Free Katie and the Cupcake War by Coco Simon

are doing great,” said Mia’s mom. “It’s not even seven o’clock yet.”
    â€œWhen do we get to taste them?” Eddie asked.
    â€œSoon,” Mia promised. “We already made one batch of icing. Then Katie’s going to do her swirly tie-dyed magic on the cupcakes.”
    â€œIt’s easy,” I said. “You’ll be able to do it too.”
    Dan didn’t say much—he never does. But maybe that’s because he was busy eating. He ate three bowls of chili and four pieces of corn bread. I glanced at Mia after Dan went for his fourth bowl.
    She shrugged. “He’s working out a lot lately. Getting ready for basketball season.”
    Dan nodded. “Besides, this stuff is awesome.”
    Dan was still eating when we got up, cleared our plates, and got to work on icing the cupcakes. Mia put a smooth coat of vanilla icing on the first cupcake and then handed it to me.
    I was armed with a box of toothpicks and several tubes of gel color. I put a tiny drop of yellow onto the icing and then swirled it with a toothpick. Then I swirled on a drop of green and then a drop of blue.
    â€œAwesome!” Mia said. “That looks perfect!”
    â€œSee? You can so do it,” I told her.
    Mia nodded. “I’ll ice and you swirl, and then we’ll switch.”
    Mia and I got busy with the icing, and once the dining room table was clear, Alexis and Emma used it as their work space to do the aprons. We had four dozen cupcakes done by the time Emma walked in wearing one of the aprons. It had peace signs and flowers with big round petals all over it.
    â€œWow, that’s fantastic!” Mia said.
    â€œSpectacular!” I agreed. “Our booth is going to look very groovy.”
    Alexis joined us. “You know, we forgot to talk about how we’re displaying them. I guess we can just use our round plastic trays.” The trays are our go-to display method. They’re supercheap to buy, and we can use them again and again. But thanks to Mom, I had something better.
    â€œI almost forgot!” I said. I put down the cupcake I was icing and went into the front hallway, where I had dumped all my stuff. I came back into the kitchen carrying a box.
    â€œYou know how Mom likes to collect old things?” I asked. “Well, she has these vintage glass cake stands she said we could borrow. They’re kind of sixties looking, right?”
    â€œThey’re perfect!” Alexis said happily.
    â€œI like how they’re all different heights,” Mia said. “That’ll look cool when we set up the cupcakes.”
    Hearing that made me feel good, because now I felt like I had contributed something to the booth besides the cupcake design.
    â€œWe’ll be done with the aprons in a little while,” Emma said. “Then we’ll come help you ice the cupcakes.”
    About an hour later, almost all the cupcakes were done and stored away in the plastic containers we use to keep them fresh and to transport them. Eddie and Dan came into the kitchen as we were finishing up.
    â€œGot any for us to taste?” Eddie asked.
    We actually learned early on that it’s a good idea to taste our cupcakes before we serve them. Sometimes mistakes can happen that you can’t see with your eyes—like not putting in enough sugar or adding too much salt, for example. So it’s always good to have cupcake tasters on hand. For some reason, fathers and brothers seem to be very good at this.
    Mia handed Eddie and Dan one cupcake each. Then we were all quiet as we watched them both take a bite.
    Eddie grinned. “These are very good.”
    â€œJust very good?” Alexis asked. “Would you say they were award-winning cupcakes?”
    â€œThey’re excellent!” Eddie said.
    â€œExcellent isn’t good enough,” Mia said. “We need them to be spectacular.”
    â€œWell, they taste excellent and they look