Nixie Ness: Cooking Star (After-School Superstars)
To Wina Mortenson
one COME back puppy noses Nixie Ness scolded She had just snipped a black jelly bean in half to make two candy noses for two puppy face cupcakes And both noses had practically jumped off the kitchen counter and onto the floor Her best friend Grace Kenny burst out laughing and Nixie laughed too She loved whenever she said or did something Grace thought was extra-funny Nixie and Grace had been best friends since their first day at Sun flower Preschool when Grace had been crying and two-year-old Nixie had taken her by the hand As far as Nixie was concerned the only thing better than baking cupcakes was baking 1
cupcakes on a Friday afternoon with your best friend in the whole world And the only thing better than that was decorating them to look like puppy faces with jelly-bean eyes and noses and ears of pink taffy drooping down on either side of their frosted heads Usually Nixie’s mother made Nixie and Grace eat healthy snacks after school like cel ery and carrot sticks with hummus or apple slices spread with peanut butter But for some reason her mom had been willing to let them make a special snack today She’d even taken them grocery shopping after school to get the ingredients Let’s use whole jelly beans instead Grace suggested That would be easier than trying to cut them in half They can be puppies with really big eyes and noses Nixie agreed Like instead of cocker spaniels they can be cocker nosels Or instead of Welsh corgis they can be Welsh nosies Grace laughed again and licked butter cream frosting from her fingers You have chocolate frosting on your cheek Nixie informed her 2
Grace swiped at the wrong cheek with her chocolate-covered finger Now she had a big dark smear across each cheek matching the long dark hair that Nixie thought was much prettier than her own stubby blonde braids Well you have chocolate frosting all over your nose Grace said Nixie went to look at herself in the glass door of the microwave Grace followed At the sight of their matching chocolate-covered faces both girls burst out laughing again We’re the chocolate-frosting twins Nixie said Lots of the kids in their third-grade class including Grace had parents who worked away from home Some of the kids stayed at Longwood Elementary for the after-school pro gram others took the shuttle bus to the YMCA or went to other places until their parents were ready to pick them up Nixie felt lucky that her mother worked at home as a part-time website designer so Grace could come to Nixie’s house every afternoon We still have six more cupcakes to do Grace said as they wiped the chocolate off 3
