Confectionately Yours #2: Taking the Cake!

  To Helen Kahn of Cup and Top Cafe in

  Florence, MA, for her support of local writers

  and for her fine gluten-free muffins

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Slammed

  Confession: I Used to Wish that I Was Artie

  Dirty Work

  Confession: This Isn’t My First Time in a Police Car

  Heat

  Modern Carrot-Cake Cupcakes

  Spiced Cream-Cheese Frosting

  From the IM Files: Part 1

  Costumes

  Math Problems

  Confession: Mr. Carter Is a Dirtbag

  Light Speed

  From the Phone Files: Part 1

  Rain Forest Cupcakes

  Peanut Butter–Butterscotch Frosting

  Busted

  Confession: The Top Five Things I Love about Thanksgiving

  Cornbread Cupcakes

  Mascarpone Frosting

  Like Crazy

  Confession: Artie and I have Broken Up Before

  Over Sharing

  Switch

  Sandwiched

  Confession: It’s Worse Than You Think

  Questions

  Rehearsal

  Pop

  Music

  Confession: I Didn’t Tell Kyle the Whole Truth

  Fractions

  King Kong Cupcakes (Banana-Coconut-Macadamia-Nut Cupcakes)

  Chocolate-Coconut Frosting

  Salt

  Invite

  Confession: My Mom Never Cries

  Bananas

  I Can Take It

  Confession: DID YOU JUST SEE THAT???

  Coconut-Macaroon Cake Balls

  White-Chocolate Frosting

  Glop

  Gingered Pumpkin Cupcakes

  Ginger Cream-Cheese Frosting

  Parade

  Guts

  Dad Was Right

  Heave

  Confession: What I Wanted to Tell My Dad

  Confession about That Confession: I Never Would Have Said Any of That

  Embarrassed

  Olive-Oil Cupcakes

  Rosemary Frosting

  From the Phone Files: Part 2

  Confession: I Wish I Were Like Meghan

  Dumped

  Sarah

  Confession: I’m Glad Sarah Is Gone

  WWMMD?

  Guilty

  Grounded Again

  Confession: Third Grade

  After the Musical

  Break

  Confession: I Think It Isn’t Time to Give Up Yet

  Chocolate-Chip-Cookie Cupcakes

  Twinkies

  Acknowledgments

  Don’t Miss Hayley’s Latest Confessions!

  Bonus Recipes

  About the Author

  Also by Lisa Papademetriou

  Amazing Adventures You’ll Love!

  Copyright

  I’m standing at the front of the cafeteria, covered in lasagna. A noodle clings to my shirt for a moment, then drops onto my shoes with a tomato-sauce splat.

  Why did I have to get lasagna? I wonder. Why didn’t I get the burger? But it wouldn’t have mattered. I’m also covered in chocolate milk.

  “Oops,” Artie says. Then she giggles. “Sorry.”

  “OMG!” Chang lets out a laugh and the two of them walk away.

  She didn’t do it on purpose, I tell myself as I watch my ex–best friend cross the cafeteria to sit with her new crowd. I really do believe that Artie didn’t mean to cover me in lasagna. She’d been chatting with Chang, and neither one of them had been watching where they were going. I’d just gotten my drink. I turned around with my tray, and Artie slammed into me. The tray knocked up against my body, splattering my lunch against my shirt.

  I guess I should be grateful that it wasn’t soup.

  So, no, Artie didn’t do it on purpose — but did she really have to laugh?

  Artie leans over and says something to Kelley, who is sitting beneath a giant paper jack-o’-lantern. It’s Halloween, but nobody’s dressed up. Kelley tucks her blond hair behind her ear and casually looks over at me, and then all three girls crack up again. I feel like I’ve been sliced open. I wonder if the whole cafeteria can see inside my rib cage, where my heart is beating.

  I tighten my grip on the orange plastic tray and watch Chang, but she doesn’t even glance my way. She has her hand up to the side of her face and she’s looking at Artie and laughing.

  Artie picks up her lemonade and takes a sip. She looks out into the crowded cafeteria as if she’s forgotten me already.

  The clink and hum of other students talking and eating surrounds me as everyone else in the cafeteria carries on with their normal lives.

  Last year, we learned that scientists found this woolly mammoth frozen solid in a block of ice. They think the Ice Age may have come on really fast. That’s like what’s happened to me. Artie used to be my friend. My best friend. And then everything changed.

  I turn and walk away. As I head toward the door, I dimly register my other ex–best friend, Marco, sitting with his soccer buddies. There’s another mystery: He used to be almost a brother to me. Now he thinks we shouldn’t hang out as much.

  I don’t break my stride as I drop my heavy tray on a nearby table, abandoning my ruined lunch, and push through the double doors. I’m not hungry anymore.

  I just want to be alone.

  Technically, we aren’t supposed to leave the cafeteria during lunch period, but lots of kids do. I walk over to the playing field nearby and sit down in the stands.

  Overhead, the sky is a heart-shredding shade of gray. I think about how Artie looked right through me in the cafeteria, and the tears start to flow. I’m crying and crying and my face is wet, and the tears are trickling down my neck and I can’t stop crying. I’m trying to be quiet, but I hear someone sit down next to me and I can tell without looking up that it’s Marco. I wipe my face, even though he’s just staring straight ahead.

  “How can she act like that?” I whisper finally.

  “I don’t know.” His eyes flick to mine, then away. He looks like maybe he wants to run, but he stays put beside me.

  I shake my head, thinking that I should try to stop crying, or at least stop talking, but I feel my face twisting, and I can’t stop the words. “It’s like I’m nothing, like I’m worse than something she scraped off her shoe. We were friends.” I can hardly hear my own words now, because the tears are choking me.

  He turns to look at me, and he looks so sad, and so sorry that I feel like another little piece of my heart has been ripped open. “Do you want me to talk to her?” Marco asks.

  I laugh a little — a messy laugh, half snort, half snot. “What would you say?”

  “I’d say, ‘Stop messing with Hayley.’”

  “That’s not really talking, Marco.”

  He looks away. “Yeah. I can’t think of anything better.”

  “Me, neither.”

  He leans toward me then, just a little, until our shoulders are touching. We sit together, just breathing. My arm is warm where it meets his, and I start crying again. Quieter this time. Not as messy. Just tears. I take a deep breath, and my chest feels clean.

  The world shifts just a fraction, and even though everything’s the same as it was five seconds ago, I feel a little better.

  “I thought you didn’t want to hang out together as much,” I say. Why did you say that? I wonder. Things are halfway normal right now — be quiet!

  But Marco just sighs.

  “Ohmigosh, what happened?”

  Meghan Markerson walks up to us with her eyes and mouth ro
und. She’s wearing a purple tunic and yellow leggings, and with her newly dyed green bangs and naturally orange hair, she looks kind of like a cartoon character. I don’t think it’s a costume, though. This is just a normal Meghan outfit.

  “Artie accidentally spilled lasagna on me,” I say.

  “Where is she?” Meghan asks, looking around.

  “Inside,” Marco explains.

  “What?” Meghan screeches. “Is she getting you some towels, or something?” She plants a hand on her hip, like, She’d better be getting Hayley some towels.

  Marco looks at me, and I bite my lip.

  “She’s having lunch,” Marco says.

  Meghan looks at him for a long moment. Then her eyes narrow, and her nostrils flare.

  For some reason, this makes me happy. I’ve been busy dissolving into tears, but Meghan looks like she wants to go inside and rip Artie’s face off. I don’t even know Meghan that well, but she’s clearly outraged on my behalf. I feel better already.

  “Calming breath,” Meghan says to herself, inhaling deeply. She closes her eyes, then waves her hands down the length of her body and shakes them out.

  “What are you doing?” Marco asks.

  “Cleansing my chakras.” She hums a little.

  Marco and I look at each other. He shrugs. I have no clue, either. Meghan’s kind of … unique.

  Her eyes snap open and she looks at me. “Okay, come on.” Meghan holds out a hand.

  “Where are we going?” I ask as she drags me up.

  “To the gym.”

  “To work out?” Marco asks. “Lunch is almost over.”

  “To work out? Are you nuts?” Meghan asks. “No — I’ve got some spare clothes in my locker.”

  “You do?” I ask. “Why?”

  Meghan looks at me, a little half smile on her face. “Because you never know when you’ll get attacked by a lasagna, Hayley.”

  Marco stands, and his warm, dark eyes meet mine. He punches me on the arm gently, and then turns and heads back into the cafeteria.

  “Come on,” Meghan says. She’s already walking toward the gym, so I follow her.

  But I can’t help wishing it was Artie leading the way.

  When I was in fourth grade, Apple Laytner decided that she hated my guts. I don’t really know why. I told her that I really liked her dad’s vegetarian restaurant even though I didn’t like vegetables much, and she punched me in the stomach.

  For days after that, she was rude to me. She slammed me extra hard on the head with a dodgeball. She tripped me when no one was looking. She had it in for me. I tried to apologize, but she wouldn’t stop.

  After the dodgeball incident, Artie, Marco, and I walked home together, just like we always did. I told my friends that I didn’t know what to do, and I asked them for ideas. Marco said that I should’ve punched Apple back in the first place, but I’m not really a punching kind of person. Artie just thought it over.

  The next day, Artie got all of the girls in our class to ignore Apple completely. After two days, Apple’s parents came down to the school and officially complained, but what could our teacher do? You can’t make people talk to someone.

  It only took one more day for Apple to apologize to me, and after that she left me alone for the rest of the year. The next fall, her parents decided to homeschool her.

  Artie was always like a sister to me. She was smart. She cared about me. And I thought she was loyal. I wanted to be like her — just like her.

  Now I wonder how much I ever really knew her.

  I don’t want to get on the bus that afternoon. Artie’s on my bus. Here I am, in flowered leggings and a long black top — Meghan’s spare clothes — and I can’t take facing my Ex-Best in a borrowed outfit.

  It just feels like too much.

  So I don’t. Instead, I walk home with Meghan. It takes longer, but it’s not bad — just a half-hour walk — and it winds past one of the last small farms still in town.

  “Oh, thank goodness!” Meghan says as she steps into a pumpkin patch.

  I giggle — half because Meghan is such a nut, half because she’s making me nervous. “Meghan, you can’t just take a pumpkin out of a field without paying for it,” I say as she reaches for one.

  “Oh, it’s no big deal,” she says. “It’s Halloween — they aren’t going to sell these. They’re just leaving the pumpkins here to rot because it’s good for the soil. But the soil won’t miss one.”

  “That’s not the point. The point is that it’s not your pumpkin. It’s theft.”

  “Look, I would happily pay for it. I tried to buy one at the farm stand yesterday, but it was closed. The co-op was sold out, and so was State Street Fruit. What am I supposed to do — it’s Halloween, and I don’t have a pumpkin!” She tries to heft the pumpkin. “Ugh. It’s heavy.”

  “Well, you picked the fattest one.”

  “My mother always says, ‘If you’re going to go — go big!’”

  “Is she usually referring to criminal activity when she says that?”

  “No, she’s usually referring to ice cream. But the idea is the same. Help me with this.”

  “No way.”

  “Look, just help me get this home, and then I’ll go put some money in the frog.” There’s a frog sculpture in front of First Churches in the middle of downtown Northampton. It has a slot for donations, and any money you put in the frog goes to feed the hungry.

  “How much?”

  “I don’t know.” Meghan stands back and surveys the pumpkin. “What would this cost — about eight dollars?”

  “Probably.”

  “Okay, I’ll put ten dollars in the frog.”

  Meghan reaches for the pumpkin. It’s so heavy that she totters backward, then stumbles onto her rear. She lands in the mud with a splat. The pumpkin rolls onto its side and cracks open.

  Meghan bursts into laughter. “Karma! Ugh! I’m covered in pumpkin guts!”

  And then — get this — she reaches for another!

  “Are you serious?” I demand.

  “I’ve come this far.” She grunts as she heaves the pumpkin into the air.

  “You are totally insane.” She stumbles again, and I rush forward to help her. And just like that, now I’m an accomplice.

  “Thanks, Hayley. I don’t want to be the only person in town without a jack-o’-lantern.”

  I sigh. “Fine, but you have to feed the frog.”

  “I will!” Her dimples deepen as she grins. Here is the thing about Meghan Markerson: She can pretty much get anybody to do anything. She even managed to get our school mascot changed. Most of the kids in our class think she’s kind of weird, but they usually do whatever she says, anyway.

  “Just don’t ask for my help robbing any banks,” I tell her.

  “Please. Look at the lecture I got just for trying to take a pumpkin!”

  Between us, it isn’t so heavy, but it is a little awkward to carry. Plus, the pumpkin patch is muddy. I trip over half-rotted squash as we squish our way — slowly, carefully — to the edge of the field.

  “Let’s take a little break,” Meghan says. “Put it down on three. One, two —”

  And that’s when the police car pulls up.

  Just so you know, they don’t have, like, normal backseats. It’s a hard fiberglass bench. Maybe uncomfortable seats make people confess? I don’t know.

  Anyway, yeah, I’ve been in a police car before. Marco and I got picked up once, when we were in the third grade. We had wandered away from school.

  A police officer found us a few blocks away, on Lowell Street.

  I remember that the police officer was really nice. She said that we could call her Rosie. She even apologized for making us ride in the back, but she said we weren’t allowed to ride in the front.

  Rosie let us sit at her desk at the police station until our parents came. Marco’s mom got there first. Her face was all red and splotchy, and her voice was hoarse, as if she had been crying her head off. She hugged Marco so ha
rd that I thought she might suffocate him. He looked like he was about to die of embarrassment.

  My dad was the one who picked me up. He was all tight lipped and serious, like he didn’t know what to say to me. When we got home, he sat me down and told me that what Marco and I had done was stupid. He demanded that I apologize for leaving school.

  But I wouldn’t.

  He sent me to my room, saying that I couldn’t have dinner until I came out and apologized. I remember passing my little sister, Chloe, in the hallway on the way up to my room. She was only four years old, and she looked frightened. I wanted to scoop her up and tell her I was okay, nothing bad had happened, but then Dad shouted at me to hurry up, so I just touched her shoulder as I walked past.

  During dinner, Mom came upstairs and told me that I could come down and eat the minute I apologized.

  I still didn’t apologize, though.

  The next morning, Dad laid down the law: no breakfast until I apologized.

  The smell of eggs and bacon made my stomach rumble, but I still wouldn’t do it.

  Chloe cried and tried to give me her Cheerios, but Dad wouldn’t let her. Mom looked like she was holding back tears. I just sat at the breakfast table, watching Dad. I don’t know where I got the guts to do that, but I did.