by Sheryl Berk
Carrie: What is the best part about being Maddie’s mommy? How and when did you get her, and how did she change your life?
Kristin: Maddie is my best friend. She has given me so much! She’s funny, she listens to my troubles, comforts me when I’m not feeling well. She just loves me for being me—unconditionally! I love being her mom because I love taking care of her. She is my daughter and goes everywhere with me. I buy her clothes and toys. We just have fun! I got her in 2003: I knew I wanted a small dog, and when I saw Maddie, I fell in love. I knew she was meant for me.
Kylie Carson climbed on the camp bus and took a seat in a row by herself. She was excited for her first summer at sleepaway camp, but also nervous. She’d never been away from home for six weeks.
“You’ll love Camp Chicopee,” her dad insisted. “Your old man went there a few years back and it was a great place.”
“A few years?” Her mom chuckled. “Try thirty years ago!”
“Who’s counting?” her father replied. “Besides, I looked at the website and it looks exactly the same. Right down to the giant rooster sculpture on the front lawn.”
He turned to Kylie and patted her on the back. “Just be your smiley Kylie self and you’ll make tons of new friends.”
It hadn’t been easy for Kylie to make friends at Blakely Elementary when she was a new student in third grade. What she did make easily were enemies, namely one Meredith Mitchell who still picked on her. But now, two years later, she had three fabulous BFFs: Lexi Poole, Jenna Medina, and Sadie Harris. Together, they formed Peace, Love, and Cupcakes, a cupcake club that had turned into a booming baking business. She was sad to leave the girls behind for the summer, but the club’s advisor Juliette thought it would be good to take some time off, relax, and regroup.
So while Lexi went to NYC to study art, Jenna went to Ecuador to visit her grandma, and Sadie headed to basketball camp in North Carolina, Kylie was on her way to Camp Chicopee in Massachusetts.
“Is this seat taken?” a voice interrupted her thoughts. A girl with strawberry blond hair pulled back in two loose braids smiled at her. “If I don’t sit in the front of the bus, I get carsick.”
Kylie wrinkled her nose. “You won’t puke on me, will you?”
The girl shook her head. “Nah. I only puke at midnight when there’s a full moon…”
Kylie giggled. “Kind of like a werewolf without the hair and claws?”
The girl raised the sleeve on her hoodie. “Yup. Fur-free…for now!” She gave an evil, mad-scientist chuckle and settled into the seat next to Kylie.
“I’m Delaney Adams,” the girl said. Kylie glanced out the window. There was a mom and dad holding up a sign that read We love you Delaney! XOXO!
“I guess those are your parents?” Kylie said, pointing. “The ones in the Camp Chicopee baseball hats?”
Delaney covered her eyes with her hand. “So embarrassing!”
“Not any more than mine!” She motioned at her parents who were waving wildly at the bus window and blowing kisses. Her dad was wearing his old Chicopee T-shirt that he had dug out of a trunk in the attic. Instead of white, it was now a strange yellow-brown, but you could still see the owl mascot and the camp slogan, “Proud, Free, Chicopee!” across the chest. “I’m Kylie, by the way,” she said.
“Nice to meet you Kylie By-the-Way,” Delaney joked. “That’s an interesting last name.”
Kylie rolled her eyes. Delaney reminded her of her friend Jenna. She was always making jokes.
“What cabin are you in?” Delaney asked. “I’m in G2.”
“G2? Me too!” Kylie answered. “Cool!”
•••
That was how their friendship began.
Delaney remembered how she and Kylie had talked all the way on the two-hour bus ride to camp. They had so much in common! Delaney love, love, loved vampire movies—especially Twilight and Dracula. The spookier the better! And Kylie knew even more about them then she did.
“Did you know that there have been more than 200 movies made with Dracula in them?” she asked Delaney.
“Wow. That’s a ton!” Delaney gasped. “Have you seen them all?”
Kylie thought hard. “Well, not all, but a lot. I’m checking them off as I go along.”
They decided that at the first marshmallow roast, when everyone gathered around the campfire at night to tell ghost stories, their vampire tale would be the best and the creepiest in all of Camp Chicopee.
“It was a cool, dark night in June…” Kylie began. “A lone figure made his way through the bushes in search of something to satisfy his tremendous hunger.”
Delaney continued the story. “He sniffed the air, and his nose caught the scent of something so delectable, nothing could prevent him from taking a bite.”
The campers huddled closer together. “What did he bite?” one girl in G3 asked.
Delaney leaned in closer and whispered, “It was something warm…and sticky!”
“EEEK!” the campers squealed. “Was it blood? Did he bite someone’s neck?”
Delaney and Kylie looked at each other and smiled. “Oh, no…not a person or even an animal,” Kylie added. “It was…”
“What? What?” a boy yelled. “Tell us! I can’t stand the suspense!”
Delaney and Kylie shouted together: “A cupcake!”
The campers groaned and threw marshmallows at them. It was one of Delaney’s favorite memories of camp—she loved having an audience hang on her every word.
“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Kylie asked her that night when they were lying awake in their bunk.
“Dunno. Maybe a singer like Katy Perry or Lady Gaga.”
Kylie laughed. “I think you’d look great in a Kermit the Frog coat!”
“Or maybe a stand-up comedian. My dad says I’m a natural,” Delaney added. “I always crack him up. How about you? Do you want to run a cupcake bakery?”
Kylie nodded. “I’d love to expand our business around the world. Can’t you just see a Peace, Love, and Cupcakes in Paris…or London…or Australia?”
“You can come to my sold-out stadium tour if I can get a red velvet cupcake anywhere I go,” Delaney said. She reached down from the top bunk so they could shake hands on it.
•••
It was Kylie who had asked Delaney to join the cupcake club. At first, the girls didn’t like the idea—especially Lexi who thought four members was enough. But Delaney had not only proved she could not only bake and frost like a pro, but also that she was a lot of fun to have around.
“Check this out!” she said, piping a red rose on her nose. “I’m a cupcake clown!”
She also believed that baking needed a soundtrack. “What shall we play today?” she asked as Sadie preheated the oven to 350 degrees. “I’m kind of in a pop mood…but I could definitely go for an oldie but goodie.”
She selected a song on her MP3 player and “Candy Girl” by The Archies filled Kylie’s kitchen.
“Sugar, sugar!” Delaney jumped up on a chair and crooned into a wooden spoon. “Oh, honey, honey!”
Soon, they were all dancing around and tossing flour in each other’s hair.
“Delaney, what would we do without you?” Sadie laughed, trying to catch her breath.
“Less laundry?” Lexi teased, wiping flour off her jeans. “But it’s true. Even when we have a crazy impossible deadline, you make it seem fun and doable.”
Delaney smiled and took a bow.
•••
Her dad said fun was her middle name (it was really Miriam after her great-granny). And her mom compared her to a duck: “Water and problems just roll right off your back.”
Delaney guessed that was why her parents decided she’d take the news well. They were having her favorite breakfast one Sunday morning—a scrambled egg waffle sandwich—when her mom put
down her coffee cup and cleared her throat.
“Laney,” she began. “Daddy and I have something very exciting to share with you. A really big surprise.”
Delaney looked up from her plate. “We’re going to Disneyland?” she guessed. “Awesome!”
“No honey,” her father added. “It’s much bigger than that.”
Delaney tried to wrap her brain around what could be better than a surprise vacation to an amusement park. “Is it front row seats to the Katy Perry concert in May? OMG! I was dying to go!”
“No, no,” her mom looked anxiously at her dad. “It’s not a concert either.”
“A new bike? Wait! Wait! A new cell phone?”
Delaney looked at both their faces and tried to read them. “What could be bigger than a concert or a vacation?” she asked. “I give up! What’s the surprise?”
Her mother took her hand and held it tight. “Honey, it’s the best, biggest surprise ever. We’re having a baby!”
Delaney’s mouth hung wide open. For once, she couldn’t think of anything funny to say. “A baby?” she gasped. “Is this some belated April Fool’s joke?”
“Afraid not,” her dad replied, ruffling his hair. “We thought you’d be excited.”
“I am. I think. It’s just that babies, they’re small. And they pee and poop like all the time. And they cry…really loudly.”
“You forgot the spitting up part,” her mom added. “Yes, they do all those things. Which is why your little brother or sister will be so lucky to have you to help.”
“But I don’t know how to change diapers,” Delaney said. “And what about burping? How do you even burp a little baby?” She pushed her chair away from the table.
“Where are you going?” her mom asked.
Delaney looked very serious, more serious than she had ever looked in her entire life. “I have a lot of studying to do,” she said.
She raced to her bedroom, speed dialed Kylie, and didn’t even wait for her to say hello.
“Kyles, remember how you taught me the crawl and butterfly stroke at Camp Chicopee in one day?” she asked.
“Um, yeah,” Kylie replied. “We needed to win the swim relay and all you could do was doggy paddle.”
“Right! Well, I only have a few months to learn how to be a big sister, and I need all the help I can get!”
To Daddy/Peter: You’ll always be our hero…we love you! A special shout-out to Uncle Charles for being a great houseguest and all-round awesome uncle! See, we told you we’d put you in the book!
To our friends and family at PS 6: can’t believe graduation is here. We’ll miss you so much. Please know how much this super school—and all the people in it—have inspired us over these past six years.
To our families, the Berks, the Kahns, and the Saps: thanks for all the love and support!
Thanks to Jill Fritzo for her help, and a huge hug to Kristin Chenoweth for her interview. We love you and everything you do for animals!
Gracias to Betty Islas (Betty Medina is for you!). Carrie says, “Te amo!”
To our team at Sourcebooks Jabberwocky: thanks as always for being so sweet! XO to Steve, Derry, Leah, Jillian, and Cat.
New York Times bestselling co-author of Soul Surfer, Sheryl Berk was the founding editor in chief of Life & Style Weekly as well as a contributor to InStyle, Martha Stewart, and other publications. She has written dozens of books with celebrities including Britney Spears, Jenna Ushkowitz, and Zendaya. Her ten-year-old daughter, Carrie Berk, a cupcake connoisseur and blogger, cooked up the idea for The Cupcake Club series while in second grade. Together, they have invented dozens of crazy cupcakes recipes in their NYC kitchen (can you say “Purple Velvet”?) and have the frosting stains on the ceiling to prove it. They love writing together and have many more adventures in store for the PLC girls!
