by Coco Simon
The morning just seemed to get better and better. My second-period class, Spanish, was just down the hall. Then I went to gym class, and I was so happy—Emma, Mia, and Alexis were there!
I should probably explain my history with gym, or “physical education,” as teachers like to call it. I’m a pretty fast runner, but when it comes to most other sports stuff, I’m sort of a spaz. When we play volleyball and I hit the ball, I usually end up hitting the wall or the ceiling or a person. It’s not pretty. And last year, I got teased pretty hard about it.
I am good at softball, though. I even made the school team. But I like playing for fun. I’m not competitive, and being on a team that always played to win stressed me out too much, so I gave it up.
This year, though, I would have my three best friends to back me up in gym class. And I knew I would need it, because I had the same gym teacher, Ms. Chen. She acts more like an army drill sergeant than a middle school teacher. Honestly, she scares me.
Since it was the first day of school, we didn’t have to change into our gym clothes or anything. So before the bell rang, we were all just kind of hanging out on the bleachers. Some of the boys were running around and throwing basketballs at one another.
One of the balls bounced right up to where I was sitting with my friends. It rolled to my feet, so I picked it up, and George Martinez ran over to get it.
“Hey, Silly Arms! We’re in the same class again,” he said, smiling.
George started calling me Silly Arms last year, because of the way I play volleyball. I’ve never looked in a mirror while playing volleyball, but I guess I must look pretty silly. I never get mad because I know he’s just teasing, like he always does. But then some other kids (like Sydney and her friends, for instance) started calling me that to be mean.
Before I could say anything to George, Eddie Rossi ran up behind him. Eddie is the tallest kid in our grade, and probably in our whole school. Last year he even grew a mustache. But I guess he shaved it over the summer, because his face looked clean-shaven again.
Anyway, this is what Eddie said: “Hey, leave her alone!”
“It’s okay,” George replied. “Katie’s cool!”
Then he took the ball from me and tossed it to Eddie, and they both ran off.
My mouth was open so wide, you could probably have fit a whole cupcake into it.
“That was weird,” I said.
“It’s so obvious,” Alexis said. “Eddie likes you.”
“No way,” I told her. “It makes no sense. Last year Eddie teased me just as bad as Sydney did. He used to call me Silly Arms all the time. Besides, he’s a jock who likes popular girls, not girls like me.”
“That doesn’t mean he can’t still like you,” Alexis argued. “People change all the time. He doesn’t even have a mustache anymore.”
“Well, I think that Eddie and George both like Katie,” Mia said.
I must have been blushing, because my face felt hot. I am not the kind of girl who boys get a crush on, and especially not two boys at once.
Then Ms. Chen marched in, blowing her whistle, and for once I was glad to see her.
“Stand up and look alive, people! Just because it’s the first day of school doesn’t mean you can be slackers!”
I jumped to my feet pretty quickly. You definitely don’t want Ms. Chen on your case. But I couldn’t stop wondering about what happened with Eddie and George and if it meant I was still having good luck or not.
CHAPTER 3
This Means War!
Ms. Chen spent the whole gym period telling us the rules of gym and giving us advice about fitness. Finally, the bell rang.
“That was totally boring, but definitely better than being hit in the head by a volleyball,” I told my friends as we left. Everyone laughed.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure that will happen next week,” Mia teased me.
“Hey, we can all go to lunch together,” Emma realized.
“I’m going to stop at my locker first,” I said. “This math book is pretty heavy. I don’t want to carry it around all afternoon.”
“No problem, we can all meet at our table, like always,” Mia said.
I liked the sound of that. On the first day of school last year, I didn’t know where to sit. Now I had three good friends to sit with. I would definitely call that lucky!
Last year I was convinced that my locker was an evil robot out to get me. It’s one of those lockers where the lock is built into the door, and the school gives you the combination. I swear I always put in the right one, but that locker never wanted to open.
So I took a deep breath as I slowly turned the dial.
26 . . . 14 . . . 5 . . .
I pulled the handle, and the door wouldn’t open.
Oh no! It’s happening again! I thought. My heart began to beat faster. I took another deep breath and turned again.
26 . . . 14 . . . 5 . . .
Click! I pulled the handle, and the door opened up.
“Thank you, lucky fingernails,” I whispered.
Then I noticed the two girls at the lockers next to me. They were talking pretty loudly.
“It’s true! Sydney really moved!” one girl said.
“Does this mean no more PGC?” the other girl asked.
As I headed to the lunchroom, I heard more kids talking.
“I heard the PGC broke up.”
“I heard that Sydney left Maggie in charge.”
“I wonder if they’ll let me join now.”
I kind of couldn’t believe how many people were talking about Sydney. She was miles away, and she was still the most popular person in school. In a way, that’s kind of impressive.
Mia, Emma, Alexis, and I ended up in the cafeteria together at the same time. We made our way to our favorite table, near the back of the room. Alexis and Emma put down their backpacks and went to get on the lunch line. Mia and I always bring lunch from home, so we opened up our lunch bags.
“Did your mom pack you a back-to-school cupcake?” Mia asked.
“Probably,” I said. There’s been a special cupcake in my first school lunch ever since I could remember.
But when I opened up my bag, I found a turkey and guacamole wrap, an apple, a bag of carrot sticks, and my water bottle—but no cupcake.
“That’s weird,” I said. “Maybe she forgot to put it in.” I felt pretty disappointed.
Suddenly a strange hush came over the noisy cafeteria, and Mia and I both looked up to see what was going on.
My former best friend, Callie, was walking through the cafeteria with Maggie and Bella, the other two members of the PGC. Even though they all look different—Callie is tall with blond hair and blue eyes; Maggie is kind of short with crazy, curly brown hair; and Bella (her real name is Brenda) has dark hair and tries to look like that girl from those vampire movies—they were all dressed kind of the same. They each had on short-sleeved sweaters, plaid skirts, dark tights, and ankle boots.
“Those outfits are straight out of last month’s Teen Style,” Mia observed.
“Isn’t it kind of warm for sweaters?” I wondered. “It’s still officially summer, you know.”
The three of them casually walked to the PGC’s usual table, but you could tell they knew everyone was looking at them. Then Alexis and Emma came back to our table with their lunch trays.
“Well, I guess the PGC is still going strong,” Alexis remarked.
“Everyone’s talking about it,” Emma said as she sat down.
“I know,” I told them. “It’s kind of crazy.”
“Anyway, I have way more exciting news than that,” Alexis said. “We haven’t even gotten our flyers out yet, but I booked a job today. Ms. Biddle stopped me in the hallway. She wants some cupcakes for a birthday party in a couple of months.”
Ms. Biddle was our science teacher last year, and one of our first customers. She’s really cool.
“Awesome,” I said. “I wonder what kind she wants?”
“Before w
e talk about that, we should talk about this year’s school fund-raiser,” Alexis said. “I so want to win again.”
I took a bite of my turkey wrap and nodded. At the start of the year, the school has this big fair right before the first school dance, and school groups have booths and try to raise money for the school. Last year our cupcake booth raised the most money, and we won. The PGC did this awful makeover booth, and it felt kind of good to beat them.
“Last year we did the school colors and went with vanilla cupcakes,” Alexis reminded us. “I’m thinking that we need to switch it up this year.”
Mia nodded. “Yeah, we can do something really creative.”
We all got excited thinking of what we could do.
“How about a big tower of cupcakes?” Emma suggested.
“Cool!” I cried. “Or maybe we could do the world’s biggest cupcake and sell pieces of it.”
“Then we would need the world’s biggest oven,” Alexis pointed out.
“Maybe we could think of a theme, and then we could decorate the booth in the theme and do cupcakes to match,” Mia said.
We really liked that idea. “But what kind of theme?” I asked. “It should have something to do with school, right?”
We were so busy talking that I didn’t notice when Callie walked up to the table, followed by Maggie and Bella.
“Hey, Katie,” she said, and I jumped a little at the sound of my name.
“Oh hey, Callie,” I said, although what I really wanted to say was, What on Earth are you doing at our table?
“So, I was just wondering if you guys are going to do cupcakes for the fund-raiser this year,” she said.
Alexis looked straight at her. “Well,” she said, “we’re the Cupcake Club. It’s kind of a given.”
Callie ignored her. “Well, we were thinking of doing cupcakes this year.”
I almost choked on my carrot stick. The PGC could not do cupcakes! That was copying! I was about to start freaking out when Mia spoke up in her usual calm, cool way.
“I guess may the best cupcake win, then,” she said.
Callie got a look on her face, like maybe she wasn’t expecting that answer. Like maybe she wanted us to freak out. I was glad Mia spoke up first.
“Well, then, I guess it’s on,” she said, tossing her hair. (And when did she start doing that, anyway?)
Then she turned and walked away, and Maggie and Bella followed her, just like they used to follow Sydney.
“They can’t even come up with their own idea!” Alexis fumed.
“‘It’s on’?” Emma repeated. “What is she even talking about? I thought Callie wasn’t as bad as Sydney. She might be worse!”
Mia nodded. “I guess it’s clear who the new leader of the PGC is.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I felt terrible. It wasn’t just the PGC declaring war on the Cupcake Club. It was Callie declaring war on me. That’s what it felt like, anyway. This was the girl I learned to ride bikes with, who I had a zillion sleepovers with, who knew my deepest secrets. I never did anything to make her stop being friends with me, and she dumped me. That was bad enough. But this . . . this really hurt.
I looked down at my rainbow-painted fingernails.
So much for my lucky day, I thought.
CHAPTER 4
What’s Up with Mom?
Even though I was pretty upset by my encounter with Callie, I have to admit that the rest of the day was okay. After lunch, Mia was in my next two classes (which was good, because Callie, Maggie, and Bella were in them too). For fifth period we had social studies with Mrs. Kratzer. She’s short, with short hair and round glasses, and she seems really friendly. Then we had science with Ms. Chandar, who’s way more serious than Mrs. Kratzer, but she seems nice, too.
In seventh period I had an elective class, and I chose drama for this semester. Even though the idea of getting onstage terrifies me, I didn’t have to worry about that in this class. I thought it might be fun to study drama without having to be in a real play, you know? The teacher’s name is Mr. Brent, and he looks really young, like he could be in college or something. Anyway, the class looked like it might be fun.
Finally, I had English. English is my favorite subject, so it’s like saving the best for last. The teacher, Ms. Harmeyer, seems kind of quiet and shy, like somebody who likes to read books all the time instead of talking a lot. I guess maybe that’s why she became an English teacher.
When school ended, I packed all my books into my backpack and went outside to catch the bus. Last year, Joanne, who works in my mom’s office, would pick me up and take me to Mom’s work until her day was over. Some days my mom gets off early, and some days she has to work late.
This year, Mom said I could take the bus home and stay at the house by myself. I almost couldn’t believe it. My mom has always been super-protective, probably because she’s had to raise me by herself. I figured she wouldn’t let me stay by myself until I graduated college. But now I have my own key to the house, and it feels pretty cool.
When I got home I headed right for the kitchen and ate a banana. I forgot how hungry going to school makes me!
Then I remembered that I was supposed to call Mom the second I got in the door. Whoops! I was a little surprised Mom hadn’t called or alerted the fire department when she didn’t hear from me.
“Hi, sweetie!” Mom said when she picked up. “How was the first day of school?”
“Well,” I said, unsure of how much I wanted to tell her about Callie, “mostly it was pretty good.”
“Great!” she said. “Can’t wait to hear all about it when I get home. Now please begin your homework, okay? I’ll be home to start dinner soon.”
I hung up. The house was quiet and empty, so I decided to go to my room and blast my iPod while I did my homework.
My room is kind of small, but it has everything I need in it. The furniture is this white bedroom set that was my mom’s when she was a little girl, and Grandma Carole and Grandpa Chuck saved it in case Mom ever had a little girl of her own—me! A few years ago I started putting stickers on everything, and Mom got a little mad, but then Grandma Carole told her it was my set now, and it should reflect my personality. My grandma is pretty cool that way.
During the summer I used some of my Cupcake Club earnings to get stuff for my room that I saw in a catalog. Over my desk there’s a big cupcake-shaped bulletin board that I can stick pictures on. There are two pink cupcake-shaped pillows on top of my purple-and-green bedspread too.
I try to keep my room neat, but mostly I end up sticking things in the closet. Then when I can’t shut the door, I have to clean everything up before Mom sees it. Luckily, I had just done that before school started, so things were looking pretty nice.
I opened my backpack, put all my books on top of my desk, and then turned on the laptop Grandma Carole and Grandpa Chuck got me for my last birthday. Then I plugged my iPod into the dock on the nightstand next to my bed and turned it all the way up.
Mom never would have let me play music so loud during homework time, so it felt pretty daring. I didn’t really have much to do anyway, since it was the first day of school. Ms. Harmeyer’s assignment was to write a poem about one thing you did this summer. I think my poems always end up sounding corny, so I decided to wait until Mom came home to help me. She was really good at writing stuff. Instead I went online to look up some cupcake ideas for the fund-raiser.
I got distracted by all the ads for cupcake supplies that kept popping up, and before I knew it, it was five forty-five. I thought that was weird, because Mom always gets home by five thirty on the dot.
A few minutes later I heard Mom’s voice calling up the stairs.
“Katie! Turn that down!”
I quickly ran to shut off the iPod and then bounded down the steps. Mom was at the bottom wearing jeans and a white blouse, which was also weird because she always wears her scrubs home.
“Hey, you’re late,” I said. “Did you have an emergency
at work?”
“Katie, I told you, I didn’t go to work today,” Mom said. “I had to take Grandma Carole to the doctor again.”
“Um, no, you did not tell me that,” I said. “Is she okay?”
“We’ll talk about it at dinner, Katie,” Mom replied. “I ordered us a pizza. It’ll be here soon.”
I couldn’t believe it. Mom and I had pizza last night. Normally, Mom won’t even let us order pizza. She makes it herself, including the crust. And when we do order it in, she makes us get veggies on top of it. So delivery pizza two nights in a row was totally out of the ordinary.
“But we just had pizza last night,” I reminded her.
Mom sighed. “I’m sorry, Katie. I forgot.”
“How could you forget?” I asked. “Remember, we got eggplant and black olives for the very first time, and you said it was the best pizza yet.”
Mom motioned me over to the couch. “Katie, let’s talk now. You should know what’s going on,” she said. She sounded superserious, and I felt a little scared.
I sat down next to her.
“Katie, it looks like Grandma Carole is going to have surgery for her heart,” Mom said. “The doctors say she’s going to be fine. She’s in really good health. You know how active she is.”
I nodded. “She’s better at sports than I am.”
“But she has a lot of doctor’s appointments to go to, and Grandpa Chuck is still having trouble with his knees, so I’m going to take her,” Mom explained. Grandma Carole lives, like, an hour away, so I knew that wasn’t going to be easy. “And then, when she goes in for her surgery . . .”
The doorbell rang—it was the pizza guy. While Mom paid for the food, I thought about what she had just said. It sounded serious, but Mom said Grandma was going to be okay. Moms don’t lie about that stuff, do they?
I set the table, and soon we were eating broccoli pizza and salad. It was so delicious, I didn’t mind we were having pizza for the second day in a row.
“This is sooo good,” I said, swallowing a bite of pizza. “I was starving after school today.”
