Cracks in the Cone (Volume 2) (Sprinkle Sundays, Band 2) - Hardcover

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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, Cupcake Diaries: The New Batch, the Sprinkle Sundays, and the Donut Dreams series. Her newest series is Mia in the Middle.

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Cracks in the Cone

CHAPTER ONE

SPRINKLES SELFIE

My best friend Allie squeezed my hand. “Happy Sprinkle Sunday,” she whispered to me. Then she whispered the same thing into our other best friend Sierra’s ear. I could sense both the nervousness and the excitement in Allie’s voice. Sprinkle Sunday, I repeated in my head. It was finally here. And I did mean finally. I felt like we’d been waiting forever?—even though it had only been a week since the last time we had all been here.

Allie’s mom, Mrs. Shear (or, as I called her, Mrs. S.), had opened an ice cream shop after she’d divorced Allie’s dad, and Mrs. S., Allie, and Allie’s little brother had moved to another town. It was a whole lot of change, especially for Allie. But we were all really happy when Mrs. S. offered the three of us (that’s me, Sierra, and Allie) jobs at the ice cream store every Sunday. That was why we called ourselves the Sprinkle Sundays sisters.

Aside from our making some extra moolah (which my mom said should go toward a college fund, but I had other ideas) with the new gig, Mrs. S. had given us all cute T-shirts to wear with the shop name, Molly’s Ice Cream. (Molly had been Allie’s great-grandma, and she’d taught Mrs. S. how to make ice cream and had inspired the shop.) Plus, I got to spend some quality time with my two besties. I’d been super-excited about it all week. Until . . . well, until Sunday morning happened.

I was almost late for work, which would have been bad, because the previous week at our trial session Sierra had been super-late, and Mrs. S. had made it clear that it shouldn’t happen again. But I slept through my alarm because I’d stayed up customizing my toilet seat with plastic fish and mermaid charms. It looked really cute, and it was going to make for a funny surprise for my guests. (Don’t judge—it was Allie’s idea, and it came out awesome.)

Anyway, I woke up to find Mom shaking me.

“Tamiko! You have to get ready,” she said.

I groaned and pulled the pillow over my face. “I think there are laws against waking up children by shaking them. It’s cruel and unusual,” I said.

Mom made a grunty sound. “Well, being late to work on your first day is cruel and unusual. Please get up—and pull your hair back off your face. You don’t want to get hair in anybody’s ice cream. That would also be cruel and unusual.”

“I’m up, I’m up,” I said. After my shower I quickly made two long braids in my hair and then pulled them back with a ponytail holder. Mom’s advice was usually annoying, but she was right about the hair. Nobody wants an ice cream sundae with rainbow sprinkles and Tamiko DNA. Yuck! With a little extra hustle I was able to arrive right on time for our first shift.

After we all hugged hello, we heard a shuffle near the back door. It was Mrs. S., walking in with a tub of ice cream almost bigger than she was.

“Can you girls please help me bring in the ice cream from the van out back?” she asked. “We sold out of seven flavors yesterday!”

The three of us looked at one another. I guess it was time to, you know, work.

“I should have refilled the flavors last night, but I was just too tired,” Mrs. S. continued, and then she turned to Allie. “Your dad was nice enough to bring them over to me today.”

Right, Allie’s dad. The weird thing about Allie’s parents was that they always used to fight when they were married. Not like huge blowout fights but lots of little fights, which made us all squirm. They bickered in front of Allie and her little brother, Tanner, and even in front of Sierra and me. I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to fight in front of your daughter’s friends, but we did go over to their house a lot, I guess. Nobody was really surprised when they got divorced, except for Allie. It’s always different when it’s your parents. But now that they were divorced, it was like they were best friends or something. They were super-smiley and helpful to each other. They probably got along better than my own parents, even.

We followed Allie’s mom through the back door to the minivan that she used to haul stuff back and forth to the shop. She rented a space in an industrial kitchen somewhere else in Bayville, where she made the ice cream and stored it in a big Deepfreeze. Allie’s dad was there now too, unloading the tubs, and Tanner was helping him—or doing Tanner’s version of helping, which is to say, he watched us doing everything and complained that it was too hot outside.

“Hey, Mr. S.!” I said. “Hi, Tanner.”

Before I could get another word in, Allie’s mom took one of the tubs from Mr. S. “Enough talking!” she said. “We don’t want the ice cream to melt.”

“You heard the boss!” Mr. S. said, and we all laughed. Allie and Sierra grabbed buckets, and we lugged them through the back office and into the front parlor. I dumped the bucket into the bin marked VANILLA in one of the shop’s long freezers. A curved glass top was open in the back so that we could scoop, but the glass protected the ice cream in the front from sneezing customers and little kids with icky hands. Besides vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, Mrs. S. had concocted some truly special and delicious flavors, like Lemon Blueberry, Banana Pudding, Butterscotch Chocolate Chunk, and Maple Bacon.

“There’s so much more vanilla than anything else,” I said, looking at all the flavors lined up.

“It’s Mom’s best-selling flavor,” Allie said.

“Really? Why would anyone get vanilla when there are so many cool things to try?” I asked.

“You know, I think part of the reason is that even the basic flavors are amazing,” Allie said. “Mom’s vanilla is the best vanilla around.”

“It is definitely the most vanilla-y,” Sierra chimed in. “I love it!”

“Vanilla-y! Is that even a word?” I teased.

“But also I think people just order the same thing out of habit,” Allie went on.

“Well, they can eat as much vanilla as they like, as far as I’m concerned,” Mrs. S. said, entering the parlor with a tub of ice cream. “They’re still giving me business.”

“I guess,” I said. “But I love all of the exciting flavors. Do you have any new ones coming out soon?”

“I’m trying a new recipe with lavender, but I’m not sure what other flavors to pair with it,” she replied. “I don’t want it to be too flowery.”

“Ooh, will it be purple? That is an awesome color for ice cream,” I said, thinking about all of the cool stories people would post with purple ice cream in the frames.

She smiled. “I could definitely make it purple. Hmm. Maybe Lavender Blackberry?”

Then she turned to Allie. “I’ve got a bunch of ordering and bookkeeping to catch up on, so I’m going to leave you girls out front. You’re in charge, Allie. You know what to do to set up. The afternoon rush will start soon!”

Allie nodded....