The Cupcake Queen by Heather Hepler Read Free Book Online Page B

yellow one and looks at it.
    “How about lemon?” I ask.
    “Lemon people are mean,” he says. “You don’t want to get on the bad side of a lemon person.” Something tells me Charity is a lemon and the advice is coming too late.
    The door opens behind me and I turn to see Constance walk in. I feel myself blush, like I’ve been caught doing something wrong.
    “I have a—I mean, Miss Beans asked me—” I finally just stop talking and hold out the envelope. She takes it and walks around to the other side of the desk, opening it as she goes.
    “Thank you,” she says, looking up at me. “You can go back to class, um—” She pauses, searching my face.
    “Penny,” I say. She nods and looks back at her desk. I glance over at him , but he’s looking at something Constance is handing him. At least now he knows my name.
    I head back to class, sucking on the candy. I’m halfway down the hall when the bell rings. Doors open on both sides of me, and soon the hall is completely filled with people opening lockers and grabbing lunches to take outside or to the cafeteria. I thread my way back to the art room and find it empty. My collage is no longer on my desk but scattered under it. There’s a big footprint in the middle of my paper. Two of my photos are bent in half, and several of them seem to be missing altogether. I start picking everything up.
    “Hey,” Tally says from the doorway. “Where have you—” She stops when she sees what I’m doing. She comes over and bends down beside me. “I’m sorry. I just went to get my lunch. I was going to put your collage away, but Miss Beans . . .” She pauses and looks around. “She was in here. I wonder where she went.”
    The snarky part of me thinks who cares where she went , but I know it’s not Tally I’m mad at and definitely not Tally I should lash out at, so I just keep picking up the pieces of my project and trying to flatten the bent photos.
    “Penny,” Miss Beans says, walking into the room. “I thought you got lost.” She’s smiling when she says it. She walks over to where Tally and I are crouched. “Oh, did someone accidentally knock your project off the table?” I nod at the “knock” part. Not the “accidentally” part. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I had to go and help a student.” She picks up the big piece of poster board. “Charity was having a hard time getting into her locker.” I nod. I’m sure she was. More like she was creating a distraction while one of her friends wrecked my project. Miss Beans sees the footprint in the middle of the paper and looks at my face for the first time. “I have more paper, Penny,” she says.
    I just shake my head, not trusting my voice. I feel like recently everything is either really good or really bad. Mostly really bad.

chapter seven
    If someone found out they only had one day to live, they should totally move to Hog’s Hollow, because here every day feels like an eternity. So, three eternities later and finally it’s Friday. And the only thing I can think to be happy about is that I actually have something to do that doesn’t involve butter, sugar, or heavy cream. Today’s the day I’m supposed to go over to Tally’s house.
    I decide to walk there along the beach instead of along the road. I tell myself that it is because it’s a nice day and walking along the water is better than along asphalt, but it’s not really a nice day. It’s raining and the wind is whipping across the water and I have to duck my head to keep the blowing sand out of my eyes. So, exactly what is the reason? Because I’m looking for a big golden dog named Sam. And truthfully not so much the dog, but the guy with the dog.
    I climb up the warped wooden steps onto Tally’s back porch. Before I reach the door, it opens. “Hi,” a woman with curly red hair says. “Come in out of the wet.” I try to shake off as much sand and water as I can before entering. Even the inside of my mouth feels gritty. “You