by Coco Simon
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CHAPTER 1
Good Secrets, Bad Secrets
Sometimes I can’t believe how much I’ve changed since I’ve started middle school. On the first day of school, my best friend, Callie Wilson, dumped me because she didn’t think I was as popular as her new friends. But now I have three best friends: Mia Vélaz-Cruz, Alexis Becker, and Emma Taylor, and they are really great.
I used to think boys were just, well, boys. But now I have a sort-of boyfriend named George Martinez.
I used to think it would be really bad if my mom ever got a boyfriend. But now she’s dating Jeff—who I have to call Mr. Green sometimes, because he’s a teacher at my school—and it’s not bad at all.
I used to bake in my spare time. But now I bake almost all the time, because my friends and I have a real business selling cupcakes—the Cupcake Club.
I also used to be really against the idea of joining a competitive sports team at school. I would just get too nervous about the whole thing, and then I would make all these goofy mistakes. But now, well, things are different.
“Katie, I don’t get it,” Emma said during lunch in the cafeteria one day. “Why did you join the track team? I mean, it’s great, but I thought you just liked to run for fun.”
“Well, I was really anxious about it,” I admitted. “But Jeff—I mean, Mr. Green—is friends with Coach Goodman, the track coach. And the track team is the one team you don’t try out for—anyone can join. So even if I don’t run in any races, it might be fun to run with a group of people.”
“And Coach Goodman is so nice!” Mia added. “I have her for Technology. She makes everything seem so easy.”
I nodded. “Yeah, she’s supernice. She took me aside in the hall and said she heard I was a good runner. She said I could come to a practice and check it out. She doesn’t put a lot of pressure on the team, but everybody tries really hard, anyway, you know? So it seemed good, and I just thought I should go for it.”
“That’s really great,” said Alexis. Her curly red hair bounced on her shoulders as she nodded. “You know, any activities you do will look great on your college application. It’s never too early to start.” We all rolled our eyes but laughed because Alexis is always thinking about things like that.
“I think you’ll be great,” Emma added, smiling. “You’re an awesome runner!”
“Thanks,” I said. “I don’t know how I’ll do in a real race, though. Coach Goodman says I should do the long-distance races, the 800-meter or the 1,600-meter. And maybe a relay.”
“E-mail me your practice and meet schedule when you get it,” Alexis said. “It’s getting harder and harder to schedule our Cupcake Club meetings these days.”
Each of us in the Cupcake Club brings something different to the team. Alexis is a business whiz and keeps us really organized. Mia is a great artist, and she comes up with amazing cupcake decorations. Emma and I are really good at coming up with new recipes and flavors. (I’m not sure about Emma, but I know that I dream about cupcakes sometimes—honestly. Once I dreamed that these mini marshmallows were dancing around a swimming pool filled with caramel, and then they all jumped in. That’s how my famous marshmallow-caramel cupcake was born.)
“Are we still meeting Friday night?” Mia asked.
Alexis scrolled down her phone screen. “Yes. Seven o’clock at my house.”
“Can we do it at eight?” Emma asked. “I have a modeling job after school, and it might go a little late.”
“Anything exciting?” Mia asked, her dark eyes shining. Mia’s mom is a fashion stylist, and Mia wants to design clothes someday. Which is fine with me because she wants to go to design school in Manhattan, and I want to go to cooking school in Manhattan. This way we won’t have to say good-bye forever after high school—not that we would, anyway, but I’m glad we’re planning to stay close.
Emma frowned. “It’s a summer preview catalog, so it’s lots of shorts and tank tops,” she said. “Which means I have to shave my legs.”
Emma was wearing a skirt, and I ducked and looked at her legs. “Seriously? Your hair is so blond you can’t even see it.”
“The camera sees everything,” Emma said in a serious tone. “Plus, they told me to.” She sighed.
“Dylan says once you start shaving your leg hair, it grows in even more,” Alexis said. (Dylan is her older sister, who’s in high school.) “And I think she’s right. I woke up the other morning, and I swear my leg hairs grew an inch.”
The conversation was making me kind of uncomfortable. I had never even thought about shaving my legs. Honestly, I never even noticed that everyone else started doing it.
“I hate doing it,” said Mia. “Don’t you, Katie?”
Mia is my closest friend. If we were alone, maybe I would have told the truth right then. Instead, I lied.
“Yeah, it’s the worst,” I agreed, even though I had no idea what it was like. Then I quickly changed the subject. “So, yeah, eight o’clock on Friday is fine with me for a meeting.”
“Me too,” Mia said.
“Then eight o’clock it is,” Alexis said, typing into her phone. She put it down and opened up her lunch container. “Mmm, Asian chicken salad. Gotta make a note to thank Dad.”
“Yeah, he’s getting pretty creative with your lunches,” I said.
“Once I pointed out that packing lunch was cheaper than buying lunch in the cafeteria every day, he gave in,” she said. “I give him a shopping list to make things easier.”
Emma poked at the spaghetti on her plate. “Well, I kind of like the cafeteria food. But now I have nobody to wait with on the lunch line.”
“Sorry, Emma. I didn’t think of that,” Alexis said.
“I’d eat the school lunch, but I think packing lunch for me is one of Mom’s hobbies,” I said. I opened up my new bento box, which is a kind of Japanese lunch box. There are little compartments and containers, so you can have lots of different tastes in one meal.
“See? Carrot sticks and ranch dip, and she made me homemade cucumber sushi, and a hard-boiled egg, and grapes with a sweet dipping sauce.”
“That is impressive,” Mia said. “I’ve got a turkey and Swiss on a spinach wrap. Not superexciting, but it’s my favorite, so . . .” She shrugged and took a bite. Then her cell phone made a chirping noise.
Mia picked it up and looked at the screen. Her eyes went wide.
“No way!” she said, shaking her head.
“Who’s it from?” I asked.
“Olivia Allen,” she replied. “She says that Julie Fletcher was seen at the mall with Todd Weiser.”
“So?” I asked.
“So?” Mia said loudly. “Everybody knows that Todd is seeing Bella Kovacs!”
“Why would Olivia be texting that?” asked Emma. “Isn’t Bella supposed to be her friend?”
Olivia and Bella are in a club together—the Best Friends Club. Callie (my former best friend) and Maggie Rodriguez are in it too. You have to be really popular to be in the BFC. I think you have to be a little mean, too, but some of them are nicer than others. Mia could be in the club if she wanted to, but she’d rather stick with us. (Which is another reason I love her.)
“Well, Olivia is not exactly what you’d call great friend material,” Mia pointed out, and we all nodded. When she first came to Park S
treet Middle School, Mia had been really nice to her. But Olivia didn’t appreciate it one bit, and she ended up doing some really mean things to Mia. So Mia ended their friendship. Olivia has been a little nicer lately. But she’ll never be one of the Cupcakers.
“You can say that again,” I said. “She’s not great at keeping a secret, either.”
Mia laughed. “You’re right, Katie, but since when are you good at keeping secrets?”
I was shocked. “What do you mean?”
“I know what she means,” said Alexis, looking at me. “Like that time Emma, you, and I chipped in to get Mia that cool professional sketching kit for her birthday, and we wanted to keep it a surprise, but you blurted it out a week before the party.”
I blushed. That had definitely happened. “Okay, well, that was because I was superexcited and couldn’t control myself,” I admitted. “But I didn’t do it to hurt anybody’s feelings. Olivia might have seen Julie and Todd at the mall, but she didn’t have to say anything. Or she could have told Bella privately, instead of texting everybody.”
Emma nodded. “Katie’s right. Sometimes when you tell a secret, it can really hurt somebody.”
“But sometimes you have to tell a secret, if it means it will keep somebody from being hurt,” Mia pointed out.
“Well, I hate secrets,” Alexis announced. “I mean, birthday surprises and stuff are okay, I guess. But I think if everybody were honest with one another all the time, it would save a lot of hurt feelings and trouble, you know?”
“Exactly,” I said. “Some secrets are good, and some secrets are bad.”
I looked over at the BFC table. Olivia and Bella were sitting next to each other, and Bella was laughing about something. She had no idea that Olivia was spreading rumors that might hurt her.
Mia saw me looking at Bella.
“Yeah, I guess that text was a pretty bad one,” she said. “Gossip can be really fun, but I guess it mostly stinks, you know?”
“Definitely,” I agreed. “You know, I’m really glad we all don’t keep secrets from one another.” Then I briefly thought of the lie I had told about shaving my legs just minutes before—but that didn’t count, did it? It was just a little white lie.
“Me too,” my friends agreed, pretty much at the same time.
We finished our lunch and didn’t talk about secrets anymore. That’s because none of us knew it yet, but secrets were about to nearly tear apart the Cupcake Club.
CHAPTER 2
Did She Really Say That?
My first track practice was the next day, right after school. I was worried about things like whether I would be good enough or fast enough for the team. I wasn’t thinking about secrets at all that first day—but as it turns out, maybe I should have.
Both the boys’ and girls’ teams practiced at the middle school field. There’s a track that goes around the field for the running events, and the events like the shot put and long jump take place on the field part. Coach Goodman had told me to go to the girls’ locker room to change before practice each day.
When I got to the locker room, I scanned to see who else I knew who was on the team. There was Hana Hancock, from my drama class. She was one of the tallest girls in our grade, and I figured that would make her a pretty good runner. I’m not supershort or supertall, just average, but I know I could probably run faster with long legs like Hana’s.
Then I saw Natalie Egan, who’s in my Spanish class. She’s almost as tall as Hana, and I started to get nervous. Was I too short for the track team? Was there even such a thing as being too short for the track team? What if I lost every single race? What if I started too early or tripped? My mind started racing.
You’re just being silly, Katie, I told myself. There are plenty of girls in the locker room who are shorter than you are. Stop worrying!
While I was having this conversation with myself, I heard a voice behind me.
“Hi, Katie!”
I spun around to see a girl with blue eyes and long blond hair in a ponytail. It was Callie, my former best friend.
“So, I heard you were joining the team,” she said. “I guess it’s true.”
“Yeah, Coach Goodman convinced me,” I replied. “She’s really nice.”
Callie nodded. “Yeah, she is. Well, glad you’re on the team.” Then she walked away to talk to some other girls.
That’s how things are with Callie and me these days. Friendly, but nothing more. Our days of being besties are over. For a while, I was pretty mad at her, and she was not so nice to me. But we got over that stuff and made a kind of truce. I was actually glad she was on the team too. We’re almost exactly the same height, so I didn’t feel so short anymore.
I quickly changed into blue shorts, running shoes, and my official blue Park Street Middle School track team T-shirt. It felt pretty good to put it on, but scary at the same time. I took a deep breath and followed the other girls outside.
It was a chilly spring afternoon, and I shivered a little. But I knew that soon enough I would be starting to sweat. Coach Goodman walked up to us, wearing a blue tracksuit. She has red curly hair that reminds me of Alexis’s. Today, she kept it pulled back with a light blue bandana.
“Hello, girls’ track team!” she said with a friendly smile. “Let’s give a big cheer for our first practice of the year!”
We all clapped and yelled, “Wooooo!” Then Coach Goodman clapped her hands together. We settled down and paid attention.
“Okay, so for these first few practices we’re going to work on form,” she said. “Before we start drills, let’s warm up and go for a jog.”
She led us to a small grassy area near the main field to start stretches, and then we headed onto the track.
“This is not a race!” Coach Goodman called out as she led us around the track. “We just want to get your heart pumping.”
It was one of those days when it just felt good to be outside. There were fluffy white clouds in the sky, and the silver bleachers on the side of the track looked shiny and clean and ready for the season. Somehow, I ended up jogging right between Hana and Natalie. I guess we were all keeping the same pace.
“Hey, Katie!” Natalie said, giving me a friendly smile.
“You know Katie?” asked Hana. “I know her too.”
“Awesome,” said Natalie.
“So, were you guys both on the team before?” I asked.
Hana nodded. “Since we started middle school.”
“Coach Goodman seems nice,” I said.
“She is,” Natalie agreed. “She makes us work hard, but she’s not mean about it. She’s a good coach.”
When the jog ended, I was feeling pretty good, and I wasn’t out of breath or anything. I run with my mom all the time. We run together a lot of weekends. We’ll just throw on our gear and head over to our local park. We’ve even done races and stuff.
Then Coach Goodman had us line up on the track using the lanes. I stuck with Hana and Natalie and got behind them.
“Form drills might seem weird or boring, but we do them for a reason,” said Coach Goodman. “They’ll help develop certain muscle groups to give you a better stride, make you a better runner, and prevent you from getting injured.”
I started to get a little nervous. I thought running was just . . . running. What was all this about form and muscle groups?
“We’ll start out with some high knees,” said Coach Goodman. “For now, keep your hands still on your sides. Stand up straight. Now, lift up one knee at a time. Kind of like you’re marching in place. Left . . . right . . . left.”
We all started doing what Coach Goodman instructed.
“Slow now. That’s it. Keep your thighs parallel to the ground. Very good,” Coach Goodman said.
I looked down at my legs. Parallel? That meant I should keep my thighs straight, like a table. I adjusted my movements a little.
“Okay, now add arm movements,” said Coach Goodman, bending her arms at the elbow and pumping them back and forth.
Once we had done that for a while, she told us to go faster.
“Just pick up the pace,” she said. “There we go! Keep those knees high.”
We did it faster, and I started giggling. I couldn’t help it. We all looked pretty silly!
“Glad you’re having fun, Katie,” called out Coach Goodman, but she was smiling, not being sarcastic or scolding, thank goodness. I smiled back.
Once we got used to the faster pace, Coach told us to start walking while we did high knees. We high-kneed our way around the track.
“We look like prancing ponies,” I said, giggling again. Hana and Natalie started giggling too.
“You’ll get used to it,” Hana promised.
After we’d completed a lap around the track, we lined up at the starting line. I didn’t feel too winded, but I could feel a slight burning in my legs. I guess I was developing those muscle groups Coach was talking about!
I thought high knees was a pretty silly exercise, but then it got even worse.
“Okay,” Coach Goodman said. “Time for butt kicks!”
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked.
“Yup,” Natalie said with a nod.
For the butt kicks, we had to keep our backs straight, facing forward, and kick back our heels so that they almost touched our butts.
Now I can tell everyone that track practice kicked my butt! I thought, and then I burst out giggling. Coach looked over at me and raised an eyebrow, and I turned my attention back to kicking my butt.
When we finished the butt kicks, things got even weirder! We did this thing called high skips, where we had to basically skip as we ran while swinging arms.
“This is great training that will help you push off at the start of a race,” Coach Goodman explained as we collapsed into giggles after having finished a lap of high skips. I mean, we looked pretty ridiculous! But even though it was weird, I was having fun.
We did the drills all over again—high knees, butt kicks, and high skips. As we were skipping around the field again, the boys started to come onto the field. Their practice started right after ours.
