Donut Goals

By Coco Simon

Molly struggles with self-confidence in this seventh delicious book in the Donut Dreams series from the author of the Cupcake Diaries and Sprinkle Sundays series!

Molly is thrilled to hear that a college scout will be coming to her big soccer game to evaluate the players. But when a player on the opposing team starts making rude comments about Molly’s soccer skills and appearance, Molly begins to lose her confidence. Now she can’t help but wonder—is the girl just trying to bring her down, or is Molly really not as good a player as she thinks?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight
• Release date: Aug 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781534495999

Coco Simon

From cupcakes to ice cream and donuts! When she’s not daydreaming about yummy snacks, Coco Simon edits children’s books and has written close to one hundred books for children, tweens, and young adults, which is a lot less than the number of cupcakes, ice cream cones, and donuts she’s eaten. She is the author of the Cupcake Diaries, the Sprinkle Sundays, and the Donut Dreams series. Her newest series is Cupcake Diaries: The New Batch. 

Book preview

Chapter One

Running Is the Best Thing

Riiiiing!!!

I jumped out of my seat and grabbed my backpack, which was hanging from my chair. School was finally out!

Hoisting my backpack across my shoulders, I ran out the door and hurried to my locker. Even though I like my classes and can sit still and pay attention during them, my legs are always itching to leave by the end of the day.

I know that I left recess behind in elementary school, but there’s part of me that really wishes that I could have brought it with me into middle school.

I love the idea of being able to go out into the sunshine after a few hours of classes and stretch and run. I would ignore the tetherballs and basketball hoops and make a beeline for the group of kids playing tag.

In the short time we had outside, I’d run and duck and swerve, sometimes getting close to the tagger, then spinning around and flying toward the safe wall of the school building. I loved the feeling of excitement of outrunning somebody, or dodging their outstretched hand as I bolted across the playground.

But now, in sixth grade, recess is gone. Sure, I’ve got gym class scheduled, but even though I have gym two to three times a week, it still never feels like enough exercise.

I am lucky, though—there is one sport that I’ve been playing for six years that helps me feel happy in my body. Mom and Dad signed me up for soccer when I was in kindergarten, and I’ve been playing ever since.

I love the way it feels when I’m totally concentrated on the ball, dribbling and passing and moving it forward to the opposing team’s goal. Even though my body is working hard, it’s a special moment when my head gets really quiet as it focuses on the next play.

Run, dribble, pass, repeat, score!

I had soccer practice the next day, but today I was walking home with my sister Kelsey. I found her by the front of the school, and together we started on our way.

Kelsey and I are really close in age, but we don’t share a lot of things in common.

For one thing, Mom and Dad are Kelsey’s birth mother and father, while I was adopted by them from South Korea when I was just a baby.

Kelsey looks like a combination of my parents, with her light brown hair and green eyes, while I’ve got straight black hair and dark brown eyes.

My sister is super disorganized, while I like to keep track of all my things. (Don’t look in my closet, though—it is the one part of my life that I allow to go a little haywire.) Kelsey also isn’t always on time, while I hate it when I’m even a minute late for things.

But despite our differences, I love having Kelsey as a sister. And I feel protective of her too.

A while back, when her personal blog accidentally got posted to the web, even though there wasn’t anything really sensitive that she shared, I made a plan to get her out of school that day and home with Mom and Dad so she didn’t have to be around the kids who had just read her innermost thoughts. I think that helping her drew the two of us closer together.

Want to go for a run when we get home? I asked Kelsey as we walked along.

I held my finger in the air as if I was testing it. The air was sharp and crisp, cool, but not the kind of cool that makes you want to stay inside.

It’s the perfect weather for it.

Kelsey shook her head. Nah. I’m reading a really good book, and I’m almost done with it. I want to see what happens in the end.

She shrugged, adjusting her backpack. Plus, I feel like I haven’t been paying enough attention to Rusty lately. I kind of feel like snuggle time is on the horizon.

I nodded. Rusty is the dog we adopted recently. One of our neighbors, Mrs. Rose, helps out at a local rescue shelter, fostering dogs until they’re adopted so they don’t have to be kept in the shelter’s kennels all the time.

One day Mrs. Rose was walking by my soccer practice with a couple of dogs that she was fostering, and that’s when I saw Rusty.

He was really shy, and I was immediately drawn to how he seemed to be so scared of the world but became happy and playful when showered with attention.

Mrs. Rose had named him Rusty for his reddish-brown fur, and she told me that a hiker had found him abandoned in the woods, hiding under some rocks.

It took some convincing, but eventually Mom and Dad decided that having a dog in the house would be a great addition to the family, and we adopted Rusty.

I quickly found out that adopting a cute dog is a lot more work than actually taking care of one—Rusty needs to be walked twice a day, and picking up his poop is never fun.

But I love that little guy to pieces, and whenever he hops up onto my bed and curls up into a bagel to take a nap, I smile. And even though I’m cleaning up after him constantly, I wouldn’t trade him for anything.

Rusty is the family dog, though, and if Kelsey wanted to spend some time with him, that was awesome.

All right, I told Kelsey. Maybe Jenna will want to go for a run with me.

Jenna is my older sister. She mostly keeps to her own group of friends, but every once in a while she’ll hang out with Kelsey and me.

When we got home, Rusty was waiting for us at the door. After wrapping him in a giant hug and rubbing his furry brown head while he wagged his tail happily, I took off my school shoes and padded in socks to the kitchen, where Dad was waiting for us with after-school snacks.

I present to you… apple nachos! he said proudly, displaying a plate covered in thinly cut apples slices arranged carefully in a spiral. He had drizzled peanut butter, honey, and granola over them.

Cool! I washed my hands with soap and water, then picked up a slice and gobbled it up.

This is great, Dad! I mumbled as I picked up three more slices and fit them all in my mouth.

Agreed, Kelsey said, her mouth equally full.

Did you get this recipe from Grandpa and Nans? I asked, licking peanut butter off my finger.

My grandparents are both really talented cooks and have owned a restaurant called the Park View Table in our little town of Bellgrove since basically forever.

It’s a family operation, with pretty much all my relatives helping out in one way or another—including Kelsey, Jenna, and me.

I’ve got four cousins who also work there, and together we make sure that the floors are swept, the tables are bused, the orders are right, and that things run as smoothly as possible.

My grandmother’s specialty is donuts, and years ago she created a counter inside the restaurant called Donut Dreams that my uncle Mike runs now.

Nans has always had a way of making something ordinary extraordinary—like taking a chocolate donut and making it extra chocolatey by adding a chocolate glaze and chocolate cream inside.

Anyway, I figured that if my dad was sprucing up our snacks, he must have gotten it from a secret family recipe.

Nope, Dad said, surprising me. I got it off the old Internet. Grandpa and Nans are too busy planning for Jazz Fest to share recipes right now.

The Bellgrove Jazz Fest is seriously one of the busiest times of the entire year for our family.

Every fall, our whole town gets together the third Saturday after Labor Day to celebrate jazz music with a huge festival that’s set up along Main Street.

In addition to an awesome parade and good music, local restaurants set up a ton of food booths so we can eat their tasty food outdoors. We have a parade and food booths at Jazz Fest and other town celebrations too. And Bellgrove loves to end any festival with a bonfire at the lake. Our festival days may be