Cookie Monsters


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
 Copyright © 2023 by Erika J. Kendrick
 Cover art copyright © 2023 by Yaoyao Ma Van As.
 Cover design by Jenny Kimura.
 Cover copyright © 2023 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
 Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.
 The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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 First Edition: January 2023
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 Interior cookie vectors © Sudowoodo/Shutterstock.com
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
 Names: Kendrick, Erika J., author. Title: Cookie monsters / Erika J. Kendrick.
 Description: First edition. | New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2023. | Audience: Ages 8–12 | Summary: As twelve-year-old Brooklyn goes head-to-head against her rival to win her school’s cookie-selling competition, her friends help her cope with the death of her mother and help her try to clinch the cookie queen title.
 Identifiers: LCCN 2021062061 | ISBN 9780316281485 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316281584 (ebook)
 Subjects: CYAC: Cookies—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction. | Grief—Fiction. | African Americans—Fiction.
 Classification: LCC PZ7.1.K476 Co 2021 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021062061
 ISBNs: 978-0-316-28148-5 (hardcover), 978-0-316-28158-4 (ebook)
 E3-20221116-JV-NF-ORI
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 One
 Two
 Three
 Four
 Five
 Six
 Seven
 Eight
 Nine
 Ten
 Eleven
 Twelve
 Thirteen
 Fourteen
 Fifteen
 Sixteen
 Seventeen
 Eighteen
 Nineteen
 Twenty
 Twenty-One
 Twenty-Two
 Twenty-Three
 Twenty-Four
 Twenty-Five
 Author’s Note
 Acknowledgments
 Also by Erika J. Kendrick
 
 
 
 
 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 
 
 
 
 ALSO BY ERIKA J. KENDRICK
 Squad Goals
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 For Blondie (a.k.a. Mom), the greatest Girl Scout troop leader and my one and only Cookie Queen
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ONE
 “I’m going to win it all this year!” I announce to the eighth-grade school reporter. Then, as I nervously fidget with my fingertips, I mutter under my breath, “I just have to!”
 Before I can blink, lights flash from a fancy camera, and my eyeballs involuntarily dance around in their sockets. I blink a few times as the photographer sets up his next shot of me at the center of the Valentine Middle School gymnasium in front of a big display of scout cookies. The entire student body is stuffed into the bleachers, waiting for our big pep rally to begin—and they’re all staring at me. I do my best to bury my nerves somewhere under my banana-and-peanut-butter-colored World Scouts Alliance uniform. Now I’m hungry. Ugh!
 “Hey, Brooklyn!” someone says. I spin around and see the flushed face of a sixth-grade girl in a checkered romper. “Can I place an order of cookies with you?”
 “Yeah, me too,” says a tall girl with a bedazzled headband and matching silver bracelet cluster.
 I straighten my World Scouts sash and smile as the photographer snaps our picture. “Of course you can.”
 The sixth grader steps forward and holds out her hand for me to shake. “We remember your big win at school last year and, well…” She grips my fingers. It doesn’t seem like she’s going to let go anytime soon. “Since you’re the big cookie queen in these Valentine Middle School streets, we only want to buy our cookies from you.”
 “That’s what I’m here for,” I say, searching my pocket for my phone to take their orders.
 The two girls look at each other and squeal, and I can’t help but smile because, let’s face it, I was pretty epic last year.
 “I want one box of Chocolate Marvels,” the girl declares, shoving her hands into her romper’s deep pockets. I wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t.
 “That’s it.” She shrugs. “I’m on a super tight budget but really wanted to get my order in now before the big cookie rush starts.”
 “Okey dokey. I got you,” I say, grinning as I take her order. Then I turn to the tall girl. “What about you?”
 “On second thought,” she says, “maybe I’ll place my order with her.” She points to the commotion happening under the basket closest to the locker rooms.
 “Who?” I turn around, and that’s when I see… her, wearing a World Scouts uniform and a slick grin. Piper Parker, the new seventh-grade transfer student, pops her hip and unravels her messy pony until her perfectly layered, shiny hair settles over her shoulder. I watch her gift Hershey’s Kisses to anyone who orders scout cookies from her. She has a whole box of those delish chocolates.
 “A Kiss for cookies!” Piper yells into the small crowd that’s formed around her.
 Ugh!
 She started at Valentine midyear, right after winter break ended. The girl hasn’t even been here two whole weeks, and she’s not wasting any time making a name for herself.
 I turn back around to face the girl who was ordering cookies from me. But both she and the other girl are gone! Then I spot them heading over to join the crowd around Piper Parker.
 She glances at me and dishes out an epic hair toss. I watch her, and then she watches me, and then I