The Cupcake Diaries Collection: Katie and the Cupcake Cure; Mia in the Mix; Emma on Thin Icing; Alexis and the Perfect Recipe

by Simon, Coco

  “Okay,” I agreed hesitantly. “Thanks, I guess. . . .”

  “Listen, Emma,” said Alexis. “I know they might think you’re flaking out a little on things. And you don’t seem into the dress at all. . . .”

  “What?” I cried. I hadn’t thought about anything besides that dress!

  Alexis cleared her throat. “Your mom told my mom about her job and that it’s been a little . . . well . . . a little crazy at your house lately with all the babysitting.”

  I wondered how much Mom told Mrs. Becker and how much Alexis knew.

  “I can help you,” Alexis said. “Anytime. Just ask, okay? My mom’s never home after school either.” Alexis smiled. It was true, Mrs. and Mr. Becker got home really late, and a lot of times Alexis just ate dinner with her sister. My mom used to invite them over a lot for dinner, but I realized she hadn’t done that since she started the new job.

  I was glad Alexis knew something was up, but I really didn’t want to talk about it. And I knew she must be sticking up for me with Katie and Mia, which made me mad to think about, but still thankful.

  “I don’t think there’s anything you can do,” I said honestly. “But thank you.”

  Alexis saluted me. “You’re welcome, sarge,” she said, trying to lighten things up a little.

  “Alexis?” I said. “Can you . . . um . . . can you not mention anything that’s going on at home to Katie and Mia?”

  Alexis looked like she was going to say something, but she didn’t. She nodded yes. “Wouldn’t disobey a sergeant!” she said.

  And though we both laughed as we went our separate ways, I was left wondering what else the club was discussing without me.

  That night, right before dinner, I tapped on Matt and Sam’s door. “Matt?”

  “Come in,” said Matt.

  I poked my head in. He was sitting at his desk and Sam was out. “Can you help me with something?” I asked. “I’ll pay you,” I added before he could say no.

  Matt looked at me suspiciously. “Is it something heinous?” he asked.

  I came into the room, which was all blue corduroy, sports posters, and team logos. I laid down a piece of paper I had been working on on Matt’s desk. “I need to make flyers for my dog-walking business, and I was wondering if you could help me. Because you took that class and all.” I held my breath hopefully as Matt studied the information.

  He looked up at me.

  “Well?” I asked, thinking he was going to make me trade extra Jake days for this.

  “Do you really need more responsibilities in your life?” he asked.

  I sighed. He kind of sounded like Dad. “I need more money. . . .”

  He looked at me for an extra minute, and then he shrugged. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “Oh my gosh, you will? Thanks, Matt! I take back every bad thing I ever said about you! Almost.”

  “No prob,” said Matt. “I can probably put something together tonight, okay?”

  “Thanks. That would be great. And also”—I laid another piece of paper down on his desk—“will you do some for the Cupcake Club, too?”

  Matt took the second sheet of paper. “Sure,” he agreed. “Anything that will get me extra cupcakes.”

  I thanked him again and left the room before he changed back into the Matt I knew. Huh, I thought to myself. Maybe Matt wasn’t all bad.

  By nine that night Matt had two drafts for me to review. He had done a really good job, using cute art and eye-catching fonts. I was psyched, and I could tell Matt was pleased too. I almost wanted to hug him. I offered to watch Jake the next day.

  By ten we had printed two stacks of fifty flyers, and then our parents insisted we go to sleep. That was okay, I thought, since fifty new clients would be crazy. For dog walking or cupcakes.

  The next day Jake and I took Jenner on an extra-long walk around the neighborhood and handed out flyers and stuffed them in mailboxes. We stopped at the grocery store and bought a big bag of liver snaps to hand out to any dogs we saw, and Jake proudly wore a T-shirt that I had quickly created for him. It was just like mine, with all the dog-walking info, but his said OFFICER TAYLOR on the back. He loved it.

  That night Alexis e-mailed to report they had two new inquiries from the cupcake flyers. “Good work,” she said in her sign-off. Katie chimed in with a “Way to go, Emma!” e-mail, which made me feel good.

  Phew! I thought, reading the e-mails. Later, four calls came in for my dog-walking business, and using a chart I made, I scheduled the pickups and drop-offs for all the new dogs for the next day. It would be a lot of work, but I could handle it.

  Or maybe I couldn’t.

  At 4:40 the next afternoon Jake and I were sweating. I had four leashes in my hands, and I could hardly walk down the street as the dogs kept wandering around and twining their leads around one another or around a tree or, worst of all, around my ankles. I’d already had to pick up two poops and leave one behind because it was disgustingly un-pick-up-able. Luckily, the dogs were all family dogs, so they got along pretty well with one another. It hadn’t occurred to me that they might fight until we passed a neighbor’s house and their dog had run to the property line, barking like mad and baring his teeth at the pack. Two of my dogs strained at their leashes, growling and baring their teeth, and it had taken all my strength to hold on to them. Jake was rattled and teary after the experience, and I was pretty fried. I had to face it: Four dogs was too many to walk at a time. Plus, I still had one more dog to go. Still, at five dollars a walk, I needed all five dogs. I was going to have to figure out a new walking plan.

  We reached the corner of Pond Lane, and Jenner stopped to do his business. I sighed and waited patiently, glad for the brief break. Suddenly I heard a bike bell jingling, and I turned around, hoping maybe it was Alexis. It was Sydney and Mags, Sydney’s best friend.

  “Hey!” called Mags.

  I nodded in greeting. I had nothing to say to these girls, and honestly I was so mad that I kept running into them. For some reason they stopped and stood with their bikes between their legs.

  “Wow. Are these all yours?” asked Mags incredulously.

  “No, I walk them for the neighbors.” I was trying to be casual. I didn’t need to get into a long chat with Mags right now.

  “Good thing,” said Sydney. “Your house would stink!” She wrinkled her button nose in distaste.

  “I imagine so,” I said, in what I hope came off as a “duh.” Jenner was done, but I didn’t want to bend down and scoop it up while the other girls were there.

  “So I think I’m getting the dress from The Special Day,” said Sydney casually. It was odd that she mentioned it because she had hardly acknowledged me when they were there on Saturday. Why wasn’t she telling Mia this? Wait, did she say “the” dress? As in my dress?

  “Oh?” I said fake casually back. “Did they find you another one?”

  “No, but there’s one still on hold that they ordered and the lady said if it wasn’t paid for by next week, then I could have it,” said Sydney, shrugging innocently.

  My heart lurched. What? That was my dress! And I thought I had two weeks, not one. But if there was only one left . . . So Katie, Alexis, and Mia had already paid for their dresses and mine was still hanging there, alone? When did they go back? And how would I ever make enough money to pay for the dress in one week?

  My worry must have shown on my face again because Mags asked, “Are you okay?”

  Sydney looked smug. She was so awful.

  “No, I’m fine,” I said, recovering. “It’s just . . .” I looked down at Jenner’s work. “I hate this part.”

  Sydney was still looking at me coolly. “We’ll leave you to it,” she said. “Tell your friend she only has a week to get her dress!”

  I felt sick.

  “Or actually . . . What am I saying? Don’t tell her! Then I can have it!” Sydney laughed and pedaled away with Mags.

  I stooped to clean up after Jenner, and he licked my hand. I patted him on t
he head. He really was a good dog. If only I were a dog, I thought. It would be so much easier.

  CHAPTER 9

  Mix, Stir . . . Mixed-up

  On Friday I more or less sorted out the dog walking. I took the dogs out in pairs and Jenner alone, because he was my original customer and my favorite. It made for a long afternoon, but I was kind of enjoying it, especially since the weather was getting warmer. It wasn’t too fun in the rain. But I got to visit all these nice houses and play with friendly dogs.

  I really liked the Mellgards’ house. They had Marley, a black standard poodle, who wore his fur long and curly rather than cut in any froufrou way. He was a cutie and really sweet. Also Mrs. Mellgard baked as a hobby, and her kitchen had racks of baking sheets and pans in every shape and size, and shiny copper saucepans hung from a rack overhead. Mrs. Mellgard also had every kind of baking appliance, including a massive cherry red stand mixer. I felt sad every time I saw it. I still dreamed about my pink mixer.

  After leaving Marley at the Mellgards’, I hustled home. We were baking at Alexis’s house tonight, and I absolutely had to be on time. Besides, I was excited to go because we were trying out my new bacon cupcake recipe. I’d have to stop at the Quickie Mart and pick up some ingredients on the way over.

  Alexis’s house was quiet, so there weren’t a lot of distractions. Her sister was at after-school extracurriculars and her parents were at work. The Cupcake Club worked well there. Tonight we were also baking the first official batch of minis for Mona, so I was excited about that, too.

  I was determined to try harder. And I did. I was on time, and I took charge with the bacon recipe. I creamed the butter and sugar for the caramel cupcakes in Alexis’s mom’s mixer. Meanwhile Alexis was making the fondant for Mona’s bridal cupcakes, Katie was making the white frosting, and Mia was already filling the mini cupcake tins with little dollops of batter. We weren’t as chatty as usual, but I tried to convince myself that it was because we were busy and not because anyone was annoyed with anyone else.

  I was wondering what we were going to do over the weekend. We usually did something together. I didn’t have any dog-walking jobs over the weekend, unfortunately, because all the owners were home and so didn’t need me. So that was two days without income. I was hoping the order from Mona would help make up for some of that loss. I was also dying to talk with the others about Sydney and the dress—in fact, I had been since yesterday—but I couldn’t think of any way that didn’t mention not being able to pay for it in the first place.

  “So what’s up for the weekend?” I asked.

  I looked up just in time to see Mia and Katie exchange a funny glance, and it gave me a prickly feeling in my chest. What was that all about? I looked at Alexis, whose head was down as she apparently concentrated on the frosting. I wasn’t sure if she’d just witnessed something or not. Were Mia and Katie keeping a secret?

  “Alexis?” I asked again.

  Alexis looked up very innocently, as if she’d been daydreaming before. “Hmm? What?” she asked. She was not a spacey person, so this act did not hold up well.

  I was now very suspicious. “What are you doing this weekend?’ I asked, enunciating each word distinctly.

  “Oh, not much,” said Alexis, waving her hand.

  This was weird. There was always something going on during the weekends.

  “Do you have a soccer game?” I asked as I flipped the bacon out onto a paper towel to drain. I looked back at Alexis again.

  “Oh, yeah. Soccer. For sure. And then dinner with my family tomorrow night. Oh, and we’ll need a meeting on Sunday. We have to try out a new recipe of Mia’s.”

  Well, this was the first I’d heard of a Sunday meeting, but I would definitely attend. “Hmm. What about you guys this weekend?” I asked the other two again.

  They gave similar vague answers—family, chores, homework. They were definitely acting shifty. They all seemed to have a secret, and I wasn’t in on it. I wasn’t sure whether I should get mad or cry. But then again I had a secret too.

  “Hey, let’s play a game,” suggested Mia in a bright tone of voice, like a nursery school teacher.

  “Which one?” I asked, glad for the distraction. “Celebrity Cupcake? Wildest Cupcakes? Name That Cupcake?” We had lots of cupcake games.

  “Name That Cupcake,” said Mia. “Definitely.”

  “You go first,” said Alexis as she began molding the fondant into tiny edible flowers.

  “Okay. Hmm.” Mia thought for a minute. Then she said, “Aha! I’ve got it! A mocha cake . . . with . . . butterscotch mini chips throughout and . . . fudge frosting . . . with . . . tiny marshmallows sprinkled across the top! What would you call it? Um, Katie?”

  Katie smiled. “Mocha, butterscotch, fudge, and marshmallow? How about ‘The Winter Storm’?”

  “Lame!” declared Mia. “Alexis?” she prompted.

  Alexis tipped her head to the side in a thoughtful pose. Then she said, “Well, if you made it Godiva mocha powder and Ghirardelli chips, with Valrhona fudge frosting, you could call them ‘Millionaires’ because the ingredients are so fancy!”

  “That is so good,” I said. “We should do those.”

  “What’s your name suggestion?” Mia asked me.

  “Oh. Um.” I thought for a second. Alexis’s idea was hard to top. “Swampcakes?” I offered, shrugging. “Like really gross-looking, gooey cupcakes that sink in the middle?”

  Everyone laughed again.

  “I love ‘Swampcakes’!” declared Mia. “But actually you could put shredded coconut on top and maybe another kind of mini chip inside to really swamp them. Too bad we can’t use nuts. . . .”

  The Cupcake Club had a vigilant no-nut policy because so many kids we knew were allergic to nuts. There was simply no point in working with nuts at all.

  “I think ‘Millionaires’ is brilliant, anyway,” I said. “Maybe we’ll all be cupcake millionaires someday!”

  Mia pulled Mona’s order of mini cupcakes from the oven. They were perfectly white angel food cake with lightly browned edges. She turned the tin upside down over a cooling rack and tapped it to make all the cupcakes pop out. “Yum,” said Mia, reaching for the next tray. “These things are so cute. Such a great size. You could eat ten and not realize it.”

  “That’s the point,” said Alexis. “That’s why Mona liked them so much. She said brides are so careful about their figures that they’re always hungry and therefore often cranky when they come into her store. She liked the minis because they’re so irresistible, she figured the brides would eat at least one and it would perk them up.”

  We all giggled.

  “I’m glad my mom’s not like that!” said Mia.

  “We’ll see tomorrow . . . ,” started Katie. Then she stopped abruptly and glanced at me, then Mia.

  I was confused. I looked at Mia just in time to see Mia shake her head a tiny, tiny bit at Katie. What was going on? And should I call them on it?

  No. Instead I crossed the room and went to crumble the bacon for the bacon cupcake frosting. It might be best to frost the cupcakes and keep the crumbled bacon in a Ziploc bag until it was time to serve the cupcakes; then you could just sprinkle the bacon bits over the tops of the ’cakes and the bacon would still be crispy. I turned to suggest that to the others and discovered them in the midst of a silent conversation made up of wild gestures and gesticulations, as well as mouthed words. It was like they were playing charades.

  Everyone froze. Even me, for a second. Then I said, “Guys. What is going on?” I was nervous.

  Everyone looked at me. Alexis was the first to speak.

  “Emma, um, we feel really funny about this, so we didn’t want to tell you. But . . . we bought our dresses for the wedding already, and we’re going to go get them fitted tomorrow. We know you haven’t bought yours yet, so we didn’t say anything.”

  My face turned hot. I felt humiliated. “Oh,” I said. “But if I’d known everyone else had bought theirs . . . I . . . I . .
. I would have already bought mine, too!”

  Katie and Mia exchanged a look. “Really?” said Mia. She didn’t look like she believed me.

  “Yeah . . . totally. I just . . . You know, my parents’ schedules are pretty off the wall these days, so I just haven’t scheduled a time to go down there with one of them.”

  “Oh . . . ,” said Mia skeptically. “Because actually, if you still want to be a junior bridesmaid, um, my mom offered to buy it for you, just so it didn’t get sold to someone else. . . .”

  I noticed Alexis was looking at me.

  “Oh no! I don’t need help!” I cried. I must have said it really loudly because Mia flinched. I felt so bad. For me and for Mia. Mostly for me. What was I saying? What was I getting myself into?

  “You could pay her back, if you wanted,” said Alexis. “So it wouldn’t be like she was buying it for you. Just like a loan.”

  “No. Sorry, thank you, but . . . ,” I said. I didn’t know what to say. Did they know I couldn’t afford it? Alexis may have pieced it together, but I wondered how much she really knew.

  “I mean, that is such a nice offer but . . . I mean, no need. And I do still want to be a junior bridesmaid! Of course I do! I . . . I’ll go in on . . .” I did a rapid calculation in my head. I figured I’d earn another seventy-five dollars for dog walking by next Wednesday. I might be able to borrow a little from Sam.

  I felt like everyone was staring at me. I could do it. I could figure it out for sure. “I’ll go in on Wednesday and get it. You can tell Mona.”

  Mia looked skeptical, but Katie butted in. “Great! Then maybe you should just come to the fitting with us tomorrow!”

  “I don’t think they will do that until you buy it,” said Mia.

  I knew Mia was right, but I wished I’d been the one to refuse. It was kind of mean of Mia to say no.

  “Yeah,” I agreed, shrugging. “I have a lot to do tomorrow anyway, so . . .” That was, of course, not true. But at least I now knew what the other girls were up to tomorrow and why they had been acting so weird and shifty this evening. “So I’ll see you on Sunday, and you can tell me all about it.”