Free Like Carrot Juice on a Cupcake by Julie Sternberg

It all started one Monday morning in April

    when our fourth-grade teacher,
    Mrs. Ramji,
    made a special announcement.
    She was standing near her desk,
    beside a girl I’d never seen before.
    That girl wore sparkly clothes
    and a headband with a big bow.
    “We have a new student!” Mrs. Ramji said.
    “This is Ainsley Biggs.
    She just moved here, from Orlando!”
    “Orlando!”
my best friend, Pearl, whispered to me,
    from the desk beside mine.
    “How
magical
.”
    I heard other kids whisper, “Disney!”
    And then the boy who sits behind me,
    Nicholas Rigby,
    started humming the Disney song
    “It’s a Small World.”
    He hummed and hummed,
    just loud enough for me to hear.
    “Shh!” I told him.
    I turned and glared at him, too.
    Because Nicholas Rigby is always
    getting us in trouble.
    Plus, I knew I’d never get that song out of my head.
    “Doesn’t Ainsley look like a present?”
    Pearl whispered to me.
    “A shiny present, too pretty to unwrap?”
    (Pearl talks like a poet sometimes.)
    “She
does
look like a present!” I whispered back.
    I started wondering
    whether
I
ever wanted to look like a present.
    Before I could decide,
    Mrs. Ramji turned the lights off
    and on again
    to get our attention.
    “Class 4A!” she said.
    “Please settle down!
    You’re not behaving your best for Ainsley.
    We need to make her feel welcome!
    It’s not easy,
    starting a new school so late in the year.”
    Then Mrs. Ramji said,
    “Pearl!”
    Pearl sat up straighter,
    and I did, too.
    Because maybe she was in trouble.
    But Mrs. Ramji told Pearl,
    “I would like you to move your desk
    closer to Eleanor’s, please.”
    “
Closer
to Eleanor’s?” Pearl asked.

    “Yes,” Mrs. Ramji said.
    “Actually, everyone in that row,
    move a little
    to make space for Ainsley’s desk,
    on the other side of Pearl.”
    “Yay! Closer to you!”
    Pearl whispered to me,
    and we grinned at each other
    as everyone in our row
    started making space for Ainsley.
    After we’d finished
    and I’d sat back down,
    a wadded-up ball of paper flew
    through the air
    and landed on my desk.
    I knew exactly
    what that flying paper was.
    I opened it up
    and smoothed it out.
    Sure enough, Nicholas Rigby had drawn me a picture.
    This one showed me on a roller coaster
    in Orlando,
    with my arms in the air
    and my hair blowing in crazy directions.

    I folded the picture neatly
    and put it on top of the pile
    of Nicholas’s pictures
    that I kept in my desk.
    Because even though that boy’s impossible,
    he’s still a ridiculously good drawer.
    Then I turned and whispered to him,
    “Thanks.”
    Like I always did.
    And he kicked the back of my chair,
    not too hard,
    like
he
always did.
    Then Mrs. Ramji asked us
    to take out our Creative Writing notebooks
    and work on our Brooklyn Bridge poems
    while she and Pearl helped Ainsley get set up.
    I loved my Brooklyn Bridge poem.
    So I worked on it very hard.
    And realized only later
    that I should’ve been
    paying attention to Ainsley instead.
    Because during that time,
    she started casting a glittery spell over Pearl.
    She really did.

Pearl came home from school with me that afternoon.
    Because it was a Monday.
    And Pearl always came home from school with me
    on Mondays.
    Wednesdays, too.
    (Because her mom was still at work.)
    We loved those afternoons.
    We usually trained my little dog, Antoine.
    And did our homework.
    And baked, when we had time.
    That Monday
    we had time.
    So we decided to make chocolate cupcakes.
    My very nice babysitter, Natalie,
    preheated the oven,
    then left the room for a minute.
    Antoine sat right behind us,
    ready to lick or chew anything that fell.
    “We can’t drop
any
chocolate,” I reminded Pearl.
    “It’s poisonous for dogs.”
    “Right!” Pearl said.
    She pushed the cocoa to the back of the counter.
    Then we took turns measuring ingredients

    and dumping them in a bowl
    and mixing them together.
    We had no problems at all.
    Until
    it was time
    for the salt.
    I