Alexis and the Perfect Recipe (13 page)

“Like this?” Mia asked, showing mom the drawing. I looked over Mia's shoulder and saw the plan: three round tiers, one on top of the other, with cupcakes on each one.

“Exactly!” Mom said, smiling and showing off a mouth full of perfect white teeth. (She is a dentist, after all.)

Alexis took back her notebook. “Excellent,”
she said, jotting something down. “Now we just need to decide what flavor to make and how to decorate it.”

“What do you think, Mom?” I asked.

“I think I'll let you girls come up with something,” Mom replied. “You always come up with such wonderful ideas, and I know Grandma Carole will love whatever you do.”

“All done!” Emma announced, putting down the ice-cream scoop.

“Mom, oven, please?” I asked.

“Sure thing,” Mom said, slipping on an oven mitt. She put the chocolate-almond cupcakes into the preheated oven, and I set the cupcake-shaped timer on the counter for twenty minutes.

Mom left the kitchen, and the four of us sat down at the kitchen table to work out the details.

“So what kind of flavors does your grandmother like?” Alexis asked.

I shrugged. “I don't know. She likes all kinds of things. Blueberry pie in the summer, and chocolate cake, and maple-walnut ice cream . . .”

“So we can make blueberry-chocolate-maple cupcakes with walnuts on top!” Mia joked, and everyone laughed.

“Hey, we thought bacon flavor was weird and that
worked out well!” said Emma. It was true. Bacon flavor was a really big seller for us.

“You know, we don't know anything about your grandma,” Emma said. “Maybe if you tell us something about her we can get some ideas.”

“Sure,” I said. “Hold on a minute.”

I went into the den, where Mom and I keep all of our books and picked up a photo album. We have lots of them, and there were pictures of Grandma Carole in almost all of them. I turned to a photo of my mom and me with Grandma Carole and Grandpa Chuck at Christmas. Grandma Carole looked nice in a red sweater and the beaded necklace I made her as a present at camp. Her hair used to be brown like mine, but now it's white.

“That's her,” I said. “And that's my Grandpa Chuck. They got married like forever ago, and they have three kids, my mom and my Uncle Mike and my Uncle Jimmy. She used to be a librarian.”

“Just like my mom!” Emma said, smiling.

I flipped the pages in the photo album and found a picture of Grandma Carole in her white tennis outfit, holding her racket.

“Mostly she loves sports and stuff,” I said. “She runs like, every day, and she won track medals in high school. She goes swimming, and plays tennis,
and skis in the winter, and she likes golf even though she says there's not enough running.”

“Do sports have a flavor?” Mia mused.

“Um, sports-drink-flavored cupcakes?” Alexis offered.

“Or sweat-flavored cupcakes,” I said, then burst out giggling.

“Katie, that is so gross!” Emma squealed.

“But I guess she does like sports most of all,” I said. “She's always trying to get me to do stuff with her. Because I am
soooo
good at sports.”

I said that really sarcastically because the exact opposite is true. Now it was Emma's turn to giggle.

“Yeah, I've seen you in gym,” she said.

“It's even worse than you know,” I confessed. “When she tried to teach me to ski, I wiped out on the bunny hill—you know, the one for little kids? I even sprained my ankle.”

“Oh, that's terrible!” Emma cried.

“And when I played tennis on a team with Grandpa, I accidentally whacked him in the head with my racket.”

Mia put a hand to her mouth to try to stop laughing. “Oh, Katie, that would be funny if it weren't so terrible!” she said.

I nodded. “He needed four stitches.”

“So I guess you don't take after your grandmother,” Alexis said.

“Well, not the sports thing,” I admitted. “But everyone says I look exactly like she did when she was younger. And she's a good baker, too. She used to own her own cake-baking business.”

Alexis stood up. “You're kidding! Why didn't you tell us?”

“I just did,” I said.

“But she's a professional,” Alexis said. “It's not going to be easy to impress her.”

“Yes, the pressure is on,” Mia agreed.

I hadn't thought of that before. “Well, we'll just have to make a superawesome cupcake cake then.”

Alexis sat back down. “Okay, people, let's start jotting down some ideas.”

We tried for the next few minutes, but nobody could think of anything. Then Emma looked at her watch.

“You know, I need to get home,” she said. “It's my turn to make dinner tonight.”

“We need some time to come up with ideas anyway,” Alexis said. “Let's schedule another meeting.”

“Let's do it tomorrow,” I suggested. But Alexis and Mia had whipped out their smartphones and
Emma took a little notebook with flowers on it—and they were all frowning.

“Alexis and I have soccer practice tomorrow and Thursday, and a game on Friday,” Mia reported.

“I have concert band practice on Wednesdays and Fridays,” Emma said. Emma plays the flute and she's really good at that.

“Sorry, Katie. You know spring is a busy time of year,” Alexis said.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, but really, I didn't. I don't really do anything besides the Cupcake Club, and it's not just because I have cupcake-itis. I'm no good at sports, and I'm not so great at music, either. When we learned how to play recorder in fourth grade I ended up making a sound like a beached whale. My teacher made me practice after school, after everyone went home.

Just then the cake timer rang. I put on a mitt and opened the oven door. All the cupcakes in the pan were flat. They should have gotten nice and puffy as they cooked.

“Mom!” I yelled.

Mom rushed in a few seconds later. “Katie, what did I tell you about—oh,” she said, looking at the deflated cupcakes.

“What happened?” I asked.

“This looks like a baking powder issue to me,” she said. She put the pan of flat cupcakes on the counter and picked up the little can of baking powder. “Just as I thought. It's past its expiration date. You need fresh baking powder for your cupcakes to rise.”

I felt terrible. “Sorry, guys.”

“It's not your fault,” Emma said.

“Yeah, and anyway, Eddie's not finished taking down that wallpaper yet,” Mia said. “We can try again next time.”

“Whenever that is,” I mumbled.

Emma, Alexis, and Mia started picking up their things.

“We can talk about your grandma's cupcakes at lunch on Friday,” Alexis said. “Everybody come with some ideas, okay?”

Emma saluted. “Yes, General Alexis!” she teased.

“Ooh, if Alexis is the general, can I be the Cupcake Captain?” I asked, and everyone laughed.

When my friends left, the kitchen was pretty quiet. Mom went into the den to do some paperwork, and all that was left was me and a pan of flat cupcakes.

As I cleaned up the mess, I thought of Alexis and Mia and Emma all going off and doing stuff—stuff
that I couldn't do. They were all multitalented, and the only thing I could do was cupcakes. It made me feel a little bit lonely and a little bit like a loser.

In fact, it made me feel as flat as those cupcakes.

Coco Simon
always dreamed of
opening a cupcake bakery but was afraid she would eat all of the profits. When
she's not daydreaming about cupcakes, Coco edits children's books and has
written close to one hundred books for children, tweens, and young adults, which is a
lot less than the number of cupcakes she's eaten. Cupcake Diaries is the first
time Coco has mixed her love of cupcakes with writing.

SIMON SPOTLIGHT

Simon & Schuster, New York

Cover illustrations by Abigail Halpin

Cover design by Laura Roode

Ages 8–12

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 © 2011 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. Designed by Laura Roode.

ISBN 978-1-4424-2901-7

ISBN 978-1-4424-2902-4 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number 2011929623