When Katie brings her maybe-someday stepsister to Cupcake Club, she gets her first taste of sibling rivalry—and it’s not very sweet! Katie’s mom asks Katie for a huge favor: will she spend some time with Emily, her boyfriend’s daughter? Katie agrees and brings Emily to a Cupcake Club meeting. Things go well—almost too well. Everyone likes Emily so much, Katie wonders if her friends like Emily more than they like her! And if her mom marries Emily’s dad, will Emily become her favorite daughter? Katie is an only child, so all this sibling stuff is new to her. She’s starting from scratch! From cupcakes to ice cream and donuts! When she’s not daydreaming about yummy snacks, Coco Simon edits children’s books and has written close to one hundred books for children, tweens, and young adults, which is a lot less than the number of cupcakes, ice cream cones, and donuts she’s eaten. She is the author of the Cupcake Diaries, the Sprinkle Sundays, and the Donut Dreams series. Her newest series is Cupcake Diaries: The New Batch. Katie Starting from Scratch CHAPTER 1 Really, Mom? So, Emily, what’s new with you? How are things going at school?” my mom asked the girl sitting next to me. “It’s okay,” Emily replied. “I like all my teachers.” Emily’s dad, who was sitting next to my mom, smiled at her. I should probably remind you that Emily’s dad, Jeff, is also a math teacher at the middle school that I go to. There I call him “Mr. Green.” And Jeff, or Mr. Green or whatever you want to call him, happens to be dating my mom. It gets a little awkward sometimes to have your mom dating a teacher at school, but I’m dealing with it. “Have you ever had trouble with the lock on your locker?” Mom asked Emily. Mom nodded toward me. “Katie had a hard time getting the hang of it. Once she even called me at work because she couldn’t get it open.” I looked at my mom in disbelief. “Really, Mom? Do you have to tell everybody that?” Maybe normally I would have just laughed at a comment about that (especially since Mom was right), but lately Mom was doing this thing with Emily, like sort of selling me out to get closer to her, that was starting to get annoying. And even more stuff happened during our dinner that night at the Maple Grove Diner. Mom changed the subject of my un-awesome lock-opening ability—but the conversation didn’t get any better. “Well, I’m glad everything is going smoothly for you,” Mom said. “I remember when Katie and her best friend, Callie, just stopped being friends for no reason. Can you believe that? But, luckily, she made some new friends right away.” I. Could. Not. Believe. It. Mom was telling all my deep, dark secrets to Jeff and Emily. “First of all, Callie stopped being my friend,” I said. “And, anyway, why is this important? I have awesome friends now.” “That’s exactly what I said,” Mom protested. That’s when the waitress came to our table. Finally, I thought. We can stop talking about all my horrible school experiences and eat. Mom and Jeff both ordered turkey burgers and salads. Emily ordered a turkey club sandwich. “Would you like fries with that?” the waitress asked. “I’ll have a salad, please,” Emily said. “And a glass of water.” Then the waitress turned to me. “What would you like?” Now, I like to think that ordering food at a restaurant is one of my skills. For example, if we go to Mariani’s Italian Restaurant, I always order the eggplant parm, because it’s awesome there, but if we go to Torino’s, it’s too greasy so I get the ravioli, which they make by hand. And I always end up with the best food on the table. It’s kind of an art. And whenever I recommend something, people love it. Maybe I’ll be a food critic when I get older. Imagine getting to eat in all the best restaurants and get paid for telling people what you did and didn’t like. That would be pretty amazing. Anyway, I know exactly what to order at the Maple Grove Diner. “I’ll have the Reuben with cheese fries and a root beer, please,” I said. Now, for years Mom and I have eaten out a lot, just the two of us, so she is used to my mad food-ordering skills. But today she raised her eyebrows at me. “Root beer?” she asked. “You know how I feel about soda. It’s so bad for your teeth, not to mention your overall health.” My mom is a dentist, so of course I know how she feels about soda. Which made me think she was just saying that to impress Jeff or something. “Mom, you know my food-to-beverage formula,” I said. Emily looked interested. “What is that?” “Well, you know how some things just go together?” I asked. “Like, an ice-cold cola is awesome with Chinese food. But on the other hand, any kind of soda is gross with P-B-and-J. The best drink for that is milk.” “What about . . . a tuna sandwich?” Emily asked. “Iced tea,” I said. “That would go great with a turkey club, too, by the way. Or you can get lemonade.” “Dad, can I get an iced tea?” Emily asked Jeff. “Well, I’d rather you didn’t h