by Coco Simon
But that’s where the good times stopped for a while and frustration took over.
The puppies were impossible to keep in one place. We’d stack them into a cute puppy pyramid, and the second we moved, they’d all slide to the floor. Or we’d line them all up, and they’d start wandering around. One of them peed; another pooped, and then his brother stepped in it. It was gross and frustrating. Even Mona was starting to wonder aloud what we’d gotten into.
Ongaro was a good sport, though. “Now you see why animal photographers get paid the big bucks!” he said in his deep voice. “It’s like being a war photographer. Always on your toes, catching the action!” His camera was whirring as he took shot after shot, but there was always a pup just wandering out of the frame. Still Ongaro kept his cool. “They’re just so cute! So funny! I’m falling in love!” he’d boom.
He took a break and looked at the shots with Mona. While they discussed them, I looked at my dad. “Bad idea?” I whispered.
He sighed. “Maybe not the best use of everyone’s time, but they were good to do it.”
A minute later, Ongaro and Mona returned. Mona clapped her hands. “Jake and Emma, in the photo please!”
“Wait, what? I look like a total slob!” I said. I was wearing dirty jeans and a flannel shirt, and my hair was in two long braids. Jake was wearing his police officer T-shirt and sweatpants.
“You look beautiful and wholesome, as always. We think you two need to be in the photo for scale. People won’t realize how cute and tiny these pups are without some kind of reference.”
It took a few minutes to warm Jake up to it, especially because Ongaro called for his assistant to brush Jake’s hair and powder our shiny noses and foreheads, but once we sat on the drop cloth to play with the pups, we forgot about the cameras.
Ongaro clicked and whirred, and within ten minutes he said he had at least a dozen great shots, which he’d e-mail to Mona tonight when he got back to his studio.
My dad and I thanked everyone, and I gave Mona a huge hug. And just as we were leaving, Ongaro said in a resigned voice, “Okay. I’ll take the dark brown one,” as if we’d been begging him all afternoon.
“What?” I said, my jaw falling open in shock.
“Great!” said my dad.
“Um . . . but . . . that’s the one Katie wants,” I said, agonizing.
“Oh,” my dad and Ongaro said at the same time.
“But is Katie really going to take her? Her mom’s allergic, honey. Let’s be realistic here.” My dad looked at me, almost looking like one of the puppies himself.
I thought I might cry suddenly. “Um . . .” I knew he was right. I mean, what’s that expression, “Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth?” or “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush”? All these animal expressions floated through my head.
Ongaro was looking at me, and then he put a warm, soft paw on my shoulder. “Listen, I will take one. I think they are adorable. I would prefer the dark one, since my signature color is chocolate brown.” He gestured to his vest, his boots, and a business card he produced, all chocolate brown. “If your friend does not want it, just let me know. Otherwise, I will take one of the honey-colored ones as soon as they are ready.”
“Oh, Mr. Ongaro! Thank you!” I yelped, and threw my arms around him. He patted me and laughed and said it was fine and he’d see me soon.
We crated up the pups, said our good-byes and thanks-yous, and headed out.
In the car, my dad cautioned me again. “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face,” he said, and I didn’t even know what that one meant. All I knew was I had to find out ASAP from Katie what her plan was.
Mona sent along ten great photos the next day, and I forwarded them to Diego and Matt for distribution. A week later, I began my campaign. I decided that the only way for people to fall in love with these dogs was to borrow them and have the chance to see them in their own homes. Specifically, Diego and Katie.
So I e-mailed them both and asked them if they’d be willing to try it.
Katie came right back to me with a yes; Diego took a day longer. But by the following weekend, they each had an eight-week-old puppy at home with them.
I checked in with them both as much as I could without seeming totally desperate. Diego posted pics all Saturday night of everyone in his family hanging around with the dog. His sister and dad looked fine to me. Katie reported that her mom was symptom free and had declared that if she was still fine by the next weekend, Snicky could stay!
By Sunday, we were fielding calls from people all around town who had seen the new Ongaro photos and wanted to come and see the pups. My parents had decided that for strangers, we’d sell the dogs for $150 each, to recoup the costs of all the food and medical bills, like for the puppies’ shots and Rocky’s checkups. For friends and family, the pups were free. Despite the calls, and a few visits, we didn’t get any takers. I felt like Mrs. Barnett at the park with the ARF animals—lots of patters and holders but no takers.
I called Mr. Ongaro to deliver the good and bad news about the dark-brown pup, and he said it was fine because he had decided that he preferred a honey-colored one so much, he’d be changing his signature color to honey-gold as soon as possible. He came by on a Tuesday night, and we gave him the pup, whom he named Scavullo after a famous fashion photographer. I thought it was a mouthful until he told me he planned to call him Lolo. Naturally, we did not charge Ongaro for the pup.
Katie called Friday, screaming with joy. Snicky was hers! I was thrilled but also so relieved that I’d stuck by my word and saved her pup for her. But then on the flip side, Diego called to say his sister had had an asthma attack, and they were likely going to have to return the pup they were calling Piper, the smallest of the litter. He was so curt on the phone that I was hurt, but then I thought of my brothers and figured it was probably because he wanted to cry and didn’t want me to know. That pup came back the next day, and I gave her some extra TLC, like Diego had done for Tigerlily when I had to leave her at ARF for that extra twenty-four hours.
So that left two more pups to place, and by the end of that tenth week, we’d finally done it! A friend of my mom’s—another librarian—had gotten permission from their director to bring a dog to work with her once it was housebroken, so she’d come over and selected a little pup we had called Liam, after the handsome actor Liam Carey whom we all loved. She was going to call him Melville, though, after the author. Melly. It was okay with me.
And second to last was Jinx. A young family who had seen the sign at the playground came and sat with her for hours over two days, and finally asked to take her home, turning over $150—the only money we wound up making off the pups. It was fine—it just about covered the costs, my mom said. (“About half,” corrected my dad.) I think my mom was just so thrilled to get the pups placed, she would have paid people to take them at that point.
And finally, with just the one last pup of Diego’s to place, we were in pretty good shape. My mom had professional cleaners come and clean the whole downstairs of the house, including throwing away the gross cardboard birthing bed. The house got back to normal (and smelling normal too), and I considered floating the idea of keeping Piper, but I knew that would be pushing my luck. Jake was just obsessed with Rocky and not as interested in the pups. Tigerlily was a wonderful addition to my life, but a little bit of work, too—feeding, brushing, playing, changing the litter box, letting her in and out. Another week passed, and the Cupcakers came to bake on Friday for Mona and for a birthday party for one of Jake’s friends. We were all happy that it was almost December, and that meant a nice long break, with plenty of time for baking and playing with animals.
Jake and Rocky were snuggling on Rocky’s bed when my phone rang where it was sitting on the kitchen table. I didn’t recognize the number, but Rocky sat bolt upright and gave a short bark.
“Easy, girl! I got it, I got it!”
Piper came running in from the mudroom and slid on her paws the last f
ew feet, coming to a stop just in front of me.
I answered, expecting it to be someone calling about a cupcake job.
“Hello?”
“Em?”
“Diego? Where are you calling me from?”
“The allergist’s office! Cecilia just had her new allergy testing done. She’s not allergic to animals at all! She’s allergic to feathers and dust!”
I sat down heavily. “Wait, what? What are you saying?”
“I can have Piper! I can have the puppy!” This time I think he actually was crying, but he didn’t mind me knowing.
“DIEGO! I can’t believe it!”
The Cupcakers gathered around. “What? What is it?” they asked in concern.
“Diego can have Piper! Did you hear that, girl? You’re going home!” I reached down and scooped her up. “Say hi to your daddy!” I held the phone to her ear and could hear Diego babbling away in puppyspeak. She licked the phone, and I laughed and dried it on my pants, “Diego? When can you come get her?”
“We’ll be there at six fifteen, right after my dad gets home. Is that okay?”
“Awesome. I am so psyched for you!”
“Me too. Thanks, Em. Thanks for keeping her for me.”
“My pleasure!” I said, thanking my lucky stars that no one else had come forward in the meantime. I think I know what I would have done, but you never know when parents get crazy what they’ll make you do.
I hung up the phone and looked at the Cupcakers.
“Time to make a batch o’ pupcakes!” I cried. “And tint the frosting honey-gold!”
“Yippee!” they cried.
“Did you hear that, Rocky? Your daughter’s going to live with Emma’s boyfriend!” said Jake, over on the dog bed.
“Awwww! He’s so cute!” squealed Mia.
I rolled my eyes at Jake. But I couldn’t stop smiling.
Want another sweet cupcake?
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Alexis
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Health Cakes
I took a big bite of a chocolate cupcake. “Mmm! Yummy! Vitamins and minerals!” I mumbled through the crumbs. But it was not yummy. Not yummy at all. “Ugh. These are horrible!” I yelled and ran to the garbage to spit out my bite. “Sorry, Katie,” I added sheepishly.
Emma and Mia laughed, and Katie shook her head, but she was smiling.
The Cupcake Club was helping me out—again!—with a project, but for once it was something we were all experts in: cupcakes! This time, it was my project for the science fair, and I had decided to prove that cupcakes are good for you. I know, it sounds crazy—like yet another marketing scheme of mine—but it turns out it’s true. Under certain circumstances, anyway. You needed the right ingredients.
So, according to my research, chocolate is good for you; especially dark chocolate. It is good for your blood and liver and cholesterol, and when you eat it, it releases endorphins, which relax you and make you feel happy. So, dark chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolate frosting are a must for the science fair. It’s just a teeeeeny bit difficult to make dark chocolate taste really good without adding lots of sugar (the bad thing about sugar is that it cancels out a lot of the healthy things about dark chocolate). That’s why improving sugarless taste is one thing we were working on in our “test kitchen,” which was at Emma’s house today.
Another way cupcakes can be good for you is if you swap out unhealthy ingredients for healthier ones. Like, instead of oil or butter, you can use applesauce, and instead of sugar, you can swap in either a sugar substitute, like stevia, or something naturally sweet, like sweet potatoes. Katie’s really good at that kind of thing, because she just intuitively understands the principles of baking. My mom would be too, if she were a baker, ’cause she’s really into healthy eating. But for her, healthy eating excludes cupcakes, and I think that is very, very sad. (And so does my dad, who loves cupcakes!)
If we can reduce the sugar and fat in our basic cupcake and frosting recipes, and up the dark chocolate and then add fruit or veggies, then we can have a healthy recipe I can use for the science fair (not to mention samples I can hand out to the judges!). It’s just been really slow going, and honestly, it’s starting to seem like we’ll never get them to taste good.
Mia’s convinced if we make them look pretty enough, people will just eat them and not care, but I disagree, and so does Emma.
“It’s not about looks!” said Emma.
“Easy for you to say,” I teased. Emma’s a model, and you know how really pretty people can sometimes take their looks for granted and, like, not notice them? She’s like that. I suppose it’s a good quality, but it can be kind of annoying, anyway.
Emma rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean.”
Mia nodded. “I disagree. They have to be visually appealing.”
“Mia’s right,” said Katie, her brow furrowed in concentration. “A lot of our perception is visual, even when it comes to taste. A good appearance makes us imagine one thing while a bad appearance makes us imagine something else. Same with the aroma. If they smell good, that’s half the battle. You should make all that a part of your research, too.”
I sat on a stool in Emma’s kitchen. “Well, we definitely don’t want people imagining . . .” I lifted a jar Katie had emptied into the new batter, and read the label. “Sweet potato puree? Yuck!”
“You’d be surprised,” Katie said wisely.
I sighed. “That’s why we pay you the big bucks, Katie. You’re the taste doctor.” I shrugged and pulled over the notebook I was using to keep track of the recipes to see what Katie had written in it. What I saw there was much more to my liking: quantities, measurements, pricing, calorie counts . . . in a word, numbers! My favorite thing.
“Six ninety-nine for one little can of sweet potatoes?” I asked incredulously.
“They’re organic, and they’re pricey when they’re processed like that. You could bake and scoop your own. It would be a lot cheaper, but they might not be as smooth as the professionally pureed ones,” said Katie.
I pushed the jar away. “Well, let’s just see how they taste. Maybe they’re worth it, and we’ll scrimp on something else.”
The phone rang, and Emma went to answer it. She took a message and rejoined us.
“I’ve heard of people even using baby food,” said Emma.
“Eww! In baked goods?” I asked.
“Uh-huh,” Emma said, giggling. She picked up a yucky cupcake and tried to feed it to me, like I was a baby. “Open up, Lexi . . . ,” she said in baby talk.
I clamped my mouth shut and shook my head.
“Come on! Yummy, yummy!” she joked, wiggling the cupcake toward my mouth, like she was feeding a toddler.
I closed my eyes and shook my head harder, and she grabbed my chin to try to force open my mouth. Then I started laughing, and we were wrestling, and I fell off the stool. Right then, Emma’s brother Matt, the crush of my life, strolled in from practice.
He looked at me on the floor and then at Emma trying to shove the cupcake at me, and he shook his head, but he was laughing. “If only people knew what went on behind the closed doors of the Cupcake Club. I could sell a magazine article about it for a fortune!”
“Please, don’t!” I cried, jumping to my feet.
“How much is my silence worth?” he joked.
I waved my arm at the dozen healthy (and awful) cupcakes on the counter. “These are all yours!” I said generously.
Matt’s eyes lit up. “Seriously?”
I shared a smile with the other Cupcakers. “Uh-huh!”
Then he looked at me skeptically. “What’s the catch?” He narrowed his eyes and lifted a cupcake to inspect it.
“Why would there be a catch?” I asked innocently.
Matt looked at the cupcake suspiciously. He turned it all around. It was small and dense, and the dark chocolate frosting was thick and glossy. It looked delicious. Ne
xt, Matt lifted it to his nose and gave it a whiff.
Katie nudged me. “See? Looks and smell count.”
“Hmm. Good observation,” I agreed.
We all stood with bated breath as Matt took a tentative nibble. He looked at us looking at him, and his brow furrowed. “It’s . . .” He was about to say “good,” but then the lack of sugar hit him.
He spun and hurried to the garbage and spat his cupcake on top of mine.
“Blech! Who forgot the sugar?!” he cried.
We all giggled. “They’re healthy cupcakes. They’re good for you!” I chirped.
“Yeah, because you try one bite and then you don’t eat the rest. That’s why it’s good for you,” Matt retorted, scowling. He wagged his finger at me as I laughed. “You owe me, missy!”
“They’re my project for the science fair. You’re our guinea pig,” I admitted.
Matt got a funny look on his face. “The science fair? Already? Oh. That’s cool. Who are you partners with?”
“Partners? Who gets partners for a science fair?” I laughed, still giddy. “I’m my own partner. Plus my silent partners, the Cupcake Club!”
Mia waved and I laughed again.
“Oh. Well, that should be a winner,” said Matt, but he didn’t sound superenthusiastic. He hoisted his backpack onto his shoulder and turned to go up to his room.
“Sam Perry called,” Emma said as he retreated.
“Who?” Matt turned back around.
“Sam Perry?” said Emma.
“Who’s Sam Perry?” I asked.
Emma shrugged.
Matt had a funny look on his face that I couldn’t read. “New at school,” he said, and he wandered off.
“Who’s Sam Perry?” I repeated to Emma when Matt was out of earshot.
“I have no idea,” she said, looking down at her nails.
“Weird. Never heard of him,” I said. I wondered briefly why Matt had acted so odd. But maybe I was just imagining things.
Emma glanced at me like she was going to say something, but then she seemed to change her mind and instead said, “Katie, what about applesauce?”
