Free Choc Shock by Susannah McFarlane Page B

sell them!’ exclaimed Isi. ‘How much fun would that be!’
    â€˜Perhaps we should have a theme,’ suggested Ms Tenga.
    â€˜Oh, I know!’ said Emma, nearly shouting with excitement. ‘Chocolate!’
    â€˜Chocolate what, Emma?’ asked Ms Tenga.
    â€˜Chocolate everything!’ replied Emma. ‘We could have a Chocolate Lovers’ Day!’
    It was unanimous. After all, who doesn’t love chocolate? Every class had to make something, anything at all, as long as it contained chocolate.
    When Emma and Isi went back to their class after lunch and told them about Chocolate Lovers’ Day, everyone was excited. The class decided to make cupcakes—chocolate cupcakes.
    Isi, being Isi, was perhaps the most excited. ‘How good is this, Em?’ she cried. ‘Helping animals and eating chocolate! Does it get any better?’ BeforeEmma could answer, Isi started talking again.
    â€˜Hold on, it can get better!’ Isi cried. ‘Let’s make the cupcakes together! I’ll ask my mum if you can come for a sleepover so we can practise this weekend. See—helping animals, eating chocolate and having a sleepover!’
    Emma smiled at her slightly mad friend. She had to agree with her.

    Early the next Saturday at Isi’s house, Isi and Emma were in their pyjamas, trying to find a good cupcake recipe.
    â€˜Imagine if we could make this one,’ said Isi. She was looking in a magazine at an ad for Madame Ombre’s Chocolate Cake Sensations shop. Madame Ombre was a celebrity chef and famous chocolate baker, known all around the world for her signature cake, the Triple Chocolate Ripple and Choc-chip Mousse Cupcake. It was the ultimate chocolate cupcake. It started with dark, dark chocolate at thebase working to a milk chocolate centre and then a white chocolate peak. Each layer had chocolate ripple mixed through it and, if all this was not enough, the centre of the cupcake was hollowed out and then filled with chocolate mousse. As a final touch on an already ridiculously chocolatey cake, there was chocolate icing with three wedges of chocolate—one dark, one milk and one white—arranged on the top.
    â€˜Imagine how much money we could raise if we made these,’ said Isi.
    â€˜You don’t think they might be a little bit complicated for us?’ said Emma, who also wondered if it would be wrong to have a poster of a cupcake on your wall. ‘And anyway, the recipe is top-secret. Madame Ombre has never written it down or told it to anyone.’
    Isi giggled. ‘We could try making it up.’
    â€˜Maybe,’ said Emma, still flicking through pages in way that she hoped said ‘maybe not at all’.
    â€˜Knock, knock,’ said Isi randomly.
    â€˜Huh?’ said Emma. ‘Oh, I get it. Who’s there?’
    â€˜Imogen,’ replied Isi.
    â€˜Imogen who?’
    â€˜Imogen a life without chocolate!’ shrieked Isi.
    Emma laughed, then saw something in the cookbook. ‘Hey, how about this one, Is? “Really Simple Double-choc Cupcakes”.’
    â€˜That sounds more like us,’ said Isi. ‘I know! We could decorate the cupcakes to look like cats and dogs, and use smarties for eyes and icing to make whiskers!’
    The fact that neither Isi nor Emma had made cupcakes before didn’t worry her in the slightest. In fact, Isi saw that as an exciting challenge rather than a problem. Emma loved the way her friend could do that and was a little bit jealous. Emma seemed better at thinking about the things that could go wrong, so much so that sometimes she could convince herself not to do something at all. In fact, she was just starting to think that whiskers might be rather tricky when her friend interrupted her thoughts.
    â€˜What are we waiting for?’ said Isi with her head halfway into one of the kitchen cupboards. ‘I know there’s a bowl here somewhere.’
    The girls got out the