17 SWEET RED CUPCAKE

Chapter 16

I ring the door bell at Noah's front door. Noah opened the door immediately and narrowed his eyes at the person beside me.

"Ivy agreed to help. We need all the hands we can get." Noah eyed Ivy for a moment then ushered us inside.

I noticed stacks of cupcakes on the kitchen counter, dining table. Everywhere I looked there were baked cupcakes.

"Jeez Susannah, how many are there?"

She came with another tray and put them on the corner of the counter. "Enough to feed your whole school." She came and gave me hug. Then she turned to Ivy. "Hello. I am seeing you after a long time, aren't I?" She gave Ivy a hug too. when we were little, Ivy used to hang out with us along with Luke and Jason. Then Jason moved to new York. We were still close. But when I returned from New York, things were different.

I distributed the cup cakes into three groups, one for violet, one for pink and one for blue. Susannah handed me the frostings. "Where is the blue one?" I asked Susannah.

"Blue is the color of sickness. I thought yellow would be better for gratitude or apology." I looked at the yellow frosting. It sure looked better than the blue one I had in mind.

"Why aren't we using red for love?" Ivy asked.

"Because it's high school love, innocent. red is more like passion and all." I gave her a skeptical look.

"Sweet." She took some icing on her finger and tasted it.

"Why are you helping us?" Noah asked her while piping a yellow cupcake.

"Because I like your idea. It's fun and casual." I raise my eyebrows at those words.

"Aren't you supposed to be on Luke's side? because Skyler is always on his side and you are her best friend?"

"Maybe, but they don't need any help. This one is fun."

Noah dragged me a little away from her and whispered, "Don't you think she agreed only to sabotage us?"

"No," I kept my voice down. "She plays fair. She would never pretend. You know Ivy."

Noah shrugged and we got back to our icing. By the time we finished doing our job, it was already dark outside. Ivy took off and we finished the rest. Susannah told me to stay and have dinner. But Jeremy was here. So I hurried back home.

"So, how was the prep?" Jeremy asked at the dinner table.

"So far so good. Let's hope for the best."

"Everything's going to be fine. That Noah is a fine young man," Gramps said amusingly.

"Yeah, you're going to be very nice vice president. But why don't you run for the president?' Granma asked me.

I had that thought a few times in my mind. But then I decided against it. I cannot take that much responsibility. I have soccer practice, then the grades. I can't do it.

"Because, I wanna rule staying as Vice president so that if anything goes wrong everyone blames Noah." With that the whole table burst out laughing.

********************

Noah, Ivy and I were setting up the table in the hallway. With all those colors, our table already looked better. I caught Cecil frowning at me. Clearly she blames me for that mishap yesterday. I could have busted out Luke. But I decided against it. There was a lot more important thing in my mind. Fun and Casual.

"All set. I should probably leave. Only campaign members allowed on that side of table. Bye," Ivy waved at us and left.

I checked everything one last time. The cupcakes were arranged in a neat stack divided into 3 parts as their colors.

"Would you do the honor?" Noah offered me the megaphone.

"Sure," I took it and waited for the bell to ring and students to get out.

"Listen everyone. Today we bring for you a sweet way of passing letters. Here we have three different colors of cupcakes. Violet for rage, Pink for love or crush or whatever you call it and Yellow for gratefulness or apology." I waited for their reactions. They were already happy to see all these colorful cupcakes. "You can buy cupcakes for only 5 dollars each and tie a note to it. You can hand it yourself or we can send it anonymously. Your choice." There were whispers and giggles.

"So everyone please make a line and maintain your manners," I turned the megaphone off and got ready for the work.

The pink ones were selling furiously. Thank goodness I foresaw it. After all, these are high school teens. Full of crushes and romance. But the violet ones were popular too. Rage is a very funny thing.

"A pink one please. Anonymous," Skyler handed me 5 bucks and waited as I grabbed the colored pen and card.

"To Luke. I wanna date you." Skyler stated and I scribbled it on the card.

"Shouldn't you give it to him yourself?" I asked as I tied the card to the cupcake with a string.

"And get humiliated if he rejects?"

"Why would he reject you? You're just the type of girl he dates."

"I didn't know he had a type preference. He had a crush on you."

"That was in middle school, jeez." I roll my eyes. When we were in middle school rumor got out that Luke had a crush on me. I kinda felt it too but he denied it first hand. So we all shrugged it off.

"He is very choosy about girls. Also very loyal. So I don't wanna take any risks. See ya." With that she left the counter and I waited for the next one.

people came and went by. We got very few anonymous cupcakes to deliver. most of them were brave enough to give out themselves. The interesting part was when Cecil handed Noah 5 bucks and took a violet cupcake off the table. She furiously wrote something on the card and smashed it on his face.

"I know you were in this. She can't do it alone," she pointed at me. "But as a good sport, I'm gonna say this is a very nice idea. Congratulation Jenny." She stomped off.

Alex came and asked for a violet one and yellow one. I asked him, "No pink one? I thought you would be buying half of those pinks."

"I already got a lot of them. But I haven't tasted the other two yet." I laughed at the fact that he was the only one who is buying them to actually eat.

"Okay, have fun." I give him the strings and card anyway.

Ivy bought a pink one and handed it to Noah. I winked at him and he shrugged it off. I pointed at the separated number of pink ones to his left.

"Got a lot of admirers?" I poked him.

"Actually they are for you. Anonymous." He was smiling mischievously. I went to his side and started reading the cards.

To Jenny, you are hot.

To Jenny, we should hang out.

To Jenny, I love your hair.

To Jenny, Would you go out with me? -Leo

The last one only had a name. What was wrong with Leo? I was smiling to myself because I knew he was messing with me.

"The anonymous ones are all from juniors. They don't know you I see." I rolled my eyes at him.

"Where are your pink mountain?" I asked him because by now he would have received a lot.

"Ate half of them and re-sold half." He re-sold his cupcakes. Only possible by Noah.

"Okay. Then let's do these too." I hand him the pink cupcakes I received.

I went back to my side and found a yellow cupcake tied with a card.

To Jenny, I am really sorry. For both what I said and did.

"Wanna re-sell that one too?" Noah asked me.

"No. I'm gonna keep it." I had a very clear idea who put it here. Who would never apologize to my face. Luke. I smiled to myself at his guilty feelings.

"We made a fortune today." Noah was counting the money we made. I opened my locker and Noah's phone rang. It was weird for our phones to ring while we are at school. The students basically texted. He picked up the phone and listened for about 2 minutes then said, "Okay. We'll look into it." I raised my eyebrows at him and he glanced to see if anyone was around.

"It was agent Savvaro. The blood sample from the antique shop was A positive."

"What good does that do? You have A positive too." I sighed because A positive was a huge range.

"Also, the culprit is lactose intolerant."

"Luke is lactose intolerant." I don't know why it popped in my head but it just did. When we were in middle school, my mom made cookies and Luke couldn't eat them. When I asked why, he said that he was lactose intolerant.

"A lot of people are. She wants us to find as many as we can. I can get the hockey players. their data are in coach's file. You try some."

"Wait, whoever ate out today's cupcakes are out of list. Because it wasn't glucose free." I couldn't remember Luke buying any cupcake. He just sneaked in and left a note on a yellow cupcake. I recalled the band aid on his cheek the other day. I pulled my bag out of the locker and i felt something cold in my fingers. When I looked at it, it was something red and gooey.

"What's this?" I looked inside the locker to see the source. The thing I found was a little bizarre.

There in the center of my locker sat a bright red cupcake. There was a note attached to it.

Noah brought out another cupcake from his locker. It had the exact same look and exact same note.

"You don't want your loved one's to get hurt, do you?

Red is the color of warning

Consider yourself warned."