It’s 1:30 a.m. Two teenagers in a “sketchy alley” are loading boxes into the back of a car. School starts tomorrow.

Seems questionable? Possibly unsafe?

Well, it isn’t. The boxes are filled with cupcakes.

Juniors Violet Cowdin and Grace Girardeau baked around 550 cupcakes and gave them out during lunch/activity Aug. 14. The girls hoped to brighten their fellow students’ first day with a treat.

Baking the cupcakes took the girls from 3 p.m. to 1 a.m. Aug. 13, according to Cowdin. They used the ovens in the Reading Reptile bookstore, owned by the Cowdins.

“We were sitting on a swingset [on vacation] in Colorado at our cabin and we were like, ‘Let’s make cupcakes for everyone,’ Girardeau explained.

“[First] we were like, ‘We’ll do cookies!’” Cowdin added, “and then we thought, ‘No, that’s not as extravagant. Or exciting.’”

Thus they chose cupcakes, and most students agreed that it was a great choice.

“[They] must really love this school if [they’re] going to bake all those cupcakes,” sophomore Emma Swinney, who carpools with Cowdin, said. “And they must be really excited for the first day of school.”

Cowdin and Girardeau set up their cupcakes at a table in the Commons and soon found themselves surrounded by hungry teenage girls. They passed out cupcakes in a frenzy, stopping only to answer questions and sample their own creations.

“[The night before school started], I was up until 3 in the morning doing all my summer homework, and they were apparently making cupcakes,” sophomore Lilly McGonigle noted.

“Best cupcake ever,” sophomore Megan Lewer added. “Spot on.”

The freshmen, in particular, felt welcomed to the school with this gesture.

“It was very nice of them to do that, because I don’t think  I would’ve had the patience to make that many cupcakes,” freshman Eve Aspinwall said.

“I loved it because it’s free cupcakes, and who doesn’t love free cupcakes?” freshman Sophie Bunch commented. “I felt really welcomed and I love St. Teresa’s so far. I think it’s great.”

Girardeau and Cowdin were asked if they would ever do something like this again.

“Maybe…” Cowdin pondered, as Girardeau hurriedly responded, “No.”