“She’s in the kitchen,” Carly volunteers.

Calla steps closer and says in a whisper, “She’s stress baking.”

Uh-oh. Aubrey loves to bake, but sometimes she goes kind of overboard. And as I walk into her family’s kitchen, it looks like a cookie factory has exploded. Not only is the counter covered with flour, sugar, a variety of baking chips, and a large puddle of what smells like vanilla extract, ingredients are all over the floors, the fridge handles, and even on the ceiling. There are also at least five dozen chocolate chip cookies cooling on wire racks in the corner.

Aubrey stands by a large stand mixer. She’s wearing a chef’s hat and is trying to push a rolling pin over a lopsided glob of dough. There’s flour all over her face and hair, and when she turns the mixer on again, ingredients fly everywhere. I duck to avoid flying chunks of oats and brown sugar.

Cody appears from the dining room, where he too has been hiding from the wild mixer tornado. “I tried to stop her, Hayley. I really did.”

I walk over to Aubrey as she pushes the cookie mixture around the bowl with a wooden spoon. “I think you’ve made enough batches, Aud. You can probably stop now.”

“But I haven’t made any with oats and peanut butter chips,” Aubrey insists. More ingredients fly up from the wildly spinning mixer, splattering her cheeks.

“Step away from the mixer,” I instruct. “Before someone gets hurt.”

Reluctantly, Aubrey turns the mixer’s switch off. I lead her to the kitchen table—which is also covered in cookie ingredients—and sit her down in a chair. Cody and I sit next to her. When I breathe in, I have to admit, the freshly baked cookies smell amazing.

“This is going to be okay,” I tell Aubrey. “Really.”

Aubrey’s chin starts to wobble. “How do you know? We still have no idea what’s going on, and we have no idea how to stop whatever this is. What if we really are canceled? I don’t want Cody to leave! I don’t want to split up our friend group! What if I never get another role again as good as Kiki?”

It’s hard to see Aubrey so worked up. Sometimes I forget she worries about stuff as much as Cody and I do. And while there’s part of me who also wants to melt into a puddle, I know that I need to be the strong one here.

“Cody isn’t leaving us,” I declare. “Sadie Solves It isn’t getting canceled. We just have to figure this out. And that means starting at the beginning with our suspects. It’s like Madame Curio tells Sadie in the episode—we need to start thinking outside the pizza box.”