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

  “Thanks, Mom,” I whispered once we were out in the hall with Dylan’s door safely closed.

  “You’re welcome, dear,” she whispered back. “But you owe me some pretty spectacular cupcakes!”

  “Black-and-gold ones! Coming right up!” I said, and we laughed.

  We started down the hall. I did a little cha-cha-cha step. I’m obsessed with all the TV dancing shows and like to practice dance moves whenever I can. Music and dance is kind of mathematical, which is why I love it. There’s a logical and organized pattern to everything—the chords, notes, and dance steps.

  “Is Dylan really mad, do you think?” I asked. All joking aside, I did not want Dylan as my enemy. She is my only sibling, and we are usually pretty good friends.

  My mother thought for a moment. “She is getting everything she wants. The place, the music, the food, the date, the decor, the favors. Everything. Now, she is contributing quite a lot of her own money to it, so she does get her say. But I think she can accommodate me on a few extra faces and a special dessert.”

  “Sounds fair to me,” I agreed, and I went to e-mail the Cupcakers with the good news. All we needed was a great idea, one that would keep Dylan from killing me. Oh yeah, and it had to be black and gold!

  I just wished I could e-mail them about Matt Taylor being invited to the party. But what would I say?

  CHAPTER 2

  Earth to Alexis

  A couple days later we met at Emma’s house. I have always liked baking there because her parents don’t mind if things get messy. Mom kind of freaks out when we’re baking in her sparkling clean kitchen. (Needless to say, I am not messy, but some people can be!) We were just brainstorming that day, but I was still glad to be at the Taylors’. I felt a buzz of nervous happiness and had taken a little extra time laying out my outfit the night before. I told myself it was just because it was a Monday and I wanted to start the week off looking good, but deep down inside I knew the real reason: I might see Matt! Was that weird or what?

  Thinking about Matt in this new way was weird too. I wished I could tell someone, but even if I could, I wouldn’t know what to say. Was this what a crush felt like? Or was I just being silly? I’m never silly!

  Meanwhile, Emma and I were in a debate.

  “Please, Alexis!” Emma was begging, and her big blue eyes widened as she looked at me.

  “No,” I said firmly, and drew myself up as tall as possible to look like I was in charge.

  Mia and Katie were laughing at us as Emma and I argued about whether or not we could use real gold flakes in our proposed cupcake design for Dylan’s party. It was true that they would look spectacular, but they were so expensive and, to be honest, I didn’t want perfect Dylan to have real gold cupcakes! She was being such a brat about everything these days, it would feel like we were rewarding her for her bad behavior.

  But of course Emma didn’t see it that way as she huffed and crossed her arms. I could see the glimmer of a smile underneath, though, and I smiled at her, narrowed my eyes, and dared her to smile back. Finally she smiled back—victory!

  Just then a voice asked, “Hey, what’s the deal?”

  Matt!

  We hadn’t heard him come in and now we all whipped around in surprise. My heart leaped as my stomach got all fluttery again. Matt has light, curly hair and blue eyes, and seemed to look especially cute today.

  “Oh, Alexis is just being a tough CFO,” said Mia.

  “Well, someone has to be, or you’d all just be giving these cupcakes away,” I said huffily. I wasn’t really annoyed, but it made me feel less nervous to act like I was in front of Matt.

  “You tell ’em, Alexis!” he said, smiling at me as he went into the kitchen. Was I imagining things or did his eyes twinkle? I was definitely feeling a little light-headed.

  Emma grinned. “Huh! Look who’s best friends now that you saved my life together,” she said, reminding us about the time a few weeks ago when Matt and I worked together to help her out. “Usually he acts like he doesn’t even know any of your names!”

  Best friends! Hardly, but the idea of Matt and me linked in any way, shape, or form (plus, he’d smiled at me!) caused a warm feeling in my chest that quickly spread up into a blush.

  Noticing how red I’d turned, Emma’s grin quickly faded, and she gave me a strange look. Uh-oh. I ducked my head down and looked back at my leather-bound account ledger.

  “Okay,” I said, quickly trying to think of something else. “We have about twenty-five cents per cupcake to work with. Batter is ten cents per cupcake and frosting is five cents, so that leaves us with ten cents for any kind of decoration. By my calculations, the gold costs twenty cents per cupcake and that is just too much!”

  “How does she figure this stuff out?” Katie asked the others.

  “And why does she want to? That’s the real question!” said Mia with a laugh.

  “Ha-ha. Very funny. Not,” I protested.

  Even though I was talking to my friends, my mind was still on Matt. I heard his footsteps cross the floor above us, and I wondered what he had for homework and what subjects he liked. I also wondered what I would say to make conversation if he came back down. I chewed on my pen cap as I thought.

  Suddenly I heard Katie saying, “Earth to Alexis!” and looked up to see everyone staring at me. Apparently Katie had been asking me a question.

  I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Oh, sorry. What?”

  “Alexis, did you take your omega-threes today?” Mia teased. “You seem really spacey!” She always makes fun of me and my vitamins, but I know they work. My whole family is about “optimizing our engines,” so we eat superhealthy meals and exercise together, and we like to take supplements.

  “Yes, I did,” I replied, making a face at her. Usually I don’t mind if my friends tease me, but I get annoyed when they make fun of me in front of other people—like Matt. I hoped he couldn’t overhear any of this.

  “Someone’s a little testy!” said Katie as Emma frowned.

  “What?” I asked, looking at Emma, and it came out a little harsher than I meant it to.

  “Oh, nothing,” Emma said, but I knew that wasn’t true. Maybe she could tell that her brother was the cause of my freak-out.

  Luckily Mia started talking about something else. “Hey, what are you going to wear to Dylan’s party?” she asked. Mia is really into fashion, and her mom is a stylist, so clothes are always on her mind.

  I was glad for the change of subject, even though it meant we hadn’t yet figured out our budget. I told Mia that Dylan was going to set some things aside for me at Icon (Mia and Dylan’s favorite store, but not mine), and I could bring the Cupcake Club with me this weekend to go try them on. As long as there wasn’t anything too racy, that was good for me. Showing a lot of skin made me nervous. I wished I could get something at Big Blue, which was my favorite store since it was kind of preppy-casual, but they didn’t have anything “special” enough for Dylan there. Or anything black and gold enough.

  “So we’ll go with you before we bake on Saturday, then,” offered Katie. “Where are we baking again?”

  It should really be my turn, but I didn’t say anything for a minute, hoping Emma would offer. I looked down at the ledger.

  Mia thought out loud. “Well, today is Emma’s, tomorrow is my house, and Friday is Katie’s, so . . .”

  Everyone was looking at me, so I had to answer. “We could do my place, I guess. It’s just that Emma is way closer to the mall . . . if we need to walk.”

  “Your dad would totally drive us! He’s so nice about it!” Katie said. It was true. My dad was willing to drive us anywhere ever since he got his new car.

  “I’d much rather be at your house,” Emma added. “It’s so peaceful and organized and clean! And there aren’t any boys. . . .”

  Yeah, that’s not good news, I said to myself. Inside I felt bummed that we weren’t going to be at the Taylors’, but I knew it wouldn’t be fair not to offer, so I said, “Okay
, my house it is.”

  Then we kept brainstorming and came up with three pretty good ideas for Dylan’s party. Well, the other girls did most of the thinking. My mind was upstairs where Matt was the whole time. I kept wondering if and when he was going to appear again. And what I would say to him if he did.

  If that afternoon was an equation, it would have looked like this:

  (Friends + business) / cute boy = brain dead

  Here’s what we finally came up with:

  Option A. Disco cupcakes: white cake with black vanilla frosting and Emma’s coveted gold flakes strewn across the top.

  Option B. S’mores cupcakes: angel food cake injected with liquid marshmallow and frosted with dark (black-looking) chocolate. They would have a sprinkling of graham crackers on top. They would probably be the best-tasting but not the coolest-looking.

  Option C. Gift cupcakes: small yellow cupcakes peeled out of their wrappers and coated with raspberry jam, and then wrapped in a round sheet of black fondant tucked under at the bottom so they looked like a smooth hill. They would be individually wrapped like a gift with gold ribbon tied in a big bow on top. They would definitely be the prettiest ones.

  It was a good day’s work, though I hardly remember what was said after Matt showed up. Thank goodness I take good notes!

  Unfortunately, Matt never came back down before we had to leave. I was tempted to call up the stairs to say bye to him, but that would have been truly weird. I did whisper it as I walked down their driveway, though. No one heard me, so why not?

  CHAPTER 3

  Project M. T.

  My desk is my command center, and I take pride in keeping it superorganized. There are little drawers with all my supplies in tidy little boxes and packages. My pencil cup holds only Ticonderoga #2 pencils, all sharpened, points up, and my pen cup holds only blue erasable FriXion pens. I have a small container of white erasers (the best kind), and then there are my tools: very sharp Fiskars scissors for projects, a flat tin of rainbow-hued watercolor pencils (for graphs and pie charts), an electric pencil sharpener, a three-ring hole punch, a heavy Swingline stapler, and an old-fashioned Scotch tape dispenser.

  My family shops the Staples sales religiously, and we are good with coupons and points and our club card. My parents figure that homework time spent looking for supplies is homework time wasted, so they like us to be well-stocked. When we run low on something, we just leave it on the kitchen island and our mom has her assistant reorder it immediately, putting it on her personal account. It’s that easy, as they say on TV.

  That night, though, despite my desk being fully stocked with supplies, my mind kept drifting away from my homework. It was really infuriating because I hate being unproductive. I had to admit that it was Matt who was distracting me. I was wondering if this was a crush. And if it was, what did I want to come of it?

  Did I want him to be my boyfriend?

  I wasn’t sure, but I had to say not really. And to be absolutely honest, the idea of having a boyfriend kind of terrified me.

  Well, then, did I want him just as a friend?

  I was thinking definitely not just as a friend. Maybe something in between? It was hard to quantify it! My feelings about Matt would not organize themselves, and that was superfrustrating. I had no control whatsoever over anything—whether I’d see him, whether he’d speak to me if I saw him, and what we’d say. I played out all kinds of scenarios in my mind as I sat at my desk, watching my timer tick away the half hour I’d allotted to writing flash cards for my vocab test next Tuesday.

  Now I was really frustrated. I sighed loudly, slapped the timer off, shuffled the flash cards into a neat stack, clipped them tightly together with a binder clip, and put them in my English bin on top of the desk. I was at a total loss. I grabbed a fresh sheet of white paper from the stack, and then reached for the calculator. Then I started fooling around with numbers, which always relaxes me.

  I began scratching figures on the page as I thought. First, if I spend twenty minutes a day thinking about Matt, then that’s one hundred and forty minutes a week, or two hours and twenty minutes. If I were working, say, at Big Blue for that long, I’d make twenty-five dollars, before taxes. If I were studying, I’d probably get an A on whatever it was. If I were exercising for those twenty minutes a day, and figured on a five minute warm-up and a five minute cool-down, then that was still ten minutes at my optimum heart rate, which was pretty good.

  I rested my cheek on my hand and stared into space. Part of my brain was flashing a warning: “This is not scheduled into your planner for today! You are wasting time!” It was true, but I felt sluggish, like I had no control over myself. I certainly had no control over the object of my interest.

  Or did I?

  I sat up straight in my chair. That’s it! What if I took a mathematical approach to my crush? What if I turned my mini obsession into a mathematically quantifiable experiment? I began brainstorming and scribbling onto my sheet in excitement.

  My hypothesis was this: Could a crush be manipulated with results that can be replicated every time? Was there a predictable pattern of stimulus and response that I could plan and follow and chart, perhaps ending up with actual mathematical equations to predict Matt’s behavior? In other words, could I come up with the perfect formula (or recipe, ha!) for getting Matt to fall for me?

  This would be brilliant, I thought, as the neurons in my brain started firing up. It would also kind of justify any lazy daydreaming about Matt by turning those spacey moments into strategy sessions for my experiment. Let’s see, what could I hypothesize and test?

  What about wardrobe? I usually wear pants. It’s kind of one of my trademarks. They are functional, comfortable, and easy to mix and match. But Dylan always wears skirts, and the boys flock to her. So, I wondered, what if I were to wear a skirt or a dress when I saw Matt? Would he react differently to me? Hmm. I wrote:

  Project Matt Taylor

  M. T., I thought. More secretive.

  Then I scribbled:

  Clothing experiment: Does he pay more attention to me if I am wearing pants or a skirt/dress?

  I would need to conduct an experiment with each, where I timed the length of our interaction and compared the two figures. That would be easy. I could do it at school.

  I chewed on my pen cap. What else could I test? Hair up or down? I almost always wore my hair in a ponytail or headband, but Sydney, the head of the Popular Girls Club in my class, always wore her hair down and boys paid lots of attention to her. Granted, her hair was long and blond and mine was long, frizzy, and red, but I could still do a hairstyle test. That sounded good, so I wrote it down.

  Ooh! Another idea: comparing the frequency of who initiated our greeting, like in the hall at school. Sydney was giggly with boys, always starting conversations with them, while I only spoke to them if they spoke to me first. Maybe I could try to switch that up a little.

  I decided to track my interactions with Matt (in the hall at school? At Emma’s?) and collect the data and assess it. That was good.

  This experiment called for a dedicated graph paper notebook, so I pulled one out of a cubbyhole in my desk and smoothed the cover with my hand. I could also write conversation starters in it (I had no idea what to say to him if I did see him), and maybe track things I could research that I know he’s interested in, like sports and computer graphics. I was excited. At least now if nothing ever came of my interest in Matt, I wasn’t totally wasting my time. I was practicing math skills!

  Just then there was a knock on the door.

  “Come in!” I trilled happily. I am always happiest when I am feeling busy and productive.

  Dylan opened the door. “Dinner is in five minutes.”

  I looked at the clock, which read 6:55. We always eat exactly at seven. “Okay!” I said, still writing in my notebook.

  My sister narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. “What are you working on?” she asked suspiciously. I guess it looked like too much fun to be homework. But I s
uddenly realized I did not want this notebook falling into the wrong hands, so I slammed it shut.

  “Oh, just some cupcake ideas,” I said casually.

  “Stuff for my party?” Dylan asked.

  “Not quite. Mostly budget stuff right now.” Please don’t let her ask to see it.

  There was a pause before she asked, “When are we having the taste test?”

  Okay, good, she didn’t ask to see the notebook. “Oh, this Saturday. We’re baking here, and then you can try all three of the options in the afternoon.”

  “But I have cheerleading practice on Saturday!” she said with a pout.

  “Well, what time?” I asked patiently, ignoring her whiny voice. Sometimes I wondered who was the older sister!

  “Four o’clock!”

  “Oh, no prob,” I assured her. “We’ll be done making the samples by three for sure.”

  “Yeah, but I can’t eat all that sugar and then go out and exercise. That will not work! I’m going to talk to Mom.” Dylan immediately turned and walked away, not bothering to close the door. She was determined to make this hard for me.

  “Whatever, Dyl pill,” I said, annoyed.

  “I heard that!” she called from the hallway.

  “Good!” I whispered, and turned back to my desk, eager to get back to planning my experiment.

  Tomorrow was the first day of Project M. T., and I decided that I would wear a skirt and see what happened. I was already dreading wearing the skirt—and what’s more, I dreaded seeing Matt almost as much as I looked forward to it!

  Who knew superorganized me could be so confused?

  CHAPTER 4

  Can He See Me Now?

  Brrring!

  The bell rang, and Eddie Rossi slammed his book shut and whipped it into his backpack. I thought this was pretty rude to Mr. Nichols, who was kind of old but not totally boring. I mean, how badly do you want to get out of here, mister? I thought.

  I stared at Eddie with my most disapproving glare, but he didn’t look around. Just sat with his backpack on his back, his hands gripping the edge of his desk, poised to launch out of his seat and out the door. I’m usually not that devious, but for some reason, his attitude really bugged me today. So I raised my hand.