Sticker Girl and the Cupcake Challenge Page 4

  While the others were busy orchestrating sign-ups and scheduling parking-lot shifts, I worked with Ms. Graham to make sure Craig’s bake sale commercials were on the front page of the school website, sent as an e-mail blast to all parents, and posted on social media. It was exciting to watch people “like” the sale and pass the post along to friends.

  Ms. Graham looks out the window to the cars lining up for drop-off. “After today, our school library will be able to afford LOTS of new books.”

  The rest of our class and the custodian help us set up the tables. Ms. Graham takes out the cash box we used at our last fund-raiser, as well as the scanner that lets her process credit cards on her phone.

  Bev pulls me aside. “You’re not going to believe this,” she says, “but the kittens did some more artwork last night.”

  Bev carefully reaches for her bag and pulls out a model playground—complete with a slide and swing set—made entirely out of old soda cans and water bottles.

  I can’t believe my eyes. “The kittens MADE this?”

  “I heard strange noises coming from our recycling bin,” Bev says. “When I opened the lid, I found the kittens putting this together.”

  It’s a pretty impressive model. Who knew these cats were such artists? Bev places the sculpture as the centerpiece on the largest table.

  Suddenly, parents and kids are lining up to buy food and Scott is drowning in fistfuls of money. I tell Bev I’ll see her in class and rush back to work.

  The next hour is a blur of sugary treats and cash. We sell out of the Neelys’ muffins, and all that’s left of the Habibis’ rugelach is a few crumbs at the bottom of the aluminum pan. I can see Mike and Samantha stressing about the line of hungry customers eager to get on the road and I figure this is my chance to save the day. I’ve worked many busy Sundays at the diner and know how to handle multiple checks with a smile. All the parents are impressed with my professionalism and I regret not putting out a tip jar.

  The morning bake sale is so popular that Mike, Scott, Samantha, and I get excused from our first class. I’m even more relieved because with all the commotion in preparing for the sale, I didn’t have time to read the assigned chapter in our history textbook on the original thirteen colonies.

  As we walk down the hallways on our way back to class, I’m elated with the success of the morning shift. Kids I don’t even know are munching treats and waving. This might be the best school day I’ve ever had—until I open the door to my classroom and see three words written on the chalkboard that bring my spirits crashing down.

  SHOW-AND-TELL.

  How did I let show-and-tell presentations slip my mind?! I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. First an incomplete vocab quiz, and now I forgot an assignment?

  I keep my head down and try not to be noticed as I take my seat. Thankfully the class is focused on the presentation Tommy’s giving on his pet armadillo. Ms. Graham asks Tommy a few follow-up questions about what kind of exercise armadillos like, and then she digs into the fishbowl of names she uses whenever she wants to call on us at random.

  “Martina, you’re our next presenter.”

  I stand and face my classmates. Most of them look expectantly in my direction, eager for a killer presentation from their class president.

  There’s just one problem.

  My mind is blank.

  I’m pretty sure the front row can hear my heart pounding inside my chest. I’ve got to buy some time!

  “Whenever you’re ready, Martina.”

  “Ms. Graham, I just remembered my mom dropped off my show-and-tell item in the office. Can I run and get it?”

  Ms. Graham nods and her hand dives back into the fishbowl. “In the meantime we’ll hear from…”

  I don’t hear which classmate is chosen to take my spot because I’m already running to my cubbie. I throw open the door and dig out my magical sheet of stickers. There’s got to be something on there I can present.

  I quickly scan the sheet. Not the ice cream; we’ve got a parking lot full of baked goods today. Calculator? Not exactly show-and-tell worthy. AHA! The ant farm! I can definitely talk about ants for five minutes.

  I look both ways to make sure no one is coming down the hall.

  comes to life in my hands. Thankfully it’s normal size and not humongous and filled with gigantic ants like something out of a horror movie. (You can never tell with stickers.)

  Hundreds of ants scurry through tunnels behind the glass, bringing specks of sugar from a pyramid of sugar cubes at the top down to their nest at the bottom, like an assembly line.

  I carefully walk the ant farm down the hall to my classroom, where Caitlyn is finishing her presentation on a luchador mask that was passed down from her great-grandmother.

  “Take it away, Martina.” Ms. Graham steps aside to give me the floor.

  “The ants within this ant farm aren’t just insects,” I begin. “They’re a team. They may be small on their own, but when they work together they can move mountains.” I point to the pile of sugar cubes. “Or in this case, cubes of sugar.”

  “Those ants will make a great clean-up crew after the bake sale is over,” Samantha says.

  “The way the ants work together is exactly how everyone came together to make the bake sale a reality today,” Ms. Graham adds.

  Scott raises his hand. “So does that make you our queen, Martina?”

  “No way,” I answer. “This is a democracy!”

  Ms. Graham asks me some follow-up questions about the habitat of ants. Lucky for me, I know enough basic facts to answer her.

  Later, the afternoon bake sale turns out to be bigger than the one this morning. Even Noreen’s quinoa date bars sell out, as well as the gluten-free sugar cookies and the vegan gingerbread.

  As I’m giving José’s dad his change, a woman in a fancy polka-dot top approaches the table holding up her phone.

  “Which one of you made these videos?” she asks. Her hoop earrings dangle under her light-brown hair.

  I pause for a moment before answering. Bev’s eyes are wide and she looks almost terrified. Did I do something wrong?

  I tell the woman I made the videos.

  “These photos and videos are great. And smart for your school to be tagging me on social media.”

  The woman flips her sunglasses onto the top of her head like a headband. “We at Cupcake Challenge would love to have a few contestants like you.” She breaks into a smile and extends her hand.

  “I thought it was you!” Bev jumps up and down and grabs the woman’s arm before I can. “Martina, it’s Christy Morales!”

  With her sunglasses and yoga outfit I didn’t recognize her, but sure enough it’s the host of the web series Cupcake Challenge.

  “You want US to be on your show?” I ask.

  She puts a five-dollar bill on the table and picks up one of the Craig-inspired cupcakes. If she asks if I made them, should I say yes even though Nigel did the work?

  I can feel Bev holding her breath, waiting for Christy’s reaction.

  “Your cupcakes are very good,” Christy finally says. “But your social media campaign and video content are even better. We’re starting a new series next week and still need a couple of whiz kids—what do you say?”

  For all the things Bev and I have in common, we couldn’t be more different in how we react when we’re on the spot. Whenever I’m pushed anywhere near the center of attention, I shut down. It’s like my personality runs and hides deep in the back of my mind until the spotlight passes and it’s safe to come out again. Bev on the other hand can’t stop talking to save her life. I can’t believe the flood of information that pours out of her now.

  “Martina and I love you!” Her arms flail wildly as she talks. “We watch every episode of your show as soon as it’s uploaded! Well, except for last night’s episode on desserts you can make in a mug because my mom made me help her organize her closet to take some stuff to Goodwill. But I eat desserts out of a mug all the time! I gue
ss it’s not exactly the same as actually making them in a mug, but Martina’s the one with the culinary talent. Right, Martina?”

  It takes me a while to recover from the avalanche of Bev’s words and realize Christy is waiting for me to respond. “My parents own a diner,” I finally answer.

  “You two have great energy,” Christy says. She crosses one arm over her waist and taps a finger on her bottom lip. “We’ve never had two contestants on the show who are friends.”

  “Friends?!” Bev wraps her arms around me in a death grip. “Martina and I are practically sisters!”

  “So you’re interested?” Christy lets out a small laugh. “Great. Would it be okay if my team called your parents?”

  We both shout a giant YES.

  We’re going to be contestants on our FAVORITE web series!

  CUPCAKE CHALLENGE,

  Getting Camera Ready

  Even though we’re both ready to make our official web series debut, Bev and I aren’t allowed to be filmed without our parents’ permission, so we e-mail the producers their contact info. Both my parents know how much I love watching people my age cook or bake online—ESPECIALLY on Christy Morales’s show—so I know they’ll let me compete. Since they’ll make me promise my schoolwork won’t suffer, I prepare a detailed calendar of when I’ll be able to study. Dad’s more excited than Mom and says yes before I even present my plan. I wonder if he hopes I’ll follow him into the family business someday.

  Bev’s grades aren’t as good as mine so her parents make her jump through a few more hoops—like fewer sleepovers and more conferences with Ms. Graham. But in the end, they say yes too. Bev comes over Saturday afternoon to share the good news, bringing the kittens along to play.

  “We’ve got to figure out what to wear,” she says. “And how we’ll do our hair. I was thinking I’d wear mine down. Do you think they’ll make us wear nets or hats so we don’t get hair in the food?”

  Bev’s barely ever baked a potato—let alone a batch of Instagram-worthy cupcakes. I tell her job one is practicing our kitchen skills.

  “Wrong,” she says. “First and foremost, we need to look great.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  Bev nods. “Break out the stickers!”

  I double-check that we’re both thinking the same thing. “You’re talking about the lipstick, right?”

  Bev laughs. “No, let’s cover ourselves in ice cream. OF COURSE the lipstick!”

  Before I take out the sticker sheet, I look in on the kittens, who are quietly resting on my bed. They don’t seem dangerous today and I hope they behave while Bev and I experiment with how we’ll look on camera—as if my parents will ever let me wear makeup. But that doesn’t stop me from peeling off the lipstick sticker anyway.

  appears in my hand. It is a beautiful pink: not too bright, not too pale. The perfect color.

  “You go first,” Bev says.

  I’ve never put on lipstick before so I need a mirror. The last thing I want is to be broadcast on computers and cell phones across the world with a pink, crooked smile like some clown. Bev and I go into the bathroom and take turns slowly putting color on our lips. Then we take Mom’s hand mirror and go back to my room, admiring ourselves. We look great!

  But something feels a little off. “I didn’t think lipstick had a taste,” I say.

  “Sometimes it’s cherry or vanilla flavored,” Bev says, “but this is something else.” She takes the tube from my hands, pops the cap back off, and sniffs. “It’s definitely not cherry.”

  I run my tongue over my lips. “It kind of tastes like … tuna fish.”

  Before the word is out of my mouth, the two kittens pounce on us, licking our faces.

  “Who would make tuna-fish lipstick?” Bev asks. “Worst. Idea. Ever!”

  Burger and Fries are now in all-out lunchtime mode while Bev and I frantically fight them off. For kittens, they’re amazingly strong and their tongues are scratchy and rough.

  From the other end of the house, Lily hears the ruckus and comes racing into the room. My bed is suddenly a tornado of paws, whiskers, and tails.

  When Bev and I get all three animals off us, we look at each other, stunned. With our disheveled hair, red faces, and smudged pink lipstick, we are anything but camera ready.

  Eric sticks his head into my room on his way to work. He’s been logging so many hours lately that I see him more in his coffee-shop clothes than his normal ones.

  He looks at us and cringes. “Mom said you got on a cooking show—you sure it’s not a horror series?”

  “GO AWAY!” I scream. I’m too busy scrambling to hide the lipstick from the kittens to throw out a good comeback. I don’t want the kittens to choke on the tube in their frenzy for more tuna fish.

  I must’ve surprised Eric with how loud I yelled because he’s speechless in the doorway, then walks off without a word.

  I put the kittens in Lily’s crate and poke my finger in to feel Burger’s silky fur. “Why can’t they be calm like this all the time?”

  Nigel suddenly appears with a bucket and sponge. “I’m washing all the fingerprints off the light switches and doorknobs. Your room is next.”

  “WOW!” Bev springs up to greet my robot that used to be a sticker. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Nigel.” She curtsies and speaks in a fake English accent.

  Nigel’s gumballs rumble in his head. “Are you mocking me?”

  “No, I’ve just heard so much about you,” Bev explains. “You make great cupcakes, by the way.”

  I tell Nigel that now isn’t a good time to clean my room, but he gets to work anyway.

  “It will take me 10.36 seconds to complete this task. There, all done. Tell your friend her accent was terrible.”

  Nigel zooms out of the room and down the hall.

  Bev picks up the carrier as the kittens now gently snooze inside and says she’s going home to finish her schoolwork. “I don’t want to give my parents any reason to have second thoughts about Cupcake Challenge,” she says.

  That evening, Dad brings my abuelita over to watch the season finale of Dancing with the Stars and give us all haircuts. She’s been trimming my brothers’ and my hair since before I can remember. But now that Eric has his own money, he prefers to go to a real barber downtown.

  I take a seat at our kitchen table and my grandmother drapes a towel over my chest. She struggles to brush my hair straight because it’s filled with tangles from when I fought off the tuna-crazed kittens.

  “Martina! What happened to your pretty hair?” She frowns and grabs a wider comb to work through the knots.

  “Bev and I were playing with kittens,” I say. “They kind of got out of control.”

  Dad comes in to grab a soda from the fridge. “Those kittens you had here the other day? I had a bad feeling about them.”

  Abuelita runs her hand down my arm to the beaded bracelet around my wrist. “You must be careful, Marti. Evil spirits love a challenge.”

  I quickly change the subject to the finale of Dancing and thankfully Abuelita doesn’t mention evil spirits for the rest of the night.

  But that doesn’t mean I’m not still thinking about them. Am I asking for trouble by being on Cupcake Challenge?

  I just hope the answer to this question doesn’t reveal itself on camera.

  The Other Contestants

  Bev comes over on Saturday so we can hone our baking skills for the first competition. We spend the morning studying challenges from the last two seasons. If people across the country are going to watch us bake, we need to be ready for every holiday challenge, pastry puzzle, and surprise ingredient they throw at us.

  “No ingredient is off-limits,” I tell Bev. “We have to be ready to incorporate anything into a baked good.”

  The rest of the weekend is spent catching up on homework and even reading ahead. I don’t want to mess up my chance to appear on Cupcake Challenge.

  Back in school on Monday, I promise myself not to say a
nything about getting chosen to be on the show until after the first episode airs, but Bev lets the cat out of the bag before reaching her desk.

  “Guess what?” she shouts. “Martina and I are going to be on Cupcake Challenge and we start filming today!”

  I get that Bev loves to be the center of attention; I just wish she didn’t always have to drag me along with her.

  “No way!” Samantha says. “Those kids make the cutest desserts!”

  Ms. Graham is in shock. “Martina and Bev, this is incredible! When can we tune in?”

  Bev answers for us. “What we film today should be uploaded to their channel next week. The producers shoot all three episodes before uploading any of them.”

  “This year has certainly been full of accomplishments,” Ms. Graham says. “I was going to wait until this afternoon, but since we’re already celebrating, Scott will tell us the final tally on the bake sale profits.”

  Scott rolls up a sheet of notebook paper into a makeshift megaphone and speaks into it. “As class treasurer, it is my pleasure to announce that our bake sale earned seven hundred and fifty-six dollars!”

  The class explodes in cheers, and a huge smile spreads across my face. That number is a lot higher than I would have guessed!

  “That means many more books for our school library,” Ms. Graham says. “Great job, everyone.”

  I feel like I’m walking on clouds for the rest of the day, and that’s BEFORE we go to Cupcake Challenge.

  After school, Bev’s mom drops us off at Christy Morales’s studio, which is only a fifteen-minute drive from my house. Who knew the show I’ve been watching all this time is filmed so close by?

  When the producers ask Bev and me if it’s okay that we’re on the same team, we both shout, “YES!” Actually it’s MORE than okay—for me, it’s absolutely necessary. I can’t imagine being part of a real show without Bev taking the lead. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to work in the background, prepping all the ingredients, while Bev’s on camera doing all the talking.