Sugar, Spice, and Sprinkles
Page 9
“Your assignment!” Ms. Gallo announced as the clock struck noon. “Write a review of an exciting restaurant. Bonus points if you go and actually have a meal there between now and Thursday’s class! I want five hundred words. No groans! You can do it. Remember to account for ambiance and service as well as the food. Thanks for coming today, and good luck! Bon appétit!”
I quickly packed my things and rushed out. I was due to work at Molly’s at one o’clock, and the bus ride would take twenty minutes at least. That’s what I told myself, anyway. It was more that I really didn’t want to have to chat with anyone.
As I speed-walked out of the building and down the block to the bus stop, my heart raced with a feeling of exhilaration. I was thrilled by the teacher and the class, but I was even more thrilled that I’d escaped without having to interact with any of the kids. What a relief to not have to do the whole awkward getting-to-know-you conversation with any randoms (to use Tamiko’s word). Maybe I could partner with the teacher for the workshop in the next class. It would be oh-so-much easier.
On the bus I powered up my phone and checked Colin’s SuperSnap again. Nothing. My fingers hovered over the screen as I debated whether or not to text him. I had his contact info right there in the palm of my hand, and I missed him. Would it be so awful if I sent a breezy little text? What about something like, “Hey, Colin. Hope your summer is great so far! Stop by for an ice cream at Molly’s on the house so I can hear all about it!” But was the free ice cream part desperate? Like, was I bribing him to come see me? And if I didn’t say “on the house,” was I basically asking him to come and spend money to see me? But how else could I phrase it? Ugh. Totally befuddled, I locked the phone, dropped it back into my bag, and stared out the window. I thought about asking Tamiko for advice, but then I realized she was on the plane, flying across the Pacific Ocean. I missed her already.
* * *
Monday afternoons at Molly’s were pretty quiet, it turned out, even in the summer. Probably because so many people got ice cream on the weekends and Mondays were all business for them, but it made for a slow afternoon.
Sierra and I were both working, but there really wasn’t enough for us to do. The topping jars and bins were all full, the counters and floor sparkling, the bathroom shining, and the ice cream freezer bursting with fresh bins of cool ice cream flavors. Even the few customers seemed a little uninspired on a Monday. One lady ordered a vanilla shake. A plain vanilla shake! Tamiko never would have stood for an order like that if she were there. She would have encouraged the woman to think outside the box and order something great, or convinced her to let Tamiko surprise her with a creation. But without Tamiko there, Sierra and I just smiled and made the shake and rang up the lady’s order. Ho hum.
In between helping customers, Sierra sang some new songs she’d written, to test them out on me and get my reaction.
“I’m just a lonely girl. Are you lonely too? Maybe I’m the girl for you,” Sierra sang out. “And then I’ll point to the audience. What do you think?”
“It’s okay,” I said slowly.
“Just okay?” Sierra looked at me seriously. “Come on. You’re holding back. What don’t you like about it?”
“No, no, no, I don’t mean I don’t like it,” I said. “It’s just… a little…” I searched for the right word, thinking of Ms. Gallo and her focus on word choice. “Ordinary?”
Sierra looked confused. “I don’t understand.”
I sighed. “ ‘Lonely too. I’m the girl for you.’ What’s the next verse? ‘Without you I’ll go boo-hoo’?”
Thankfully, Sierra didn’t get insulted; she just laughed. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that some of the other songs you sing have such meaningful words. I know pop music is supposed to be light, but I just think you can do a little more with this one.”
Sierra nodded in agreement. “Maybe it’s because there’s not a special person in my life to think about while I sing it,” Sierra said. “You know, the way Tamiko has Ewan, and you”—Sierra paused for dramatic effect, and her eyes sparkled—“have Colllllllin.” She sang his name out.
I blushed. “I don’t ‘have’ Colin,” I said. “He’s just a friend. A friend I… maybe kinda sorta like. A little bit.”
“Well, that’s still more than I have,” Sierra said. “All I have is my cat.” She sang loudly to no one in particular, “Where are youuuuuu, my little pet? I’m missing you, and we haven’t even met!” Sierra turned to me with a grin. “Hey, that’s pretty good. I’m gonna write that down so I don’t forget. Haha!”
The two customers who were sitting at a table clapped. Sierra took a silly bow. “I’ll be signing autographs before you leave!” she joked, and they smiled and nodded. “See?” she said to me. “I knew it was good!”
I rolled my eyes, but I had to smile, too. Even when she’s just fooling around, Sierra finds a way to connect with people, I marveled. I could barely even speak in a room full of people who shared my interests, never mind break out into song in front of total strangers.
I thought of school this past year and how long it had taken me to speak up, even with great encouragement from, say, my favorite teacher—Ms. Healy. She’d worked so hard to get me to talk in English class, enticing me with little tidbits that she knew about me from conversations we’d had outside of class; bringing up my favorite book, Anne of Green Gables; asking me point-blank questions I couldn’t squirm away from. It had finally worked. By the end of the year I’d been able to speak out loud in her class every day.
I also thought about the school librarian, Mrs. K., and how she’d drawn me out with all of her little kindnesses—taking me to the Book Fest at my old school and giving me great things to read. (Hello, M. J. Connor!)
Colin, too, had made an effort with me, inviting me to sit with him on the school bus, saving me from the girls we called the Mean Team, and asking me to write for the school paper. We were actual friends. He was the first friend I’d really made on my own, since my mom had basically picked Sierra and Tamiko for me when we were toddlers—so Colin being the first friend I had chosen myself was kind of significant.
I didn’t have a ton of other friends at school, and I generally kept to myself. If I disappeared from Vista Green, I wasn’t sure too many people would notice, beyond Colin and those two teachers. Maybe also Amanda, whose mom lived in my dad’s building. We were friends, you could say. I probably would have been hanging with her if she hadn’t been at camp for the summer. But I was always relieved to get home at the end of the school day and be alone—to nestle into my window seat at my mom’s or into my comfy marshmallow armchair at my dad’s. The way I’d felt like I’d escaped from food-writing class, that was kind of how I felt every day when I got home from school.
But now that I’d been away from school for five weeks or so, it all felt like a dream. Had I really switched schools last year? Left my two besties and everything I knew behind? Had I really worked in the library and written for the school paper? Had I really tutored kids at the town library? I guessed I had, but it was hard to imagine doing it all again. I dreaded restarting it all, rekindling the relationships, just as I dreaded having to interact with all new kids in my food-writing class. It would be so much easier to just hide at home with a book!
The two customers stood up to leave, and Sierra looked up from the notebook where she was writing down lyrics. “Good-bye, my darling fans!” she called after them. “I’ll be performing every weekday afternoon, from one to six, and Sundays from one to eight. Come on back!”
They laughed and waved and promised to return, while I shook my head in amazement.
“Oh, Sierra, you are too much!”
“In a good way or a bad way?” she asked with a smile, but her eyes were serious.
“In just the right way,” I said. For you, I added silently. Not the right way for me at all!
Continue Reading…
A Sprinkle of Friendship
Coco Simon
; ABOUT THE AUTHOR
From cupcakes to ice cream! Having written more than thirty books about middle-school girls and cupcakes, COCO SIMON decided it was time for a change, so she’s switched her focus from cupcakes to her second-favorite sweet treat—ice cream. When she’s not daydreaming about yummy snacks, Coco edits children’s books and has written close to one hundred books for children, tweens, and young adults, which is a lot fewer than the number of cupcakes and ice cream cones she’s eaten. Sprinkle Sundays is the first time Coco has mixed her love of ice cream with writing.
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Coco-Simon
Simon Spotlight
Simon & Schuster, New York
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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This Simon Spotlight edition February 2020
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Text by Caroline Smith Hickey
Cover illustrations by Alisa Coburn
Cover design by Alisa Coburn and Hannah Frece
Interior design by Hannah Frece
ISBN 978-1-5344-5720-1 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-5344-5719-5 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-5344-5721-8 (eBook)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2019950341