Mia's Recipe for Disaster (7 page)

“And doing homework,” Mom added.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeeeees. When have I ever not done my homework?”

“Just making sure,” Mom said.

Since I was so close to my deadline, it was hard to break away from my sewing to decorate cupcakes. But when I got to Emma's house, I immediately started to relax.

“Mia! You're here!” Katie squealed when she answered the door. “We missed you last night!”

She pulled me inside the house and into Emma's kitchen. Music was blasting from speakers on the counter. Emma was mixing a batch of icing, Alexis was neatly pouring candy into small bowls, and Emma's little brother, Jake, was building something out of tiny plastic blocks on the kitchen table.

Emma turned off the mixer. “Hey!” she called out. “Mom's working and Dad had to drive Sam to SAT practice or something, so we're unsupervised.” She waggled her eyebrows and giggled.

“Isn't Matt technically in charge, since he's the oldest one in the house right now?” Alexis asked.

Emma snorted. “Matt is sleeping, and, anyway, I am way more mature than he is,” she replied. “In any case, since we don't need the oven today, Dad was okay with leaving us.”

“Well, one day we'll have our own bakery, and we'll be supervising ourselves, anyway,” Katie pointed out.

“Wait, how can I run a bakery and be a fashion designer at the same time?” I asked.

“Haven't you heard of multitasking?” Katie asked. She nodded to Alexis. “It's good to have more than one way to make money, right?”

“Multiple income streams,” Alexis answered with a nod. “Although it might make more sense if the businesses were related. Like, Mia could design a line of aprons or chef whites.”

I made a face. “I was kind of thinking of something more glamorous.”

“No, it's a great idea!” Katie said, her eyes shining. “You would design the most adorable aprons! I bet we could sell millions.”

“You know, I bet we could design our own aprons now if we wanted,” Alexis said, making that face she always does when she's deep in thought. “There are lots of places online where you can do stuff like that.”

I sat down on a chair. “Please, can I just get through this contest first before we start on the next thing? I'm exhausted!”

“Ooh, that's right. How's the dress going?” Emma asked.

“I finally feel like I can finish it,” I said. “I'm pretty sure I can bring it to the party tomorrow for the fitting.”

Emma clapped her hands together. “I can't wait!”

Then Alexis started talking in her let's-get-down-to-business voice. “So, we have four dozen cupcakes to decorate. We'll meet at the Riccos' house tomorrow at one to set up. Mia, I knew you were busy, so I got a Halloween tablecloth and some cobwebby stuff to put around our display.”

I nodded. “Thanks. If I can think of anything fun to add, I will.”

“So, I asked Mrs. Ricco if I could try on the dress tomorrow, and she said okay,” Emma said. “She was hoping that we would stay and help with the kids and serving the food. She's going to pay extra, and it's only for, like, an hour or so. She says she has all the games and stuff.”

Alexis opened her notebook. “I'll add it to her invoice. You told her our rates?”

Emma nodded. “Yes. She was cool with it.”

“Excellent!” Alexis said. “We'll be over our earnings projections for next month.”

“I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds good,” said Katie.

Alexis smiled. “It is.”

Emma spooned a big glob of orange icing from
the mixer and put it in a bowl. “I think we can start decorating now.”

“Yay!” Katie cried, picking up a tube of icing gel.

“So, we're doing a dozen monsters, a dozen spiders, a dozen tombstones, and a dozen jack-o'-lantern cupcakes,” Alexis said.

“Let's ice the cupcakes for each batch and then put them on a pan, so we don't get confused,” Emma suggested.

Katie nodded. “Then we can all do some of each kind.”

With our plan in place, we began decorating the cupcakes. Jake became very interested.

“I want a monster!” he said after Katie made a monster cupcake.

“We'll see if we have extras at the end,” Emma promised him. “And then you can make your own monster. How would you like that?”

Jake nodded. “With sharp fangs. And lots of eyes.”

Jake is superadorable. I almost had a little stepbrother once. His name was Ethan, and his mom, Lynne, was dating my dad. Then they broke up, and I haven't seen them since. It was kind of weird. Ethan was annoying, but at times like these, I miss him a little.

I was thinking about this as I carefully poked spider legs into a cupcake when Emma's brother Matt came into the kitchen. He was wearing shorts and a basketball T-shirt, and his blond hair was all messed up, like he had just gotten out of bed. Which he had.

“Breakfast!” he cried, grabbing for a cupcake on the table.

Emma slapped his hand away. “No way! Wait until we're done, and if we have extra, then
maybe
you'll get one.”

“Fine,” Matt said. “I'll just have some cereal.”

“That's probably a healthier breakfast for you, anyway,” Alexis pointed out.

Matt turned to her. “So, what time are we going tonight?”

“Seven thirty,” Alexis replied, and I looked at her, with my eyebrows raised.

“What?” she whispered. “I asked George if I could bring somebody, and he said okay.”

“Oh . . . sure,” I said. That was a pretty bold move on Alexis's part, but she made it sound like it wasn't such a big deal.

“I guess you're not going with Chris?” Emma asked me.

“Chris Howard?” Matt asked, and I nodded. “I
was talking to him yesterday. He said he wanted to ask you to go with him, but you were blowing him off.”

I jumped out of my chair. “What? He said what?”

“He said you blew him off or something,” Matt said with a shrug. He reached into the fridge and took out a carton of milk. “That's all I know.”

“Maybe it has something to do with what happened in the cafeteria the other day,” Katie carefully suggested.

I groaned. “You're probably right. I did kind of blow him off. And I never answered that text he sent me.” I put my head in my hands. “Oh no. Now what do I do?”

“Text him right now!” Alexis suggested, and I did just that.

Hey, sorry I never got back to you,
I typed quickly.
Been really busy. How r u? R U going to George's party?

I hit send. Then I waited, hoping to get an instant response, but my phone was silent.

“He'll text you back,” Katie said. “Just give him some time. Maybe he's still asleep or something.”

“Yeah, he probably is,” I agreed, and I went back to decorating cupcakes. Every time I finished a cupcake, I checked my phone. Nothing.

Pretty soon we had four dozen perfectly decorated cupcakes, six backups in case any got smooshed at the party, and six extras.

“One for each of us,” Alexis said, handing them out. “And, Jake, you can make your own monster.”

I checked my phone one last time. There was a message! I quickly grabbed it.

What time do I need to pick you up?

It was from Mom. I sighed.

“Look, a monster!” Jake held up his cupcake, which he had loaded with a mound of jelly beans, candy eyes, and candy corn.

Emma laughed. “That's more like a monster tummy ache,” she said.

Come get me now?
I typed back to Mom. It was only eleven thirty, and I still had plenty of time to sew.

I couldn't worry about Chris Howard right now. I had a dress to finish!

I
went home, ate a quick sandwich, and got to work sewing. I was having a hard time with the seams on the bottom of the dress, and I had to take out the stitches and start again.

I was concentrating so hard on trying to finish the dress that I totally lost track of time. The next thing I knew, Mom was calling upstairs.

“Mia, Katie's here!”

“She's what?” I looked up from my machine and saw the red numbers on the digital clock: 6:30. “No!”

My heart started to pound. It couldn't be this late. Katie had texted me that she would come a little early so we could take pictures of our costumes. . . .

A costume! I had totally forgotten to get a
costume. I might have gone into a total panic if I hadn't been so tired. I sighed and turned off the machine.

“Send her up!” I called back.

Seconds later Katie bounded into my room.

“Ta-da!” she yelled.

She was wearing white chef's pants and a matching chef's jacket. Two brown braids stuck out from under a white chef's hat. In one hand she held a rubber chicken.

“Katie, you look adorable!” I cried, getting up to hug her.

“Thanks,” she said, grinning. “It's so me, right?” Then she held up the rubber chicken. “And rubber chickens are always hilarious. I don't know why, but they just are.”

“Totally!” I agreed. “I wish I had thought of a cool costume like that. I didn't even get one.”

Katie held up a drawstring bag. “I thought maybe you were too busy to get a costume. So I brought mine from last year. It should fit you.”

“You're so sweet!” I said, taking the bag from her. “What is it?”

“Just look,” Katie said.

I opened the bag—and saw a bunch of white satin with big yellow, red, and blue polka dots.

“It's my clown costume, remember?” Katie asked. “It even comes with the red floppy shoes.”

I pulled the costume out of the bag. The satin polka-dot pattern was a one-piece jumpsuit, with ruffles on the ends of the sleeves and pants. The long, floppy shoes were three times as big as my feet. I also pulled out a bright red nose made out of soft foam, and one of those Halloween makeup kits with white, red, and black stuff that you could put on your face.

“It's . . . wow,” I said, searching for the right words. A fashion nightmare? Ridiculous? Hideous?

“I know it's not what you'd normally wear,” Katie said. “But it's Halloween! It should be fun. And it's better than no costume at all, right?”

I had to think about it. What would be worse? Going to George's costume party with no costume or going in a horrible clown costume?

“George will crack up when he sees you,” Katie prodded, and that helped me make up my mind. George is sweet and funny and nice, and I knew the party would be more fun if I wore a costume.

“Okay,” I said. “But I am
not
wearing the nose.”

I straightened up my fabric and then put on a shirt and shorts to wear under the costume. Then I thought of Millicent and put my hair in, like, eight crazy ponytails.

“That is awesome,” Katie said. “But I still think you should wear the nose.”

“I have another idea,” I said. I opened up the makeup kit. The makeup came in tiny little plastic disks and was kind of thick, but I could make it work. “I can do kind of an artistic clown face, like a Harlequin.”

Katie watched as I carefully applied a layer of white makeup all over my face. I patted that down with a tissue and then used the black on my lips and around my eyes. I painted big, exaggerated eyelashes coming down from the bottom of each eye, and then added a tiny black heart on my right cheek.

“Whoa, that is so cool,” Katie said.

I leaned closer to the mirror. “Not bad,” I agreed. “Now let me get on my floppy shoes so we can get out of here.”

When we got downstairs, Katie's mom was sitting at the kitchen table with Mom and Eddie, talking. Mom let out a big gasp when she saw me.

“Mia! You look so cute!”

“It's thanks to Katie,” I said. “She saved me with her clown costume.”

Eddie jumped up. “You girls look wonderful! Let me take some pictures!”

We went into the living room, and Katie and I goofed around and did some funny poses with the rubber chicken—me pretending to kick it with my big shoe, Katie pretending to beat me over the head with it—and then Katie's mom drove us to the party.

It was easy to tell which house the party was at because Halloween music was blaring from speakers on the lawn. Fake tombstones rose up from the grass like jagged teeth, each one painted with a funny saying or name.

“Look, ‘Barry M. Deep,' ” Katie said, pointing, when we got out of the car. “And there's a baking one! ‘Here Lies John Yeast. He'll Rise No More.' Ha! Get it?”

I shook my head, laughing. “I bet George did that one just for you.”

We walked down the path to the front door, which was lined with glowing jack-o'-lanterns. It was a warm fall night, and the front door was wide open. George's living room was already packed with kids in costume. The lights were dimmed, and a green strobe light was flashing.