The Cupcake Diaries Collection: Katie and the Cupcake Cure; Mia in the Mix; Emma on Thin Icing; Alexis and the Perfect Recipe (2 page)

“Hey, guys,” I said. “The bus
stop’s this way.” I nodded toward Ridge Street.

Callie looked at me and smiled. “Hi, Katie! We were just talking
about walking to school,” she said.

“Isn’t it kind of far to walk?” I asked.

Maggie spoke up. “Only little kids take the bus.”

“Oh,” I said. (I know, I sound like a genius. But I was
thinking about how my mom probably wouldn’t like the idea of us walking to
school.)

Then Sydney looked me up and down. “Nice shirt, Katie,” she
said. But she said it in a way that I knew meant she definitely didn’t think it
was nice. “Did you make that at camp?”

Maggie and Brenda giggled.

“As a matter of fact, I did,” I said.

I looked at Callie. I didn’t say anything. She didn’t say
anything. What was going on?

“Come on,” Sydney said, linking arms with Callie. “I
don’t want to be late.”

She didn’t say, “Come on, everybody but Katie,” but she
might as well have. I knew I wasn’t invited. Callie turned around and waved.
“See you later!” she called.

I stood there, frozen, as my best friend walked away from me like I was
some kind of stranger.

Y
ou might think I was mad at Callie. But I wasn’t. Well, not really. For the most part I was really confused.

Why didn’t Callie ask me to walk with them? Something had to be going on. Like, maybe her mom had told her to walk with those girls for some reason. Or maybe Callie didn’t ask me to walk with them because she figured I would be the one to ask. Maybe that was it.

The sound of a bus engine interrupted my thoughts. Two blocks away, I could see a yellow school bus turning the corner. I was going to miss it!

I tore off down the sidewalk. It’s a good thing I’m a fast runner because I got to the bus stop just as the last kid was getting on board. I climbed up
the steps, and the bus driver gave me a nod. She was a friendly-looking woman with a round face and curly black hair.

It hit me for the first time that I would have a new bus driver now that I was going to middle school. The elementary school bus driver, Mr. Hopkins, was really nice. And I might never see him again!

But I couldn’t think about that now. I had to find a place to sit. Callie and I always sat in the third seat down on the right. Two boys I didn’t know were sitting in that seat. I stood there, staring at the seats, not knowing what to do.

“Please find a seat,” the bus driver told me.

I walked down the aisle. Maybe there was something in the back. As I passed the sixth row, a girl nodded to the empty seat next to her. I quickly slid into it, and the bus lurched forward.

“Thanks,” I said.

“No problem,” replied the girl. “I’m Mia.”

I don’t really know a lot about fashion, but I could tell that Mia was wearing stuff that you see in magazines. She could even have been a model herself—she had long black hair that wasn’t dull like mine, but shiny and bouncy. She was wearing those leggings that look like jeans, with black boots,
and a short black jacket over a long gray T-shirt. I figured that Mia must be a popular girl from one of the other elementary schools.

“Are you from Richardson?” I asked her. “I used to go to Hamilton.”

Mia shook her head. “I just moved here a few weeks ago. From Manhattan.”

“Mia from Manhattan. That’s easy to remember,” I said. I started talking a mile a minute, like I do when I’m nervous or excited. “I never met anyone who lived in Manhattan before. I’ve only been there once. We saw
The Lion King
on Broadway. I just remember it was really crowded and really noisy. Was it noisy where you lived?”

“My neighborhood was pretty quiet,” Mia replied.

I suddenly realized that my question might have been insulting.

“Not that noisy is bad,” I said quickly. “I just meant—you know, the cars and buses and people and stuff . . .” I decided I wasn’t making things any better.

But Mia didn’t seem to mind. “You’re right. It can get pretty crazy. But I like it there,” she said. “I still live there, kind of. My dad does, anyway.”

Were her parents divorced like mine?
I wondered.
I wanted to ask her, but it seemed like a really personal question. I chose a safer subject. “So, how do you like Maple Grove?”

“It’s pretty here,” she answered. “It’s just kind of . . . quiet.”

She smiled, and I smiled back. “Yeah, things can be pretty boring around here,” I said.

“By the way, I like your shirt,” Mia told me. “Did you make it yourself?”

I got a sick feeling for a second—was she making fun of me, like Sydney had? But the look on her face told me she was serious.

“Thanks,” I said, relieved. “I’m glad you said that because somebody earlier didn’t like it at all, and what was extra weird is that my best friend was hanging around with that person.”

“That sounds complicated,” Mia said.

That’s when the bus pulled into the big round driveway in front of Park Street Middle School. I’d seen the school a million times before, of course, since it was right off the main road. And I’d been inside once, last June, when the older kids had given us a tour. I just remember thinking how much bigger it was than my elementary school. The guide leading us kept saying it was shaped like a
U
so it was easy to get around. But it didn’t seem easy to me.

We climbed out of the bus, which had stopped in front of the wide white steps that led up to the front door. The concrete building was the color of beach sand, and for a second I wished it was still summer and I was back on the beach.

Mia took a piece of yellow paper out of her jacket pocket. “My homeroom is in room 212,” she said. “What’s yours?”

I shrugged off my backpack. My schedule was somewhere inside. I zipped it open and started searching through my folders.

“I’ve got to find mine,” I said. “Go on ahead.”

“Are you sure?” Mia looked hesitant. If I hadn’t been freaking out about my schedule, I might have noticed that she didn’t want to go in alone. But I wasn’t thinking too clearly.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll see you later!”

After what seemed forever I finally found my schedule tucked inside one of the pockets of my five-subject notebook. I looked on the line that read
HOMEROOM
 . . . 216.

So I wouldn’t be with Mia. But would I be with Callie? She and I had meant to go over our schedules to see what classes we’d have together. Now I didn’t know if we had the same gym or lunch or anything.

Maybe we’re in the same homeroom,
I thought hopefully. I studied the little map on the bottom of the schedule and went inside. From the front door, it was pretty easy to find room 216. It looked like a social studies classroom, I guessed. There were maps of the world on the wall and a big globe in the corner. I scanned the room for Callie, but I didn’t see her, although Maggie and Brenda were there, sitting next to each other. Almost all of the seats were taken; the only empty ones were in the front row, where nobody ever wants to sit. But I had no choice.

I purposely took the seat in front of Maggie—partly because I knew her from my old school, and partly because I wanted to get some info about Callie.

I set my backpack on the floor and turned around. Maggie and Brenda were drawing with gel pens on their notebooks. They were both tracing the letters “PGC” in big bubble print. When they saw me looking, they quickly flipped over their notebooks.

“Hey,” I said. “Do you know if Callie is in this homeroom?”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?” Maggie asked, and Brenda burst out into giggles.

“Um, okay,” I said, but I could feel my face getting
red. Callie and I had never hung out with Sydney, Maggie, and Brenda at our old school, but they had always been basically nice. At least, they’d never been mean to me.

But I guess things had changed.

The bell rang, and for the first time, I felt a pang of middle school fear. Just like those kids in the movies.

It was a horrible thought, but I knew it was true…. Middle school wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped!

L
uckily, the homeroom teacher walked in before Maggie or Brenda could say anything else. Mr. Insley had dark brown hair and a beard and mustache.

“Welcome to homeroom,” he said, smiling. “This room will be your first stop every morning before you head out to your classes. I can guarantee that this will be your easiest class of the day. On most days, we only have three things to do: take attendance, say the Pledge of Allegiance, and listen to announcements.”

“Yeah, no homework!” a boy in the back of the room called out.

“You’ll get plenty of that in your other classes,” Mr. Insley said, and a bunch of kids groaned. I had
to admit that it made me nervous. I had heard that there was tons more homework in middle school, but I hoped it wasn’t true.

“Today is your lucky day, because you get to have homeroom with me for an extra ten minutes,” Mr. Insley went on. “I’ll be giving you some tips about how to get around this place.”

There was a loud beeping sound over the intercom.

“Good morning, students! This is Principal LaCosta. Welcome to Park Street Middle School. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.”

We launched into the pledge, and after the principal made a few announcements, Mr. Insley took attendance. There were more kids from my old school than I realized, but no Callie.

As Mr. Insley started to explain about how to get around the school, I got this crazy urge to talk to Callie. I carefully reached for my cell phone in my backpack.

I know what you’re thinking:
She can’t use her cell phone in class!
And you’re right. I knew that. But it was like some alien or something was controlling my hands.

Must . . . text . . . Callie.

I slipped the phone under the desk and flipped
it open. I glanced at Mr. Insley and then I quickly texted my best friend.

What happened this morning? R u taking the bus home or walking again?

I sent the text and looked up at Mr. Insley again. He had his back to the class, pointing to a map of the school projected on the screen. So far so good.

I felt the phone buzz in my hands and checked Callie’s reply.

Let’s talk after

After what?
I wondered frantically. After homeroom? After school? My alien hands started texting again.

Where r u now? Where is ur homeroom? Should we talk b4 class? Or I can meet u

“Miss Brown, is it?”

I looked up to see Mr. Insley standing right over me! I was so busted. I felt my face get hot.

“Um, yes,” I managed to squeak out.

“I should probably remind you of the rule that there is no texting during class in this school,”
Mr. Insley said. “Normally, I’d have to confiscate your phone. But since it’s the first day of school, consider this a warning.”

I nodded and stuffed the phone in my backpack. I could hear kids laughing behind me.

“Bus-ted,” Maggie sang in a loud whisper, then giggled.

Did you ever wish that you could blink your eyes and magically disappear? That’s exactly how I felt. I’d even take a time machine—I could go back in time to the start of homeroom and leave my cell phone in my backpack. Or how about wings? I could unfurl them and fly out the window, far away from middle school.

But I was stuck with the awful reality of being humiliated in homeroom. There was nowhere to run.

Fortunately the bell rang. One good thing about being in the front row was that I could make a quick getaway. I dashed into the hallway.

Crowds of kids streamed through the halls. Callie had to be somewhere close by, right? I walked up and down, trying to find her.

Then I noticed that kids were opening their lockers and putting their backpacks inside. I had a feeling I was supposed to be doing that too.
Where
was that schedule again? It had to be here somewhere…. Found it!

I took it out and tried to find my locker on the map that was on the bottom of my schedule. I had locker number 213. Isn’t thirteen supposed to be an unlucky number? But, luckily, it was just down the hallway.