Alexis Gets Frosted (5 page)

Then I spilled the beans. All of them.

“Wow,” said my mom. “I'm sorry you've been going through all this. I wish you'd told me.”

“Yes, but it's just been kind of snowballing, getting bigger and bigger. I didn't realize it was my new way of life.”

My mom was looking thoughtful. “You know, there was a mean girl in my class when I was your age. . . . ”

“I know. Susan! You always tell us about her!” I rolled my eyes.

My mom smiled. “Well, she comes in handy in a lot of lessons. Anyway, mean people take a lot of energy, and it's not worth it. And they can make you act mean too, just to protect yourself. That can be a terrible feeling, because then you're losing yourself. It sounds like that's what happened yesterday.”

I winced, thinking of how proud I'd been of my comeback yesterday but how bad it had made me feel later.

“You know, most of the Olivias in the world
are really just insecure, and their mean streak comes from being hurt.”

I rolled my eyes again. “Excuses, excuses,” I said. “Everyone is insecure, Mom!”

She nodded. “Come on, though. Olivia is obviously hurt. And you were mean in what you said about her and skiing. Think of it this way: You're the one who's lived here all your life, and you're the one with the tight-knit group of friends, who really knows yourself and has a strong identity and a good reputation in the school, right? And then you insult her behind her back, questioning her claims about her athletic abilities, all when she's new to the school and trying to establish herself. How do you think that makes her feel?”

It was weird to flip the problem on its head like that, but it was true, when you looked at it from the other side. I felt bad now.

“I guess she's probably hurt,” I said, ashamed.

My mom sighed. “You did start this, Alexis, and I didn't raise you to be a mean girl. But I
really
didn't raise you to be a victim, which is what Olivia's retaliation is turning you into. Right?”

I nodded.

“Look, you don't want to waste your time feeling bad, or being mean or hiding. Those are all
negative states. You need to apologize to Olivia and to get that out of the way. I think it will clear the air with her, and it will take care of your conscience. No more sleepless nights!” she said.

I nodded again. Reluctantly. I dreaded apologizing. How soon would I have to do it? I wondered. And where would I do it? And what would I say? Ugh.

My mom prodded me out of my daydream. “So, you'll get the ball rolling with an apology and let me know what happens? I support you all the way, sweetheart.” She leaned over and gave me a kiss and a hug. “Now we'd better get to the store to stock up on those ingredients you need for tomorrow.”

“Oh right. Hey, Mom,” I said. “What ever happened with Susan? I mean, did she stop being mean to you?”

Standing in the doorway now, my mom paused. “As you know from other stories, she was awful, and she had a crowd who hung on everything she said. She picked on me. So one day I just couldn't take it anymore. I screwed up my courage, and I confronted her and told her that I didn't appreciate it, but that, really, her behavior had no effect on me whatsoever. I asked why I was so fascinating to her that she was spending so much time
watching and commenting on what I was doing.”

I gasped. “What happened?”

“Well, I guess Susan found me less interesting after that. We stayed away from each other, but she never singled me out again.”

“Huh,” I said.

“Something to think about,” Mom said. “But don't think about it too much, Alexis. You are great the way you are. You have wonderful friends, a family who loves you, and one big, bad Olivia shouldn't get in the way of any of that. You need to act like a duck.”

I had to smile. It's one of my mom's favorite things to say when Dylan or I get ruffled: Act like a duck and let it roll off your back.

“Quack!” I said, and my mom quacked back, and grinned.

Of course I didn't see Olivia at all the next day. I'm not sure if she was even at school. But I marched around bravely, my head held high, ready for action, ready to change my situation.

At lunch I sat front and center with the Cupcakers, and even though we saw Bella, Maggie, and Callie, there was no Olivia. Typical. Just when I have my nerve up, she's nowhere to be found.

We chatted about our baking session later in the day and the fact that I'd made no progress on my diorama plans, but I promised to figure something out over the weekend. We only had the coming week and weekend to work on it, so if I didn't figure it out now, I was sunk.

“I guess I could always ask Mrs. Carr if I can switch to a costume,” I said glumly.

“Yay!” said Mia, but Katie gave her a dirty look that silenced her.

“I'll work on it too, Alexis,” said Katie. “It's too cool of an idea to bag. You know, let's at least try to make some gingerbread this afternoon and see how hard it is to work with. We're not giving in to costumes yet!”

“Thanks.”

“By the way, speaking of costumes,” said Mia. “I was talking to my mom about the eighties clothes and everything, and I found out she was the wardrobe mistress for the school productions all through middle school and high school! Isn't that typical?!”

We all laughed, and Emma said, “Guess what I found out about my mom? She played the flute! Just like me! Except she quit, and she always regretted it, and that's why she wanted me to play.”

Katie said, “How about this: My mom was
allergic to eggs and milk when she was a kid, and she never even ate a cupcake until she was fifteen!”

We were all still laughing. I didn't have much to add. “I'm going to my grandma's tomorrow to see some old photos of my mom and her dollhouse from when she was a kid.”

“Cool! I love dollhouses!” said Katie.

“I'll take a picture and then e-mail it to you,” I promised.

We were quiet for a minute, picturing everyone's moms as kids. Then Emma snapped her fingers. “Hey! You know what could be really cool? If we did a time capsule. We could put in tons of things about us and even stuff about our moms. Then we'll bury it for our kids!”

“That's a great idea!” I said, and everyone agreed.

We spent the rest of the meal brainstorming about what to put in and how to get it, and lunch flew by. We planned to meet up again later at Emma's to bake and finish our plan.

A
fter school I stopped off at home to pick up some supplies, then headed over to Emma's, but not without taking a few minutes to brush my hair, change out of my school clothes and into something cuter, and put on just a tiny dab of lip gloss and some earrings. Hey, you never know who could be over at the Taylors', with all those cute brothers of hers. But hopefully the love of my life, Matt Taylor, would show up at some point.

At Emma's, we set up three workstations. We only need one person to make Mona's minis since we could all do it with our eyes closed at this point. Emma did that since Mona is her special friend. Mia took on the baby shower samples. She had the two different recipes to try—apple cinnamon and
milk and cookies—and Katie and I played around with the gingerbread.

It was easy enough to make the dough, but the hard part was getting the sheets of baked gingerbread just right. Katie had found an amazing website that had recipes along with instructions on how to build elaborate gingerbread houses. We had to figure out what mine would look like and then we could start making templates for the pieces.

The back door slammed and my heart leaped. Was it Matt?

“Hey, Cupcakers,” greeted Matt, dumping his gear in his locker at the back door. “Smells like Christmas in here!”

Yes! It was him! I willed myself not to blush.

“It's because we're making apple-cinnamon cupcakes for a job and a gingerbread mansion for Alexis's class project,” Mia said.

Matt went to Mia's side to inspect the cupcakes, then he looked at me. “Alexis's class project? Alexis has everyone working for her now?” he teased. “Why am I not surprised by that?”

And the blush I'd been fighting rose up my neck and cheeks as I giggled.

“She's the CEO!” said Mia.

“In training!” I protested.

Matt came over to inspect the printed ginger-bread house instructions and our dough. “This looks hard!” he said.

“I know,” I agreed glumly.

He looked at me. “Couldn't you do something easier for your class project? Like a costume or something?”

“That's what I said!” singsonged Mia.

I groaned and put my head in my hands.

“Run along, now, Matthew! You're scaring her!” said Katie, shooing him away.

He laughed, grabbed an apple and a pear from the fruit bowl on the counter, and headed up to his room. “Let me know if you need any computer help!” he called back over his shoulder.

“Thanks,” I replied listlessly.

Katie was reading the directions aloud now. “We need to roll the dough out to a quarter-inch in thickness and then cut it into the shapes we need. I'll cut four equal squares for walls, and we can put aside two to add windows and another to add a door, okay?”

I watched her work and noticed how easily it came to her. Her hands did what she wanted them to, and things turned out beautiful looking as well as delicious.

Katie slid the tray into the oven to bake and then continued poring over the instructions. It wasn't that interesting to me, and I felt bad, like Katie was doing all the work for me. But she did seem to be enjoying it. And it had been her idea in the first place.

I went to check on Mia's progress, and things were looking good. The cakes were baking and smelling great, and she was whipping up two kinds of frosting. The one for the apple-cinnamon cakes would be cream cheese, with caramelized apple chunks on top, and the other was a fluffy vanilla cream, for the cookie cakes. I sampled both and liked the cream-cheese one better.

“You could use this with any kind of fruit, you know,” said Mia, looking around the kitchen. “Caramelized bananas would be delicious. Pear. Even pineapple.”

“Yum,” I agreed. The word “pear” stuck in my mind for a minute, and then I realized why. My mom's dress! Maybe we should do a pear cupcake for her! And we could cover a platter in yellow-and-white gingham fabric or paper and then arrange the cakes in a pear shape; maybe pipe little green pears on top of each one! That could be cute.

I checked on Emma and Mona's minis. She
was ready to frost, so I jumped in and helped. We finished quickly, and then it was time for my gingerbread to come out.

Everyone gathered around to watch Katie handle the bread. First, she lifted the walls off the tray and then set them to cool on a wire rack for just a minute. Then, one at a time, she trimmed them to make the edges perfect (gingerbread expands a lot in the oven), and then she popped the scored areas out with a knife. The finished product looked great.

While they cooled, she readied her supplies. She had made a bowl of icing, which would hold everything together. It was white, but we could dye it any color we wanted when we did our real project. She also had a cardboard base where she'd drawn the outline of the house, like a blueprint. In the middle of the outline she set two unopened soup cans. The cans would prop the walls up while the icing dried, so they wouldn't fall over.

“Katie, you've thought of everything! Thanks!” I cried.

Katie smiled modestly. “I think this is really fun. Maybe if we get good at it, we could start a sideline in fancy gingerbread houses!”

“We could charge a lot of money for them,” remarked Mia.

“I'll have to run the numbers on that, because they're pretty labor intensive,” I added.

“What does that mean?” asked Emma.

“It means it takes a lot of hours to build them, and at a certain point, it's not worth it. Time is money.”