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Authors: Lisa Schroeder

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BOOK: Sprinkles and Secrets
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“Couple more bites, Hayden,” Mom says. “Or no candy for you.”

“Are the spaceships real, Dad?” Hayden asks, before he takes a bite of his hamburger.

“Dude, what do you mean?” I ask. “It's a movie.
Nothing
is real.”

“But-”

“Hayden, don't talk with your mouth full,” Mom says.

He finishes chewing and swallows. “I mean, did they make spaceships and let the guys fly in them?”

“Let's wait and see what you think, okay?” Dad says. “I don't want to ruin anything for you.”

Hayden takes another bite and then jumps up, walks his plate over to the counter, and starts ordering us. “Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!”

I help Mom clear the table while Dad takes Hayden into the other room.

“I think you should have given him the movies for Christmas, Mom. How are you ever going to top this?”

She takes a sponge to the kitchen table. “Honey, have you been in the toy aisle recently? Something tells me many
Star Wars
products are in our future.
I'm pretty sure this is only the beginning.”

“Geez, don't sound so depressed. It could be worse.” I start to throw out a joke about Power Rangers, but she probably wouldn't get it.

The phone rings, and I answer it.

“Hey, Sophie, it's Lily.”

“Hey. How are you?”

“Really good. I wanted to see if we could get together tomorrow. Maybe go for cupcakes when the shop is actually open?”

“Uh, sure, we could do that,” I say. “You want to come over here and we can walk again? We can hang out here for a while too, if you want.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. What time should I have my mom drop me off?”

“How about after lunch, like one o'clock?”

“Sounds good. See you then, Soph.”

“Bye.”

“Was that Isabel?” Mom asks.

“No, actually, it was Lily. She's coming over tomorrow.”

“Mom! Sophie!” Hayden yells from the other room. “Come on, it's starting!”

“I'm glad she called,” Mom says. “It'll be fun to see her again.”

“Come on,” I say. “The galaxy far, far away is waiting for us.”

“Yes, it is.”

Hayden hardly says a word the first half of the movie. Not only that, he hardly moves. He takes a bite of a candy bar when Dad hands him one, and then puts it in his lap, totally forgotten. Normally the kid would have had that thing eaten in ten seconds flat. It's like he's hypnotized. Or maybe he's under the control of the Force.

During one of the battles, my mind drifts to Isabel and how I totally failed as a friend. Her = good. Me = evil. I should wear a Darth Vader costume to school next week for punishment. I'm sure Dennis would love that.

Or maybe I should cancel the audition.

I should.

I really should.

“Mom, will you help me get the popcorn and drinks?” I ask.

I go to the fridge and grab the lemonade. Mom
plugs the air popper in and pours in the kernels. It's noisy. I wait until it's done, and then I tell her about my decision.

“I've decided I don't want to go to the audition,” I tell her.

She turns from the stove, where she's melting butter, and looks at me. “What? Why?”

“I can't tell Isabel, Mom. I just can't. I tried today, and I failed. It was horrible.”

“Oh, honey. I'm sorry this is stressing you out.” She drizzles the melted butter over the big bowl of popcorn. “Why don't you think on it over the weekend. Maybe talk to Lily about it tomorrow, see what she thinks.”

“I don't know—”

“We can't call Candace until Monday anyway,” she says. “So wait. Sleep on it some more. I really think it's an incredible opportunity, and I'd hate to see you regret it someday.”

She hands me the popcorn. “Did you salt it?” I ask.

“Nope. That's your job. I always do too much or too little.”

I walk over to the table, grab the salt shaker, and give it four good shakes. Mom reaches in, takes a handful, and pops some into her mouth.

“Perfect.”

Well, at least I can do one thing right.

Chapter 13
rocky road cupcakes
THEY PROVE A LESS-THAN-SMOOTH ROAD ISN'T ALWAYS A BAD THING

T
he next morning, it is all
Star Wars
all the time, because Hayden won't stop talking about it and can't wait to watch the next one. Mom finally gives in, so I spend most of the morning in my room, watching musicals. I doodle in my dream notebook while I do.

Dream #5 –
I dream of wearing beautiful
shoes in a movie one day.
I wonder if ludy garland
left like the luckiest girl in the world
wearing those ruby slippers.

At noon, I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and slice up an apple before I jump in the shower. Lily arrives right on time.

“Lily, which Jedi is your favorite?” Hayden asks.

“Hayden. Please stop,” I tell him. “Not everyone wants to talk space stuff, okay?”

“I like the short green guy,” Lily says. She pretends to be thinking. “What is his name?”

“Yoda!” Hayden yells.

“You ready to go?” I ask her. I look out the front window. “Is it very cold?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Okay, let me get my heavy coat.”

“Hey, Lily, did you know Sophie's going to be an actress someday?” I hear Hayden saying. “Maybe someone will see her on TV and put her in a movie.
Maybe it'll be a movie with spaceships!”

I walk back out and Lily looks very confused. Yes, my annoying brother will do that to a person. “I'll explain on the way.”

Mom comes and says hi to Lily. “We're going to get a cupcake,” I tell her.

“Okay, have fun, girls. Call if you decide you want a ride home.”

We step outside and it really feels like winter, with the chilly air and the trees almost bare. I zip up my coat.

“Sophie, what did he mean, 'see you on TV'?”

We walk down the front pathway to the sidewalk. I take a deep breath and tell her all about my new agent and the audition.

“That is so exciting!” she says.

“I guess”.

She laughs. “You guess? Come on. This could change your whole life!”

“If I tell you the audition is with Beatrice's Brownies, does that change how you feel about it?”

She stops walking, grabs my arm. “No way.”

“Yes. Way.”

Her face looks almost as pained as my insides have felt these past few days. We continue walking. “What are you going to do?”

“I think I'm going to call my agent on Monday and cancel. I tried to tell Isabel about it last week, but I couldn't do it.”

We turn the corner and a blast of cold air comes at us. We walk faster. “What do your parents think?”

“It's crazy. They both think I should do it. It's a great opportunity, Isabel would understand, blah, blah, blah. But what if my commercial was the one to bring their cupcake business down? I would have to live with that for the rest of my life. And maybe without Isabel, which would be even worse.”

She looks at me as she holds her coat collar up around her face, trying to keep the cold air away. “But it wouldn't be
your
commercial. You'd be
in
the commercial, but it's Beatrice's commercial. And besides, you might not even get the part. If I were you, I'd go, and think of it as practice for the next audition. I mean, no offense, but I bet not many people get the job from the first audition anyway. It's really competitive!”

“So you'd go to the audition and not tell Isabel who it's with? Just keep it to yourself?”

She shrugs. “Yeah. I mean, a practice audition is not a bad thing. It's not going to hurt anyone.”

Hearing her say this fills me with relief. “The only thing is that Isabel knows about the audition. She was at my house when I got the call. I made up excuses as long as I could, but finally on Friday, she said I had to tell her about it. So I lied. I told her it was an audition for bran cereal.” I hit my head with my hand. “I can't believe I said that. I wish I could have just told her.”

Lily doesn't say anything else. We just walk, our hands tucked into our coat pockets, and our faces buried in our coats as much as possible.

When we reach the cupcake shop, Lily turns to me before opening the door. “Do the audition and then tell her. My mom always says, one thing at a time. That's what you need to do. Right now, focus on the audition and get that over with. When it's all over, you can come clean to Isabel. I mean, what are the chances that the first audition you get called for is their cupcake shop's biggest competitor? It's
so crazy it's almost funny. I bet you guys will laugh about it.”

She's made me feel so much better. I'm not an evil person. I'm not! No Darth Vader costume for me after all. “Thanks, Lily.” I open the door, and the little bell above it rings. “Come on, let's go eat.”

We step in, and the first thing I notice is how empty the place is. We're the only ones here.

Isabel's mom, Caroline, walks up to the counter. “Sophie! What a wonderful surprise!”

“Hi! How are you?”

She waves her hand around. “I'd be better if I had a few more customers. But we're fine. Happy about Isabel's win, of course.”

I nod and catch Lily out of the corner of my eye, scanning the case of cupcakes. “Oh, this is my friend Lily. We went to theater camp together.”

Caroline smiles at Lily. “Nice to meet you. Is this your first time at our shop?”

“Yes. And they all look so good. It's going to be hard to decide.”

She lists the flavors, pointing to each one in the case as she does, but I don't hear anything past the
first one: Rocky Road. I know instantly, as soon as she says it, that's the one I want.

While Lily tries to decide which flavor she wants, Caroline looks back at me. “Would you like me to call Isabel? See if she wants to come down and sit with you girls?”

For some reason, the thought of seeing Isabel in this empty cupcake shop makes me squirm a little bit. “Um, I think we're actually going to get the cupcakes to go. Right, Lily?”

She gives me a strange look, because that wasn't really the plan. “Oh yeah, right.”

“We have stuff to do at home,” I explain. “But tell her I said hi, okay?”

She smiles. “Sure will.” She turns to Lily. “Okay, what'd you decide?”

“I'm going to try the Raspberry Dazzle. It sounds delicious.”

Caroline grabs a pair of black tongs and a little box and reaches into the case to get one of the raspberry cupcakes. I wonder what they do with the ones they don't sell. Do they throw all of them away? It makes my chest ache just thinking about
all of those beautiful cupcakes going to waste.

“We'll need a bigger box,” I tell Caroline as I reach into my coat to get my wallet. “I want to take home one of each kind.”

There goes all of my allowance, which I was going to use for Christmas shopping the day after Thanksgiving. Hopefully I can convince my mom to pay me back. I mean, I couldn't go home with only two cupcakes, could I? That'd be totally rude. And how am I supposed to know what flavor they might like?

One of each is the only solution.

And I sure am good at talking myself into things.

Chapter 14
old-fashioned chocolate cream pie
NOTHING BEATS IT

T
he week of Thanksgiving all the kids are ready for a break from school, while the teachers make it their mission to cram five days of learning into three. By Wednesday, I'm ready to eat turkey and mashed potatoes until I can't move, lie around, and do nothing all weekend.

First period, I'm counting the hours until the final bell rings.

“Okay, class,” Mr. Leonard says as the bell rings, “I'm going to pass your gum experiment papers back to you now. Please pair up with your partner, so you can see my comments and discuss what you might do differently next time. I'd also like everyone to write a paragraph or two about what you liked and didn't like about this particular experiment. It's due at the end of class, please.”

BOOK: Sprinkles and Secrets
4.37Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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