The Cupcake Queen by Heather Hepler

says, and I think he means everyone. Then, just before he walks into the cafeteria, he adds one word: “Penny.”
    Charity tries very hard not to react.
    “Are you buying, or just looking?” Tally asks.
    “Neither,” Charity says.
    Tally takes another bite of the bar in her hand and places it on the table so that the wrapper is faceup. I notice she positions it so that Charity can see the label. With the little puffin or whatever bird is right above the words ALL NATURAL. NO PRESERVATIVES. Charity looks at it for a long moment before Charlotte says, “What’s RPS?”
    “Ridiculous, Pathetic, Stupid,” Charity says.
    “Rock, Paper, Scissors,” Tally says over her.
    Charlotte looks at her for a moment. “As in the game?” Tally nods.
    “See?” Charity says. “Stupid.”
    “The shirts are kind of cool . . .” Charlotte says tentatively.
    Charity glares at her. “I guess, if you like old things,” she says. She turns and smirks at me.
    “Vintage,” Tally says.
    “Faux vintage,” Blake says. This even makes Charlotte smile, but Charity still looks like she’s been sucking on a lemon. A lemon Jolly Rancher maybe.
    “Are you done looking at this stuff?” Charity asks. Charlotte puts the T-shirt down slowly, but even after she lets go, she keeps looking back at it. Charlotte and the three Lindseys follow Charity into the cafeteria.
    “Okay, I know why she hates me, but what does she have against you guys?” I ask.
    Blake shrugs. “She hates whimsy.”
    “Maybe she wanted a hundred percent cotton,” Tally says.
    “No, really,” I say.
    Tally sighs and looks past me. “Remember how Blake said I was banned from Hog’s Hollow Days?” I nod and see Blake smirking. “Remember how I also said you weren’t the only one dragged here against her will?” I nod again. “Well, let’s just say I was pretty angry when I first moved here.”
    “Pretty angry?” Blake asks.
    “Okay, I was really angry. I just got mad. Mad at my dad, at myself. I got mad at everything. I mean, at least until I just decided to make the best of it while I’m here.”
    Blake looks at his shoes and pushes his hands a little deeper into his front pockets. Something has pulled the smile from his face, and I wonder if it’s just the thought of Tally leaving. And what she’s saying is a little too close to what I know I should be doing. Suddenly I feel like the star of a bad public service announcement. This one is titled Just Deal with It.
    Tally does her half smile and elbows Blake, who shakes himself, as if he was somewhere else and the elbow brought him back. “You tell her,” she says.
    Blake takes a breath. “Okay, you know how every female between the ages of twelve and eighteen in the tricounty area wants to be Hog Queen?”
    “Not every,” Tally says.
    “Well, last year, the H.O.G.—”
    “The Hog’s Hollow Organizational Group,” Tally says.
    “Shouldn’t that be the H.H.O.G.?” I ask.
    “We are not really talking about higher-thinking people here,” Tally says.
    “Anyway,” Blake says, “the H.O.G. decides to do away with the talent portion of the pageant. All of a sudden Tally, the new girl none of us knew, is everywhere, telling everyone that we are ‘subjugating our young girls to a male-dominated paradigm. ’ ” Blake turns to Tally. “Is that right?”
    “Something like that,” Tally says.
    “Turns out that once they decided to take out the talent part, it became just a beauty contest, not a scholarship pageant. Anyway, she called all these feminist groups, and suddenly instead of a rehearsal, there was a protest.”
    “It wasn’t just that I was looking to start a fight,” Tally says. “I mean, I really do think beauty contests are degrading to women. No offense to your mom.”
    “I agree,” I say. And the weird thing is, the mom I know would agree, too.
    “Word got out that the reason the H.O.G. was trying to get rid of the talent portion was because of the chairman,” Blake