Read Mollie Cinnamon Is Not a Cupcake for Free Online

laugh.
    “But that doesn’t have to be finished until the end of term,” Bonny says.
    “My mum’s making me work on it today,” Lauren says. “
So
not cool.”
    “Mine too,” Chloe says. “And yours said the same thing, Bonny, remember?”
    Bonny still looks perplexed, but before she can say anything else Lauren starts wrapping the cupcakes up in napkins. “We’ll take these to go. Come on, girls. Nice meeting you, Mollie.”
    “See you on the school ferry on Monday,” Bonny says. Lauren and Chloe are already practically out of the door. “Sorry we have to go,” she adds.
    “That’s OK,” I tell her. She seems nice. If I’d just kept my big mouth shut, maybe we could have been friends. I didn’t mean to insult Little Bird − it just popped out. And now I’ve annoyed the only girls my age on the whole island. Great! I press my head into the back of the chair and close my eyes. When I open them again, Alanna is perched on the sofa arm.
    “Nan says she’ll be with you in a few minutes,” she says. “She’s looking over my accounts for me. She’s really good with numbers. I see your new friends have skedaddled, along with my cupcakes. Everything all right?”
    “Fine.” I want to tell her what happened, but I don’t want her to think badly of me. “They had homework to do.”
    “I see.” From the knowing look in Alanna’s eyes, I think she senses there’s more to it than that, but she doesn’t push it. “Why don’t you join Sunny? I’ll rustle up some more cupcakes.”
    I glance towards Sunny’s table. Her head is still bowed over her book. “She seems busy,” I say.
    “Look again,” Alanna says.
    At that moment, the sun peeps out from behind the clouds, lighting up the conservatory and making it look even more bright and inviting. Sunny lifts her head and gives me a shy smile.
    I follow Alanna into the conservatory.
    “Sunny, this is Mollie,” Alanna says. “Mollie, Sunny. Now, Sunny doesn’t talk, but she’s an amazing artist and I’m sure she’ll show you her work if you ask her.”
    Hang on. Did Alanna just say that Sunny doesn’t talk? Is that supposed to be some sort of joke? I look around to ask Alanna what she means, but she’s disappeared back into the kitchen.
    Now that I think about it, Nan did warn me that Sunny is ultra shy. But that’s OK − I understand shy. I can be quiet myself sometimes.
    “Is it OK if I sit here?” I ask her.
    She gives me another tiny smile and nods her head.
    “Do you live here, on the island?”
    She nods again.
    “Have you always lived here?”
    She shakes her head.
    “Where did you live before?”
    She blinks a few times, then stares down at her notebook again.
    This is not going well. I try another yes or no question instead. At least she can reply to those. “Do you like it here?”
    Another nod.
    “Do you know Lauren and her friends?”
    This time Sunny scrunches up her nose before nodding. She looks like she’s just smelled something nasty, and it makes me laugh.
    “At least Alanna seems nice.”
    A grin this time and a big nod.
    “And the hot chocolate is good.”
    She nods another yes.
    And then I’m stuck. I honestly can’t think of another thing to ask her. We sit there for a minute − staring at each other, looking away, then staring again − until the silence becomes almost too much to bear. I bite my lip. It would be really rude to get up and leave, but this is so awkward.
    Sunny must sense how I’m feeling. She turns the page of her book, which I see now is a sketchpad, and starts to draw. Her hand moves like a hummingbird’s wing over the paper, making hundreds of hair-thin pencil lines. I watch, mesmerized. I’ve never seen anyone draw so quickly.
    When she’s finished, she pushes the book across the table towards me. Alanna was right. She’s a really talented artist. She’s drawn a comic strip – three different pictures in boxes. In the first one there are two little girls holding hands. Underneath