Just Grace and the Trouble with Cupcakes

by Charise Mericle Harper

  Mimi and I made a list of all the ingredients we needed to make forty-eight cupcakes. It was lucky that Mom had bought a ton of cupcake stuff when Grandma was visiting—she hardly needed to buy anything new at all.

  THURSDAY

  Miss Lois said that even though the fair was starting at eleven in the morning on Saturday, we had to come to school at nine-thirty with our carnival games. “You are going to need time to set them up and get everything ready,” she said. I couldn’t wait. Fair Day was almost here!

  WHAT WAS FUN

  We spent the afternoon making signs for our games. It was kind of like being excited for a birthday party, but different. For birthday parties you don’t get I-hope-I-don’t-mess-up feelings.

  THE SIGN FOR OUR GAME

  FRIDAY

  My first thought this morning was only one more day until the fair. Today was going to feel like a long day. I just knew it. That’s what always happens when you are excited about something that isn’t going to happen until the next day.

  While I was eating breakfast the phone rang. “It’s probably Mimi,” I said. “I bet she’s excited too.” I picked up the phone, but it wasn’t Mimi—it was for Mom.

  “Who is it?” whispered Mom. I shrugged my shoulders.

  It wasn’t hard to guess what Mom was talking about. When she got off the phone she said, “How embarrassing. I should have gotten that form in.” “What was it?” I asked. “It was about volunteering for the fair,” said Mom. “They need me for a special job.” “Maybe you’re going to be one of the money moms,” I said. “Us kids aren’t suppose to do stuff with the tickets or money.” Mom smiled. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’ll be fun.”

  Then she said, “What would you like for breakfast?” “Anything but those French toast bars,” I said. “They’re horrible!”

  WHAT HAPPENED AT SCHOOL

  Miss Lois is smart. She could tell right away that our class was not going to be any good at doing regular schoolwork. So instead of working, we made decorations for the fair. My favorite thing was the stuffed cupcakes. I made three of them and would have made more, but Miss Lois ran out of staples for the stapler.

  HOW TO MAKE A STUFFED CUPCAKE

  For the last part of the afternoon, Miss Lois let us all watch a movie about whales. It had nothing to do with cupcakes, but that was okay. It was still good.

  THE CUPCAKE CHALLENGE

  Right before we left, Miss Lois reminded everyone not to forget that we had to be back at school with our games at nine-thirty, and that the Cupcake Challenge was starting at three o’clock on the field behind the cafeteria. It was like saying, “Hey, your birthday’s tomorrow—don’t forget to come to the party.” Everyone knew when it was, and where it was, and we all couldn’t wait to be there.

  WHAT HAPPENED ON THE WAY HOME

  When Mimi and I were almost home I saw something shiny on the sidewalk. I looked down, and there right beside my foot was a lucky penny. It was the first one I’d found for Grandma’s lucky penny pot.

  As soon as I got home I ran upstairs and put the penny in the pot. It was nice to know that there was luck in there if I needed it.

  MAKING CUPCAKES

  Mimi came over after she dropped off her stuff at home. Mom said we could have pizza for dinner while we made the cupcakes. Both Mimi and I like the decorating part of cupcakes more than the making part of the cupcakes, so after the first ones were in the oven, Mom helped us by making the rest. We were pretty much too busy decorating to do the making part anyway.

  WHAT IS AMAZING

  The smell of cupcakes cooking in the oven. I could hardly wait for them to come out. Dad said we had to make more than forty-eight cupcakes because it wasn’t fair to make the house smell delicious and then not leave any for him to eat. Mom just shook her head and said, “I guess we’ll be making these all night.” I didn’t mind so much. It was nice to have something to do. It made time go by faster, because both Mimi and I couldn’t wait for tomorrow to start.

  WHAT TOOK A REALLY LONG TIME

  Making and decorating all the cupcakes! The ones we made at the beginning were definitely fancier than the ones we made at the end. At least they were all going to be delicious—that part was good.

  WHAT HAPPENED AT BEDTIME

  Mimi and I flashed our lights at each other three times—one flash for each word in Yay for tomorrow!

  WHAT WAS HARD TO DO

  Fall asleep. Even with Mr. Scruffers snuggled up close to me, I couldn’t make myself feel sleepy. It’s not easy to fall asleep when your brain is excited.

  GETTING READY FOR THE SPRING FAIR

  When I got up, Mom was already downstairs making French toast! “Real French toast for the Cupcake Challenge,” said Mom, “so you have extra energy.” I gave her a hug. It’s good to let your parents know you’re happy with them when they do something nice for you.

  Mom’s French toast was excellent, and 100 percent better than the horrible French toast granola bars she’d been giving me. After breakfast I got everything ready for the fair.

  When we got to school, Mom helped me carry everything in to the activity room. The floor was covered with squares outlined with tape, and each square had the name of a team on it. It was easy to find my team’s square, because my team was already standing in it.

  “I’ll see you later,” said Mom. “I’ll be back in an hour to do my volunteer shift.” “Okay,” I said.

  The room was getting busier and busier every second. It was hard not to stop and stare at what everyone else was bringing in, but I forced myself to concentrate. We needed to get our game set up.

  THE GAMES

  After we put our game together, I went for a walk around the room to see what the other teams had done. There were some really good games.

  WHAT HAPPENED AT TEN FORTY-FIVE

  Miss Lois had us stand next to our games, and then she introduced each team to the parent volunteer that was going to help us. “The parent volunteer is the only person who can handle the tickets,” said Miss Lois. “But other than that, I want you to run your own games.” I thought Mom would be our parent volunteer, but I didn’t see her anywhere. We got Owen 2’s mom instead. Owen 2’s mom is not like Owen 2—she likes to talk. After we introduced ourselves she said, “You can call me Colleen.” I think we felt a little weird calling her Colleen, so we just called her “Owen 2’s mom.” She didn’t seem to mind. “Can you show me how to play the game?” she asked. Owen 1 did the demonstrating. I could tell he was really excited, because he explained it a lot more than he needed to.

  WHAT HAPPENED AT ELEVEN

  I couldn’t believe it when Miss Lois said, “Get ready, kids—here come the customers.” All of a sudden I felt a little bit worried, mixed in with my excited feelings.

  EXCITED + WORRIED = EXORRIED

  What if no one played our game? What if all the other games were busy except ours? I only had to worry for about two minutes, because as soon as little boys saw the name of our game, they wanted to play it. Owen 1 was right. Spider-Man vs. The Cupcake Monster was a good name. Little kids love Spider-Man.

  WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR

  Even though we were really busy, I kept looking for Mom. I wanted her to see how popular our game was. I even snuck out into the hallway to see if I could find her. There were a lot of people out there, but Mom wasn’t one of them. Someone was dressed up in the giant cupcake suit. The cupcake looked silly and cute at the same time. He was really friendly and when he saw me he gave me a super-big wave. I waved back and watched him for a second. People love giant dressed-up characters. I bet having him in the hallway was making people want to come in to see our games. He waved again and I smiled and went back to our game.

  When it got close to twelve, I started to wonder if Mom had forgotten to come back to the fair. Normally she’d never forget something like that, but she had been forgetting a lot of stuff lately.

  It was hard to concentrate on the game and be worried at the same time. Sudden
ly Owen 1 grabbed my arm, “Look!” he shouted. “It’s the giant cupcake.” “I know,” I said. “I already saw it.” I tried to ignore him. A little boy was playing our game, so I turned and watched him instead. “It’s coming over here! Hi, giant cupcake!” shouted Owen 1. He poked me in the arm. “Look!” I turned around to yell at him and there was the cupcake, only two steps away from me. It’s hard not to be shocked when you suddenly have a giant cupcake staring right in your face.

  Suddenly the cupcake grabbed me and gave me a big hug. “It’s me!” said the cupcake. I tried to squirm away, but I couldn’t—the cupcake had me in its grip. I could hear Owen 1 laughing behind me. “It’s me, Mom!” said the cupcake. I stopped squirming. “Mom, are you in there?” I asked. “Yes,” said the cupcake. “Look at my shoes.” I looked down. The cupcake was wearing Mom’s shoes. It was Mom! I gave the cupcake a giant hug back.

  WHAT HAPPENED REALLY FAST

  Suddenly Miss Lois announced that the Cupcake Games would be closing in five minutes. I couldn’t believe it was already over. It was too bad that regular school didn’t go by this fast.

  After the last customer left, Miss Lois closed the door and said we could have fifteen minutes to go look at each other’s games. “I’m not going anywhere,” said Owen 1. “Our game is the best, so I’m going to stay right here and guard it.” I shook my head. No one was going to steal our game, but it was nice that he loved it so much. If he wanted to, he could take it home. Even though we’d used stuff from my house to make it, I didn’t need to keep it.

  MY FAVORITE GAMES THAT I SAW

  Now that we had seen all the games in the room, I couldn’t wait to get out and see the rest of the fair. Mom was going to walk around with Mimi and me, and she promised that we could have both cotton candy and popcorn. “Don’t forget!” shouted Miss Lois. “Cupcake Challenge—three o’clock at the field!”

  In about three minutes the whole room was empty. Mimi and I were the only ones still there. We were waiting for Mom to get out of her costume and she was taking forever. “Hey, where did the cupcakes go?” asked Mimi. “The ones we made?” We didn’t know it, but Miss Lois was standing right behind us. “Don’t worry, girls. We’re going to sell the cupcakes right after the Cupcake Challenge, which is at three o’clock.” Miss Lois tipped her hat at us, then left the room. Finally, Mom showed up.

  “That costume was a lot harder to take off than to put on,” she complained. “Plus, you wouldn’t believe how hot it was in there.” She waved her hand in front of face. Her face was red and her hair was messed up, but I didn’t say anything because I wanted to get out to the giant slide, not wait another ten minutes while she fixed herself up in the bathroom. “Can we go?” I asked. Mom sighed and said, “Okay, but if you see a drinking fountain let me know.”

  THE SCHOOL FAIR

  The school fair is pretty much the same every year, so we knew exactly where everything was. After the giant slide we got a hot dog, popcorn, and cotton candy, and then we played some of the regular games. If you win enough tickets, you can pick out a prize at the prize booth. Mimi and I got the same prize, except her bracelet was red and mine was blue.

  By two-thirty, both Mimi and I were ready for the Cupcake Challenge to start. It was too early to go to the field, so we went on the giant slide two more times to use up time.

  THE CUPCAKE CHALLENGE

  At ten to three, it was finally time to go. Everyone was there, and everyone was excited. I could see stuff set up over to the left, but it was hard to tell what we were going to have to do.

  Last year for the Bird Challenge, people had to wear flippers and walk like a duck. It was really funny to watch, but I was pretty sure we weren’t going to do that this year. Flippers don’t have anything to do with cupcakes.

  Mr. Clausen, the gym teacher, and Miss Lois were on the field. Mr. Clausen shouted through his megaphone, “PLEASE STAND WITH YOUR TEAM.” Everyone says that Mr. Clausen used to be in the army. I believe it, because he is a person who likes to yell. He’s nice, but he’s kind of scary too.

  When everyone was together he said, “WELCOME TO THE CUPCAKE CHALLENGE! LINE UP IN A ROW WITH YOUR TEAM BEHIND THE WHITE LINE.” Usually whenever our class has to do something unusual there is lots of talking, but this didn’t happen today. Everyone was probably like me—not wanting to do anything wrong. Nobody wants to get yelled at by a person holding a megaphone. Even Robert Walters and Owen 1 lined up perfectly. “I want to go first,” whispered Ruth. I think all of us were glad about that. No one complained.

  Mr. Clausen looked around to make sure everyone was doing the right thing, and then he explained how the challenge was going to work.

  While I was listening I looked around. Only four of the teams that were lined up were not from our class. I guess the Cupcake Challenge wasn’t as popular if you weren’t in Miss Lois’s class. That was good for us. Less competition. Suddenly I was feeling like my team had a chance to win.

  Mr. Clausen held the megaphone for Miss Lois and she said, “NOW REMEMBER, THIS IS JUST FOR FUN.” She was trying to make us not nervous, but it didn’t help. We were too nervous and too excited for a sentence to change anything. I put the words together in my head.

  NERVOUS + EXCITED = NERCITED

  I looked over at Mimi. She gave me a thumbs-up and smiled. That was different: that helped, a little bit.

  THE RACE

  As soon as the whistle blew, Ruth was gone. Suddenly I wasn’t nervous anymore—just excited. She’s a fast runner. That was a surprise. I didn’t know she could run so fast. When she got to the far white line she put on a chef’s hat, grabbed a flour bag, opened it up, and emptied the flour into a bowl. Suddenly there was dust everywhere. It was hard to see her behind the cloud.

  The parent volunteer said something to her and pointed to the ground. Ruth picked up a wooden spoon and stuck it in the middle of the bowl. It was good that there were parent helpers on the other side telling us what to do. I never would have remembered all that stuff. When Ruth had everything perfect like she was supposed to, the parent volunteer pointed to us and Ruth came running back to our white line holding the bowl. Some of the other teams dropped their spoons, but she didn’t. She was amazing. We were in first place!

  Robert Walters was next. When he got to the far white line, he put on an apron and then had to open an egg carton and take out an egg. He picked up a spoon and put the egg on the spoon to carry it. He was supposed to run back all the way with the egg on the spoon, but that was pretty impossible to do. The egg kept falling off. It’s a good thing they were hard-boiled eggs, or we would have all been in big trouble. I was shouting so much, my throat hurt. But I didn’t care—I was excited and I was next.

  As soon as Robert Walters tagged my hand, I ran. I was running next to Sandra Orr. I tried extra hard to beat her. It felt good to get to the white line one step before she did.

  WHAT WAS NOT EASY

  As soon as I got there the helper mom said, “Put one cupcake liner in each space in the muffin tin. And when you’re done with that, pick it up with the oven mitts.” It wasn’t easy to get the cupcake liners into the muffin tin. They all wanted to stick together. After I got the last one in, I put on the oven mitts and picked up the tin.

  WHAT WAS IMPOSSIBLE

  Running with the muffin tin. All the muffin liners kept blowing out. It was impossible to keep them in the tin. Finally I just had to walk really fast instead of running. Holding the muffin tin up straight with the oven mitts wasn’t easy either. I don’t know if my part of the relay looked hard or not, but it was.

  WHAT WAS A RELIEF

  To be done. “Good job,” said Ruth. I was going to say thank you, but she had already turned around and was yelling at Owen 1. “GO, OWEN!” she yelled. Owen 1 had the hardest part. He had to put on a fake mustache and then carry a tall, fancy tray with three little balls on it in one hand and have a napkin draped over his other arm. It’s good that they put the balls in cupcake liners; otherwise it would hav
e been impossible, but still it looked really hard.

  I bet this race was really fun to watch if you weren’t in it and trying to win it. I thought Owen 1 was doing a pretty good job, until I looked over and saw that Max and Brian Aber were almost at the finish line. “Go, Owen 1! RUN!” I couldn’t help it. I had to shout. Even though Owen 1 wasn’t going to win, we shouted for him all the way. “That was awesome!” shouted Robert Walters. Without thinking I yelled, “Yeah!” and high-fived him.

  “Did we win?” asked Owen 1. We all shook our heads. I thought he was going to be upset, but he said, “That was fun. I wish we could do it again.” He wasn’t the only one feeling that way. That was the exact same feeling I was having too.

  WHAT IS AMAZING

  Mimi’s team won. Even though my team didn’t even come close to winning, none of us could stop smiling. I looked around for Mom and saw her standing over in the cupcake line. I had completely forgotten that my cupcakes were for sale. Suddenly I had an idea.