Free Katie Starting from Scratch by Coco Simon Page A

um . . . You’re awesome too. I think that.” (Did I sound ridiculous or what?)
    George grinned. “Yeah, a lot of people tell me that.”
    â€œExcept when you do puppets,” I teased.
    George shook his head sadly. “You do not appreciate Mr. Cheddar.”
    Then I heard a car horn and looked up—Mom was there.
    â€œSee you tomorrow,” I said, and then I ran off and said good-bye to everybody else. Emily and I got in the car.
    â€œDid you guys have fun?” Mom asked.
    â€œYes,” Emily answered. “Katie’s friends are nice.”
    â€œThanks,” I said.
    â€œYour dad is running late, so I thought I’d order us all some Chinese food,” Mom said. “I’ll order from Panda Gardens.”
    â€œYou can order from Golden Palace,” I told her.
    Mom looked at me. “Really?”
    â€œSure,” I said. “Let’s get some Chicken Amazing.”
    I turned around and grinned at Emily in the backseat. Emily smiled back at me, and that made me feel kind of good. I’m not saying that talking to George had magically cured all my bad feelings.
    But it was a start.

CHAPTER 13
Finally!
    E mily came home with me from school one more day that week. The next time, I stayed downstairs and did my homework with her. Emily actually had a question about one of her math problems for me, and I was able to help her.
    You should have seen the smile on my mom’s face when she came home.
    â€œIt’s so nice to see you two girls working together,” she gushed, and she was so cheerful that I almost wished I had gone up to my room. I mean, sheesh! Why did she have to make such a big deal about everything?
    When Jeff came to pick Emily up, he had some news.
    â€œI’ll be able to take Emily home tomorrow,” hesaid. “And by Friday, her mom will be back.”
    Emily’s face lit up. “Really? When is she flying in?”
    â€œIn the morning,” Jeff told her. “And she said she’ll pick you up from school. She’s missed you.”
    â€œI miss her, too,” Emily said.
    Until then, it hadn’t even occurred to me that Emily might be feeling sad about being away from her mom. I didn’t know what that was like. My dad was never part of my life, so I didn’t have to shuttle back and forth between two parents, like Emily and Mia did. Mia said you get used to it, but still, it had to be hard, right?
    Then Emily turned to me. “Thanks for your help, Katie,” she said, and I could see that Mom was totally beaming at Jeff, like Look! Isn’t that sweet? Once again, sheesh!
    And even though I was getting over the whole being jealous of Emily thing, I was relieved her mom was back. For one thing, that meant she wouldn’t be at our Friday night baking session.
    It was going to be a mammoth one, because we had to bake ten dozen cupcakes for the talent show on Saturday night. Alexis said we could bake at her house, since her kitchen has a big island in it that gives us lots of room for making batter and fillingup pans. We needed to get an early start, so we were all going to Alexis’s house after school.

    Mom and I had shopped for the ingredients the night before and then dropped them off, along with extra cupcake tins and two-toned cupcake inserts. We also needed two dozen eggs, extra flour, butter, and sugar, and we were out of vanilla again. Mia took care of getting the fondant and the tiny star-shaped cutters.
    â€œSo I’ve worked out a strategy,” Alexis said, once we were gathered in her kitchen. “Let’s all start on batter and filling the baking cups. Once everything’s in the oven or ready to go into the oven, Katie and I can do icing while Emma and Mia cut out the stars. Sound good?”
    â€œHow about Mia and I do the lemon batter and you guys do the vanilla batter?” I asked.
    â€œSounds like a plan,” Emma said. “I brought over my