My team Carlos Dina Babs and yours truly is here to make you smile with all the sweet you can eat Just give us a nudge if something doesn’t work or if there’s something you wish we’d offer in the bakery That’s how we started up our pet snack section because customer requests and some barking Now we sell hundreds of doggy bone biscuits and we are working on some treats for other pets too There’s always some delicious new in development at Daisy’s idea of Just speak up and tell us what you need because it's you we're here for after all Until we sweet again xo Daisy
Chapter 1 That's Crummy Gabriela shifted in her seat inside the school assembly Kids to her left were elbowing each other with the occasional bump into Gabi's side which was beyond annoying The kids on the right were sneaking peeks at their cell phones which was not allowed ever It was very likely that at any moment one of the teaching aides would bust the entire row and start to confiscate things It was always like this at school these days troublemakers and fate-tempters surrounding Gabi while she sat wishing she were invisible Usually she was invisible She was an outsider even when she was in the middle of it all Gabi thought of the new book they'd been assigned in advanced language arts class The Outsiders by S E Hinton Gabi's pal Genna had read it before and said that it was intense but in a good way so Gabi was intrigued Of course Genna said most things were intense teachers movies songs even Gabi's knee-high lace-up boots Gabi and Genna had been friends since kindergarten and called themselves G squared even
though they were different in a lot of ways Genna read everything and always had a book in her hands Gabi didn’t mind reading but what she always had in her hand was a notebook and pencil She loved sketching the world around her Genna was athletic and Gabi was clumsy And while Genna was tall Gabi was definitely not Today Gabi had arrived late and couldn’t find Genna in the chaos So Gabi was stuck sitting next to a group of seventh-grade girls she didn’t know few friends from too unsure of herself The Outsiders was a funny book to be reading now considering how Gabi felt about school life Gabi thought maybe it was meant to be After all this year she was the ultimate outsider in so many ways too too uninterested in the social drama around her the list went on and on And sometimes kids teased her for her nut allergy that left her breathless in the lunchroom or covered in a red rash out of nowhere Nobody wants attention for turning red and wheezing just someone’s peanut butter sandwich Not a lot of fun Other kids with allergies didn’t seem to get teased but there was something about Gabi that just seemed teasable The reasons never really made sense Thankfully during times like this a pencil and a blank piece of paper were usually all Gabi needed to escape from the daily frustrations Art got Gabi smelling
through most things even tiresome assemblies like this one Art was like frosting on a cupcake that transformed the ordinary into something beautiful Not that Gabi was allowed to eat cupcakes In addition to possibly being contaminated with nuts most baked goods were off limits because her mom insisted she eat gluten free as much as possible It’s for our health Gabi was her mom’s constant refrain But still a girl could dream Like when her stepdad Leo gave her Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a few weeks earlier Gabi filled half a sketchbook with Willy Wonka-inspired art including Everlasting Gobstoppers and melting chocolate palaces from the story Gabi also sketched regular life around her including kids in the hallway or on the playing fields or even in assembly like right now She was way better with pictures than with words especially spoken words Pictures helped Gabi make sense out of some of the nonsense surrounding her the principal tapped on Up on stage the microphone and kids around Gabi settled into their seats and stashed away their phones Well some of them did The girl right next to Gabi kept checking her photo app and taking selfies Gabi rolled her eyes Your attention students Principal Keystone said
