Sweet Victory by Sheryl Berk Page A

ideas?”
    For a few minutes, the room was silent as the girls thought hard.
    â€œFeet!” Lexi suddenly tossed out. “Or maybe socks? Isn’t that what you wear to jump on a trampoline?”
    â€œFlies,” Sadie added. “They’re always in the air. And little boys love bugs, right?”
    â€œFalling,” Jenna grumped. “As in splat on your face or butt. Which is what I would do on a trampoline.”
    â€œUm, I’m not seeing any of those things on a cupcake,” Kylie tried her hardest to envision their suggestions, but all she could see was Jenna flopping on a trampoline face-first. As cupcake club president, Kylie had the power to veto an idea—and smelly feet and flies didn’t sound particularly appetizing.
    â€œWhat about balloons—balloons go up, up, and away if you accidentally let them go,” Delaney suggested. “And they’re pretty and colorful—and every birthday party has them.”
    â€œThat’s just it,” Sadie jumped in. “Cupcakes with balloons on them are so ordinary. We’re PLC. We can do better than that.”
    Lexi took out her sketchbook. Designing cupcake decorations was her job. “Sadie’s right. What if we did something like this…” She drew a cupcake with blue piping around the edges and a black fondant top to represent the trampoline. In the middle of the cupcake was a small figure of a boy bending his knees with his arms in the air.
    â€œOoh, that is amazing,” Kylie said, watching as Lexi used her colored pencils to bring the cupcake to life on the page. “We could use fondant to mold the little jumping guys.”
    â€œAnd no boring vanilla or chocolate flavors either,” Jenna insisted. As the official taste tester, it was her job to make each cupcake delectable. “I’m thinking chocolate-chocolate chip cake filled with marshmallow and churro cupcakes with a hint of cinnamon to give the vanilla a kick.”
    â€œNice.” Sadie high-fived her. “Do you suppose we’ll get to try out those trampolines when we make the delivery?”
    â€œ Tu mejor que yo —better you than me!” Jenna said. “I get motion sickness if my little brothers bounce on the couch.”
    â€œThen I’d say we have a plan,” Kylie said, taking notes in her binder. “Let’s get jumpin’ on those cupcake recipes.”

Saturday morning, bright and early, Sadie’s dad showed up with Sadie in his contractor’s truck to drive with Kylie to the trampoline party.
    â€œThis sounds like an easy order,” Mr. Harris said as the girls loaded four boxes in the backseat. “You didn’t give me a Leaning Tower of Pisa or a seven-foot-tall spinning sphere to build for you this week.”
    â€œNope,” Kylie said, climbing in beside the boxes. “No crazy cupcake display. This order was easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy.”
    â€œEvery time you say that you jinx us,” Sadie reminded her. “Remember when we had to deliver that order to the horse show and we got stuck in traffic for two hours?”
    Her dad tuned to the news on the radio. “Traffic reporter says it’s all clear,” he said. “We should be there in plenty of time.”
    â€œYou see?” Kylie said. “No need to worry, Sadie.”
    They made it to the party with a half hour to spare. The trampoline studio was a giant, indoor play-park, filled with ball pits, slides, tumbling mats, and—of course—trampolines of all shapes and sizes for kids to jump on.
    â€œWhere would you like us to put these?” Sadie asked the birthday boy’s mom. She and Kylie each carried two boxes.
    â€œWhy don’t you set them down over there?” The mom pointed to a table decorated with dinosaur plates, cups, and streamers. “We have some platters for you to arrange them on.”
    â€œ Roar! ” A little boy jumped out in front of