Frosting and Friendship (2 page)

“Yes, I did,” she says as the light turns green. “And while it's impressive, you have to remember, you have other talents. It's impossible to be good at everything. That reminds me. When are your bandmates coming over to practice again? Have you worked out a regular schedule?”

“They're coming over tomorrow night. We don't have a schedule, but I'll ask them about it at practice. We really want to try and find a party or event where we could perform, so then we have something to work toward, you know?”

Mom pats my leg. “Honey, I think it's great that you girls have taken the initiative and formed this band. I'm proud of you, and I know your father is too. But if I were you, I wouldn't worry about performances right now. Focus on playing together. Write more songs. Have fun. Make it about the music.”

I sigh. “You sound like Dad.”

“Well, he should know. He's been a musician for a long time, right?”

“But, Mom, our dream is to perform for other people. What's the point of practicing if there's no performance to look forward to?”

“Lily, I'm not saying it won't ever happen. But you've only been a band for a couple of months. You have a lot of years ahead of you. For now, focus on the music. Practice because it will make you better musicians. Isn't that what is most important? Becoming the best band you can be?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

I still don't think there's anything wrong with looking for a chance to perform for other people. There's this other band, the New Pirates, made up of a few kids from school, and they're already performing. Zeke Bernstein's parents hired them to play at his Bar Mitzvah party. Belinda McGuire is the lead singer of the New Pirates. Every time our choir director, Mr. Weisenheimer, has us compete for a solo performance in choral practice, it comes down to Belinda and me. She's a really good singer.

To be honest, I don't like Belinda McGuire very much. It seems like she thinks she's better than everyone else. Maybe she is, as far as her talent goes, but it makes her come across as stuck-up.

Someone else who has a lot of talent is my sister, who jumps out from behind the bushes holding a basketball just as we pull into the driveway. She's talented in all things athletic—and now, at almost giving us a heart attack. Fortunately, Mom is a slow driver.

“Good grief, Madison,” Mom mutters under her breath.

“Sorry,” my sister says as we get out of the car. “The basketball got away from me and I didn't hear you pull up.”

“Look before you leap next time,” Mom says, walking toward the front door. “Dinner will be ready in an hour, girls.”

Mom goes inside while my sister, Miss Show-off, twirls the ball on her pointer finger. Her short brown hair is matted to her face and her cheeks are all red. She's probably been out here shooting hoops most of the afternoon. “How was the book club?”

“It was all right.”

“Do you guys have a name?” she asks me, now doing some fancy dribbling move between her legs.

“Do you ever get tired of showing off?” I ask.

She grins. “Not really.”

Yeah. That's what I thought.

“Come on,” she says. “You must have come up with a name, right?”

I don't want to tell her. She'll make fun of it the second I say it. But she'll find out sooner or later. “The Baking Bookworms.”

She stops dribbling and laughs. “When they taste
something you make, you'll have to change your name to the Burnt Bookworms.”

I knock the ball out of her hands before I turn to go inside. She scrambles after the ball rolling toward the bushes again. As I approach the front door, I hear her running on the pavement and, a couple of seconds later, the ball swooshing through the net. No doubt a perfect shot.

After I hang up my coat, I head to the family room. The television is on and Dad is just getting up out of his chair, holding his guitar with a broken string hanging from it.

“Hey, Lily Dilly,” he says. “Your mom said the book club was fun.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

He squints his dark brown eyes at me. “That doesn't sound very convincing.”

“Did she tell you that baking seems to be just as important as reading in this club?”

“No, she didn't.”

“I really like the girls in the club,” I tell Dad. “And I want them to like me. Sophie and I have been friends for a quite a while, but sometimes it
feels like I'm second best to her other friends, especially Isabel. This book club is my chance to show Sophie I fit in, you know?”

He pats me on the shoulder before I take a seat on the sofa. “It'll be okay. The most important thing is to have fun. And the more you practice, the better your baking will be. You know, because practice makes . . .”

He wants me to say “perfect.” I think it's his favorite saying. I'm sick of the saying myself. “Makes delicious brownies?”

He laughs. “You betcha.” He walks past me. “I need to fix this thing since I have a gig tonight. See you at dinner.” He flashes me the peace sign, which is his way of saying “see you later.” My dad is cool like that.

“Okay, Mr. Peace. See ya.”

I pick up the remote and flip through the channels, trying to find something good to watch. I stop when I see a round man with bright red hair and lots of freckles on his face holding a fork. There's a piece of cake on a plate in front of him, and after he takes a bite, he exclaims, “Sweet Uncle Pete, that's good!”

He sets the plate down and smiles at the camera. “I hope you enjoyed the lesson today on how to make a decadent coconut cake. Please tune in to
Secrets of a Pastry Chef
next week, when I'll show you how to bake a white-chocolate-raspberry cheesecake. This is Chef Smiley signing off. Remember: With the right tools and the right attitude, baking is a piece of cake!”

I immediately program the DVR to record the series.

Mr. Smiley, where have you been all my life?

T
he next day at school, my friend and bandmate Abigail is waiting for me at my locker, her wavy red hair pulled back into a ponytail with a green ribbon around it. Green is her favorite color. She's wearing a cute T-shirt with a picture of an owl. It says
I'M A HOOT
.

“Your hair sure is getting long,” I tell her as I go
to work on my locker combination. “I'm surprised your mom hasn't cut it off yet.”

“She really wants to, actually. Said she has a new style she wants to try out on me.” She reaches over and pats my straight brown hair. “Hey, maybe I should volunteer you to be her guinea pig. You'd
love
a new style, wouldn't you?”

I shake my head hard. Abigail's mom is going to beauty school. She decided she was tired of working in retail and wanted to become a hairstylist. “You know I haven't changed my hair in, like, four years. Why should I start now?”

“Maybe it's time for a new look. A new Lily! Something that screams rock star.”

I laugh as I pull out my algebra textbook and notebook. “We're not really a rock band, are we? More like a pop band.”

We walk toward math class, which we have together. “We need to come up with a name,” Abigail says. “How can we be a real band without a name?”

“I know. We should work on that tonight.”

“Tonight?” she asks, looking at me. “Are we practicing tonight?”

“Abigail, did you forget? Seven o'clock. My dad's playing every night this week at the Wallflower, so we can use the studio as much as we want.”

We stop outside the classroom, waiting for the bell to ring.

“Hey, girls,” we hear behind us. “How's it going?”

We turn and find Belinda flanked by the other Pirates, Bryan and Sydney. Belinda always dresses like she's about to go on stage. Today she's wearing a purple miniskirt with a black blouse and black boots. My mom would never let me come to school dressed like that. I look down at my jeans and pink Converse sneakers and realize I wouldn't
want
to come to school dressed like that.

“Have you heard the news?” Belinda asks, twirling one of her blond corkscrew curls around her finger. She's got more curls than a toy poodle.

“What news?” Abigail asks.

“Mr. Weisenheimer convinced Ms. Presley to let some local talent perform at the Spring Fling.”

Every April, our middle school has a Spring Fling on a Friday night for the seventh and eighth graders. They set up games in the gym, like badminton and
Ping-Pong, and some of the classrooms have activities like a cakewalk, bean-bag toss, and bingo. There's music in the gym, too, usually with a DJ, and kids can dance if they want to, although most of us just stand around with a soda in our hand and talk while we listen to the music. A few kids who are amazing dancers might go on the dance floor to show off what they can do, but that's about it.

“What do you mean by ‘local talent'?” I ask.

“From our school,” Sydney says. “They're going to have tryouts and let someone, a singer or a band or whatever, perform a few songs on stage.”

“Pretty awesome, right?” Bryan says as he swings his head back to get the bangs out of his eyes. I have to say, I am a little bit envious that Belinda is in a band with Bryan. He is so cute. He keeps talking. “We already know what song we're going to do for the audition.”

I swallow hard. “Audition? When's the audition?”

“We don't know yet,” Belinda says. “They're supposed to let us know sometime this week.” She smiles a big, fake smile. The kind of smile that says,
I look forward to beating the pants off you in that audition.
“Think you guys will try out?”

Abigail starts to reply. “I don't—”

“Of course we will,” I say. “Yeah, we're all over that. We have some great songs. One of them is
really
awesome. It's the kind you can't help but dance to, no matter how shy you might be.”

Abigail looks at me like I've lost my mind. “Which song is that?” she asks.

I nudge her with my elbow. “Remember? That one song? Um, what's it called?” My eyes dart around, looking for something to say, and land on Sydney's T-shirt, which is pink and glittery and has a big cupcake on it. “The cupcake song. Remember?”

Abigail pinches her lips together, like she's trying not to laugh. My eyes beg her to keep her ridiculous thoughts to herself. She nods. “Oh. Right! The cupcake song. Yeah, it's really fun.” She tells the New Pirates, “If you guys come to the dance, we'll teach you how to do the cupcake dance too. How's that?”

Belinda laughs. “Oh, you've made up a cupcake dance to go with the song? Wow, that's impressive, since cupcakes don't really do anything but sit there and look cute.”

As if a cupcake song wasn't bad enough, now we've
promised them we have a dance to go with the song? Oh boy. This is worse than a bunch of my mom's friends eating burnt lemon cake that I made for them.

The warning bell rings, thank goodness. The three turn to head to class, but not before Sydney says, “I doubt you'll get to show us your dance. Because we're gonna own that audition. I promise you, the New Pirates will be the ones performing on that stage at the Spring Fling.”

“Whatever,” I mumble as Abigail pulls me into class.

We take our seats in the back row.

“Really, Lily?” Abigail asks me. “The cupcake song? What are we, six?”

“Hey, cupcakes can be sophisticated,” I say, trying to convince myself just as much as Abigail. “What about coffee-flavored cupcakes? I had this salted-caramel-mocha cupcake one time, and it was so good. I wonder if they use real coffee when they make them.”

She waves her hand in front of my face. “Earth to Lily, Earth to Lily. That's enough about cupcakes. What about our band? Do you think we can beat the New Pirates?”

“I think it depends on when the auditions are and how long we have to practice,” I say.

Immediately after the second bell rings, our principal, Ms. Presley, comes over the intercom with Monday-morning announcements. She talks about a disaster drill we'll be doing in the next few days and an assembly we have coming up on Friday. I doodle in my notebook as she rambles on.

“Finally, plans are under way for our Spring Fling, coming up on Friday, April twelfth.” I sit up straight and listen. “Our choir director, Mr. Weisenheimer, and our band director, Ms. Adams, have decided it would be fun to allow a student or group of students to perform at the Spring Fling this year. Auditions will be held after school in just a few weeks, right before spring break, on Thursday, March twenty-first. A group of teachers will choose the act they believe to be the best fit. Good luck, everyone!”

I look at Abigail and give her a thumbs-up. Three weeks is plenty of time to get a song or two ready.