Cupcake Club Read online

  Last week, while Kylie was getting off the school bus with her social studies diorama, a model of a Japanese tea ceremony, Kylie had accidentally tripped down the bus steps and landed in a huge mud puddle on Frisbee Street. The bus driver rushed to help her up.

  “You okay? You gotta watch where you’re stepping there, young lady,” he said.

  When Kylie wiped the mud out of her eyes, she saw Meredith in the front seat, grinning like an evil, mad scientist. Meredith glanced down at her foot and tapped it. Kylie fumed. Her diorama was crushed—and so was her pride.

  She thought about telling someone—her parents, her teacher—but she suspected that would only make Meredith madder. So she just took the abuse. Even when Meredith snapped a picture of Kylie sneezing applesauce out of her nose in the cafeteria and showed it to everyone on her cell phone. Kylie ignored it, hoping one day Meredith would get bored with bullying her.

  Unfortunately, today was not that day.

  Florida hadn’t been like this. Kylie had tons of friends there who loved to go shopping and to the movies and to have sleepovers. But being the new girl instantly made her an outsider—an alien invader. Coming from a city named Jupiter didn’t help. When Meredith found that out, she started calling Kylie “E.T.”

  Making friends had been hard before, but now it was impossible. Meredith made sure of that. Anytime Emily, Bella, or Abby tried to talk to Kylie, Meredith quickly stepped in and yanked them away. “Let’s go!” she’d command, and they followed her like puppies on a leash. A few of the girls spoke to Kylie in the school yard, but she always felt like “the new girl” and a loner, even after a whole year at Blakely. The only time Kylie felt like she truly fit in was in Ms. Rachel Valentine’s drama class. She just wished they had it more than twice a week.

  Kylie loved Ms. Valentine. She was funny, and she always smelled like vanilla. Plus, she love, love, loved old Hollywood movies—stuff like Gone with the Wind and Top Hat and all those silly Mickey Rooney–Judy Garland flicks. “Now those were the days!” she’d sigh, and click her heels together while doing a little leap in the air.

  Kylie would crack up. Ms. Valentine looked silly tap-dancing in her Ugg boots. But that was the thing about Ms. Valentine: she just didn’t care what people thought. She did what made her happy, what made her feel good. Kylie wished she could be that “footloose and fancy free,” as her teacher liked to call it. Instead she felt weighed down by a huge, heavy anchor. Its name was Meredith Mitchell.

  But today Ms. Valentine had come to class looking a little more serious than usual. “Class,” she began, “I have something I need to talk to you about. You see, I have some good news—some great news!”

  If her news is so great, Kylie thought, then why does she look so nervous?

  “You see,” she said, drumming her fingers on the desk, “My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for a long, long time. And, well, I’m having a baby—actually two of them. Twins!”

  Most of the girls in class erupted into “oohs” and “ahhs,” while the boys made faces. Kylie just sat there, frozen.

  “I’m due in the summer, but my husband got a great job in Los Angeles working as a production assistant on a TV series. So we’re going to move there before the babies come.”

  Kylie didn’t hear much of anything after the word “move.” It was as if Ms. Valentine was speaking a different language. Did she say she was leaving? Did she say she was not going to be their teacher anymore?

  “I am going to ask your new drama teacher to start next week so she can get to know all of you and so I can help make the transition a little easier.”

  Next week? Kylie didn’t want a new drama teacher next week. She didn’t want a new drama teacher ever. She didn’t want anyone but Ms. Valentine! Without her, there would be absolutely, positively nothing to look forward to about fourth grade.

  After drama class was over, Ms. Valentine stopped Kylie before she left the room.

  “I know you’re going to like the new teacher—and she’ll like you,” Ms. Valentine said. “And we’ll stay in touch, I promise.”

  Kylie nodded, but she knew emails and letters wouldn’t be the same—she practically never spoke anymore to her friends in Florida. Ms. Valentine was the only one who made Kylie feel smart and, well, normal.

  “I have something for you,” Ms. Valentine said, pulling a DVD from her tote bag. “Annie Get Your Gun was my favorite musical when I was your age.” Kylie looked at the cover. It had a weird freckled cowgirl on it.

  “Annie isn’t like other girls—she kind of marches to her own drummer. But in the end, she’s a star,” Ms. Valentine explained. Then she sang: “There’s no business like show business, like no business I know…”

  “Uh-huh” was all Kylie could say. A dumb DVD couldn’t make up for the fact that Ms. Valentine was abandoning her. Nothing could.

  The new drama teacher wrote her name in bright red script on the Smart Board: Ms. Juliette Dubois. Her signature had so many loops and swirls that it looked like an autograph. But Ms. Dubois didn’t look like a movie star. In fact, she looked more like a kid than a teacher. She wore jeans and a pink Abercrombie tee, and her hair was in a long strawberry-blond ponytail down her back.

  “Ms. Duh-boys?” Jeremy tried to pronounce it.

  “It’s Doo-bwah,” Meredith corrected him. “It’s French. My mother took me to Paris last summer, so I know how to speak French fluently.”

  Ms. Dubois raised an eyebrow at Meredith. “Oui?” Then she began chatting away at her in French.

  Meredith swallowed hard. “Um, bonjour ?”

  Kylie tried not to laugh. Maybe this teacher wouldn’t be so bad…not if she could make Meredith squirm!

  “Well, luckily I will be teaching this class in English,” Ms. Dubois continued. “Although I am from Quebec and we speak a lot of French there. You can all call me Juliette.”

  Juliette told them all about playing Juliet in the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s production of Romeo and Juliet. The kids were all impressed—especially when she demonstrated how she got to die dramatically in the play. She pretended to plunge a dagger into her heart and collapsed in a twitching heap on the floor.

  “We’re going to have a lot of fun in this class,” she insisted. “Starting with our first performance in two weeks. We’re going to stage a play for the school’s Wellness Day.”

  Then she handed out small index cards with different foods drawn on them. Bella got a carrot, Jeremy got a box of cereal, and Meredith got a bottle of milk.

  “Cool!” said Abby. “I’m a watermelon. I can spit seeds at the audience!”

  Kylie looked at her card. There was a funny-looking white circle with green lines sticking out of it. “What is this?” she asked.

  “Oh! That’s a turnip,” smiled Juliette. “Whatever food is on your card will be your role in the play.”

  Kylie groaned. Why couldn’t she at least be something people would recognize, like a crunchy apple or a funny banana? “Turnips don’t do anything,” she complained. “They just sit there!”

  “Then it’s the perfect role for you,” Meredith muttered.

  “Every food is fun—I promise,” Juliette said.

  Kylie couldn’t imagine what could be fun about being a turnip. And it only got worse when they started rehearsals a few days later. Jack Yu, who had been cast as the farmer, was trying to yank her out of the soil.

  “Dig deep!” Juliette told him. “Pull, pull, pull! And, Kylie, you act like a really stubborn root.”

  Easier said than done. Jack was nearly twice her size, and he was yanking her arm out of the socket.

  “Now rise, rise, rise, turnip—and squint, like you’re seeing the sun for the very first time,” Juliette instructed.

  Kylie tried to rise gracefully, but the moment she got to her feet, Jack sudd
enly let go—and she fell back to the stage with a hard thud.

  “Ow!” Kylie said, rubbing her bruised butt. “You’re not supposed to drop me!”

  Jack shrugged. “I have other vegetables to pick.”

  • • •

  That night Kylie had a horrible nightmare. Meredith was shoveling dirt on top of her as the audience roared with laughter. Even Ms. Valentine was there in the front row, bouncing her two babies on her lap and cheering. The dirt kept piling up, burying Kylie alive under a mountain of mulch. She gasped for air and tried to scream for help, but she couldn’t get the words out.

  “Honey, you okay?” her mom asked, shaking Kylie gently. “You were having a bad dream. It sounded like you were screaming, ‘I’m not a vegetable!’”

  Kylie woke in a cold sweat—and swore she could taste dirt in the back of her throat. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she lied, and let her mom tuck her back under the covers and rub her back. “Just a stupid dream about being a turnip.”

  “I didn’t know turnips were so terrifying,” her mom said, kissing Kylie’s forehead. “This from the girl who didn’t bat an eyelash watching Zombie Prom?”

  Kylie closed her eyes. She didn’t want to talk about it. Sometimes real life in elementary school was a lot scarier than horror movies.

  She didn’t feel any better the next morning when she saw everyone’s costumes for the first time at dress rehearsal. Jack looked like a real farmer in a pair of mud-stained overalls, a plaid shirt, and a cowboy hat. He was chewing on a drinking straw. “I couldn’t find a piece of real straw,” he explained.

  Abby the Watermelon had a red-and-black polka-dot leotard and a green ruffled skirt. Juliette wouldn’t let Abby spit at the audience, but she was allowed to throw black confetti at them as she said her line, “Careful not to swallow my seeds!”

  Meredith’s mother had had a costume custom-made for her so she could play a bottle of milk in all its glory. “This is 100 percent silk,” Meredith told Bella. “And chiffon—feel!” Then she said her line: “Milk builds strong teeth and bones, strengthens your immune system, and makes your skin glow.” She twirled around in a circle so that the layers of her costume swirled around her in a delicate cloud.

  Kylie looked down at her costume: a pair of white bike shorts and a white tank top. On her head, she had tied a Styrofoam paper plate with green pipe cleaners poked through it. She thought it looked pretty authentic, and Juliette had said it was very creative. But compared to Meredith—who looked more like an angel than a glass of milk—Kylie was a disaster.

  Meredith apparently agreed. “She looks like something you’d throw up,” she hissed behind Kylie’s back. Abby and Bella giggled.

  That was it! Kylie couldn’t take it anymore! Her dad had always told her it was important to stand up for herself, hadn’t he? She was so mad that she didn’t even worry what everyone thought. She spun around, her hands clenched in fists at her sides. “You know what you are, Meredith?” she began.

  Meredith batted her eyelashes and smiled. The rest of the class gathered around them, sensing a fight. Kylie was surrounded by all the brightly colored fruits and veggies. She felt like she was standing in the middle of a giant salad bowl.

  “What?” Meredith taunted her.

  Kylie blurted out, “You’re…you’re…sour milk!”

  Meredith laughed. “Really? That’s the best you can do?” She came closer, almost nose to nose with Kylie, staring right into her eyes. Kylie didn’t blink—not once.

  “What’s going on here?” Juliette asked, carrying a cardboard tree from backstage.

  “Nothing,” smiled Meredith, backing off. “Just practicing my lines!”

  “Everything okay, Kylie?” Juliette asked.

  Kylie nodded. “Fine.”

  But of course it wasn’t. She could feel the stares and hear the laughter of her classmates. The only thing she had done by standing up for herself was make things worse.

  Friday at final rehearsal, Meredith was at it again. “You know my mother sent my portfolio to a modeling agency in New York,” she bragged to Bella. “The agent thinks I’d be perfect for Teen Vogue.”

  Then she turned to Kylie. “You know, you should model,” she said. Kylie raised an eyebrow. She knew there was more coming. Meredith would never pay her a compliment.

  “Huh?” Bella asked. “Her?”

  “Sure,” Meredith said with a smirk. “Kylie could be the cover of next month’s American Ghoul!” She and Bella rolled on the stage laughing.

  Kylie winced at the stupid joke. This time she wasn’t taking the bait. She remembered how her mom always reminded her, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” Nice in concept, but tougher in real life. Sometimes words were just as bad as a bee sting. They pricked.

  “I didn’t realize dress rehearsals were so hilarious,” Juliette interrupted. Meredith sat up and covered her mouth, trying to hide her giggles.

  “Once again from the top,” Juliette said, summoning them back to their places on stage.

  Kylie stood in the back row of “the garden” while Meredith fluttered around the stage. “I could do an arabesque at the end,” she suggested.

  “I don’t think a glass of milk would really do an arabesque,” Juliette said. “But if you’re feeling it…”

  “Oh, I am!” Meredith said, making another graceful twirl. “I am totally feeling it!”

  Kylie rolled her eyes. Meredith was trying to steal the spotlight—and she was doing a pretty good job of it. Why didn’t Juliette notice? Why didn’t anyone else care that she was turning Wellness Day into Meredith Day? They were all mesmerized by her graceful twirls and pliés—just as everyone had been at the hip-hop club auditions. That was the thing about Meredith: she knew how to suck people in. Kylie didn’t know how she did it. If Kylie still believed in fairy tales, she’d swear Meredith had cast an evil spell that made everyone in Blakely worship her. And if there was ever anyone with Wicked Witch potential…

  “Okay, great. Thanks, Meredith!” Juliette said. Thank goodness her teacher had come to her senses! “Maybe you could do a lovely little curtsey at the end?”

  Meredith beamed and took a bow, stepping hard on Kylie’s foot in the process.

  “Ow!” Kylie yelped.

  “Oh, my bad!” Meredith said.

  When Juliette was out of earshot she added, “Maybe you should stand a little farther back…like maybe Jupiter?”

  “What is your problem?” Kylie asked as the bell rang for the next period.

  “I don’t have a problem.” Meredith grinned innocently. Then she linked arms with Emily and Bella and strolled out of the auditorium. “I just can’t wait for the play,” she said, glancing back at Kylie.

  When the day of the play finally arrived, Kylie’s stomach was in knots. The auditorium was packed with students, teachers, and parents. “Places, everybody!” Juliette called backstage. “Remember to enunciate and project!”

  All the grades had gathered in the auditorium for the performance of Food on Parade! Kylie’s part came at the very end of the show, right before the procession of healthy foods.

  “Turnips provide an excellent source of vitamin C and fiber,” she said. As Jack pulled her from the pile of dirt (really a bunch of brown construction paper), she jumped to her feet. “You can also eat my leaves. They’re called turnip greens.” Then she tried to remove a green pipe cleaner from her hat. Funny, but it wouldn’t come loose. So she tried another, then another. They wouldn’t budge.

  “Leave the greens—it’s okay,” Juliette whispered from the wings. But Kylie was determined.

  “What’s wrong with this?” She huffed and puffed, trying not to tear her entire hat apart.

  The kids in the audience started to giggle, and Kylie felt her cheeks flush bright red.

&nbs
p; “Look,” called a fifth grader from the audience. “She’s a red turnip now!” Everyone cracked up—even a few of the teachers.

  Kylie felt like running off the stage, but she stuck it out, marching with the rest of her class in the parade of healthy foods. After they had taken their bows, she untied the plate from her head and checked the pipe cleaners. They had been hot-glued into her hat. She didn’t even need to ask who had done it.

  “Wardrobe malfunction?” Juliette found her backstage. “It happens to the best of them.”

  Kylie wondered if she should rat Meredith out to their teacher. That would feel so good, but she didn’t actually have proof and didn’t want to sound whiny. So she answered, “Yeah, I guess I got a little carried away with the Krazy Glue.”

  “I see,” said Juliette. “Kylie, could I have a word?”

  Kylie’s heart started to pound. Was she in trouble for ruining the play? Would Juliette blame her and send her to the principal? This was awful! And worse, it wasn’t her fault.

  Juliette patted a bench backstage. “Have a seat.”

  Kylie sat next to her, staring down at her sneakers and dreading what was coming.

  “I think someone played a nasty prank on you,” Juliette said. “Am I right?”

  Kylie heaved a huge sigh of relief. “Yes!” she said.

  “Do you know who?”

  She shook her head and lied, “No. Not really.”

  “Well, you know, when I was your age, I was picked on all the time. I had these horrible thick glasses and freckles, and hair that was practically neon red! I used to think it was the color of red velvet cupcakes.”

  Kylie twirled a strand of her own hair around her finger. “Wow,” she said. “That must have been really hard.”

  “It was, but it made me the person I am today.” Juliette reached into her purse and pulled out a small plastic container. In it was a red velvet cupcake, iced with a mountain of white cream-cheese frosting and dusted with crunchy brown-sugar crystals.