The Cupcake Diaries Collection: Katie and the Cupcake Cure; Mia in the Mix; Emma on Thin Icing; Alexis and the Perfect Recipe
Authors: Coco Simon
Tags: #Emotions & Feelings, #Juvenile Fiction, #Friendship, #Social Issues, #Adolescence
Chapter 1: Who’s Afraid of Middle School? Not Me!
Chapter 2: The Horrible Truth Hits Me
Chapter 3: Humiliated in Homeroom!
Chapter 6: The Perfect Plan . . . Almost
Chapter 7: Just Like Old Times . . . Almost
Chapter 8: Just Call Me “Silly Arms”
Chapter 9: Teen Style and Two Tiny Dogs
Chapter 10: The Best Club Ever
Chapter 11: It’s Time to Make Some Cupcakes!
Chapter 12: Middle School Roller Coaster
Chapter 13: Alexis Has an Idea
Chapter 14: The Mixed-up Cupcakes
Chapter 15: How to Bake Two Hundred Cupcakes
Chapter 17: PGC’s Secret Is Revealed!
Chapter 18: The Icing on the Cupcake
Pineapple “Upside-Down” Cupcakes
Who’s Afraid of Middle School? Not Me!
E
very time I have ever watched a movie
about middle school, the main character is always freaking out before the first day of
school. You know what I mean, right? If the movie’s about a guy, he’s always
worried about getting stuffed into a garbage can by jocks. If it’s about a girl,
she’s trying on a zillion outfits and screaming when she sees a pimple on her
face. And no matter what movie it is, the main character is always obsessed with being
popular.
My name is Katie Brown, and whenever I watched those movies, I just
didn’t get it. I mean, how could middle school be
that
different from
elementary school? Yeah, I knew there would be new kids from other schools, but I
figured everyone from our school would stick together. We’ve
all pretty much known one another since kindergarten. Sure, not everybody hangs out
together, but it’s not like we put some kids on a pedestal and worship them or
anything. We’re all the same. Back in third grade, we all got sick together on
mystery meat loaf day. That kind of experience has to bind you for life, doesn’t
it?
That’s what I thought, anyway. I didn’t spend one single
second of the summer worrying about middle school. I got a really bad sunburn at the
town pool, made a thousand friendship bracelets at day camp, and learned from my mom how
to make a cake that looks like an American flag. I didn’t stress out about middle
school at all.
Guess what? I was wrong! But you probably knew that already. Yeah, the
cruel hammer of reality hit pretty hard on the very first day of school. And the worst
thing was, I wasn’t even expecting it.
The morning started out normal. I put on the tie-dyed T-shirt I made at
day camp, my favorite pair of jeans, and a new pair of white sneakers. Then I slipped
about ten friendship bracelets on each arm, which I thought looked pretty cool. I
brushed my hair, which takes about thirty seconds. My hair is brown and wavy—Mom
calls it au naturel. I only worry about my hair when it
starts to
hang in my eyes, and then I cut it.
When I went downstairs for breakfast, Mom was waiting for me in the
kitchen.
“Happy first day of middle school, Katie!” she shouted.
Did I mention that my mom is supercorny? I think it’s because
she’s a dentist. I read a survey once that said that people are afraid of dentists
more than anything else, even zombies and funeral directors. (Which is totally not fair,
because without dentists everybody would have rotten teeth, and without teeth you
can’t eat corn on the cob, which is delicious.) But anyway, I think she tries to
smile all the time and make jokes so that people will like her more. Not that
she’s fake—she’s honestly pretty nice, for a mom.
“I made you a special breakfast,” Mom told me. “A banana
pancake shaped like a school bus!”
The pancake sat on a big white plate. Mom had used banana slices for
wheels and square pieces of cantaloupe for the windows. This might seem like a strange
breakfast to you, but my mom does stuff like this all the time. She wanted to go to
cooking school when she got out of high school, but her parents wanted her to be a
dentist, like them. Which is unfair, except that if she didn’t go to dental
school,
she wouldn’t have met my dad, and I would never have
been born, so I guess I can’t complain.
But anyway, in her free time she does the whole Martha Stewart thing. Not
that she looks like Martha Stewart. She has brown hair like me, but hers is curly, and
her favorite wardrobe items are her blue dentist coat and her apron that says #1
CHEF
on the front. This morning she was wearing both.
“Thanks, Mom,” I said. I didn’t say anything about being
too old for a pancake shaped like a school bus. It would have hurt her feelings.
Besides, it was delicious.
She sat down in the seat next to me and sipped her coffee. “Do you
have the map I printed out for you with the new bus stop location?” she asked me.
She was doing that biting-her-bottom-lip thing she does when she’s worried about
me, which is most of the time.
“I got it, but I don’t need it,” I replied.
“It’s only four blocks away.”
Mom frowned. “Okay. But I e-mailed the map to Barbara just in
case.”
Barbara is my mom’s best friend—and she’s also the mom
of my own best friend, Callie. We’ve known each other since we were babies. Callie
is
two months older than I am, and she never lets me forget it.
“I hope Callie has the map,” my mom went on. “I
wouldn’t want you two to get lost on your first day of middle school.”
“We won’t,” I promised. “I’m meeting Callie
at the corner of Ridge Street, and we’re walking to the bus stop
together.”
“Oh, good,” Mom said. “I’m glad you finally talked
to your old bus buddy.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, and quickly gulped down some orange juice.
I hadn’t actually talked to her. But we’d been bus buddies ever since
kindergarten (my corny mom came up with “bus buddies,” in case you
didn’t figure that out already), so there was no real reason to believe this year
would be any different. I knew I’d see her at the bus stop.
Every August, Callie goes to sleepaway camp, which totally stinks. She
doesn’t get back until a few days before school starts. Normally I see her the
first day she comes back and we go to King Cone for ice cream.
But this year Callie texted that she was busy shopping with her mom.
Callie has always cared a lot more about clothes than I do. She wanted to find the
perfect outfit to wear on her first day of middle
school. And since
we only had a few days before school started I didn’t think it was
that
weird that I didn’t see her. It was a
little
weird that she hadn’t
called me back. But we had texted and agreed to meet on the corner of Ridge Street, so I
was sure everything was fine.
I ate my last bite of pancake and stood up. “Gotta brush my
teeth,” I said. When you’re the daughter of a dentist, you get into that
habit pretty early.
Soon I was slipping on my backpack and heading for the door. Of course,
Mom grabbed me and gave me a big hug.
“I packed you a special lunch, Cupcake,” she said.
Mom has called me Cupcake ever since I can remember. I kind of like
it—except when she says it in front of other people.
“A special lunch? Really?” I teased her. Every lunch she makes
me is a special lunch. “What a surprise.”
“I love you!” Mom called. I turned and waved. For a second I
thought she was going to follow me to the bus so I yelled, “I love you too!”
and ran down the driveway.
Outside, it still felt like summer.
I should have worn shorts,
I
thought. There’s nothing worse than sitting in a hot classroom sweating a lot and
having
your jeans stick to your legs. Gross. But it was too late to
change now.
Ridge Street was only two blocks away. There were lots of kids heading for
the bus stop, but I didn’t see Callie. I stood on the corner, tapping my foot.
“Come on, Callie,” I muttered. If we missed the bus, Mom would
insist on walking me to the bus stop every morning. I didn’t know if I could take
that much cheerfulness before seven thirty a.m.
Then a group of girls turned the corner: Sydney Whitman, Maggie Rodriguez,
and Brenda Kovacs—and Callie was with them! I was a little confused. Callie
usually didn’t walk with them. It was always just Callie and me.
“Hey, Cal!” I called out.
Callie looked up at me and waved, but continued talking to Maggie.
That was strange. I noticed, though, she wasn’t wearing her glasses.
She’s as blind as a bat without her glasses.
Maybe she doesn’t recognize
me,
I reasoned.
My hair did get longer this summer.
So I ran up to them. That’s when I noticed they were all dressed
kind of alike—even Callie. They were wearing skinny jeans and each girl had on a
different color T-shirt and a thick belt.