I shut the door behind me and cut up the pear and apple I had grabbed as best as I could. Next I took the clean fruit to the nook where the coffeemaker and extra cups were stored. Even though this area was in the tiny hallway entrance to our hotel room, it was still tucked away and private enough that I wouldn’t be seen if Lily suddenly woke up.

As I worked on my secret Operation Cheer Up Lily project, I guessed salvaging this fruit was the one good thing about our team dinner last night. Vanessa and the chaperones did most of the talking. Well, actually, Vanessa mostly did the listening. She was great at head nods and reactions at just the right time, when I’m pretty sure she was not paying one hundred percent attention. But nevertheless, now I knew all there was to know about Megan’s mother and Riley’s mom, including that they play tennis together and their views on social media monitoring (there should be more), legal driving ages (it should be raised), and sunglasses styles.

If Trina and Megan were embarrassed by any overheard revelations, I couldn’t tell. Had it not been for their chewing, they would’ve been scowling the entire night. And Lily just wore a nonstop mopey face. Riley was lost in her phone, researching whether Trey Thomspon was in town and how to track his every move. I seemed to have been the only person feeling totally normal and even happy. Everyone was a little more on edge than usual. And I wanted to at least lighten the mood for my favorite person on the team.

I knew Lily was a huge fan of art. My sister, Hailey, had gone through a celebrity chef phase, and I’d been forced to watch every reality competition and browse through every recipe in search for what her idol chef called the “sweet-savory-silly triple threat”—a delicious meal with a playful twist.

In the process, Hailey picked up a million and one ways to make cool food designs, and I figured what better way to turn Lily’s frown upside down than by combining her two favorite things: food and art! For this one, I was making a leaping dancer. I’d hardly thought I could get away with undertaking anything so fancy-sounding months ago. But Hailey’s boot camp had made a liar out of me.

I made the slices of apple and pear look like a little human stick figure. With the strips of apple skin peel, I personalized it to make it look like she was flying as she leapt into the air. I’d saved my chocolate chip cookie from dessert as well. I broke it to get to an intact chocolate chip. That would make a good hair accessory. With all the crumbs left, I sprinkled some along the apple and pear slices I’d arranged on the plate in pretty patterns.

Just as I was wiping the corners of the plate clean, like I’d watched chefs on TV do plenty of times, Lily started stirring. As I quickly wrapped a plastic knife in a napkin, the room brightened up. Lily had drawn the curtains to let the morning sun in.