Free 100 Days of Cake by Shari Goldhagen

tonight.”
    â€œNo! These are seriously the best things we’ve ever had in this place!”
    Pickles crawls hopefully along my palm, and I pat his front claw. There is no way I’m letting anyone take him back to Crabland, or wherever our fish supplier got him from. He’s just so little and helpless. I love him.
    â€œIt’s okay; you’re going to stay with me.” I hold him up for Alex to examine. “What do you think?”
    â€œPickles, huh?” Alex shrugs. “I guess no one is going to miss one crab.”
    We spend the rest of the afternoon on our iPhones, Googling how to build a “crabitat,” and then setting up the rocks and extra shells in one of the little handheld plastic tanks that parents sometimes buy for their kids, even thoughthey’re horrible for more than a couple of fish. When we’re finished, we set Pickles on the counter so he can watch Golden Girls with us. If anyone walked in right now, we’d look completely crazy, but really what are the chances of that happening.
    They play the episode where Dorothy decides to fulfill her lifelong dream of doing stand-up comedy, after one of her friends from high school dies. Pickles seems to really enjoy it—definitely a crab after my own heart.
    He can totally join Alex and me in our private aquarium club.

DAY 22

Everyday Wedding Cake with Faux Fondant
    W hen we first moved into the model home, Mom said that we should probably convert the playroom into something else. But every time she goes in there, she gets all wistful and says how much she and Dad would have loved to have been able to give V and I stuff like that when we were little. Yeah, the playroom isn’t going anywhere. It’s just too precious, with the Beatrix Potter murals of Peter Rabbit and Tom Kitten on the wall, and the giant plush stuffed bears and tigers, the built-in bookcases with all the classic children’s stories, and beautifully photographed National Geographic books.
    And the dollhouse is perfect—not the super-intricate kind that they have in museums, but one that looks like a little kid would actually be allowed to use it. Brightly painted wood with mini furniture and lacy drapes. Thereare even little metal plates for the dining room table.
    Today it’s finally getting some use. Elle, Jimmy, and I are letting Pickles explore the various doll-furnished rooms. The kitchen, with its tiny appliances, doesn’t hold much interest for him. And he immediately crawls back into the house when we set him on the terrace. Guess he’s not the outdoorsy type. Honestly, he’s most comfortable on the velveteen couch in the living room, which kind of makes me wonder if depression is a thing in the hermit crab community.
    â€œYou should give him a Twitter account,” Elle says as she snaps cell phone photos of Pickles kicking back in his shell on the sofa. “You’d probably get a book deal— The Everyday Hermit Crab or something.”
    â€œ A Hermit Crab’s Journey: One Hundred Days of Shell ?” I laugh. “My mom would buy that.”
    â€œI would buy that one!”
    â€œYou guys are weird.” Jimmy looks up from a three-quarter-size table, where he’s pitting classic tin soldiers against plastic jungle animals. “When is Veronica coming back?” He may be an eight-year-old rabid possum, but he’s not blind; naturally, he has a ginormous crush on my sister.
    â€œI have no idea,” I say. It’s true; I don’t think I’ve even seen her since she slammed off my alarm clock and called me pathetic.
    Jimmy looks momentarily bummed, then brightens. “Do you guys have scissors?”
    I tell him they’re in the sewing room across the hall, and he scampers off.
    â€œYou cannot try to stab Carly again,” Elle calls after him.
    Elle and Jimmy have to spend a few days with their dad and stepmom in Jacksonville, and Mr. Lovell and Carly are