by Coco Simon
“Did you try a ponytail?” Emma asked.
“I tried,” I said. I took an elastic from my pocket and slipped my hair into a low ponytail. “See how it bulges out?”
Emma got up and stood behind me. “That’s because you’re doing a low ponytail. You should try a messy one, like this.”
She undid the elastic and pulled my hair loosely on top of my head before slipping the elastic on again.
“Mirror?” I asked, and Emma quickly grabbed one from her backpack and handed it to me.
I looked at my reflection. The messy ponytail looked pretty good. And all my hair was mixed up together, so you couldn’t tell which was the flat stuff and which was the wavy stuff.
“Thanks, Emma,” I said, feeling a little better. Then I opened up my lunch bag.
“Cupcake meeting today, right?” Katie asked as she munched on a P-B-and-J sandwich.
Alexis nodded. “After school, at Emma’s house,” she replied. “I have some new business to bring up.”
“And I recorded last night’s episode of Extreme Cupcake Challenge,” Emma added. “I thought we could watch it for inspiration.”
“Cool!” Katie cried. Of the four of us, she is the most cupcake crazy. “Mom and I went to a movie with Mr. Green last night and I forgot to DVR it.”
Mr. Green is a math teacher in our school—and Katie’s mom’s boyfriend. It’s definitely awkward for Katie, but I think she’s getting used to it.
“Let’s meet in front of the school after the last bell,” Alexis suggested.
We all agreed that sounded fine, and before we knew it, lunch was over.
With my new messy ponytail in place, I was feeling a little more confident. And now that lunch was over, everybody had bad breath, not just me (especially anyone who ate the onion meat loaf at lunch).
Maybe Emma is right, I thought hopefully. Maybe the second half of the day will be better!
Katie and I walked into social studies together. I sat in my seat and put on my glasses. I need to wear them to see things that are far away, like when I watch TV, or I’m in class and I need to see the board clearly. I hated the idea of glasses at first, but now I’m used to them. My main pair is very stylish, with thin copper frames. Well, more like half-rimmed frames, with nothing at the tops of the lenses, so it almost looks like I’m not wearing glasses at all.
Our teacher, Mrs. Kratzer, walked in. She’s petite and has short hair, and round glasses and she’s one of those teachers you’d call “tough but fair”—you know, strict but nice at the same time.
When the bell rang, she gave us a big smile.
“Good afternoon, class!” she said. “Time for a pop quiz!”
Her words hit me like a truck. I couldn’t help myself.
“You didn’t tell us there was going to be a quiz today!” I blurted out.
Mrs. Kratzer just kept smiling. “That’s why it’s called a pop quiz, Mia,” she said cheerfully. “As long as you’ve been keeping up with the reading assignments, you should be fine.”
She was right—I would have been fine if I had kept up with the reading assignments. The problem was, the latest issue of Teen Runway had come out a few days ago and I had been reading that instead of my social studies. (Yes, I know it’s only a magazine, but it takes me a long time to get through it. I take notes, mark the important pages with tiny flags, and make sketches when I get inspired.)
I sighed for the one hundredth time that day as Mrs. Kratzer passed out the quizzes. Katie gave me a sympathetic look—her second one for the day—but there was nothing she could do to help me; it was my fault, and I was on my own. I would just have to do my best.
I looked down at the paper and groaned. We were learning about the dynasties from Chinese history, and I had a hard time keeping everything straight in my head. Was paper invented during the Han dynasty or during the Qin dynasty? Honestly, I had no idea.
I made my best guesses—some of the stuff I remembered from class—and handed in my paper. I knew there was no way I would get a good grade on that quiz.
Can this day get any worse? I wondered as I scribbled forlornly in my notebook.
The answer was: Yes! Definitely!
After school, I walked with Emma, Katie, and Alexis to Emma’s house. Emma has three brothers—two older and one younger—and usually one of them is around whenever we meet at the Taylor house. Today it was Jake, Emma’s little brother. He’s a total cutie, with blond hair and blue eyes like Emma.
“Are you making cupcakes today?” he asked, running up to us when we entered the house.
“Not today,” Emma said. “We’re having a meeting, so we need some peace and quiet.”
Jake frowned. “I wanted cupcakes,” he said, and then he ran off.
We unloaded our backpacks and gathered around Emma’s kitchen table. She put out glasses and a pitcher of water, and Alexis put a spreadsheet with numbers on the table in front of her.
Each of us in the Cupcake Club has a different role. Katie is great at baking and coming up with new flavors. Emma is a great baker too. I’m really good at coming up with cupcake decorations and displays. And Alexis has the most business sense out of all of us. She does the accounting stuff and handles our bookings and schedules. She’s superorganized!
“So I have some bad news,” Alexis said as we were pouring ourselves glasses of water.
Of course, I thought. Did I expect good news on a day like today?
“Our profits were down five percent last month,” Alexis went on. “Compared not only to the month before, but to the same time last year.”
“Five percent doesn’t sound like a lot,” Katie said.
“Maybe not, but it’s a sign that business might be slowing down,” Alexis replied. “Last month, we were down two percent. So we’re seeing a steady decline.”
“What do we do?” Emma asked.
“Get some new business, right?” Katie asked.
Alexis nodded. “Right. I’ve got some ideas. We can do a new round of flyers. It would be great if we could brainstorm some new flavors or seasonal ideas to advertise.”
“We should watch Extreme Cupcake Challenge!” Emma said. “I bet we’ll get some great ideas.”
We moved to Emma’s living room to watch the show. Jake was playing with some toy trucks on the floor. Emma and Alexis sat on the smaller couch, and Katie and I took seats on the big blue one. I put on my glasses to watch the show while Emma scrolled through the DVR menu on her TV screen.
Then Katie nudged me, holding out her cell phone. “Check out this cupcake site I found. The decorations are amazing.”
It’s easier for me to see small things without my glasses on, so I took them off and placed them on the couch next to me. Then I took the phone from Katie and checked out the site. It was amazing. I was trying to enlarge a photo of a cupcake with thin, perfectly curled chocolate pieces on top when Jake ran up to the couch.
“Mia, want to see my truck?” he asked, hopping onto the seat next to me.
Crunch!
Jake’s eyes got wide at the same time I got a sick feeling in my stomach.
“Uh-oh,” Jake said, and he scooted over to reveal my glasses—my very broken glasses. The thin frames had snapped right in half.
Emma swept over and picked up Jake.
“Mia, I’m so sorry!” she said.
“It’s my fault,” I told her. “I shouldn’t have put my glasses down there.”
“No, it’s my fault for showing you my phone,” Katie said. “Then you wouldn’t have taken off your glasses.”
I would have smiled at Katie if I hadn’t felt so miserable. She’s so sweet.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ve got my backup at home.”
Actually, I hadn’t worn my backup in awhile. When I bought them, I thought it would be fun to have a pair of fuchsia glasses. Yes, fuchsia—that deep, bright pink. I figured they would add a nice pop of color to my outfits. I wore them a few times, but I ended up thinking they made me lo
ok silly. My classic glasses blended in with my face. But my fuchsia glasses made a statement—a statement I wasn’t sure I wanted to make anymore.
I tried to enjoy watching Extreme Cupcake Challenge, but everything was kind of blurry without my glasses, and I had to squint the whole time. Then I texted Eddie to come pick me up and bring me home. When I climbed into the car, all I could think about was going straight up to my room and climbing into bed. I didn’t even want to eat dinner.
This was the worst. Day. Ever.
Want more
Visit CupcakeDiariesBooks.com for the series trailer, excerpts, activities, and everything you need for throwing your own cupcake party!
Coco Simon always dreamed of opening a cupcake bakery but was afraid she would eat all of the profits. When she’s not daydreaming about cupcakes, Coco edits children’s books and has written close to one hundred books for children, tweens, and young adults, which is a lot less than the number of cupcakes she’s eaten. Cupcake Diaries is the first time Coco has mixed her love of cupcakes with writing.
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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.
SIMON SPOTLIGHT
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First Simon Spotlight paperback edition June 2015
Copyright © 2015 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Jacket illustrations copyright © 2015 by Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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ISBN 978-1-4814-2919-1 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4814-2920-7 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-2921-4 (eBook)
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2015937198
