Alexis's Cupcake Cupid by Coco Simon

it’s my specialty.)
    Mia cut the end off a tube of brown gel frosting and put the M&M’s in a bowl. Then she looked at the photo I’d printed from the Internet and began to do the first face.
    â€œWow, this is kind of . . . hard,” she admitted. “You have to stop after each feature and get the frosting to stop coming out before you can moveon to the next. See? Each cupcake is going to take a long time.”
    â€œWhat?” I asked, peering over her shoulder. I knew they had this covered, so I wasn’t that engaged.
    â€œWatch.” Mia piped a blob for one eye, then she reached for a knife on the table and nicked the drip of frosting, so it wouldn’t drag across the bear’s white face. Then she did a blob for the next eye, then she had to do the same thing with the knife again to stop the frosting. Then she piped a nose. (“It’s impossible to make this a triangle. Sorry, Lex,” she said with a shrug. “I can’t imagine how they got it to look like that in the photo.”) Then she nicked the drip and then piped the mouth with a line connecting it to the nose.
    â€œWow. Slow,” she said, blowing upward with her mouth to get a stray strand of hair off her face.
    â€œWho’s doing the ears?” she asked.
    Katie offered, and she took the cupcake and stuck the ears into the top edge of the cupcake frosting, right above the eyes.
    Emma tipped her head and looked. “Cute. Ish. It will get better as you do more, Katie, I’m sure. That’s just the first one.”
    And then— plink, plink! The M&M’s fell out of the frosting and onto the table.
    â€œWait, why’s that happening?” I asked.
    â€œThe frosting’s not stiff enough, darn it!” said Katie. She reached for two new M&M’s (the previous ones were covered in white frosting and wouldn’t work). “What if we put them in a little deeper, like this?” she asked, wedging the M&M’s more on top of the frosting, kind of above the panda’s eyes.
    â€œWell, they’re supposed to be coming off the top of its head. That’s what makes it look like a panda,” I said. “How long will it take for the frosting to stiffen?” I asked.
    â€œLonger than we have,” Mia said with a grimace as she looked at the clock.
    Emma was biting her lip. “Also, I hate to say it, but if we have the ears coming off the head and we try to put them in the cupcake carriers, they might not fit. They’ll just get knocked off as we put each cake into its slot.”
    I put my head in my hands and moaned. “Is this just a total fail? Now we have three-day-old cupcakes that look bad, too.”
    â€œThey’ll be fine. Kids don’t care, anyway,” Katie said, bustling over to help Mia. “But I think it’s all hands on deck now. Just put the ears where they’ll stay.” She handed us each a tube of brown frosting,and the kitchen fell silent as we all got to work. Soon we each had a knife in one hand as we got better at wielding the gel tubes. The M&M’s ears looked funny, but it was too late to do anything else.
    â€œThese don’t really scream panda,” Emma said at one point.
    â€œPanda!” I screamed, and everyone laughed.
    â€œWell, it was a good idea,” Katie said kindly. “Thanks, Alexis. Very creative.”
    â€œDon’t worry, my feelings aren’t hurt. It’s fine,” I said. “I just wish we had done a test batch first, the way we usually do. But these looked like they’d be easy from the photos! Oh well. Live and learn.”
    I’d set a pretty high bar at the movies yesterday, appearance wise, and I knew I’d have to look great again tonight. Dylan had laid out another outfit for me and had promised to help with hair and makeup. (I’d taken perfect care of her sweater, leaving it neatly folded, with tissue, on her bed, and a five-dollar