Katie Sprinkles and Surprises

  CHAPTER 1

  Mia, My Personal Adviser

  Make them stop!” I cried, laughing. “They’re tickling my nose! I’m going to sneeze!”

  But my best friend, Mia, can be a little harsh sometimes. “But they like you!” she protested, doubled over giggling.

  I was sleeping over at Mia’s house, and even though she has a perfectly comfortable brand-new bed, she spread out her sleeping bag on the floor next to mine, so we could hang out and talk. But whenever anyone lies on the floor, Mia’s little fluffy dogs, Tiki and Milkshake, think that it’s playtime. So both of them were dancing around my face, sniffing me and licking my nose.

  “Seriously, Mia!” I pleaded. “Call off your ferocious beasts!”

  “Okay! Okay!” Mia got up and scooped up one wriggling dog in each arm. “Sorry, babies. Katie doesn’t want to play with you.”

  She dropped them out the door and then shut it quickly.

  “I like playing with them,” I said, sitting up. “But they were attacking me.”

  “Those two? They’re afraid of ants,” Mia joked.

  “They’re terrors,” I said. “But at least they’re cute. It’s too bad Mom is allergic to pets. I would love to have a dog. A big fluffy one.”

  Then there was a knock on the door.

  “Girls, it’s ice-cream time,” announced Mia’s stepdad, Eddie.

  I smiled. “That’s my favorite time of day!”

  We both jumped up and followed Eddie down the stairs to the kitchen, where the table was set up for an ice-cream sundae buffet. There were three cartons of ice cream, a bottle of chocolate sauce, a can of whipped cream, and bowls filled with cherries, sprinkles, and crumbled-up cookies.

  Mia’s stepbrother, Dan, was leaning against the kitchen sink, eating out of a bowl that looked like it was mostly filled with whipped cream.

  “What are you guys, twins?” he asked. (I forgot to mention that Dan is in high school. I have come to believe that most high school boys are kind of rude—that’s just how they are. Well, except for my friend Emma’s brother Sam. He is perfect.)

  Anyway, I should explain why Dan made that crack about us being twins. It’s because Mia and I were wearing matching pajamas, pink ones with a cupcake pattern on them. We had bought them with the money we made from the cupcake business we’re in with our friends Emma and Alexis. It’s kind of funny. Any time I make money from the cupcakes, I end up spending it on something cupcake related. Last time, I got this cool stenciling kit you can use to make designs on your cupcakes. I guess you can say I am cupcake obsessed.

  Mia is not as cupcake obsessed as I am, but she loved the pajamas as much as I did. And the sleepover was the perfect time to wear them.

  “Yes, we’re twins,” Mia replied to Dan sarcastically, because apparently the best way to deal with a rude teenage boy is to be rude back. It must have worked, because Dan just shrugged and kept eating.

  Eddie was anxious for us to dig in. “Come on, girls. The combination possibilities are endless!”

  Mia’s mom, Mrs. Valdes, entered the kitchen and gave Eddie a hug. “What a sweet thing to do, honey,” she said. “Thanks!”

  Mia looked at me and rolled her eyes again. I know it makes her all cringey when her mom and stepdad get lovey-dovey in front of her.

  “Yes, thanks, Mr. Valdes,” I said. “This looks amazing.”

  “What are you waiting for? Dig in before it melts!” Eddie said, motioning to us.

  Mia grabbed a bowl and spoon and then stood there, thinking. I knew whatever she made would not only be the perfect balance of flavor, but also beautiful. Mia is a true artist. I’m not so picky. I took my bowl and started piling in everything.

  Chocolate, mint-chip, and butter-pecan ice cream. Chocolate syrup, cookie crumbles, and cherries. Then I sprayed on the whipped cream and finally added the sprinkles.

  “Katie, those sprinkles are going to fall off,” Mia remarked.

  “You have to put them on last,” I informed her. “Because they make it pretty.”

  Rainbow sprinkles are my favorite because they’re so colorful. Sometimes when people ask me what my favorite color is, I say “rainbow” because I just can’t decide. Mom heard me say it so much that she got me rainbow socks for Christmas. They’re my favorite.

  I sat down at the table and was already halfway done eating my ice cream when Mia finally finished creating her bowl. As I predicted, it was a work of art. Mia had a perfect scoop of chocolate ice cream in her bowl, topped by a flower design painted with chocolate syrup. The center of the flower was a cherry.

  “Mia, that’s gorgeous!” I said.

  Mia grinned. “And delicious!” Then she dug in with her spoon.

  I mock screamed. “Ahh! You’ve destroyed it!”

  “It’s for a good cause,” Mia said, eating another spoonful.

  When we finished we helped to clean up the kitchen and then went back up to Mia’s room and sprawled out on the floor again, this time without dogs.

  “I’m so glad you could sleep over tonight!” Mia said. “What’s your mom doing again?”

  “She and her new boyfriend are going to see a Broadway show, and she won’t be back till late,” I said. “She figured it would be better if I slept over than if she came and got me at midnight.”

  “That’s good, but we’ll still be awake at midnight,” Mia said. “Remember last time? We were up until three!”

  I shook my head. “And then Eddie made us pancakes at, like, the crack of dawn. I was so tired!”

  Then I paused. There was something I had been wanting to ask Mia.

  “So, Mia, I need your advice,” I began. “Of all my friends, you are the best expert on this topic.”

  “What topic?” Mia asked.

  “Moms with boyfriends,” I said. “I mean, your mom and Eddie dated for a while before they got married, right?”

  Mia nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Was Eddie always so nice?” I asked. “For a stepdad, he seems really great.”

  “He is,” Mia said. “But it was still weird when they started dating. I kind of kept hoping that Mom would get back together with my dad, you know?”

  I nodded, but I really didn’t know. Mia’s mom and dad got divorced just a few years ago, but my dad left me and my mom when I was a little baby. I didn’t grow up with him or anything. So there isn’t any part of me that wants to see them get back together. But I could understand why Mia might feel that way.

  “So, why are you asking?” Mia asked. “Because of this new boyfriend?”

  “Jeff,” I replied. “I haven’t met him yet. All I know about him is that he’s a teacher or something, which isn’t too exciting, if you ask me. And he likes to run, and he has a daughter who’s younger than I am.”

  “Does your mom like him?” Mia asked.

  “A lot, I think,” I told her. “She’s, like, happy all the time. She doesn’t get mad anymore when I do dumb stuff, like leave my socks on the floor.”

  “Hmm,” Mia said thoughtfully. “Mom was like that right before she and Eddie got serious.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said. “On the drive over here she said it’s time for me to meet Jeff. Like, in person!”

  “How else would you meet him?” Mia asked.

  “You know what I mean,” I said. “Until now, he’s been more of . . . an idea. But once I meet him, it will all be real.”

  Mia looked thoughtful. “You know, Eddie was the only boyfriend Mom ever introduced me to. I think she waited until she knew she was serious about him.”

  “But what about your dad?” Katie asked. “Is he serious about Lynn?”

  I knew Mia’s dad had been dating a woman named Lynn, who
had a little boy who was kind of a pain.

  “I think dads are different,” Mia answered. “He’s introduced me to other girlfriends before Lynn, and they didn’t last. So Lynn might not last either.”

  “So maybe Jeff won’t last?” I asked a little bit hopefully.

  But Mia shook her head. “No, I’m pretty sure when moms do it, they mean it.”

  I groaned. “I thought so. I hope he’s as nice as Eddie.”

  “I hope so too,” Mia said. “But look on the bright side. You have the upper hand here. If you hate him, your mom is going to have a problem. If he hates you, it’s his problem.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m still nervous.”

  Mia flopped over onto her back. “It’ll work out,” she said. “So, hey, did you hear about the new math teacher?”

  “Oh, yeah!” I replied, quickly forgetting all about the Jeff problem. “Mr. Green, right? Everyone keeps talking about how cool he is.”

  “He replaced Mr. Rodriguez,” Mia reported. “Mr. Rodriguez left town because his wife got a great new job in Chicago. So now Emma has Mr. Green. She says he’s really funny and sweet. And I heard that at his old school, he got elected Teacher of the Year, like, five times in a row.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Is he going to coach boys’ track, too, like Mr. Rodriguez did?”

  Mia nodded. “He just started. And you know what? I’ve heard a bunch of girls showed up to his first track practice just so they could stare at him.”

  “Gross! He’s a teacher!” I said, making a face.

  “And guess what else I heard?” Mia asked. “Olivia Allen has the biggest crush in the world on him. She’s in the same class as Emma, and Emma says Olivia even goes to get extra after-school help from him even though she’s pretty good at math. She’s just faking it.”

  I shook my head. “That is so weird, but it’s exactly something Olivia would do!”

  Mia and I gossiped some more, and even though we stayed up late, we fell asleep just before midnight. That night I dreamed Mom took me into this white room with a door, and she said, “Katie, I’d like you to meet Jeff.” And then she opened the door, and do you know what was behind it?

  An ice-cream sundae with sprinkles! That’s what I get for eating ice cream late at night.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Nice to Meet You” Cupcakes

  After talking to Mia I felt a lot better about the idea of meeting Jeff in person. I was banking on the fact that if I liked him, everything would be cool, and if I didn’t like him, Mom would probably dump him.

  But I still wasn’t prepared the next day when Mom told me she had actually set up a time for me and Jeff to meet. She broke the news on Sunday night, when we were eating Chinese food on the couch and watching shows on the food channel together.

  “So,” Mom said, during a commercial, “I’ve invited Jeff over for dinner Saturday night.”

  “What?” I asked, letting a forkful of cold sesame noodles fall right onto my lap.

  “Like we talked about,” Mom said.

  “I know,” I said. “It’s just I didn’t think it would be so soon.”

  Mom looked concerned. She has brown eyes like I do, and they’re very expressive. It’s easy to tell when she’s worried or sad. “Do you really think it’s too soon? Because I could cancel.”

  Right then I had a tough decision to make. All I had to do was say so and Mom would call it off. But I kind of felt bad for Mom. I knew she really liked Jeff.  And, I mean, she hadn’t had a serious boyfriend for, like, ever.

  I sighed. “Saturday is okay.”

  Mom put her right arm across my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “Thank you, Katie. I know you’ll like him.”

  I didn’t say anything, and the show came back on. I finished my sesame noodles and then cracked open a fortune cookie.

  “Good things come to those who wait,” read the fortune inside.

  I looked at Mom. Was this fortune for her? I slipped the fortune into the pocket of my pajama pants.

  The next day at school I decided it was time to give all my friends the Jeff details.

  “So, my mom is inviting her boyfriend over for dinner Saturday night so I can meet him,” I blurted out at the lunch table. Sometimes it’s just easier to tell people stuff that way.

  “You mean Jeff?” Emma asked. She’s a good listener; she always remembers every detail of every story you tell her.

  I nodded. “Yeah, I might as well get it over with. But Mia made me feel better. I figure if I don’t like him, Mom will break up with him.”

  Emma frowned. “Maybe. But didn’t you see that movie on the romance network? This girl’s mom had a boyfriend, and the girl didn’t like him, but the mom married him anyway, and it turned out he was a secret jewel thief.”

  I suddenly felt worried. “I didn’t see it, but it was based on a true story, right?”

  Alexis interjected. “Katie, your mom is a lot smarter than that woman in the movie. If she thinks he’s a nice, good guy, then you’ll probably like him too. Besides, it’s just one dinner. You can’t let too much ride on it.”

  “Alexis is right, Katie. That woman in the movie was nothing like your mom,” Emma agreed.

  “Katie’s mom is so nice,” Mia remarked.

  “Definitely,” Emma said. Then her blue eyes got big. “Oh, I know. At our cupcake meeting on Thursday we should bake cupcakes for the dinner!”

  “You mean, like, ‘Hey Jeff, I hope you’re not a creep’ cupcakes?” I asked.

  “More like ‘Nice to meet you’ cupcakes,” Emma said, laughing.

  “It’s a good idea,” Alexis said. “We have a request for strawberry cupcakes for a party in a few weeks. We can test out the recipe.”

  “Wait. So now Jeff is a cupcake guinea pig?” I asked. “What happened to ‘Nice to meet you’?”

  “He won’t know the difference,” Alexis pointed out. “Besides, it’s the thought that counts.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “Text me the recipe, so I can make sure we have the ingredients.”

  I heard my cell phone beep in my backpack ten seconds later. Alexis is superorganized. That night Mom and I went shopping for the ingredients, and on Thursday we were ready for our cupcake meeting.

  The Cupcake Club meets every Friday during school lunch, but we have to meet at other times too because business has been pretty good since we started. Alexis handles most of the business stuff because she’s best at it. She keeps track of how much money we earn and spend and keeps a record of our supplies and other expenses. She also makes sure our clients pay us, which is important.

  Some meetings, all we do is business stuff, which is boring but important. At other meetings, we bake cupcakes for our clients or test out new cupcake recipes. It’s important to try new flavors, because if you don’t test them, then you won’t know if they’re good or not until it’s too late, and all it takes is one bad batch of cupcakes for a client to ruin our business. That’s why it was a good idea for us to make a batch of the strawberry cupcakes that day. And yeah, they have a mix for that, but we make our cupcakes from scratch. “From scratch” means we make everything fresh, from the beginning. That’s why they’re so good!

  Alexis, Emma, and Mia all got to my house at five. My mom had started a batch of veggie chili in the Crock-Pot that morning, so we could all eat dinner after our meeting. We got started baking right away. My friends and I have gotten pretty good at baking together. Usually two of us work on the batter while the other two do the icing. Alexis knew the strawberry cake recipe by heart from studying it, so she and I did the batter together.

  “It’s not easy to get cake to taste like strawberry without using artificial flavor,” Alexis remarked. “But I think the jam in this batter is going to be nice.”

  “And using homemade strawberry syrup to flavor the icing will really taste good,” I added.

  Mia was stirring the strawberries, water, and sugar on top of the stove while Mom supervised.

>   “It smells awesome,” Mia reported.

  The strawberry syrup cooled while we baked the cupcakes in the oven. Then Mia and Emma mixed the syrup in the blender with butter and powdered sugar to make the frosting. When the cupcakes were done, we had to wait for them to cool before we iced them, so Mom spooned us bowls of veggie chili. Mia and I put sliced jalapeños on top of ours, because we like things spicy. After the chili, we iced the cupcakes.

  “They look so pretty,” Emma said admiringly.

  “The client wants pink flowers on top, but you can work on that, right, Mia?” Alexis asked.

  Mia nodded. “No problem.” She designs most of our cupcake decorations.

  “These look great, but they’re kind of boring for ‘Nice to meet you’ cupcakes,” I said.

  Mom smiled. “Oh? Who are these for?”

  “We thought we could use some for our dinner with Jeff,” I said, and Mom looked like she might burst with happiness.

  “Oh, that’s so sweet of all of you,” she said, beaming. “Thank you! He will love them.”

  “I hope he likes pink,” Alexis said.

  “If he doesn’t like pink, then he’s just not a good boyfriend,” I announced, which made no sense at all if you think about it. But Mom didn’t look worried. “Anyway, I still think they look boring.”

  Then I remembered the sleepover with Mia and had an idea. I ran into the kitchen closet and came out with a container of rainbow sprinkles.

  “These make everything better,” I said with a grin, and I grabbed a spoon and started sprinkling the cupcakes.

  Alexis shook her head. “You are rainbow crazy.”

  “Sprinkles are great,” Mia said. “They cover up any mess you make with the icing.”

  “And they’re pretty besides!” I added.

  When we were done, we had a plate of very cheerful cupcakes. We stood back and admired our work.

  “If Jeff doesn’t like these, then he has no soul!” I said.

  CHAPTER 3

  Olivia, the Lovesick Puppy

  The next day I brought four of the “Nice to meet you” cupcakes to school for our Friday Cupcake Club meeting. It’s been a tradition since we started—every Friday is Cupcake Friday! (Although Mia has often suggested we move it to Monday, since she hates Mondays and she thinks cupcakes would make them better—which they would. But it’s hard to break a tradition once you start it.)