I envy birds who can fly.
I want to fly too.
On an airplane.
—IB
Chapter 3
peanut butter and jelly cupcakes
KIDS GO WILD OVER THESE
I need to find a way to make some money,” I told Sophie as she picked up a National Geographic from my nightstand. Mr. Nelson, my sixth-grade social studies teacher, had given it to me.
“Won’t your mom pay you for working in the cupcake shop?”
“I don’t think so. They have to pay back the loan they’ve taken out, and there won’t be a lot of money left over. Besides, I’m not old enough to work, so it’s not really working, you know? And I bet it won’t be very often. I mean, I have school. I have a life!”
“And turtles!” Sophie said, as she picked up one of my many stuffed turtles that lay at the end of my bed. “You can’t bake cupcakes, Chickarita. The turtles need you!”
I snatched the turtle from her hands. “Yeah, to save them from the turtle haters of the world like you!”
My grandma got me a stuffed turtle for my fifth birthday. I sort of became obsessed with them. She still gets me one every year, so now I have, like, a whole army of turtles.
Sophie sat up and tossed the magazine back where she found it. “Okay. So what do you need the money for?”
I bit my lip. I wasn’t sure if I should tell her. What if she didn’t understand?
“Don’t laugh, okay? I want to go on a trip. It’s so pathetic that I’ve never been anywhere outside of Oregon!”
She sat up straighter. “Ooh, a trip! How fun! Maybe you can go to Disneyland. I had so much fun when we went a few years ago. Okay, so Hayden screamed like his arm was being cut off at the sight of Mickey or Goofy, or any of the other characters, but still. It was a blast.”
I decided not to tell her that a trip to an amusement park wasn’t really what I had in mind. She kept talking. “Well, I know Mrs. Canova across the street from us is looking for a mother’s helper to watch her three-year-old twins. She’s doing cooking shows and selling kitchen tools in people’s homes a couple of nights a week. She wants someone to come a few hours a day and watch the boys while she works in her office, making calls and doing computer work. She asked me to do it, but I’m leaving for camp in a few days.”
I felt my stomach tighten up. I’d forgotten she was going to camp. “How long are you going to be gone?”
“Three weeks. Well, camp is for two weeks, but after Mom and Dad pick me up, we’re going to the Grand Canyon for vacation.”
My stomach got even tighter. “You get to see the Grand Canyon?”
She stood up and stretched, her arms clasped above her head. She reached to the right just slightly, reminding me of a tall, lean ballerina.
“Yeah. If I survive the car ride. Hayden’s latest obsession is the solar system. The whole way there, I’ll have to listen to him spout off facts about Saturn and Mars and every other planet in the galaxy. I don’t get it. Who cares about planets that are millions of miles away?”
“Girls,” Mom called from the other room, “I’m back. Want to come help make the cupcakes?”
I looked at Sophie and shrugged. “You want to?”
She started walking toward the door. “Sure. But wait. Are you gonna go see Mrs. Canova?”
“Yeah, I probably will, if Mom and Dad say it’s okay. Little kids aren’t my most favorite thing in the world, but how hard can it be?”
She laughed and threw her arm around me as we walked down the hall. “Oh, sure. A piece of cake. Or should I say, cupcake?”
I got the job and started a couple of days later. I think scrubbing floors with a toothbrush would have been easier than babysitting two toddler boys.
“No, Lucas, don’t—” But I was too late. The bowl of water he’d been using to dip his paintbrush in was now all over the kitchen floor. Frustrated that his blue blob looked nothing like a stegosaurus, he had grabbed the bowl and dumped its contents.
Logan sat in his chair, paintbrush out like a sword drawn for battle, little chuckles coming from his mouth as he said, “Dat’s funny.”
The chuckles turned into a full-blown laugh as they watched me on my hands and knees, trying to sop up the water with a big wad of paper towels.
“It’s not funny,” I told them. “We have to be careful when we’re painting. Very, very careful. You understand, Lucas?”
Lucas nodded his head, then grabbed his paint-brush and painted across the kitchen table. “Keep paint on paper.”
Knowing that paint on a table is much worse than water on a floor, I tried to jump up and clean it before it dried. Normally that would have been fine, except the floor was slippery, so my flip-flops couldn’t get a firm grip, and I ended up back on the floor. Total face plant.
Lucas and Logan threw their paintbrushes in the air like confetti to celebrate the occasion, and laughed until they cried.
Me? I just cried.
When I got home, a pretty pink sign with elegant black lettering greeted me.
It’s Raining Cupcakes
I ran up the stairs, excited to tell Mom how great the sign looked. After I turned the corner when I reached the top of the stairs, I ran right into Stan, carrying suitcases in both hands.
“Isabel,” he said, laughing. “You in a hurry?”
“Oh, sorry. Hey, are you going somewhere?”
“Just getting them out of storage. We don’t leave for another week. Judy and I are going to jolly old England.”
My heart leaped at the thought. “You’re going to England? What part?”
“The northeastern part to start with. County Durham, North Yorkshire, and Northumberland.”
“You’ll get to see Durham Castle! And the Durham Cathedral!”
He chuckled. “Have you been there, Isabel?”
I shook my head. “I just read a lot.”
He nodded like he understood. “Well, you probably know more about the place than I do. I’m not much into traveling. More of a homebody myself.”
“Then why are you going?”
He smiled. “Because I have a wife who has wanted to go to England for years. I surprised her and bought tickets for an anniversary gift. Our thirtieth is coming up in a couple of weeks. Anyway, I’ll send you a postcard, how’s that?”
“I’d love that. Wait, are you closing your barber shop while you’re gone?”
He nodded. “I figure with all the construction going on, it’s for the best anyway.”
The way he said it made me feel funny. Was he angry that we had moved in and things were changing in the neighborhood? Maybe he had liked having a Laundromat next door. And maybe he didn’t like cupcakes.
He must have read my mind. “No worries, though. You’re sprucing up the neighborhood. I bet my business increases tenfold thanks to you.”
That reminded me of something I’d been wondering about. “Hey, who lives in the third apartment up here? I haven’t seen anyone else around.”
“That’d be Lana. She’s away on a trip herself. To visit family, I believe. Can’t remember when she’s due back. But anyway, you’ll like her. She’s a real nice gal.”
I smiled. “See ya later, Stan. Have fun packing.”
“Knock-knock,” he said.
“Who’s there?”
“Stan.”
“Stan who?”
“Stan back! I think I’m going to sneeze!”
Ha, more like, Stan gets to go to England and Isabel doesn’t. No fair!
I pulled my passport book out of my back pocket, along with the tiny pencil I carried, and wrote:
Queens live in castles.
I’d love to visit a castle
and feel like a queen
for a day.
—IB
When I walked into our apartment, a gray, smoky haze greeted me. And the smell! It was like when cheese from the pizza drips onto the bottom of the oven and burns, only worse.
“Mom? Dad?”
“In here!” Dad yelled.
He was in the kitchen, using a towel to wave smoke away from a cupcake pan.
“What happened? Where’s Mom?”
“She’s in her room. Go open all the windows and then see if she’s all right.”
I went around the apartment and opened every window. It was sunny and warm outside—not much of a breeze—so it didn’t help a whole lot.
When I got to her bedroom, I found Mom sitting on her bed, staring out the window. I sat down next to her.
My stomach felt funny. Nervous. Mom let things get to her so easily. Little things that most people can just laugh off. But not my mother. I’d learned over the years that talking to her when she was upset about something was like that game where you walk across the yard with an egg on your spoon, the whole time trying not to drop the egg. As I sat next to her, my mind whispered, Careful, be careful, step slooowly.
I thought of the time she had planted a garden a few years ago at our duplex. She was excited about growing her own carrots, radishes, and tomatoes. Things seemed to be going along pretty well. The plants started growing, and we could see the first signs of some yummy vegetables. But then one morning she woke up and discovered a bunch of gopher holes. Dad said they could try traps, but she wasn’t interested. She just gave up. Said she wasn’t meant to be a farmer, and that’s why we have grocery stores anyway. So while the moles had a party in our backyard, Mom spent the rest of the day in her room.
Grandma told me one time that Mom is missing the gumption gene. Of course I had no idea what gumption was. It sounded to me like some kind of terrible soup. When I told Grandma that, she laughed and explained that it means spirit or spunk. When things don’t go quite right, Mom’s solution is to just give up.
“Mom?” I asked.
She didn’t answer.
“Are you all right? Did you burn yourself or anything?”
She shook her head and sighed. “I’m fine. Just not cut out to make cupcakes.”
I turned and faced her. “Mom, everyone burns things. We put something in the oven and we forget. Remember that one time I burnt a batch of snickerdoodles? I felt so bad, and you told me not to worry, because it was just one batch and we still had plenty of dough to make lots of cookies for the bake sale. Now I’m telling you, don’t worry! You’re the best baker I know. Come on. Cheer up! The sign is so beautiful. It made me excited when I saw it. Didn’t it make you excited?”
She turned to face me. Her mousy brown hair was kind of messed up and her green eyes looked sad. But for a moment, there was a little sparkle in them. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes! So be happy, okay? Now I’m going to make dinner for us tonight. You rest if you want to, but I’m coming to get you in thirty minutes.”
“Thanks, Is.”
I gave her a quick hug before I re-entered the smoke zone.
“Is she okay?” Dad asked. He was sitting on the couch, checking things off the list on his clipboard.
“Yeah. I think she’s just worried. I mean, it’s a scary thing, opening a new business, right?”
Dad looked at me. He tried to smile, but the wrinkles in his forehead told me he was worried too. “You’re right. It’s scary for anyone. She’ll be fine. We just need to stay positive even when she worries.”
“I’m going to make dinner. Tacos all right?”
He turned the TV on and started flipping through the channels. “Sounds good,” he said. “Thanks, honey.” When he came to a baseball game, he stopped. I could tell from the uniforms that the Red Sox were playing the Yankees. Dad’s a huge Red Sox fan.
“Did you know Stan is going to England?” I asked him as I leaned up against the back of the sofa behind where he sat. He turned and looked up at me for a second, and I noticed how tired he looked.
He’d been working long hours downstairs, helping to get the cupcake shop ready. During the school year, he taught high school math, but every summer he spent his time differently. One year he taught summer school. Another year he painted the inside and outside of our old duplex. This year he was helping to get the cupcake shop ready. As I thought about it, I realized the guy never stopped. Never took the time to rest. I know some people like to keep busy, and maybe it was his way of dealing with Mom and her stuff, but still, it just didn’t seem right to me.
“Yeah,” Dad said. “Stan told me. Sounds like a great trip.”
“Dad, how come we never go anywhere? Isn’t it just completely sad that I’ve never even been on an airplane?”
He reached over and patted my hand resting on the top of the sofa. “Sad? No. Disappointing? Maybe. When you get older, you can travel all you want, how’s that?”
“Well, that’s why I want to be a flight attendant. But really, do I have to wait that long?”
He gave a little grunt as one of the batters struck out. Then he looked back at me. “Didn’t your aunt Christy say she’d take you on a trip when you turn sixteen?”
“That’s four years, Dad. Four long years. How come we can’t take a vacation? A real vacation? You need one! We could go to Florida or Mexico, or what about Australia?”
He laughed. “Australia? You’ve never even been out of Oregon and suddenly you want to see Australia?”
“I want to see everything! And anything! I’m so tired of Willow. Aren’t you?”
He turned back to watch the game. “No,” he said quietly. “This is our home, Isabel. We belong here.”
We belong here? Or we’re stuck here? I wanted to tell him there was a difference. But instead I went into the kitchen and made tacos. Just like I belonged there.
Chapter 4
chocolate coconut cupcakes
TASTE LIKE A MILLION BUCKS
I was a complete idiot and took the babysitting job without asking how much I’d get paid. When Mrs. Canova paid me on Friday for the two days I’d worked that week, she gave me thirty dollars. That was only fifteen dollars a day. Okay, I didn’t actually work the whole day, just a half day. But still, I guess I’d expected a little more. It was hard work trying to keep up with those boys!
I was complaining to Sophie about it the day before she had to leave for camp, after I’d spent the afternoon repairing the damage caused by the dual cyclone known as Lucas and Logan. While I’d been doing the dishes after snack time, they’d decided to take the books off the bookshelf in their room and wipe the pages clean with the flushable wipes they found in the bathroom.
“Wipes are for your bottoms, not your books,” I told them when I walked in and saw what they were doing.
They just laughed, like always.
“Well, think of it this way,” Sophie said, trying to shove another sweatshirt into her already full suitcase. “By the end of the summer, you should have a few hundred bucks, right? That might be enough money to buy an airplane ticket.”
“Yeah, right. If I want to go to Pocatello, Idaho.”
I lay on her bed, looking at her bookshelf and the soccer and softball trophies she’d won over the years. Her parents had always encouraged her to try new things. She’d played sports, taken piano lessons, and participated in the summer children’s theater program until now, when she was finally too old.
I’d never done any of those things. My mom thought sports were dangerous. We didn’t have a piano. Or any instrument, for that matter. When I asked for a guitar one time, Mom said noise gave her bad headaches, as if she didn’t think I could actually make the thing sound good.
As for the theater, I could never picture myself up on a stage. Sophie’s good at that kind of thing. But not me. While she was gone, I’d stay home and read books, or watch soap operas, waiting for our antique clock to chime four o’clock. That was when Sophie would come home, and we’d play outside before dinner.
Now Sophie smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand in a very dramatic way, snapping me back to reality about my moneymaking dilemma. “Oh my gosh, Is, I have the perfect solution. I can’t believe I almost forgot to tell
you. Does your mom still get Baker’s Best magazine?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “At least, I haven’t seen one lying around lately. Why?”
She reached over and opened the top drawer of her desk. I sat up as she handed me a magazine, open to a page that read BAKING CONTEST FOR KIDS AGES 9—14.
“A baking contest?” I asked her, my heart starting to pound inside my chest. “Are you going to enter?”
She nodded, and her eyes got really big. “Grand prize is a thousand dollars. But you have to come up with a recipe on your own. No one can help you. Not your mom, not your grandma, no one.”
My eyes skimmed the rules. They were looking for a completely original dessert recipe. Each entry would be graded on easiness to prepare, uniqueness, presentation, and taste. All entries had to be postmarked by August 1, which wasn’t that far away.
When I got to the bottom of the paragraph, I jumped off the bed. “Finalists will be flown to New York City along with one parent or guardian for a bake-off!” I yelled. “Sophie, we could go to New York! The Statue of Liberty. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Radio City Music Hall!”
“Does it say how many finalists there’ll be?” she asked.
“No. But wouldn’t it be fun if we both made it?”
She sat down on her suitcase, reached down, and flipped the latches closed. “It would be a blast.” Then she pointed her finger at me. “As long as you know I’m in it to win.”
I smiled. “What do you want the money so bad for, anyway?”
She stood up and took the suitcase off her bed, and then, with a loud grunt, dropped it on the floor. “The future. As for the present, I think I packed too much. I have to pack in case it’s ninety degrees or forty. How come Oregon’s weather is so unpredictable, anyway?”
“Wait a minute. What do you mean the future? Like college?”
She took the magazine from my hand and threw it on the bed. “Maybe. Come on. Time for you to go home so I can get my toiletries packed. Isn’t that a stupid word? Toiletries? It makes it sound like the stuff comes from the toilet.”
She walked me to the door, and I gave her a quick hug. “See you when you get back,” I told her. “I’ll be practicing recipes while you’re gone.”