by Coco Simon
CHAPTER 1
The Worst News Ever
Okay, Mia, open wide.”
“Open wide” might be two of the scariest words in the English language, don’t you think? Because when you hear them, it usually means a dentist is about to look into your mouth.
Not that I have anything against dentists. My dentist is Dr. Brown, though I normally call her Mrs. Brown since she is my friend Katie’s mom. She’s supernice, and I’m sure most dentists are perfectly nice people. I just don’t like the stuff they have to do.
Anyway, the person asking me to open wide wasn’t even Mrs. Brown. It was her assistant Joanne, who is also really nice. She’s tall, and she wears her blond hair up in a ponytail all the time, and under her blue scrubs I can always tell that her clothes are very fashionable.
Joanne must have noticed the nervous look on my face.
“It’s cool, Mia. I’m just taking some X-rays. This doesn’t hurt at all. You know that, right?” she asked.
I nodded. “Okay.”
I opened wide, and Joanne stuck this white square thing into my mouth and told me to bite down. Then she straightened the heavy gray apron covering me and left the room. I heard a quick buzz, and then Joanne came back in and took out the square thing.
“You know, this really isn’t that flattering,” I joked, looking down at the apron.
She laughed. “Just a few more shots and you can take it off, and then you’ll be ready for the runway again, okay?”
Joanne was right—the X-rays didn’t hurt at all, but I was glad when they were over.
“Dr. Brown will be by in a minute to go over them with you,” Joanne told me. “I’ll send in your mom, okay?”
“Thanks,” I said, and inside I felt a little bit relieved. Up until a couple of years ago, I lived in Manhattan. Mom and Dad worked during the day, and my babysitter always took me to the dentist. Now we live in the suburbs, and Mom mostly works from home and has her own company, so she has more time to do stuff like this. It’s nice having her around, especially at the dentist’s.
“How’d it go?” Mom asked as she came into the room.
“My teeth are superclean,” I said, flashing her a smile. “And Joanne said it doesn’t look like I have any cavities. So I’m thinking I deserve some kind of reward for being so awesome.”
Mom raised an eyebrow. “You want a reward for not getting any cavities?”
“I was thinking a trip to the mall would be good,” I said.
“Well, you don’t have to twist my arm for that,” Mom replied. I guess it’s a good thing we both love shopping!
Then Mrs. Brown came in. She has the same friendly brown eyes as my friend Katie, but Mrs. Brown’s light brown hair is cut short, with long bangs that are stylishly angled across her face.
“It looks like you’re cavity free, Mia, but let me take a look in person, okay?”
I nodded and opened my mouth again until she was done.
“Very good,” she said with a nod. Then she looked at me, and then at my mom. “But we should talk about your X-rays.”
She pressed some keys on the computer on the table next to me, and the pictures of my mouth popped up. It was really weird to see how long the roots were underneath my gums, and I turned my head away. My teeth looked too creepy!
“Mia’s got some crooked teeth on her bottom jaw, and her top jaw as well,” Mrs. Brown said, pointing to the screen with the end of her pen. “Her bite is misaligned, which can cause problems down the road. I’m recommending you see an orthodontist. I’m not sure, but Mia may need braces.”
A cold chill went right through me.
“Braces? Seriously?” I asked. It sounded more like I was squeaking, because I was so upset.
“Well, as I said, I’m not one hundred percent sure,” Mrs. Brown said. “But it’s very likely.”
I looked up at my mom. I could already feel my eyes starting to well up with tears. I started shaking my head. “No way! I cannot get braces. I will die!”
“Mia, it’s okay,” Mom assured, putting her hand on my shoulder.
Mrs. Brown gave me a sympathetic look. “I understand. Nobody wants to hear news like this. But by correcting your teeth now, we can help make sure your mouth stays healthy for a long, long time. I have some brochures I’ll give you, so you can find out what it’s all about.”
Then she turned to my mom. “I know a great orthodontist over in River Glen. I’ll get you her card.” She smiled at me. “She’s the same doctor Katie used when she had her braces.”
Mrs. Brown left, and I looked at Mom. “Please tell me this isn’t happening!”
“There’s no need to panic yet, Mia,” Mom said. “Let’s wait and see what the orthodontist says before we start worrying, okay? And anyway, braces aren’t so bad. Katie had them! And your cousin Marcela had them, remember?”
Marcela is a junior in high school now, but she had braces when she was my age. I definitely remembered them. How could I forget a mouth full of metal and wires? I shuddered.
“She was always complaining that they hurt,” I pointed out. “And when we all went to that farm she couldn’t eat a candy apple, and she cried.”
“That’s just what you remember. I know that most of the time, she was fine,” Mom said, and then she quickly changed the subject. “Hey, we should get out of here and get to the mall!”
Mom’s strategy worked—at first. I never get tired of going to the mall. Since my dentist appointment was right after school, I was kind of hungry, so Mom got me a vanilla mango smoothie at Smoothie Paradise. I sipped the delicious tropical goodness through a straw as we slowly walked around, window-shopping.
“Well, if I get braces, at least I can still have smoothies,” I remarked, and Mom smiled.
“That sounds more like my Mia. Stay positive!”
But I ruined my own mood by bringing up the braces, and it didn’t even help when we went inside Icon, my favorite shop in the whole mall. They had all the new summer styles on the racks, in tons of bright, almost fluorescent colors.
I held up a neon-yellow sleeveless dress. “Wow, you could wear this in the dark and people could see you for miles,” I said. I actually look good in yellow, so I brought the dress to the mirror and held it up to my face.
I posed and smiled, and then suddenly I got a vision of myself in the bright yellow dress with a mouth full of blinding silver metal.
“I can’t wear this if I get braces!” I wailed. “It’s too much! Aliens in space will be able to see me.”
“Oh, Mia, that’s not true,” Mom said, trying to reassure me, but it was no use.
“If I get stupid braces, I won’t be able to wear any of the new summer styles!” I complained. “I might as well go live under a rock somewhere!”
Mom sighed. “Come on, let’s go to the candle shop. I think you need some calming scents.”
I could feel tears stinging my eyes as I followed Mom out of Icon. And the scent of misty mountain sandalwood candles (my favorite) did not help one bit. I was convinced braces were going to ruin my life!
CHAPTER 2
My Friends Are the Best!
The next morning I had a soccer game, but I couldn’t concentrate at all. The coach had me playing fullback, and twice I let one of the players from the other team breeze right past me to the goal. They scored both times! It’s a good thing my friend Emma is on my team, because she’s a really good and fast player, and she scored two goals to make up for it. In the end, we won by one point.
After the game, Emma and I found her dad over on the sidelines. He has dark blond hair and blue eyes, just like Emma and all the rest of the Taylors. They’re one of those families where it’s easy to tell that they’re all related.
“What time is your cupcake meeting?” Mr. Taylor asked us as we piled into the minivan.
“Katie and Alexis are coming over at eleven thirty,” Emma replied, nodding to the clock on the dashboard, which read 10:56. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
I guess I was so upset about hearing that I might need braces that I forgot to tell you about the Cupcake Club. Sorry! My friends Katie, Alexis, Emma, and I formed the club when we started middle school. At first we did it just so we could hang out and bake cupcakes, but it’s turned into a real business. So we have regular meetings, and we’re always busy baking cupcakes and making displays for the parties we do.
“Good. You girls will have time to test out the granola bars I made this morning,” Emma’s dad said. “With the four Taylors all in sports, I’m spending all my money on protein bars.”
“Hey, that’s Matt and Sam’s fault,” Emma said, bringing up her two older brothers. “They’re both bottomless pits.”
Mr. Taylor winked into the rearview mirror. “You do pretty good yourself, Emma. But that’s okay. You’re all growing kids.”
Emma looked at me and rolled her eyes. Parents always say the goofiest things!
A few minutes later we were sitting at Emma’s kitchen table, munching on Mr. Taylor’s homemade granola bars. They were nutty, with some bits of dark chocolate in them, and very crunchy.
“So, what do you think?” Emma’s dad asked.
“They’re good,” I said.
Emma nodded. “Maybe a little bit dry, though.”
Mr. Taylor looked thoughtful. “Maybe I should add more yogurt.”
“You should ask Katie,” I suggested. “She’s really good at fixing recipes.”
“Hey, thanks!”
Katie came into the kitchen with a big smile on her face, followed by Alexis. Katie was wearing a white T-shirt with a picture of a unicorn on it, and purple shorts. Alexis had her curly red hair pulled back with a blue headband that matched the cute top she was wearing, along with some skinny jeans. I was feeling pretty unfashionable in my soccer uniform.
Mr. Taylor handed a granola bar to each of them. “Testing out a new recipe. I’m accepting criticism.”
“We will give you a full report later, Dad,” Emma said. “Right now, we’ve got important cupcake business to conduct.”
“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!
CHAPTER 3
Heavy Metal Mayhem
The 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.
