The Cupcake Diaries Collection: Katie and the Cupcake Cure; Mia in the Mix; Emma on Thin Icing; Alexis and the Perfect Recipe (3 page)

The locker had a built-in lock. I spun the dial, searching for the combination numbers that were printed on my schedule.

26 . . . 14 . . . 5 . . .

The door wouldn’t open the first time. The hallway was getting emptier by the second. Panic started to well up inside me.

I took a deep breath and tried again.

26 . . . 14 . . . 5 . . . Click!

The door popped open, and I shoved my backpack inside. I took out the notebook I needed for my next class, science.

I slammed the locker shut and checked the schedule again. Science was in room 234, on the left leg of the
U
. It should have been easy to find, except I wasn’t sure what part of the
U
I was in.

I guess if I had been paying attention to Mr. Insley, I would have known where to go. I ran down the hall as fast as I could and turned the
corner. Room 234 should have been the first door on the right.

I stepped in the doorway, breathless. I looked around for a seat.

That’s when I noticed the chalkboard.

French—Bonjour!

Mademoiselle Girard

I was in the wrong room!

A girl with reddish hair in the front row saw me. “You look lost,” she said.

“I am,” I told her. “I’m trying to find science. Room 234.”

She pointed to the doorway with her pencil. “Right across the hall,” she said.

“Thanks!”

I raced across the hallway just as the bell rang.

I was going to be late for my very first class! Could this day get any worse?

O
kay, so it turned out that I wasn’t the only one who was late, and we weren’t in any trouble. The science teacher, Ms. Biddle, waved us all in.

“Enter, enter, all you lost souls,” she said.

I liked Ms. Biddle right away. She wasn’t much taller than any of us students, and her blond hair was spiked on top of her head. She wore a bright blue T-shirt that said
EVIL MUTANT SCIENCE TEACHER
.

“Welcome to science,” she announced. “I am Ms. Biddle, and this is my co-teacher, Priscilla.”

She pointed to a plastic skeleton hanging from a stand in the front corner of the room. A bunch of us laughed.

“Based on the existence of Priscilla in this classroom, who can create a hypothesis about what
we’re going to learn this semester?” she asked.

I raised my hand. “The human body?”

“Excellent!” the teacher cheered. “What a bright bunch of students. I can tell this is going to be a great year.”

My humiliating homeroom experience took a backseat in my brain. I really had fun in science class. Science has always been my favorite subject. And I had a feeling that Ms. Biddle could make any subject fun, even math.

When science ended, I resisted the urge to look for Callie in the hallway. I didn’t want to be late again. My next class was social studies with Mr. Insley, back in homeroom.

I stopped at my locker and got my social studies notebook on the first try. I made it to the room before the bell rang.

“Hey, it’s the cell phone girl,” Mr. Insley said when he saw me, and I cringed a little. But I recovered quickly.

“Cell phone? What cell phone?” I joked, and to my relief, he gave me a smile.

Social studies went pretty smoothly too—but still no Callie.

I knew my next period was lunch, and I felt sure I would see her there. I had to. If I didn’t talk
with her soon, I knew I would go crazy!

I had to stop back at my locker to get my lunch. I swiftly spun the dial.

26 . . . 15 . . . 14.

Nothing happened.

“Okay,” I told my locker. “We can do this the hard way or the easy way.”

I tried the combination again, and it still didn’t work. Frustrated, I pulled my schedule out of my notebook and checked it again.

26 . . . 14 . . . 5.
I’d gotten the numbers mixed up.

“Sorry,” I told my locker. “My bad.”

I grabbed my lunch and raced to the cafeteria but, of course, I was one of the last people to get there.

The cafeteria was twice as big as the one in my old school. Kids sat at rectangular tables that stretched all the way to the back of the room. More kids were lined up in front of the steaming lunch counter along the wall to my right.

It didn’t take me long to spot Callie in the crowd. She was sitting at a table with Sydney, Maggie, and Brenda.

Somehow I wasn’t surprised. But I wasn’t exactly prepared either. What was I supposed to do? Just walk up and sit with them?

Why not?
I asked myself.
You and Callie have sat together at lunch every day for years. Why should today be any different?

I took a deep breath and walked toward the table. There was an empty seat. Perfect!

“Hi,” I said, moving toward the seat. But Sydney stopped me with just a few words.

“Sorry, Katie,” she said. “This table is reserved for the PGC.”

“What’s the PGC?” I asked.

“Popular. Girls. Club,” Sydney replied, saying each word slowly, to make sure I understood. “You have to be a member to sit here. And you are not.”

I turned to Callie. “So, you’re a member?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s no big deal, Katie, it’s just—”

“Right. No big deal,” I said quickly. I didn’t want to hear what Callie had to say. I just needed to get away from that table. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

“Hey, Katie!” I heard Callie call behind me. “I’ll call you later!”

I walked away and tried to find another seat. I could feel tears forming in my eyes. I could
not
cry in the middle of the cafeteria on my first day of school. I just couldn’t.

I saw some kids from Hamilton at other tables, but I walked right past them. I headed for an empty
table in the back of the room and sat down.

What had just happened? Callie had joined a club, and I wasn’t invited. Fine. But couldn’t she at least have warned me before today?

I opened my lunch bag. I didn’t feel much like eating, but Mom would be disappointed if I didn’t at least try the special lunch she made for me.

Mom had packed carrot sticks with ranch dip (my favorite) and a tuna fish sandwich, plus my aluminum water bottle filled with apple juice. Besides all that, there was a pink plastic cupcake holder, the kind that’s shaped exactly like a cupcake. Mom had written on it with a glitter marker, “A cupcake for my Cupcake.” Corny, yes, but I knew the cupcake inside would be delicious.

Suddenly I realized I was hungry after all. I unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite.

“Is anyone sitting here?”

I looked up to see Mia, the girl from the bus.

“No, unless they’re invisible,” I replied. Mia smiled and sat in the chair across from me.

“How’s everything going so far?” Mia asked me. She was opening up her lunch bag and taking out a container of what looked like vegetable sushi rolls.

“Let’s see,” I began. “I got in trouble in homeroom for using my cell phone. My locker hates me.
I keep getting lost. And, oh yeah, my best friend would rather hang out with a bunch of mean girls than me.”

Mia raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“It’s all true,” I said solemnly. “How about you?”

Mia shrugged. “It’s okay . . . just, different. Hey, did you have science yet? Isn’t Ms. Biddle awesome?”

I nodded. “I know! I love her T-shirt.”

As we were talking, two girls approached our table, carrying trays of food. I recognized one of them as the girl with the reddish hair who helped me find the science room.

“Hi,” I said. “Do you want to sit down? There’s plenty of room.”

“Thanks,” said the girl I recognized.

“I’m Mia,” Mia said.

“And I’m Katie,” I added.

“Hi. I’m Alexis,” she replied. “And this is Emma.”

“Hi,” Emma said shyly.

Alexis’s reddish hair was neatly pulled back in a white headband that matched her white button-down shirt. She wore a short denim skirt and ballet flats. I noticed everything matched.

Emma had big blue eyes and straight blond hair. She was really pretty. She had on a sleeveless pink
dress with small white flowers on it and white sneakers.

“Did you guys go to Richardson?” I guessed.

Alexis nodded. “Right. Did you go to Hamilton?”

“I did,” I replied. “But Mia’s from Manhattan.”

“Ooh, I always wanted to go there,” Emma said. “I heard there’s a museum with a giant whale that hangs from the ceiling, and you can walk right underneath it. Have you ever been there?”

Mia nodded. “It’s so cool. It’s amazing to imagine that something that big lives on the planet, you know?” she said. “You should go sometime. Manhattan’s not that far from here.”

“Maybe someday,” Emma said wistfully.

“So has anyone had that math teacher yet, Mrs. Moore?” Mia asked. She shuddered. “Scary.”

“Uh-oh,” I said. “I have her next period.”

“Me too. But I heard she’s not so bad,” Alexis told us. “My sister Dylan told me she’s strict, but if you just do what she says, you’ll be all right.”

I finished my sandwich and dug into my carrot sticks. Mia, Alexis, and Emma were really nice, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Callie. I glanced over at the PGC table. Callie was laughing at something Sydney was saying. Were they laughing about me?

I didn’t realize it at first, but I was accidentally
ignoring the girls at the table, so I quickly tuned back in.

“Earth to Katie,” Alexis said. “I was asking you if you had social studies yet.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said.

“Her best friend dumped her to hang out with some mean girls,” Mia explained.

“Really?” Alexis asked. “Which ones?”

I pointed to Sydney’s table.

“Oh, I know those girls from camp,” she said, shaking her head. “You’re right. They are mean. Especially that Sydney.”

“I don’t know what Callie’s doing with them,” I said with a sigh.

“Callie?” Alexis said. “I know her from camp too. She always seemed nice.”

I reached into my lunch bag and took out my cupcake holder. For a second I forgot about the corny message my mom had decorated it with. I tried to turn it around so the other girls wouldn’t see it, but it was too late.

“Aw, that’s cute,” Mia said.

“Thanks,” I replied, relieved. I opened the cupcake holder and took out the sweet treasure inside.

“Wow, your mom packed you a cupcake?” Emma asked. “Lucky!”

The icing was a light brown color. I sniffed it.

“Peanut butter,” I said out loud. “With cinnamon.”

“What’s inside?” Emma asked.

I took a bite, and a yummy glob of grape jelly squirted into my mouth.

“Jelly,” I reported. “It’s a P-B-and-J cupcake.”

I took another bite, making sure to get the icing and the jelly in the bite at the same time. Like all of mom’s cupcakes, it was superdelicious.

At least some things never change,
I thought.

I realized that all of the girls were eyeing me a little bit enviously. I couldn’t blame them. I mean, who doesn’t like cupcakes?

“I’ve never heard of a peanut-butter-and-jelly cupcake before,” Emma said.

“There’s a cupcake shop in my dad’s neighborhood that has fifty-seven flavors,” Mia told us. “I bet they have P-B-and-J.”

I thought about offering them a bite, but I already had my germs all over it, and the jelly was getting kind of messy.

“The next time my mom makes cupcakes, I’ll bring some for all of us,” I promised.

“Cool,” Mia said.

“Thanks,” said Alexis and Emma at the same time.

The lunch bell rang. It was time for my next class.

I stuffed my empty cupcake holder into my bag. My first day of middle school wasn’t even half over, but I had a feeling that the only good part of it had just ended.

S
o here’s what happened the rest of the day:

• Forgot my locker combination after lunch.

• Was late to math class. Mrs. Moore gave me a sheet of math problems to do as punishment. Mia was right! She
is
scary.

• No gym until next week, so I hung out with Emma, who’s in my gym class. (Okay, something went right.)