the beach house when she was little. She wondered if they would keep up the tradition now that her parents were divorced. “The only thing better than a sleepover is a sleepover at your amazing beach house,” Hope said. Glory smiled and admired the three-story house. It was a beautiful house, with its wall of gleaming windows that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Glory thought the best
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part was the enormous staircase that led up from the beach to the wide back porch overlooking the ocean. Together the girls walked back to their friends on the shore. “Great sand castle, Honor and Gracie!” Hope called. “It’s supposed to be Glory’s beach house, but we’re having trouble making it tall enough,” Honor said. Hope took a bucket and started to dig. “We can do it if we work as a team.” “What’s that you’re making, Faith?” Glory asked. “I’m using these shells I collected to make art.” “Oh! I see now,” Glory said. “You’ve made a bunch of different flowers, like a floral pattern on fabric. It reminds me of a dress I have. Can I help?” “Sure!”
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“Girls!” Glory’s mom called from the porch. “Dinner’s ready!” The girls looked over to see Glory’s mom walking toward them, carrying pizzas and plates. “How about dinner on the beach?” she asked. They all cheered in unison. Sunset was still a couple of hours away, and they wanted to be outside as long as they could. Glory’s mom easily got the girls to come inside, however, when she told them they were going to have gourmet cupcakes for dessert. “And each of you can design your very own cupcake,” she said. Glory got a gleam in her eye. “There’s a catch. We each design our own using whatever we want to represent our personality.”
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The girls squealed in delight when they saw the enormous marble kitchen island loaded with a variety of cupcakes on cake stands. There were several colors of frosting to choose from. And jelly beans, chocolate chips, candy, coconut flakes, and sprinkles in pretty bowls lined the counter. “Wow, it’s like my wildest dream just came true!” Faith said. “I don’t know where to start.” Hope’s eyes widened. “I do!” Honor chimed in. She took a vanilla cupcake and got straight to work. Glory was piping cream cheese frosting onto her cupcake when she squeezed her piping bag too hard and accidentally splattered frosting everywhere. A huge glob landed on Honor’s glasses. For a moment, Honor stood still, surprised. Then she wiped it off and tasted it. “Yum,” she said. The rest of the girls laughed. Honor retaliated by throwing a marshmallow back at Glory, but she missed. The marshmallow hit Hope instead. Soon they were all throwing candy around the kitchen, giggling. Glory’s mom rushed in. “Girls!” They froze. Glory looked around. Food was everywhere, including all over the girls. The special aprons her mom had bought them to take home after the sleepover weren’t doing much good keeping them clean. “Glory,” her mom scolded. “What are you doing?” Glory shrugged and grimaced. “Sampling the food?” “Well,” Glory’s mom said, smiling, “you ladies have some cleaning up to do. But first, I want to hear about these gorgeous cupcakes.” “I’ll go first,” Faith said. “I chose carrot cake with cream cheese frosting because I love how it tastes. Then I chose colorful sprinkles to represent the paints in my special art kit.”
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Hope went next. “I designed my cupcake to look like a soccer ball. The cake is chocolate, so I put vanilla frosting over it in a pattern. Even though—well, it kinda looks like a pile of slop.” Honor laughed. “My turn,” she said. “Mine is vanilla cake and vanilla frosting. I used coconut and chocolate chips to make it look like a kitten, see?” “Honor loves anything with fur, Mom,” Glory explained. “Even furry cupcakes!” They all giggled.
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