Katie Starting from Scratch Read Free Page B

Katie,” he said. “I just wanted to thank the Cupcake Club for allowing Emily to hang out with you on Saturday. She’s very excited.”
    â€œIt’s no problem,” Emma said with a smile.
    â€œGreat,” he said. “Enjoy the rest of your lunch.”
    Then he walked away, and George couldn’t resist teasing me.
    â€œYour mom’s boyfriend sure is nice,” he said.
    I sighed. “Yeah, well, people have boyfriends. It’s no big deal.”
    â€œHmm,” George said. “I wonder what would happen if they got married. Would your mom become Mrs. Brown-Green? That sounds like a new color in a big crayon box.”
    He and the other boys started laughing. I probably would have laughed too if George hadn’t been talking about my own mom.
    â€œWould you become Katie Brown-Green?”George asked. “That’s kind of long. If you got a job at Burger Hut, you’d need a really big name tag.”
    â€œHey, Katie, what do you think of Jason White?” Ken asked me. “He’s in our science class. If you married him, you’d been Katie Brown-Green White!”
    â€œYeah, everyone in Katie’s family has to marry someone with a color for their last name,” Aziz said. “They’ll be known as the Crayons.” All the boys started howling at that.
    â€œVery funny,” I said in a voice that clearly showed I didn’t think they were being funny. Normally, I didn’t mind George’s teasing, but this was hitting a spot that didn’t feel good.
    Mia must have seen the look on my face. “If you boys will excuse us, we have some girl business to discuss,” she said, looking right at George.
    â€œEw! Girl business,” Ken said. “We’re out of here.”
    â€œThanks for the cupcakes,” George said, smiling at me, and then the boys went back to their table.
    â€œThat was weird,” Mia said.
    â€œTell me about it,” I said. “I mean, sometimes I wonder what would happen if Mom married Mr. Green, but I never thought about her changing her name. I guess she would, right? But that doesn’t mean I would have to.”
    â€œI think that would be up to you,” Mia said.
    â€œRight. So you’d still be Katie Brown,” Alexis chimed in. “Nothing to worry about. And if your mom wants to be Mrs. Brown-Green, there’s nothing wrong with that.”
    â€œI guess,” I said, but to be honest, something did feel wrong. Let’s say Mom did marry Mr. Green. She’d be Mrs. Brown-Green. Emily would be Emily Green. And I would be Katie Brown. The only Brown in the family. Plain old brown. Boring brown. Definitely not the most popular crayon in the box. “I don’t know,” I said. “It’s all kind of depressing.”
    Mia put her arm around me. “Enough about names. Let’s talk cupcakes.”
    That made me feel a little better. But I knew it was going to be hard to get the name thing completely off my mind.

CHAPTER 4
Emily Joins the Cupcake Club
    K atie, you have my cell phone number,” Mom said, looking back from the passenger seat at me. “Call me if you need anything, okay?”
    â€œOf course,” I said. “That’s only, like, the seventeenth time you’ve mentioned it.”
    It was Saturday morning, and I was sitting with Emily in the backseat of Jeff’s car. Jeff and my mom were dropping us off at Mia’s house for the Cupcake Club meeting. I don’t sit in the backseat of cars a lot; usually it’s just me and my mom, and I sit in the passenger seat next to her. Sitting in the backseat was making me feel like a little kid.
    Mom ignored my sarcasm. “We should be back by six, before it gets too late,” she went on. “Mia’s mom is giving you guys lunch, and we’ll all getsome pizza or something when we get back. If you’re hungry when you get home, there are granola bars in the