Royal Icing by Sheryl Berk

If there was one thing Kylie Carson enjoyed on a stormy night, it was curling up on her couch with a monster movie. Monster flicks were Kylie’s favorite things in the whole world, although she couldn’t exactly explain why. Most kids in fifth grade at Blakely Elementary found them creepy and weird. But Kylie insisted that all the blood, guts, and gore were good for a laugh! Plus, there was just something about a scary movie that made her happy and excited.
    It felt just like when she rode a roller coaster and her stomach did a somersault as the coaster plunged down a death-defying drop. It caught her off guard and took her breath away, but afterward, she felt so alive . Her dad said she was a risk taker, just like her Grandpa Nathaniel, who parachuted out of airplanes when he was in the Air Force.
    â€œYour Papa Nat was fearless,” her dad explained. “He once took your Uncle Charlie and me camping when we were kids, and a grizzly bear showed up at our tent in the middle of the night. Papa Nat didn’t flinch; he stared that grizzly down!”
    Kylie knew she wasn’t that fearless. There were things that certainly scared her—like her upcoming geography test (drawing the entire world map from memory!) or forgetting a key ingredient in an important cupcake recipe.
    She loved cupcakes almost as much as monsters. Back in fourth grade, she had taken a risk and started her club, Peace, Love, and Cupcakes, at Blakely, hoping it would help her fit in at her new school. Amazingly, she made three of the best friends a girl could ever ask for—Jenna, Sadie, and Lexi—and added a fourth, Delaney, when she went to summer camp.
    Together, they were now so much more than an after-school club. PLC was a huge baking business, whipping up hundreds of cupcakes every month for all sorts of parties and events. No order was too big, too small, or too unusual for PLC to tackle. In fact, the stranger, the better in Kylie’s book! Just last week, a woman had called requesting a dozen cupcakes for her horse’s fifth birthday at the Danbury Stables. Jenna had come up with the idea to make minis out of molasses, carrot, apple, and oatmeal. They presented them to Buttercup on a horseshoe-shaped platter. Mission accomplished!
    Tonight, since the forecast called for showers, Kylie decided to invite all her PLCers over for a sleepover party. She dubbed it “A Night of Fright and Frosting,” and Lexi was first on her list to call.
    â€œI’m down for the frosting part.” Lexi hesitated. She was always a little timid and needed some coaxing. “It’s the fright part that scares me.”
    â€œThat’s the point,” Kylie assured her. “Monster movies are supposed to be creepy, spooky, spine-tingling…”
    â€œCan I bring my boo-boo teddy bear?” Lexi asked.
    Kylie chuckled. “Sure, if it makes you feel better. I’m thinking a double feature: The Blob , then Ghost of Frankenstein . Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
    â€œSure it does,” Lexi insisted. “We could watch something fun and happy and monster-free. I could ask Delaney to bring over some of her baby brother and sister’s Sesame Street DVDs. Come on! Aren’t you just an itty-bitty bit nostalgic for Elmo?”
    â€œTechnically, Elmo is a monster,” Kylie replied.
    â€œA cute, red, fuzzy-wuzzy one!” Lexi tossed back. “With a big orange nose!”
    â€œI think Frankenstein is cute—in a green, undead sort of way,” Kylie teased. She knew scary flicks weren’t exactly Lexi’s thing, so she had to think fast.
    â€œYou know, I was kind of hoping you’d bring your sketchbook over and help me come up with a design for a new order: thirty dozen cupcakes for the opening of the New Fairfield Amateur Art Show.”
    â€œArt? Did you say art?” Lexi’s ears perked up. Art was always up her alley!