.” We sang that one a good five times before the kids got tired of it.

Next, Alexis remembered a song from when she was in preschool about popcorn. “Pop! Pop! Pop! Put it in the pot!” For that one we got everyone to dance up and down like they were pieces of popping popcorn, and the kids loved it.

“I can't think of any songs!” Katie wailed when the kids were tired of popping. Then her face lit up. “Hey, who wants to do the Pony?”

The kids all raised their hands, and Katie started to dance. She started singing a crazy tune and making up her own words.

“Do the Pony, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really fun! Yeah, yeah, yeah!”