Katie Sprinkles and Surprises (10 page)

By the time Monday came around, I had pretty much forgotten about Olivia's outburst in the lunchroom. When I got off the bus, I was heading to my locker when Olivia approached me.

“Say, Katie, do you plan on cheating on your next math test again?” she asked loudly.

“Drop it, Olivia,” I said. “I didn't cheat.”

“That's what it looks like to me,” said Olivia dramatically, raising her voice even more. “Since your mom and Mr. Green are dating, it makes sense he would give you all the answers in advance.”

My face turned beet red. George, who had just walked past, stopped in his tracks.

“Your mom is dating Mr. Green?” George asked. He thought about it for a second, then smiled. “That's cool.”

Leave it to George to be nice about it. But some of the other kids in the hallway were looking at me funny.

“Take it back, Olivia.”

I turned around to see Callie standing behind me. She looked angry. “That's not true and you know it,” Callie told Olivia.

“It
is
true!” Olivia protested. “You told me!”

“I said Katie's mom was dating Mr. Green, and
I shouldn't have told you that,” Callie admitted. “That wasn't my news to tell. But I certainly did not tell you Katie was cheating. I've known Katie her whole life. She would never do that.”

I was shocked. Was Callie really sticking up for me? Against Olivia Allen? I couldn't believe it, but I was really glad she was doing it.

Olivia wasn't about to admit defeat though. “Her timing was weird, don't you think?” she asked. “Katie isn't great at math, and then all of a sudden she gets an A, right after her mom starts dating Mr. Green?”

“First of all, Mr. Green doesn't even teach Mr. K.'s class, so how would he know the test answers in advance?” Callie pointed out. “And, anyway, Katie says she studied, and I believe her. Mr. Green runs the after-school help class. Anyone can go. You're just mad because you got a B minus on your test in Mr. Green's class. You could have gone for extra help too. But you didn't because the two of us went to the mall instead. You said you didn't need to study for your test.”

“But I
had
to go to the mall. It's not my fault Mr. Green only gives extra help after school,” Olivia said. “And I bet Mr. Green helps Katie right in her house! That's an unfair advantage.”

I wasn't sure how Olivia guessed Mr. Green had helped me study at home, but she was right on target. And maybe she had a point. Was it unfair that Mr. Green helped me at home? I wasn't sure.

But Callie wasn't backing down either. “Isn't that why you're getting an A in Spanish?” she asked Olivia. “It's because your mom is a Spanish tutor! She studies with you whenever you want. It's the same thing.”

Good point, Callie!
I thought.

“It is not the same,” Olivia protested, but I could tell she knew she was wrong.

Then the first bell rang, and everyone hurried off to homeroom. I was never more happy to hear that bell!

I didn't talk to Callie again until we had gym class together. I stopped her as she was going into the locker room.

“Thanks,” I said, “for sticking up for me.”

“I shouldn't have told Olivia about your mom,” Callie said. “I'm sorry about that. I just thought it was so cool that Mr. Green was at my house, and I had to give people a reason why he was there. . . .”

“It's okay,” I said. “I guess people are going to find out, anyway.”
And once they do, what is the worst they could do?
I realized. Besides, I was never really
one to worry about what other kids thought. Why start now?

And then I also remembered that George had said it was cool that Mom was dating Mr. Green. And Callie thought it was cool that he was at her house. And Sophie and Lucy had seemed excited the other day too. So maybe it wasn't embarrassing that Mom was dating Mr. Green. Maybe it was cool. Maybe some kids would even be jealous (but not in an angry Olivia way). I hadn't thought of that before.

“Well, keep me posted,” Callie said, and then she headed into the locker room.

Like I said before, Callie and I stopped telling each other stuff since middle school started. But I still missed her, and what she did at my locker was really nice. I guess it couldn't hurt to keep her posted, could it? I mean, it was nice having Callie in my life once in a while. It's sort of like rainbow sprinkles. It's nice to have green and blue and red and yellow ones, but when you add pink or orange or purple, it's even better.

M
om and I were eating chicken and rice casserole that night, and I had just finished telling her that my Calamity Jane skit with George was a huge hit at school when she looked up at me and cleared her throat. She always does that before she has something she wants to discuss—like school or the importance of flossing my teeth every day or how I need to stop leaving my dirty clothes on the floor of my room. But I figured that this had something to do about Jeff, and I was right.

“So Jeff and I talked about it,” Mom said. “And we decided that it's time for all of us to get together—you and me and Jeff and Emily.”

“That's nice,” I said casually, but inside I was pretty excited. Even after everything that
happened, I was curious to meet Emily.

“We're going for pizza next Saturday night,” Mom said. “Emily's mom is going out of town so Jeff will have her for the weekend. The sooner the better, we thought.”

“Don't forget I have the children's museum thing,” I reminded her.

Mom nodded. “I know. And Jeff and Emily are doing the charity run for the hospital. But we're meeting them at seven, and you'll all be done and cleaned up long before then.”

I told my friends about it the next day at lunch (after I made sure Olivia wasn't eavesdropping nearby).

“So next Saturday, after the exhibit opening, I get to meet Emily,” I said.

“You mean Mr. Green's daughter?” Emma asked. “That's so exciting!”

“I remember the first time I met Dan,” Mia said. “Eddie made us all dinner, and Dan made this really loud burp at the end.”

“Gross!” I cried. “Well, we're going out for pizza. But that's a good tip: Don't burp.”

“And don't get pizza sauce on your face,” Alexis advised.

“Or on your shirt,” Emma added.

“Or you should wear a purple shirt in case you do spill your pizza sauce,” Mia suggested. “You look great in purple, and it's dark enough to hide any sauce stains.”

“Ahh! This is becoming complicated now!” I wailed.

“It's okay! We're just kidding,” Mia said, patting my shoulder. “Just be regular awesome Katie and you'll be fine.”

“But what if she's expecting
extra
awesome Katie?” I worried out loud.

Mia laughed. “You are hopeless!”

“Since you're going to see Mr. Green, maybe you could ask him for more ideas for lighter cupcakes,” Alexis said. “When I told my mom about the angel food cupcakes, she flipped out. She said maybe her tennis club would order them for their big match. But we should probably have one or two more choices besides the angel food.”

I nodded. “Sure, I bet he'll have some good ideas.”

So, the rest of the week was pretty normal. I did see a few kids whispering when I came around, but nobody said anything bad about the Mr. Green thing. And a couple of people, like my friend Beth, came up to me and said stuff like, “It's so cool your
mom is dating Mr. Green. What's he like?” And that was okay.

When the weekend rolled around, we only had a week to get ready for the big space exhibit at the children's museum. We met at Mia's house on Saturday afternoon. It was a nice day, so Eddie had set up stuff outside so we could finish the rocket ship display.

“Look what Eddie and I did,” Mia said, holding up a piece of wood, cut to look like a rocket ship. “Eddie showed me how to use a jigsaw!”

“Oh my gosh! That is awesome,” I said. “You can really cut all the curved lines like that?”

Mia grinned. “Yeah. But I had to go real slow.”

“You're a natural with tools, Mia,” Eddie said. “I always wanted to get Dan interested in woodworking, but he never got into it. Maybe you can be my new assistant. It's kind of like making clothes, only it's wood.”

“That makes no sense!” Mia said, rolling her eyes, but you could tell she was teasing. I guess she wasn't mad at him anymore. That was good to know.

Then Mia pointed to a plastic tub that held all these little bottles of paint in every color you could think of. “We can paint the display, and when it's dry, Eddie will put it together for us.”

“We need to practice the decorations, too,” Alexis reminded her. “I brought a dozen vanilla cupcakes and some vanilla icing.”

“Alexis, you think of everything!” I said.

Alexis grinned. “Yes, I do.”

We painted the spaceship silver with red and blue accents, and then we painted the rings dark blue. Mia had drawn planets and stars using a computer program, and she printed out a bunch of them and cut them out.

“I'll glue those on at the end,” she said.

“This is going to look so cool!” I said.

After we were done painting, we washed up and gathered in Mia's kitchen to practice the decorations. Alexis took notes while Mia dyed the icing in perfect shades of space blue and alien green. She showed us how to cut out stars from the fruit strips using the tiny cookie cutters she had bought. But the most fun was putting together the alien faces. Mia was right; drawing on the little mouth wasn't hard at all, and the white googly eyes and antennae looked really cute.

Eddie came in while we were decorating and held up one of the alien cupcakes in front of his face. “Take me to your leader,” he said in an alien voice.

“That is so corny!” Mia complained.

Then I picked up one of the cupcakes with stars on it. I made it swoop through the air, like a spaceship.

“Presenting . . . cupcaaaaaakes from spaaaace,” I said in a deep movie-announcer voice.

“
You
are from space,” Mia said, giggling.

“I can see Earth from up here,” I said. “And I hear something too. It's Olivia Allen gossiping! I can hear her all the way from space!”

“Oh no!” Emma cried, laughing.

“So true,” Alexis said.

Then I landed my space-traveling cupcake on the kitchen table. “Seriously, these cupcakes are perfect. I hope we can make them look this good next week.”

“Of course we can,” Alexis said. “I took notes on everything.”

“It's easy,” Mia said. “What could go wrong?”

“Do not say that!” I said. “You'll jinx us!”

Mia shook her head. “Stop worrying so much.”

Mom tells me that too. But of course I worry. Because in my life it seems like if something can go wrong, it will!