Love Stinks! (5 page)

The minute the girls left the candy shop, Katie locked the door and turned the sign on the door so it read CLOSED. She didn’t want to have to pretend to be Cinnamon for all the store’s customers.

Then she plopped down on the floor near the penny candy bins and frowned. Everything had gone wrong today. And to top it all off, the magic wind had come and turned her into Cinnamon!

Hmmm.
Katie thought about that for a minute. Actually, being Cinnamon wasn’t all bad. At least she could eat as much candy as she wanted. After all, she owned the store.

Katie walked over to the lemon-drop bin, and took a big handful. Next, she decided to munch on jelly beans.
Mmm
... the red ones tasted like strawberries. Katie took
two
handfuls of those.

After the jelly beans, Katie popped two Red Hots in her mouth at the same time. YIKES! Those were hotter than she’d thought they would be. Just then, Katie spotted some heart-shaped, chocolate-covered mints on the counter. A cool mint was the perfect thing to soothe a hot mouth. Katie took a handful of those, too ...

Oooh.
Suddenly, Katie didn’t feel so good. Her stomach hurt. And she had a headache. It figured. Those stupid
heart-shaped
candies had gotten her sick! Even further proof that there should be no Valentine’s Day!

Angrily, Katie grabbed the candy order forms her friends had filled out.
“LOVE STINKS!”
she shouted as she tore them into little pieces.

Katie sat there for a moment, staring at the pile of shredded paper she had just made. She couldn’t believe what she’d done! Why did she rip up the forms? She was Cinnamon, and she had to make the hearts! That was bad. Really bad.

Katie looked at the clock. It was 5:15 already and the mailman was coming at 6:00! That didn’t leave much time.

She jumped up and raced into the kitchen. She had spotted some of the big candy hearts there on a shelf. Katie grabbed three of them and laid them out on Cinnamon’s work area. She picked up the candy chisel from the counter. She’d seen Cinnamon make the hearts just the other day, when she and Jeremy were at the shop. Chiseling messages hadn’t looked so hard then.

The messages!
Oh, no! Katie had torn them up. She had no idea what she was supposed to write!

Quickly, she zoomed back into the front of the shop and picked up all the little scraps of paper. Uh-oh. She’d
really
torn them up. It was impossible to make out what words the girls had written.

But Katie was going to have to try. “It’s just like a puzzle,” she told herself. “All I have to do is put the pieces together.”

Eventually, Katie actually managed to put together some messages. But the sentences didn’t make a whole lot of sense. At least not to her.

She looked up at the clock. Yikes! There was no more time to figure things out. She’d have to work with what she had.

All she could do was start writing and hope for the best.

Katie was just putting the last address label on the candy boxes when the mail carrier arrived. He knocked on the door, and Katie let him into the shop.

“Hi, Cinnamon,” he greeted her. “Closing early today?”

“I, um, I had to make a lot of candy, so I shut the shop,” Katie answered quickly.

“You have any packages for me?”

Katie nodded. “Just these three boxes. They’re all going to Cherrydale Elementary School.”

“The elementary school!” the mailman exclaimed. “Boy, oh, boy. Don’t kids just send those little paper cards anymore?”

Katie shrugged. “Some do. These girls didn’t think that was enough, I guess.”

“Kids today,” the mail carrier sighed.

“I know,” Katie agreed, sounding very much like a grown-up.

“This is a busy time of year for both of us.” He patted his mailbag and smiled. “Love is definitely in the air.”

Katie rolled her eyes. “Yes, it is,” she replied.

“Well, see ya tomorrow,” he said as he took the boxes and left the shop.

Katie locked the door behind him and took a deep breath. She was glad she’d managed to get the hearts finished in time. Now all she had to do was clean up the mess she’d made in the kitchen. Katie was not a very neat candy maker. There was sugar everywhere!

But as soon as she walked into the kitchen, Katie felt a slight draft on the back of her neck. She didn’t have to look to see if there was a breeze anywhere else in the shop. She knew there wouldn’t be.

The magic wind was back.

And
that
wind only blew around Katie.

The magic wind picked up speed, spinning wildly around her like a full-blown tornado. Katie gripped onto the kitchen counter and shut her eyes tight.

And then the wind stopped. Just like that.

Katie opened her eyes slowly and looked around. She was still in the shop’s kitchen. But she wasn’t alone anymore. Cinnamon was there, too. She looked very confused.

“What happened here?” Cinnamon asked Katie. “This place is a mess.”

“I think you were in a hurry to get those candy hearts finished,” Katie told her.

“Candy hearts?”

Katie nodded. “You know the ones that Jessica, Mandy, and Becky ordered?”

“Oh, yeah,” Cinnamon said. “I have to make those. Or did I already do that? I’m not sure. It’s all kind of foggy.”

“You made them, and you gave them to the mailman,” Katie assured her.

Cinnamon shook her head and sat down on a stool. “I think I need to get a breath of fresh air,” she said. “I’m going to take a walk.”

“Okay,” Katie said quickly.

“Do you want me to help clean up?” Katie asked.

“No. I’ll straighten the kitchen when I get back. After all,
I
made the mess.”

Katie frowned. Not exactly. But she couldn’t explain that to Cinnamon. “Okay, bye!” she shouted as she darted out of the store as fast as she could.

Katie groaned as her alarm clock went off on Friday morning. She was not looking forward to this day. Today, class 4A was celebrating Valentine’s Day. And Katie hated Valentine’s Day.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, sleepyhead,” Katie’s mom called cheerfully as she walked into Katie’s room.

“Grr ...” Katie pulled the covers over her head.

“I got you an early Valentine’s Day gift,” her mother said, peeling back the covers and handing Katie a small package.

Katie unwrapped the gift and sighed. Inside was a package of new tights—white ones with tiny black hearts on them.

“I thought you could wear them to your class party today,” Mrs. Carew suggested.

Katie didn’t want to disappoint her mother. “Thanks, Mom,” she said, forcing a smile.

Katie’s new tights fit right in with her classroom. On Friday, class 4A was the Valentine’s Day capital of the world! Mr. Guthrie had made a giant mobile with all the cards he’d received from his students. It was hanging from the ceiling. Cardboard cupids flew joyously over the blackboard, and red construction paper hearts were plastered to the side of Slinky’s glass tank. Katie thought the whole room looked horrible!