Wedding Drama by Karen English

Author:Karen English
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

6

Big Plans

Nikki

Nikki is in the kitchen poring over a cookbook. She’s just come across a beautiful picture of little cakes the size of ring boxes—called petit fours—when Deja knocks on the door. Nikki quickly puts a folded napkin on the page before she closes the book. Then she opens the door.

Deja is standing there with her backpack. “Wanna do homework together?” she asks.

“I guess,” Nikki says, even though she’s not very happy about the interruption. She’d really like to get back to looking at the petit fours recipe. Petit fours are going to be her secret weapon, but she has only a little bit of time to work on it.

Nikki’s plan is to present a tasty sample of the dessert she’s going to include on her menu to each of the girls who’ll be judging the wedding planners teams. She can’t let Deja know about this plan because Deja would just copy it.

Deja seats herself at the table. She glances at the cookbook. But then she seems to turn her attention to emptying stuff from her book bag. She takes out her spelling folder and her pencil and her pencil sharpener. Nikki knows that Deja hates a dull pencil. Deja reaches for a napkin, places it on the table before her, and carefully sharpens her pencil over it. When she looks up, she says, “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?” Nikki asks.

“Why are you sitting there looking at me? Where’s your homework?”

“Oh, yeah.” Nikki gets up and retrieves her backpack from just inside the front door. As soon as she returns, she sees the cookbook in front of Deja, opened to the page with the petit fours recipe.

“What’s this?” Deja asks.

“My mom’s cookbook.”

“What were you doing with it?”

“Nothing—just looking at it.”

Deja looks at the beautiful picture of pastel-colored petit fours decoratively placed on a crystal cake plate. “Why were you looking at this page?”

“I was looking at the whole book, not just that page.”

Deja stares at Nikki. Nikki can feel Deja’s eyes on her even as she starts pulling stuff out of her backpack. It’s quiet except for the ticking of the rooster clock on the wall.

“You’re going to make something from your mom’s cookbook, aren’t you? Then you’re going to bring it to school so you won’t just have a menu, you’ll have real food, too,” Deja says. “Admit it, Nikki.”

“It’s my idea, and you can’t copy, otherwise you’re a copycat.”

“I’m not copying your stupid idea. Anyway, your mom is not going to let you do it. You’re too young to cook.”

“My mom will let me do it. She let me help make those election day cookies when you were running for student body president of Carver Elementary School.”

“Those cookies were already made. We just had to put them on a cookie sheet and put them in the oven. You can’t just make something from scratch.”

“Oh, yes, I can.”

“No, you can’t.”

“Yes, I can,” Nikki persists.

“Did you get permission?”

“Not yet, but I’m going to.”

Deja chuckles. “Here,” she says, handing Nikki the list of that week’s spelling words.

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