Mia's Recipe for Disaster by Coco Simon Page B

mom motioned to the adults. “Let’s head into the kitchen for coffee. You can come too, Dan.”
    â€œThanks,” my stepbrother replied. “It’s getting way too girlie in here.”
    I sat down on Katie’s comfy couch and unwrapped my cupcake. The pleats on the wrapper reminded me of a pleated skirt.
    â€œHey!” I cried. “What about a dress made entirely out of cupcake wrappers?”
    â€œOh my gosh! That’s genius!” Katie cried.
    Alexis nodded. “Cupcake fashion. Could be a nice business tie-in.”
    â€œWell,” said Emma. “Considering what happened this time, maybe you should stay clear of mixing cupcakes with fabric.”
    â€œGood point,” said Katie. “Unless wearing frosting is part of the design.”
    I laughed. It felt good to joke about the disaster now. And besides, that catastrophe made me rethink the design and be open to other suggestions. All things Mom said were really important for being a fashion designer.
    I was glad that the contest was over and that I could just hang out with my friends again. It had been a pretty stressful few weeks. Third place wasn’t what I originally planned for, but it turned out to be a pretty big deal. As I bit into the delicious cupcake, I realized that sometimes things don’t exactly go as planned, and they don’t end perfectly, but sometimes they end up sweeter in the end.

W ant another sweet cupcake?
    Here’s a sneak peek of the next book in the

    series:
    Emma’s
    not-so-sweet
    dilemma

Baking Hazard
    M y alarm went off and I hit snooze, even though I was already more than half awake. The Cupcake Club was coming over pretty early this morning to work out the kinks in a new recipe we were creating for a holiday boutique we were participating in, and I was looking forward to it. I snuggled deep under my covers and wiggled my toes in their fluffy pink socks. But I dreaded getting out of bed, even though it was a Saturday. It had been so freezing cold for the past week that I’d been walking around like a mummy in layers and layers of clothes (sleeping in socks and long flannel pj’s), and to leave my cocoon of blankets this morning would be unbearable.
    But then I noticed something. I could smell!I’d been suffering from a terrible cold for the past week, and my nose had been totally stuffed up. I couldn’t even taste the cupcakes we made at our last Cupcake meeting, never mind smell them cooking. (Katie was raving about the aroma, and I felt totally left out!) But now my cold seemed like it was nearly gone, and I could smell the pancakes my mom was making downstairs. Their scent floated under the crack in my door, across the room, and tickled my nose, like in a cartoon. Cold or no, I had to have them!
    I braced myself, flopped back the covers, and launched out of bed. My dad insists on keeping the heat lower than most normal people would. (“Just put on a sweater!” he grumps when I’m sitting at my desk doing homework, my nose red and running from the cold.) But today I am already noticing it must be warmer outside, because when I opened my bedroom door, I didn’t have the sensation that I was entering a walk-in freezer. This day just kept getting better and better!
    Downstairs, my mom was listening to an author being interviewed on public radio while she bustled around the kitchen making breakfast. Besides pancakes there were hard-boiled eggs with sea salt, fruit salad, and fresh-squeezed orange juice.
    â€œMama!” I squealed, using my baby name for her. “What’s the occasion?”
    â€œGood morning, sweetheart!” my mom said cheerily. She put down the pan she was drying with a dish towel. “The occasion is that it will break forty degrees today! It’s summer!” she joked.
    â€œWow, maybe I’ll go to the beach,” I said, and we both laughed. “What’s up for today? The girls are coming over in