Confectionately Yours #1: Save the Cupcake! (16 page)

A
ctually, I threw up.

It was because I hadn’t really read the book. I saw the Walt Disney movie, and decided I would try to bluff my way through the report. I don’t know why I decided to do that. I had never done it before.

I’d had a cheeseburger for lunch, and it sat heavy in my stomach during math, while I was waiting for language arts to start, and my oral book report to begin. I guess I was loaded down with guilt, and I was dreading getting up before the class.

And when I did, Ellen Criswell was sitting in the front row. She and I had always been friendly, and she flashed a goofy face at me as I started. I guess she could tell I was nervous.

Anyway, so I described the opening of the book (movie), and Mrs. Hochstetter started asking a few questions. I could tell that she suspected I really hadn’t read the book, and had maybe cribbed my report from its back cover (guilty), and her questions made me feel sick. She knew I was lying! Lying in front of the whole class! I stood there, tasting pickles at the back of my throat, and then, suddenly, I barfed all over Mrs. Hochstetter’s desk.

Then Ellen barfed, too.

I think it was the smell.

Ellen and I had to go to the nurse, while everyone else went to recess so the janitor could clean up.

I got a D on my report, but I was too afraid to show it to my mother, so I never got it signed. And in Mrs. Hochstetter’s class, that meant that your grade automatically went down an entire letter. To an F.

I worked like crazy for the rest of the semester and managed to pull my language arts grade up to a B. But I still can’t eat a cheeseburger or think about Bambi without feeling queasy.

And oral reports?

Barf city.

T
he meeting starts with a lot of boring talk about the meeting the month before. Someone wants to make a change in the minutes, and everyone has to talk it over before they can finally agree.

The members of the PTO are all seated around a long oval table. I see my mom sitting near one end. Beside her is a blond woman with large teeth, and I can tell by the nervous glances Meghan keeps flashing at her that it’s her mother.

I’m barely paying attention as Ms. Markerson launches into the cupcake issue, and her reasons for wanting to keep sweets off the streets. Instead, I’m cataloging everything I had for dinner
—
rice-and-bean burrito, spinach salad, raspberry cupcake
—
and trying not to picture it spewed across the conference table.

I will not throw up.

I will not —

And then, out of the blue, Ms. Markerson announces, “So I think we should cast a vote.”

Someone starts to make a motion, but my mother interrupts. “Hold on,” Mom says. “I think some students have something they want to say.”

And in the next moment, I feel everyone staring at me.

Meghan thrusts her note cards into my hand, and I can taste the burrito. I swallow hard as I stand on my wobbly feet. “Uh, yeah,” I say as I look down at the cards. “Um, we wanted to …” But my vision blurs, my head feels light. Meghan’s notes aren’t making any sense to me.

I glance at Meghan, who is smiling at me in a way that is supposed to seem encouraging, but actually comes off as a grimace of terror. The words on the note card swim together. I have the same horrible feeling I had in Mrs. Hochstetter’s class ….

“Is this really necessary?” asks a bald man at the end of the table. “It doesn’t seem that there’s any need to discuss cupcakes. This is a health and public safety issue.”

“I think we should hear the students out.” My mother’s voice is calm, strong. Her office voice.

But the bald man just huffs. “Listening to children who want to eat sugar just seems a little juvenile.”

The PTO laughs, but the word
juvenile
splashes over me like a bucket of ice water. My mind clears. I straighten up. “No,” I hear myself say. “It isn’t juvenile. Not at all.”

Someone chuckles, and I plant my feet firmly on the ground. I feel everyone staring, and stutter, “Th-the sports teams —”

“Would you speak up a little?” A sharp-featured woman leans forward in her chair.

I lick my dry lips and start again. “The sports teams use bake sales to raise money for uniforms —”

“They can hold a walkathon.” The bald man waves his hand dismissively, and others around the table nod. “That way they would be encouraging a healthy lifestyle.”

“But our sports teams are already encouraging exercise. Besides, a walkathon and a bake sale aren’t the same thing,” I counter. “At a bake sale, you’re making something and selling it. At a walkathon, you’re just asking for donations.” I put the cards on my chair. “But that doesn’t matter. What we’re talking about here is individual liberty, and the ability to make choices. The students at Adams Middle School aren’t small children, or people who need protection from poor nutrition. We’re old enough to decide what we eat, and how much. We pack our own lunches. We choose what we want from the cafeteria. You have to decide how much you can trust us. Can you trust us enough to let us eat a cupcake once in a while?”

The room is quiet as I take the cards from my chair and sit down. I look over at Meghan, who is beaming at me like a proud mother. She takes my hand and squeezes the life out of it. I feel light-headed and shaky, but my mom smiles at me from across the room, and I realize that the two people I care about think I did a good job. That’s something.

“Thank you.” Meghan’s mother nods at me and smiles at me with her big teeth. “Now, I’d like to put the matter before the PTO. I have here” — she holds up a piece of paper — “a proposal to ban the sale and distribution of sweet treats at Adams Middle School.”

“So — the students could still bring a treat in their lunch?” This is from the sharp-featured woman.

Ms. Markerson hesitates. “Yes,” she says. “We simply won’t allow treats to be handed out to the whole class or sold. All those in favor?” And before I know what’s happening, five members of the PTO put up their hands and say aye.

Ms. Markerson asks for those against, and my mother and two others say nay, and just like that, the vote is over and we’ve lost.

W
e have to sit through a bunch of other blah blah blah before Meghan’s mother finally wraps up the meeting and the PTO files out. Meghan’s mother pauses as she passes us, but in the end, she doesn’t say anything. She just walks out.

I keep my eyes on my lap. I can’t look up. I feel the heaviness of my failure sticking to me, like rain weighting my clothes.

Meghan has been holding my hand this whole time, but she finally drops it. “Well … that was horrible,” she says, her voice almost a whisper.

“I’m so sorry.”

“You’re sorry?”

I nod, then feel her touch my sleeve.

“Hayley, you were great. Great! Your speech was way better than what I had written. You were perfect! This is crazy!”

I look over at her, and see the earnestness in her face. Her jaw is set, her face pale. “My mother had the votes before we even came in here.”

“She did?”

“I could tell.” Meghan’s voice trembles a little, and I realize how powerless she feels.

“It’s okay.”

“You were great,” she says again. “Better than I could have done it.”

This isn’t true, but it seems lame to disagree with her. I wish I knew what to say to her about her mother. I wish I understood why her mother needed to make a big deal out of cupcakes — why she couldn’t just let Meghan deal with the situation her own way. “Sometimes people make no sense.” It’s the only thing I can think of.

Meghan looks at me. “They always make sense,” she says. “It’s just that sometimes they aren’t who you thought they were.”

I think about my dad, and about Artie. I think about Marco, too. None of them are the people I thought they were. Maybe they’ve changed and maybe they haven’t. But now that I see them from a new angle, I guess I can’t go back to seeing them the way I did before.

My mother pokes her head in through the door, giving us a sympathetic smile. “Girls, can I interest you in a cupcake?”

“Is it gluten free?” Meghan asks.

“We still have a couple of those left,” I say, but Meghan shakes her head.

“I was actually just kidding. I have to go home.” Meghan’s voice is like lead. She casts a glance toward the hallway, where her mother is chatting with a couple of PTO members. We walk to the door and Meghan slowly goes over and stands beside her mother, as quiet as a shadow.

I feel shaky, almost as if I’ve discovered a secret about Meghan, as I follow Mom downstairs. We walk through the eerily quiet school and out into the night.

“You were wonderful,” Mom says. I can hear our footsteps as we head to the car. Above, the stars are dim, tiny points compared to the stars I saw at Alex’s party. I know it’s because of the light pollution — we’re closer to town, with all of its streetlamps and houses and large-screen TVs — but it feels like the world is just dimmer.

“Not good enough.”

“I think you made a few people in there think. And you did what was important to you.”

I know that this is supposed to be a pep talk, but it isn’t really having much of an effect. “I guess.”

We come to the car, which chirps as Mom unlocks it. We slip into our seats and click our seat belts closed, but Mom doesn’t put her key in the ignition. Instead, she says, “You were really brave, Hayley.”

We are both staring straight ahead, through the windshield and into the dark night. “Thanks, Mom.”

“You made me want to be brave.”

“You
are
brave, Mom.”

We look at each other a moment. Her features are indistinct in the dim light. I feel like I am about to cry. Why? Because of the cupcakes? Because I let Meghan down?

“Hayley, what if I told you that I didn’t want to work at Greater Valley Family Practice?”

“What?”

Mom sighs. “I don’t want that job, Hayley. I think … I think I want to work at the café. Help Mother run it.”

I’m quiet for a moment, taking this in.

“Would you think I was crazy?” Mom asks.

“No. I’d think you were sane.”

“Really?”

I smile. It’s funny to hear Mom treating me like I’m the adult, and I think she realizes it at the same time I do, because she laughs.

“You have to help Gran with the café,” I say. “You’re so good at it.”

Mom holds out her arms, and I lean in for a hug. Mom is soft and the very best hug-giver in the world. “I’m so proud of you, honey,” she says.

“Same here.”

We drive home in comfortable silence, both lost in our thoughts, and Mom pulls into a parking spot halfway up the street from the Tea Room.

“What’s going on?” Mom asks, and I see as soon as she does that two police officers are standing outside the door of the café. A face appears in the window, and a moment later, Chloe bounds out through the door. “Thank goodness you’re here! We need your help!”

Mom and I both rush over. “What’s wrong?” Mom asks, and I can tell from her voice that her heart is pounding as fast as mine.

“Wrong?” Chloe looks at her, then shakes her head. “Mom! The place is packed!”

And then we see that the police officers are simply standing in the line, waiting to be served. The Tea Room is jammed — every table is taken. The air is alive with noise — people chatting, china clinking, and a piano playing.

“Rupert has been at it for half an hour,” Chloe says over her shoulder as we follow her inside.

Mom and I hurry to wash our hands and put on aprons. Gran is serving at the counter, beaming at the young police officers. When I look around, I recognize several faces from school. Even Marco is here. He notices me and gives a half wave, then turns to his friends.

I wave back. “What’s going on?” I ask Chloe.

“No clue,” my sister says. “I’ll bus the tables, you ring the register. Gran is busy charming the customers.”

Mom is already brewing a fresh pot of coffee, so I follow orders and take the register. I ring up five orders and the next person is Kyle, who’s standing with three of his friends. “Hey, Kyle,” I say. “It’s Hayley,” I add, since it’s loud and I’m not sure he can hear me very well.

“I figured,” Kyle says with a grin. “What’s up? Sounds pretty crowded.”

“Yeah, like, half the school is here.”

“I guess everyone liked that cupcake giveaway,” Kyle says, and the words crash over me suddenly.

“Oh! The cupcake giveaway.” I’d forgotten about it. Suddenly, Marco being here means something to me. He’s supporting my cupcake fight. And so are the other kids. I feel a rush of gratitude, but I can’t help noticing who isn’t here: Artie.

“How did that work out, by the way? The petition, I mean.”

“We lost.”

“Too bad. You fought the good fight, Hayley.”

“Thanks.”

“So — what’s the cupcake du jour?”

“It’s lemon with white-chocolate frosting,” I say.

“Sounds great. What are you calling it?”

I think about it for a moment. “It’s a Good Fight cupcake,” I decide on the spot.

Kyle smiles at me. “Don’t you owe me one?” he says.

“Oh! Right. I forgot.” I place one on a plate and hand it over. “On the house.”

“I was just kidding, Hayley. I’ll pay for it.” He reaches into his pocket.

“Forget it, Kyle.”

“You sure?” His smile is radiant.

“Absolutely.”

“And that, Hayley Hicks, is why you are the coolest girl at Adams.”

I blush a little, but decide to let the compliment sink in. The coolest girl at Adams?

Well, who am I to disagree?

Just like everything, I guess it just depends on the angle from which you see it.