Alexis Cool as a Cupcake Read online

  Middle school can be hard . . .

  some days you need a cupcake.

  Alexis loves being the leader of the Cupcake Club. She’s superorganized and loves working out schedules and budgets and sending out invoices—in other words all the “unfun” things the other girls don’t like to do. But is being in charge “not cool”?

  When Alexis decides to take a break from her Cupcake responsibilities, it’s a recipe for disaster! On top of all this, Alexis wants to ask Matt to be her date for the pep rally parade. Can she ask a boy out and still stay cool as a cupcake? Either way, she needs to act fast because Callie wants to go with Matt too!

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  Alexis

  cool

  as a

  cupcake

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON SPOTLIGHT

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 2012 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved,

  including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  SIMON SPOTLIGHT and colophon are registered trademarks

  of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Text by Elizabeth Doyle Carey

  Chapter header illustrations by Ana Benaroya

  Designed by Laura Roode

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases,

  please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales

  at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected].

  ISBN 978-1-4424-5080-6

  ISBN 978-1-4424-5081-3 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2012933803

  Contents

  Chapter 1: Partners? What Partners?

  Chapter 2: The Quest for Cool Begins

  Chapter 3: The Commandments of Cool

  Chapter 4: Go with the Flow

  Chapter 5: Half Cool

  Chapter 6: I Survived Shopping at Icon

  Chapter 7: Style Versus Substance

  Chapter 8: A Flirting Failure

  Chapter 9: The CEO in the FBLA

  Chapter 10: Take a Dive

  Chapter 11: Greek Goddesses and Friends

  Chapter 12: Carpe Diem—Seize the Day!

  Chapter 13: My Perfect Day

  CHAPTER 1

  Partners? What Partners?

  Business first. That’s one of my mottoes.

  When my best friends and I get together to discuss our cupcake company, the Cupcake Club, I am all about business. My name is Alexis Becker, and I am the business planner of the group. This means I kind of take care of everything—pricing, scheduling, and ingredient inventory—the nuts and bolts of it all. So when we actually go to make the cupcakes and sell them, we’re all set.

  Mia Vélaz-Cruz is our fashion-forward, stylish person, who is great at presentation and coming up with really good ideas, and Katie Brown and Emma Taylor are real bakers, so they have lots of ideas on ingredients and how things should taste. Together we make a great team.

  But today, when we were having our weekly meeting at Mia’s house, they would not let me do my job. It was so frustrating!

  I had out the leather-bound accounts ledger that Mia’s mom gave me, and I was going through all our costs and all the money that’s owed to us, when Mia interrupted.

  “Ooh! I forgot to tell you I had an idea for your costume for the pep rally parade, Katie!” said Mia enthusiastically, as if I wasn’t in the middle of reading out columns of numbers for the past two jobs we’ve had. The high school in our town holds a huge parade and pep rally right before school starts. It’s a pretty big deal. One year some kids decided to dress up in costumes for the parade, and now everybody dresses up. The local newspaper sends reporters, and there are usually pictures of it on the first page of the paper the very next day.

  “Oh good, what is it?” asked Katie, as if she was thrilled for the interruption.

  “Ahem,” I said. “Are we conducting business here or having a coffee klatch?” That’s what our favorite science teacher, Ms. Biddle, said when we whispered in class. Apparently, a coffee klatch is something gossipy old ladies do: drink coffee and chatter mindlessly.

  “Yeah, c’mon, guys. Let’s get through this,” said Emma. I know she was trying to be supportive of me, but “get through this”? As if they just had to listen to me before they got to the fun stuff? That was kind of insulting!

  “I’m not reading this stuff for my own health, you know,” I said. I knew I sounded really huffy, but I didn’t care. I do way more behind-the-scenes work than anyone else in this club, and I don’t think they have any idea how much time and effort it takes. Now, I do love it, but everyone has a limit, and I have almost reached mine.

  “Sorry, Alexis! I just was spacing out and it crossed my mind,” admitted Mia. It was kind of a lame apology, since she was admitting she was spacing out during my presentation.

  “Whatever,” I said. “Do you want to listen or should I just forget about it?”

  “No, no, we’re listening!” protested Katie. “Go on!” But I caught her winking and nodding at Mia as Mia nodded and gestured to her.

  I shut the ledger. “Anyway, that’s all,” I said.

  Mia and Katie were so engrossed in their sign language that they didn’t even realize I’d cut it short. Emma seemed relieved and didn’t protest.

  So that’s how it’s going to be, I thought. Then fine! I’d just do the books and buy the supplies and do all the scheduling and keep it to myself. No need to involve the whole club, anyway. I folded my arms across my chest and waited for someone to speak. But of course, it wasn’t about business.

  “Well?” asked Katie.

  “Okay, I was thinking, what about a genie? And you can get George Martinez to be an astronaut. Then you can wear something really dreamy and floaty and magical, like on that old TV show I Dream of Jeannie that’s on Boomerang?” Mia was smiling with pride at her idea.

  “Ooooh! I love that idea!” squealed Katie. “But how do I get George to be an astronaut?” She propped her chin on her hand and frowned.

  “Wait!” interrupted Emma. “Why would George Martinez need to be an astronaut?”

  Mia looked at her like she was crazy. “Because a boy has to be your partner for the parade. You know that!”

  Emma flushed a deep red. “No, I did not know that. Who told you that?”

  I felt a pit growing in my stomach. Even though I was mad and trying to stay out of this annoying conversation, the news stunned me too, and I couldn’t remain silent. “Yeah, who told you that?” I repeated.

  Mia and Katie shrugged and looked at each other, then back at us.

  “Um, I don’t know,” said Katie. “It’s just common knowledge?”

  I found this annoying since it was our first real pep rally and this was major news. “No, it is not common knowledge.” I glared at Mia.

  “Sorry,” said Mia sheepishly.

  I pressed my lips together. Then I said, “Well? Who are you going with?”

  Mia looked away. “I haven’t really made up my mind,” she said.

  “Do you have lots of choices?” I asked. I was half annoyed and half jealous. Mia is really pretty and stylish and not th
at nervous around boys.

  She laughed a little. “Not exactly. But Katie does!”

  Emma and I looked at each other, like, How could we have been so clueless?

  “Stop!” Katie laughed, turning beet red again.

  “Well, ’fess up! Who are they?” I asked.

  Katie rolled her eyes. “Oh, I don’t know.”

  Mia began ticking off names on her fingers. “George Martinez always teases her when he sees her, which we all know means he likes her. He even mentioned something about the parade and asked Katie what her costume was going to be, right?”

  Katie nodded.

  Mia continued, “And then there’s Joe Fraser. Another possibility.”

  “Stop!” protested Katie. “That’s all. This is too mortifying! Let’s change the subject to something boring, like Cupcake revenue!”

  “Thanks a lot!” I said. I was hurt that she said it because I don’t find Cupcake revenue boring. I find it fascinating. I love to think of new ways to make money.

  How do my best friends and I have such different interests? I wondered.

  “Sorry, but you know what I mean,” said Katie. “It stresses me out to talk about who likes whom.”

  Still.

  “Well, no one likes me!” said Emma.

  “That’s not true. I’m sure people like you,” said Mia. But I noticed she didn’t try to list anyone.

  “What do we do if we don’t have a boy to go with?” I asked.

  “Well, girls could go with their girl friends, but no one really does that. I think it’s just kind of dorky. . . .”

  I felt a flash of annoyance. Since when was Mia such a know-it-all about the pep rally and what was done and what wasn’t and what was dorky and what wasn’t?

  “I guess I could go with Matt . . . ,” said Emma, kind of thinking out loud.

  “What?!” I couldn’t contain my surprise. Emma knows I have a crush on her older brother, and in the back of my mind, throughout this whole conversation, I’d been trying to think if I’d have the nerve to ask him. Not that I’d ever ask if he’d do matchy-matchy costumes with me, but just to walk in the parade together. After all, he had asked me to dance at my sister’s sweet sixteen party.

  Emma looked at me. “What?”

  I didn’t want to admit I’d been thinking that I’d ask him, so I said the next thing I could think of. “You’d go with your brother? Isn’t that kind of dorky?” I felt mean saying it, but I was annoyed.

  Emma winced, and I felt a little bad.

  But Mia shook her head. “No, not if your brother is older and is cool, like Matt; it’s not dorky.”

  Oh great. Now she’d just given Emma free rein to ask Matt and I had no one! “You know what? I’m going to check with Dylan on all this,” I said. My older sister would certainly know all the details of how this should be done. And she was definitely not dorky.

  There was an uncomfortable silence. Finally, I said, “Look, we don’t have to worry about all this right now, so let’s just get back to business, okay?” And at last they were eager to discuss my favorite subject, if only because the other topics had turned out to be so stressful for us.

  I cleared my throat and read from my notebook. “We have Jake’s best friend Max’s party, and Max’s mom wants something like what we did for Jake. . . .” We’d made Jake Cakes—dirt with worms cupcakes made out of crushed Oreos and gummy worms for Emma’s little brother’s party, and they were a huge hit.

  “Right,” said Emma, nodding. “I was thinking maybe we could do Mud Pies?”

  “Excellent. Let’s think about what we need for the ingredients. There’s—”

  “Sorry to interrupt, but . . .”

  We all looked at Katie.

  “Just one more tiny question? Do you think Joe Fraser is a little bit cooler than George Martinez?”

  I stared at her coldly. “What does that have to do with Mud Pies?”

  “Sorry,” said Katie, shrugging. “I was just wondering.”

  “Anyway, Mud Pie ingredients are . . .”

  We brainstormed, uninterrupted, for another five minutes and got a list of things kind of organized for a Mud Pie proposal and sample baking session. Then we turned to our next big job, baking cupcakes for a regional swim meet fund-raiser.

  Mia had been absentmindedly sketching in her notebook, and now she looked up. “I have a great idea for what we could do for the cupcakes for the swim meet!”

  “Oh, let’s see!” I said, assuming she’d sketched it out. I peeked over her shoulder, expecting to see a cupcake drawing, and instead there was a drawing of a glamorous witch costume, like something out of Wicked.

  “Oh,” I said. Here I’d been thinking we were all engaged in the cupcake topic, and it turned out Mia had been still thinking about the pep rally parade all along.

  “Sorry,” she said. “But I was thinking about cupcakes.”

  “Whatever,” I said. I tossed my pen down on the table and closed my notebook. “This meeting is adjourned.”

  “Come on, Alexis,” said Mia. “It’s not that big a deal.”

  “Yeah, all work and no play makes for a bad day, boss lady!” added Katie.

  “I am not the boss lady!” I said. I was mad and hurt. “I don’t want to be the boss lady. In fact, I am not any kind of boss. Not anymore! You guys can figure this all out on your own.”

  I stood up and quickly gathered my things into my bag.

  “Hey, Alexis, please! We aren’t trying to be mean, we’re just distracted!” said Mia.

  “You guys think this is all a joke! If I didn’t hustle everything along and keep track, nothing would get done!” I said, swinging my bag up over my shoulder. “I feel like I do all the work, and then you guys don’t even care!”

  “Look, it’s true you do all the work,” agreed Emma. “But we thought you enjoyed it. If you’re tired of it, we can divvy it up, right, girls?” she said, looking at Mia and Katie.

  “Sure! Why not?” said Mia, flinging her hair behind her shoulders in the way she does when she’s getting down to work.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “I’ll do the swim team project, okay?” said Mia.

  “And I’ll do the Mud Pies,” said Emma.

  “And I’ll do whatever the next big project is,” said Katie.

  I looked at them all. “What about invoicing, purchasing, and inventory?”

  The girls each claimed one of the areas, and even though I was torn about giving up my responsibilities, I was glad to see them shouldering some of the work for a change. We agreed that they would e-mail or call me with questions when they needed my help.

  “Great,” I said. “Now I’m leaving.” And I walked home from Mia’s quickly, so fast I was almost jogging. My pace was fueled by anger about the Cupcake Club and the desire to get home to my sister, Dylan, as quickly as possible, so I could start asking questions about the pep rally parade and all that it would entail.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Quest for Cool Begins

  Yes, it is dorky to go with a friend,” said Dylan.

  “I mean, not totally dorky, like if you go in a group with some guys, too, but just you and another girl? Dor-ky!” she singsonged.

  I had made it home from Mia’s in record time and rushed up to Dylan’s room. She and I get along pretty well, since it’s just the two of us sisters and we’re both pretty type A, according to my mom. This means we’re both hard workers who never stop or compromise until a job is done perfectly. Anyway, it turned out Mia and Katie were right about everything. I couldn’t decide who I was more annoyed at: them for knowing first about going with a boy to the parade, or Dylan for never mentioning it to me.

  I flopped onto her bed, and then I rolled over and groaned. “So who am I going to go with?” I wailed.

  Dylan was filing her nails. “Well,” she began, pausing to blow at some imaginary piece of dust on her ring finger, “why not Matt?”

  Dylan knows I like Matt Taylor because she hel
ped me make myself over to win his attention a little while back. She also knew I wanted to dance with him at her sweet sixteen, which, as I mentioned earlier, I actually did.

  “He’ll never ask me,” I whimpered.

  “So? Ask him!” said Dylan.

  Me? Ask him to march with me in the parade? Impossible! That was the same as asking him on a date, and there was just no way I’d ever do that!

  “Yeah, as if!” I said.

  “Why? You’re best friends with his sister. You practically live at his house. You’ve worked on stuff together before. Look, don’t forget boys are just as nervous about all this stuff as girls are, and he’d probably be grateful to not have to ask someone.”

  Ugh. The very idea gave me full-body shivers. “But I’m sure I’m not the someone he’d like to go with,” I said.

  “Why not?” she said, now slicking on clear nail polish with an authoritative swipe. Dylan is nothing if not confident.

  “Because I’m not . . . cool,” I admitted.

  Dylan narrowed her eyes and looked at me. “Well, I can help you with that,” she said. “You know I love a challenge.”

  “Oh no,” I said.

  “Let me think about it, and I will get back to you with a plan of action tomorrow afternoon, okay?”

  “Okay . . . ,” I said hesitantly.

  But she’d already turned to her computer and begun to type furiously. I guess I am quite the inspiring makeover candidate if she’s always willing to take me on.

  Double oh no!

  * * *

  That night I sent mini-overview e-mails of the Cupcake Club procedures to Mia, Katie, and Emma, explaining inventory, scheduling, purchasing, and invoicing, along with what we had coming up. I kept feeling like I’d forgotten something, but it was really just that I kept searching for Cupcake Club responsibilities and tasks and finding none. There were no columns of costs to doodle in my journal and no long-range schedules to sketch out. I hadn’t realized quite how much time and energy—even my thoughts—the Cupcake Club consumed.

  The next day I met up with the rest of the Cupcake Club at the school cafeteria. School hadn’t started yet, but Mia had volunteered us to be on the decoration committee for the pep rally, much to my annoyance. (If she was going to volunteer us for something why not the refreshments committee, where we could at least promote our cupcakes?) But I held my tongue. I knew Mia loved anything having to do with design, so this was right up her alley.