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Katie's a brat; it's a fact, just like Kurt is grumpy, or Joe likes fish, or Wallace is old.
So how, Gwen wonders, baffled, does everyone else seem to miss it?
Is it because she's so cute? Because she is; that's a fact, too.
But that just makes her more of a brat, because she knows she'll get away with it, and every time Gwen sees long ruddy-brown curls bouncing against something frilly and pink when she walks, sees that sweet, starry smile, hears that giggle that makes the whole world summer, it riles her up until she has to go yell at Bob before she can be calm again.
But when she gets word that Katie is looking to enter and win that cake contest as her ticket out of Sugar Valley, well, that riles her up even more.
It isn't that she wants Katie around; she could care less if the brat stayed or went. But Katie's a part of Sugar Valley, just like the rest of them. It's her home. So what gives her the right to just wash her hands of the whole situation and run away to live a glamorous city life, while everyone else has to watch the town smashed down by a bulldozer?
So, she warns Jack not to give Katie that recipe she's after, because she's sick of those sugar-sweet looks Katie's been giving the new boy, sick of seeing them become a little less wheedling and a little more genuine everyday.
But when Jack turns up, telling her she was wrong about Katie's intentions in entering the contents, it doesn't do much to mollify her.
Because even if Katie's only trying to help, she still has no right.
No right to chase after the first cute farmer that smiles at her, and no right to leave Gwen without a cute little brat to be annoyed with.
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