Ansley's Big Bake Off Read online

  Also by Kaitlyn, Camryn, and Olivia Pitts

  Ashton’s Dancing Dreams (Book 2—The Daniels Sister Series)

  And check out these titles by Alena Pitts!

  THE LENA IN THE SPOTLIGHT SERIES

  Book 1—Hello Stars

  Book 2—Day Dreams and Movie Screens

  Book 3—Shining Night

  ZONDERKIDZ

  Ansley’s Big Bake Off

  Copyright © 2020 For Girls Like You, Inc.

  Illustrations © 2020 by Lucy Truman

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Zonderkidz, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  ISBN 978-0-310-76960-6

  Epub Edition January 2020 9780310769651

  * * *

  Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other—except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  Zonderkidz is a trademark of Zondervan.

  Art direction: Cindy Davis

  Interior design: Denise Froehlich

  Printed in the United States of America

  * * *

  2021222324LSC 10987654321

  From Kaity:

  To my mommy for being my biggest support.

  And to my sisters for always being there for

  me and for being my best friends.

  From For Girls Like You:

  To Roberta for being a gift to our

  ministry that keeps giving.

  To Janel for catching the vision and so

  creatively capturing our story.

  To our team for filling in the gaps and

  holes and being God’s wind in our

  sails in our greatest time of need.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Ashton’s Dancing Dreams Chapter 1

  Chapter 1

  Great job, Ansley.” My big sister, Lena, crossed her arms and took a long, sweeping look over my room. She smiled at my soft, pink, unicorn-patterned bedspread, at the two unicorn stuffed toys lying on top of it, and at the beautiful unicorn poster hanging on the blush-colored wall over my desk. She nodded slowly. “I’m sensing a theme . . .”

  I giggled. “Yup! The theme is: Ansley!” I explained. “Because Ansley equals unicorns!”

  Lena pointed to the sparkly unicorn T-shirt I was wearing. “You don’t say.” I laughed at that. Then Lena motioned for me to follow her. “Wanna see mine now?”

  “Sure!” I trotted after her.

  Lena and I were putting the finishing touches on our new bedrooms in our new house. We had moved in just a few days ago, but finding the perfect place for everything was taking longer than we had expected. It had also been more fun than we thought it would be.

  “Ta-da!” Lena spread out her hands and led me inside her bedroom. Her bedspread, pillowcases, and headboard were all a creamy white, making her bed look like a fluffy cloud in the middle of her room. Her curtains were a pale blue and covered with a star pattern. On one wall was an autographed poster from the movie Above the Waters, a movie she had actually been in a few years back with the famous singer Mallory Winston. And on the opposite wall hung an acoustic guitar that somehow looked as if it was just waiting for Lena to snatch it up and start strumming.

  I stroked my chin, pretending to be deep in thought. “Yes . . . yes . . . this room . . . it seems to be saying something. Hmmm. What is it? I hear it! It’s saying, ‘Leeeee . . .’ What’s that now? ‘Leeeeeen?’ Oh, yes, that’s right! ‘Leeeeeeena!’” I yelled out. I lifted my arms and twirled in a circle on the rug at the foot of her bed.

  Lena chuckled that time, and it made my heart do a little dance. I was glad that I had helped to cheer her up. Lena hadn’t been smiling or laughing much lately—in fact, neither had my dad, my other sisters, or me, even. And I was probably the smiliest one in the family.

  Because even though we were enjoying our new house and were smiling and laughing right now, we were all still sad inside. We were missing Mom. She had died unexpectedly a few weeks ago. I hadn’t known until that day that surprises could be sad—even awful sometimes. Mom had been looking forward to moving into the new house as much as the rest of us. “It’ll be a new adventure for the Daniels family!” she had said, smiling. And it was. Only now it was an adventure missing one very important person.

  I sank down onto Lena’s bed. “Everything would be just perfect if only Mom were here.”

  Lena sat down next to me and draped an arm over my shoulders. “Yeah.” She sighed.

  “But now everything’s changed,” I went on. “New house, new church . . . and the first day of school sure will be different too.”

  “Well, yeah. New school, new classmates—and no after-school snack surprise.” Lena nodded.

  Mom used to have a first-day-of-school tradition where she baked us an extra-special snack for when we came home. (It was different every year, and usually a sweet treat she wouldn’t ordinarily let us have before dinner, like brownies or cupcakes.) Then she’d let us stuff our faces as she listened to us all tell her about how our day had gone. That was the best part, really. Mom would cup her chin in her hands and look straight into our faces as we talked. She always seemed really interested in what we had to say. She was such a great mom. And this year, with me starting middle school—in a new school where I didn’t know anybody (just thinking about it made my stomach flip over like a flapjack)—I felt like I could have really used her special, loving support more than ever.

  All four of us Daniels sisters were going to start school at Roland Lake Christian Academy on Monday. It was a beautiful campus with an outdoor fountain and sprawling green lawns. There was only one problem with it. The school itself was divided into three sections. The main building was over one hundred years old (it had originally been a mansion) and stood at the center. The other two buildings stuck out on either side of it, like wings. Actually, they were called wings—the grammar school wing and the high school wing. The middle school was, well, in the middle.

  “If I was still in elementary school,” I said, “I would at least be near the twins.” (The twins were our sisters, Ashton, who we called “Cammie,” and Amber, who we called “Kitty.” More on that later.) They were nine years old. “Or if only I was already in high school, I could be in the same building as you,” I told Lena. “But we
’re all going to be separated! I’m going to be all alone!”

  Lena cocked her head. “For the first five minutes, maybe. But you’ll make friends fast. You’re good at that. Besides, remember what we promised each other when we moved here?”

  At that moment, Cammie and Kitty popped in to check out how Lena had decorated her room.

  I widened my eyes. “Great timing, you guys!”

  “What?” Cammie looked a little suspicious, but Kitty had a dreamy look on her face as she admired the room.

  I explained, “Lena was just about to say it.” I thrust out my arm and into the middle of the circle of sisters. “You know. It. Remember . . . ?”

  Lena placed her hand on top of mine and began, “Even in times when we’re apart . . .”

  “The Daniels sisters,” I said, “promise with all our hearts . . .”

  Cammie snapped to attention and slapped her hand on top of Lena’s. Kitty immediately put hers on top of her twin’s. Then they said at the same time, “That we’ll always be . . .”

  And suddenly it was all of us, “Together four-ever! Together four-ever! Together four-ever! Together four-ever!” (We had to say that last part four times.)

  “Woooooooo!” we cheered ourselves, broke our hands apart, and beamed at one another.

  “Girls!”

  Our dad’s voice broke the spell, and all four of us turned our heads toward the open doorway.

  “Lena! Ansley! Cammie! Kitty!”

  He had called us all by name. It sounded important. We all tried to bolt out of the room at the same time, unsure of even where to turn next. We still were not used to the layout of the new house.

  “Um, where are you, Dad?” I called out with a nervous giggle.

  “I’m in the dining room!” His voice floated back.

  Wanting to make Lena smile again, I shot ahead of her and grinned playfully over my shoulder. “Beat ya there!” But before I took a step, Cammie and Kitty dashed out in front of me. They squeaked in alarm when I almost slammed into them, then squealed with delight when they peeled on ahead and thundered down the stairs. As I stared open-mouthed after them, Lena doubled over laughing at my frozen look of surprise. Then I laughed too. I may have lost the race, but getting Lena to laugh had definitely been a win.

  “No running down the stairs!” Dad called out.

  Once we reached the dining room, we found Dad (and Kitty and Cammie who were cheering themselves for their victory) at the dining room table. They were each standing behind the chairs they regularly sat in. When Lena and I took our places behind the chairs on Dad’s right side, I noticed something. Set out in front of each of us girls—like some sort of strange placemat—was a flat, rectangular package neatly wrapped in brown paper so smooth it looked almost as if it had been ironed.

  “I got these from the framer’s today,” Dad said, smiling around at all of us. “They’re housewarming presents—one for each of you. See? Your names are on them. Go ahead and open them up. I was thinking you could hang them over your beds. Or you can choose a spot in your room that you might like better.”

  Since the packages were only very lightly taped closed, they fell open easily. My picture was facedown, so I couldn’t see what it was until I turned it over. Once I did, I let out a small gasp.

  Framed in gold was a Scripture verse in my mother’s handwriting. It read: “The joy of the LORD is your strength.”—Nehemiah 8:10 (NIV).

  I blinked back the tears I felt forming in my eyes and quickly looked around the table at my sisters. They were all admiring their own different Scripture verses—also written in Mom’s handwriting.

  Lena found her voice first and asked for all of us, “How . . . ?”

  Dad turned toward the laptop bag he had propped on his chair, reached into it, and pulled out a very familiar-looking, slightly messy notebook stuffed with folded sheets of paper and brightly colored sticky notes. It was one of Mom’s prayer journals. “As you girls know, your mom read the Bible every day. And when she did, she often wrote down the Scripture she was praying over or verses she felt inspired by. When I was looking through this the other day, I felt like she wanted to share His Word with you girls. So, I prayed about it, selected four of them, and had them scanned, enlarged, printed, and framed.

  “Because,” Dad continued, “your mother may be with the Lord now, but Scripture tells us that the Lord is with us always. That means if He is with us and she is with Him, then she is with us too. And she is definitely with us when we are praising and loving God and each other and . . .” he gestured at our presents, “sharing His Word.”

  Lena nodded as she smiled down at her verse, which read in Mom’s feminine, loopy style, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”—Jeremiah 29:11.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said in a sniffly voice as she wiped her eyes.

  “Yeah, thanks,” I said, as I gently stroked the glass over my Scripture verse. A gentle feeling of warmth blossomed around my heart and seemed to bloom out of me like invisible vines to encircle my whole family. I suddenly knew what to do: I ran to my dad—almost bowling him over—to give him a great big hug. Then each of my sisters joined me and we all piled onto Dad like snowballs of love.

  “Group hug!” Dad shouted, and we all laughed. Then I closed my eyes to soak up the love as we held each other for a minute. When I opened them and saw my present still on the table, I shouted, “Let’s go hang them up!”

  “Okay, let me just get the hammer and some nails,” Dad said, and he headed for the garage, where he kept the toolbox.

  Cammie slapped herself on the forehead with the palm of her hand. “I should have recorded this!” She whipped out her cell phone and jogged after Dad. “Wait for me!”

  Cammie and Kitty were recording bits and pieces of our daily lives to send as videos to our grandmothers, who wanted to see how we were all settling in. This was a perfect project for the twins because they really liked making “movies” for fun. In fact, that was the reason Ashton was called Cammie. She used her cell phone mostly for making videos and had gotten into the habit of basically recording us all the time—even doing boring things, like sitting around and watching TV. It had gotten to be so much that Mom started teasing her by calling her “Camera Girl.” Then after a while, it just became “Cammie” or “Cam.” Ashton loved it because it had been Mom’s special name for her. But now that Mom was gone, she wanted the rest of us to keep calling her that special name. And considering how often she had her camera out, it was easy to do.

  As I watched her dash into the garage, I had to admit to myself that even though I had found some of the constant recording annoying at first, in the end I was glad she had done it. Now we at least had a lot of video of Mom we could watch whenever we wanted.

  Dad was in my room a little while later (without Cammie, who had already recorded him in her room). I watched as he used a level to make sure he was hanging the picture straight. Then, with a nod of satisfaction, he pounded the nail neatly into the wall with three blows.

  As I watched him straighten the frame on the wall, I reread the Scripture, “The joy of the LORD is your strength,” and wondered why he had chosen that Scripture for me.

  “Dad?”

  “Hmm?” He turned to look at me just as his phone went off. “It’s your Aunt Samantha,” he said just as I saw her photo and name come up on the screen of his phone. “I’ve got to take this.” He stepped away and said, “Hey, Sis . . .” After they spoke for about five minutes, he hung up, quickly put the hammer back in the toolbox, and said, “Round up the others. We have to finish getting ready for your aunt’s arrival. She’ll be here very soon.”

  I slapped myself on the forehead. Our dad’s big sister was moving in with us, and the four of us girls had all been working on different ways to welcome her. I was cooking up something special. Something warm. Something sweet and (I thought, once I heard the oven timer go
off) something ready! I rushed down to the kitchen.

  Chapter 2

  When I hit the landing, I took in a long, deep breath. The homey scents of baking bread and cinnamon combined and filled the first floor. Heaven must smell a little bit like this, I thought, and headed for the stove.

  I bent down and peeked through the window of the oven. The cinnamon rolls had fattened and browned nicely. They were done. I grabbed my pink and blue unicorn apron and matching oven mitts from their hooks and slipped them on. Then I carefully slid the tray of piping hot cinnamon rolls out of the oven. They smelled even more amazing once they were out on the counter. I could hardly wait to have some—I felt saliva fill my cheeks. But first I had to make the glaze.

  I quickly grabbed a large bowl and poured powdered sugar, butter, cream cheese, and vanilla into it. I used a whisk to blend them together, adding warmed milk a little at a time to make the glaze runny enough. When the icing was done, I drizzled it over the tops of all the rolls, and the sweet vanilla-cream-cheese-sugar smell combined with the cinnamon smell to create an even more incredible aroma. I admired the tray of glistening sweets and licked my lips. Perfect!

  I looked up with a proud smile but . . . there was no one around to smile back at me. Mom and I used to bake together all the time. It was one of those special mother-daughter activities that she and I would do at least once a week. Baking wasn’t the same without her. My shoulders sagged.

  But missing Mom wasn’t the only thing that was bothering me. Where is everybody? I wondered. Usually by the time my cinnamon rolls were done, their aroma would draw family members into the kitchen from all different corners of the house. Then my sisters and I would argue over who had dibs on one of the middle rolls (they were the fluffiest and best). Even though I had already decided that today those rolls would be going to Aunt Samantha, I was still disappointed to find that I was not surrounded by drooling fans. Even Austin, our blue-nosed American bully, was nowhere to be found, and the kitchen was his favorite place to hang out.