Like Carrot Juice on a Cupcake Read online

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sternberg, Julie.

  Like carrot juice on a cupcake / by Julie Sternberg ; illustrations by Matthew Cordell.

  pages cm

  Sequel to: Like bug juice on a burger.

  Summary: “A new girl at school throws nine-year-old Eleanor’s relationship with her best friend Pearl into disarray” — Provided by publisher.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-1033-9

  [1. Novels in verse. 2. Best friends—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Schools—Fiction.] I. Cordell, Matthew, 1975– illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.5.S74Lg 2014

  [Fic]—dc23

  2013023276

  Text copyright © 2014 Julie Sternberg

  Illustrations copyright © 2014 Matthew Cordell

  Book design by Jessie Gang

  Published in 2014 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.

  Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [email protected] or the address below.

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  FOR MY PAUL

  –J. S.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  I did a mean thing.

  A very mean thing.

  To a new girl AND

  to my best friend.

  I HATE that I did it.

  But I did.

  This is worse than

  carrot juice on a cupcake

  or a wasp on my pillow

  or a dress that’s too tight at the neck.

  I hope you never do anything that mean.

  I really do.

  It all started one Monday morning in April

  when our fourth-grade teacher,

  Mrs. Ramji,

  made a special announcement.

  She was standing near her desk,

  beside a girl I’d never seen before.

  That girl wore sparkly clothes

  and a headband with a big bow.

  “We have a new student!” Mrs. Ramji said.

  “This is Ainsley Biggs.

  She just moved here, from Orlando!”

  “Orlando!” my best friend, Pearl, whispered to me,

  from the desk beside mine.

  “How magical.”

  I heard other kids whisper, “Disney!”

  And then the boy who sits behind me,

  Nicholas Rigby,

  started humming the Disney song

  “It’s a Small World.”

  He hummed and hummed,

  just loud enough for me to hear.

  “Shh!” I told him.

  I turned and glared at him, too.

  Because Nicholas Rigby is always

  getting us in trouble.

  Plus, I knew I’d never get that song out of my head.

  “Doesn’t Ainsley look like a present?”

  Pearl whispered to me.

  “A shiny present, too pretty to unwrap?”

  (Pearl talks like a poet sometimes.)

  “She does look like a present!” I whispered back.

  I started wondering

  whether I ever wanted to look like a present.

  Before I could decide,

  Mrs. Ramji turned the lights off

  and on again

  to get our attention.

  “Class 4A!” she said.

  “Please settle down!

  You’re not behaving your best for Ainsley.

  We need to make her feel welcome!

  It’s not easy,

  starting a new school so late in the year.”

  Then Mrs. Ramji said,

  “Pearl!”

  Pearl sat up straighter,

  and I did, too.

  Because maybe she was in trouble.

  But Mrs. Ramji told Pearl,

  “I would like you to move your desk

  closer to Eleanor’s, please.”

  “Closer to Eleanor’s?” Pearl asked.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Ramji said.

  “Actually, everyone in that row,

  move a little

  to make space for Ainsley’s desk,

  on the other side of Pearl.”

  “Yay! Closer to you!”

  Pearl whispered to me,

  and we grinned at each other

  as everyone in our row

  started making space for Ainsley.

  After we’d finished

  and I’d sat back down,

  a wadded-up ball of paper flew

  through the air

  and landed on my desk.

  I knew exactly

  what that flying paper was.

  I opened it up

  and smoothed it out.

  Sure enough, Nicholas Rigby had drawn me a picture.

  This one showed me on a roller coaster

  in Orlando,

  with my arms in the air

  and my hair blowing in crazy directions.

  I folded the picture neatly

  and put it on top of the pile

  of Nicholas’s pictures

  that I kept in my desk.

  Because even though that boy’s impossible,

  he’s still a ridiculously good drawer.

  Then I turned and whispered to him,

  “Thanks.”

  Like I always did.

  And he kicked the back of my chair,

  not too hard,

  like he always did.

  Then Mrs. Ramji asked us

  to take out our Creative Writing notebooks

  and work on our Brooklyn Bridge poems

  while she and Pearl helped Ainsley get set up.

  I loved my Brooklyn Bridge poem.

  So I worked on it very hard.

  And realized only later

  that I should’ve been

  paying attention to Ainsley instead.

  Because during that time,

  she started casting a glittery spell over Pearl.

  She really did.

  Pearl came home from sch
ool with me that afternoon.

  Because it was a Monday.

  And Pearl always came home from school with me

  on Mondays.

  Wednesdays, too.

  (Because her mom was still at work.)

  We loved those afternoons.

  We usually trained my little dog, Antoine.

  And did our homework.

  And baked, when we had time.

  That Monday

  we had time.

  So we decided to make chocolate cupcakes.

  My very nice babysitter, Natalie,

  preheated the oven,

  then left the room for a minute.

  Antoine sat right behind us,

  ready to lick or chew anything that fell.

  “We can’t drop any chocolate,” I reminded Pearl.

  “It’s poisonous for dogs.”

  “Right!” Pearl said.

  She pushed the cocoa to the back of the counter.

  Then we took turns measuring ingredients

  and dumping them in a bowl

  and mixing them together.

  We had no problems at all.

  Until

  it was time

  for the salt.

  I should’ve measured the salt over the sink.

  But we’d done everything else so perfectly!

  I figured I could do the salt perfectly, too!

  So, with my right hand,

  I held a teaspoon over our bowl.

  And with my left hand,

  I tilted a big salt container,

  with a fast-pouring spout,

  over that little teaspoon.

  One second later,

  a mountain of salt appeared

  on top of our beautiful batter.

  “Aaagghhh!” I cried,

  watching as that mountain started sinking.

  “Oh no, oh no!” Pearl cried.

  Natalie rushed in. “What happened?” she said.

  Then Antoine ran over to Natalie,

  but Natalie didn’t see him,

  so Natalie tripped on Antoine,

  and Antoine yelped a terrible yelp.

  Both Pearl and I cried, “Antoine!”

  and turned to comfort him.

  But as I turned,

  I hit the wooden spoon we’d been using in our batter.

  Our chocolate batter.

  And the chocolate-covered spoon flew

  out of the bowl and onto the floor.

  Antoine must not have been hurt at all.

  Because he zoomed to that spoon

  and started licking up the chocolate!

  “No, Antoine!” I cried. “It’s poison!”

  Natalie grabbed one end of the spoon,

  but Antoine held on to the other

  and they ended up playing tug-of-war.

  “Drop it, Antoine!” I cried. “Drop it!”

  But he didn’t listen.

  Then Pearl,

  who is a dog-training genius,

  grabbed a bag of Antoine’s treats

  and held it open,

  right under his nose.

  “Come, Antoine!” she said, backing up. “Come!”

  Like a miracle,

  Antoine dropped the spoon

  and went to Pearl.

  She fed him lots of treats,

  and we both hugged him

  while Natalie called the vet.

  “He’s going to be fine,” she told us,

  after she’d hung up.

  “He might throw up a little later,

  but that’d just be a sign

  that he’s getting bad things out of his system.”

  After that happy news,

  Pearl and I turned back to our cupcakes.

  We tried to take out the thin layer of salt

  still resting at the top of the batter.

  Then we finished everything else.

  We’d just gotten the cupcakes in the oven

  when my dad came home.

  He was whistling “Hey Jude,” by the Beatles.

  (My dad loves the Beatles.)

  And

  as soon as he saw me and Pearl washing dishes,

  he started making up a song to that tune.

  He sang:

  “He-ey Pearl, in my kit-chen.

  Baking sweet things

  with my El-ea-nor.”

  I stopped him then.

  Because he was being ridiculous!

  Also, he does not sing well.

  Pearl laughed, though.

  And my dad gave us both hugs.

  A little later,

  when Pearl’s mom came to pick Pearl up,

  my dad said,

  “You can’t have her! She’s ours.”

  He liked saying that, every Monday and Wednesday.

  I liked hearing it, too.

  Because I loved thinking of Pearl as ours.

  The next morning,

  I brought most of the cupcakes to school

  on a plastic plate, all covered in foil.

  For Pearl.

  “They’re pretty salty,” I told her,

  handing her the plate.

  “But they’re not terrible.”

  We were standing at our desks,

  waiting for the first bell to ring.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  Then she asked, “How’s Antoine?

  Did he throw up?”

  “Yes!” I told her. “Right before I went to bed!

  All over my mom’s favorite rug!

  She was not happy.”

  “But vomiting was good for him!” Pearl said.

  “He was getting bad things out of his system.”

  “I told my mom that,” I said.

  “She said, ‘I’m very glad they’re out of his system.

  But do they have to be on my rug?’”

  Somebody behind us started making

  yucky vomiting noises then.

  I didn’t even turn around.

  I knew who it was.

  “Stop listening to our conversations, Nicholas!”

  I said.

  “And stop being disgusting!”

  “I’m getting bad things out of my system,” he said.

  At that moment, the new girl, Ainsley, walked in.

  She looked very sparkly and colorful,

  just like the day before.

  And she had on another big bow.

  “Hey, Ainsley!” Pearl and I both said

  as Ainsley walked to her desk.

  “Hey,” she said back.

  She seemed a little shy.

  “Want a cupcake?” Pearl asked her,

  holding up the foil-covered plate.

  “They’re salty!” Nicholas called out from behind us.

  “Stop listening to our conversations!”

  I told Nicholas again.

  “They are a little salty,” Pearl told Ainsley.

  “It’s okay,” Ainsley said. “I’m not really hungry.

  Thanks, though.”

  I don’t know what Pearl said next,

  because Nicholas distracted me

  by throwing a wadded-up piece of paper at my arm.

  “Ow!” I said, when it hit me,

  even though it didn’t hurt at all.

  Then I picked that ball of paper up off the floor

  and smoothed it out.

  It was a picture of me,

  with chocolate all over my face,

  eating a giant cupcake.

  I folded that picture

  and put it on top of my Nicholas picture pile

  and thanked him,

  the way I always did.

  Then I heard Ainsley say to Pearl,

  “They’re so good, they’re crazy.

  You should come bake them at my house with me!”

  I frowned a little.

  I didn’t love

  Ainsley inviting Pearl to her house

  to bake crazy-delicious things.

  Bu
t

  the very next moment,

  Ainsley turned to me and said,

  super-nicely,

  “You should come, too!

  We’ll all make them together.”

  “Make what?” I asked.

  “Brookie cupcakes!” she said.

  “They’re brownies and chocolate chip cookies

  mixed together,

  inside cupcakes.”

  My mouth fell open.

  I had to admit,

  I had never dreamed of anything as good

  as brownies and chocolate chip cookies

  inside cupcakes.

  “Is there frosting?” I asked Ainsley.

  “Chocolate frosting,” she said.

  “We’ll definitely make them with you,”

  Pearl told Ainsley.

  “Right, Eleanor?”

  “Of course!” I said.

  I really meant that, too.

  And not just because I wanted to taste those things.

  I thought Natalie would take me and Pearl

  over to Ainsley’s

  on a Monday or a Wednesday.

  And we’d all have fun together.

  Then,

  Pearl and I—

  best friends for our whole lives—

  would go back to our Mondays and Wednesdays

  together.

  Just the two of us.

  I was sure that was how it would happen.

  But

  it turned out, I had no idea

  about anything.

  Everything started changing that night after dinner,

  when Pearl called me up on the phone.

  “Eleanor!” she shouted. “It’s Pearl!”

  “Pearl!” I shouted back.

  (That’s how we like to start our calls.)

  “I have news,” she said. “It’s exciting news

  and miserable news, too.

  All blended up.”

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  “I get to be Ainsley’s buddy!” she said.

  I was quiet for a second.

  Every new kid at our school is assigned a buddy,

  to help with schoolwork and making friends.

  And for that one second, I couldn’t help wondering,

  Why hadn’t Mrs. Ramji picked me

  to be Ainsley’s buddy?

  Wouldn’t I be a good one?

  Then I told myself,

  Stop being stupid.

  And I said to Pearl, “That’s great!

  Why isn’t it only exciting?”

  “Because of this miserable part,” Pearl said.

  “Ainsley is far behind.

  So her buddy needs to help her with homework

  every Monday and Wednesday, after school.

  Until she catches up.”