Mollie Cinnamon Is Not a Cupcake Read Online Free PDF Page A

great pictures.”
    “Can you use it for taking videos?”
    “Yes. Are you interested in making movies?”
    I shrug. “Kind of. I’ve made a few Lego stop-motion animations with my friend Shannon, but they’re not very good.” My stomach rumbles. Even though I was ravenous last night my stomach felt funny, all knotted and twisty, so I couldn’t eat much dinner. “Can I have some breakfast?”
    “Of course. How about buttermilk pancakes?”
    Granny Ellen used to make those too. I nod. “Yes, please. I’ll just get dressed first.”
    Once Nan’s gone, I rummage in my bag for my black jeans and my favourite black-and-white stripy top. I love black-and-white stripes. Granny Ellen used to say, “Here’s my little zebra girl again,” whenever I wore them.
    Nan reminds me quite a lot of Granny Ellen. She went to a lot of trouble last night to make the dinner table look nice. She’d set it with sparkling glasses and cutlery, baby-blue place mats and matching napkins. I think she has a bit of a thing for blue! There was a vase of yellow flowers that looked like tiny daffodils and a (blue!) ribbon tied in a bow around the back of my chair. Granny Ellen was just the same. She loved using place mats and real napkins. She said it made people feel special and welcome. Flora’s idea of setting the table is to open a Chinese takeaway carton and hand me a plastic fork. We mostly eat off our laps in front of the telly.
    Dinner was delicious – beef and Guinness stew with mashed potatoes and then chocolate pots for dessert. It was a shame I couldn’t eat much. Afterwards I asked if I could go straight to bed. Nan seemed a little disappointed. I think she wanted to ask me more questions about Dublin and Flora.
    “Of course you can, child,” she said. “It’s been a long day for you. Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”
    As I walk into the kitchen for breakfast, I can smell butter sizzling in a frying pan. Nan is at the Aga and there’s a glass bowl on the counter beside her, half full of pale yellow batter mix.
    “Would you like to make them while I set the table?” she asks.
    “OK.”
    “Have you made buttermilk pancakes before, Mollie? Some people call them drop scones.”
    “Yes, lots of times,” I say.
    Nan smiles. “I’ll put the plates out then. We’ll make a good team, you and me. Wait and see.”
    Over breakfast Nan asks me if there’s anything I’d like to do today.
    I stop myself from saying, “Go home, please.” Instead I shrug. “Not really. Maybe talk to Flora later.”
    Nan smiles. “I think we can arrange that. She said she’ll ring us from the airport once they get to Singapore. It will be some time this evening. They have a two-hour stopover there before flying on to Sydney. In the meantime, I thought we could go to the cafe for a hot chocolate after lunch. I’ve invited a few of the girls from the island who are your age to come and meet you. Alanna’s laying on some cupcakes.”
    My stomach clenches at the thought of meeting lots of strangers, and I chew on my lip.
    “Don’t look so worried, child,” Nan says. “There are only four of them. Lauren, Chloe and Bonny all go to Bethlehem Heights – that’s the senior school on the mainland where you’ll be going. And I hope Sunny will come along, too, although she might not. She’s very shy. She’s home-schooled.”
    Four girls around my age − that doesn’t sound too bad. But I’m still nervous.
    The morning crawls by. That’s what you get for being up with the birds, I guess. After helping Nan wash up (I remembered to offer. Granny Ellen would be proud of me), I finish unpacking my clothes and then sit down on the window seat, wondering what to do until lunchtime. Yet again there’s nothing to see outside apart from birds and − yes, how exciting – a green tractor. I watch it trundle across one of the fields and then disappear down a laneway. I try ringing Shannon, but her phone isn’t on, so I text her instead.
Hey,