Meanicures (9 page)

“Let’s go bust them,” said Taylor. “Ooh, this is too good to be true.” She started toward Cassidy and Alexis, but then stopped and looked at Olivia. “You’re sure it’s true, right?”

“Yes, I heard about ten people talking about it on the bus,” Olivia said. “Listen, if you two aren’t
brave
enough, just say so.” She started to march toward Cassidy.

We quickly followed her. I walked up to Cassidy and briefly remembered all the things I’d put away—or fanned the flames with—that used to be part of our former friendship.

The flames—wait a second. The fire—the big
whoosh!
—had happened just before eight. It had stunk up the whole house. Had the stink bomb happened at the same time? I felt a shiver as I stopped beside Olivia and Taylor. Suddenly I was freezing.

“So,” Taylor began, “do you want to tell us more about the eighth-grade dance? And how you danced until ten?”

“What? We never said that!” Cassidy laughed. “Everyone knows the dance got, uh, called off after the electrical thing—”

“Stink bomb,” Olivia corrected her. “Smoke filling the gym.”

“Right.” Cassidy’s face turned slightly red.

“What would you know about it, anyway?” asked Alexis. “You were probably home polishing your Girl Scout badges.”

“Were not,” Olivia said. “Anyway, they’re not made of silver. You can’t polish cloth. You wouldn’t know because you didn’t earn any—”

“What
did
you do, then?” Kayley demanded.

“Not much,” I admitted. “Watched a movie. Sat around
not
making up phony stories about dances we’d never been to.”

“Hey, nice shoes.” Cassidy suddenly pointed to the brown-and-pink sneakers I was wearing. She was totally trying to change the subject. “Where’d you get those?”

“See you around,” I said, and we kept walking into school.

“That went well,” Taylor commented. “Especially considering we totally caught them in a lie.”

“She’s probably going to mock my shoes later, on the Peeps,” I said. “I mean, they’ve been nice to us before.
Then
remember what happened afterward.”

“You guys feel free to be pessimistic. But I, for one, am claiming this as a brand-new Monday,” Olivia declared, speaking very clearly. “I wore my Monday underwear and everything. I have to do the morning announcement today. Mr. Brooks gave me a week off to get my pronunciation back, and my time’s up. Could one of you come upstairs with me for formal support while I do the broadcast?”

“I think you mean moral support,” I said.

“Whatever.
Support,”
she urged. “You can make sure Cassidy doesn’t pull anything.”

“Okay, sure,” I said.

We quickly stopped by my homeroom, and Ms. Thibault gave me a hall pass so I could go upstairs with Olivia. She’s really cool about things like that—she gets that it’s not life or death whether you are in homeroom for attendance and early morning study hall. At the same time, I knew she’d check with Mr. Brooks later on, to make sure I actually did show up at the taping studio like I said I would.

In the studio, Cassidy gave us a sweet smile, like she hadn’t totally thrown me under the bus when it was
my
turn to do the morning announcement. She was completely nice to Olivia, helping her get ready, and
even warning her when the camera was about to start rolling so she didn’t sit there looking into a mirror and trilling about the rain in Maine.

Lucky Olivia.

“Good Monday morning, Panthers! This is Olivia Salinas, with this morning’s update,” she began. “First, a serious story. As many of you know, at approximately eight o’clock on Friday night, the eighth-grade dance was interrupted—hey, anyone else out there notice all the eights? Go ahead, play the lottery. Eights to win!” She smiled. “Okay, back to serious. The dance was tragically cut short, because I think it only started at seven thirty, not that I’d know because nobody invited me.…

“Anyway,” Olivia continued, “someone set off a stink bomb. PU. Not as in Payneston University, but as in PU, that really smelled horrible. Or so I heard on the bus. On the plus side, the school found out the sprinkler system works just great.”

I thought Mr. Brooks was about to have a panic attack. He looked at Olivia, and then at Cassidy, and then back again, and then over at
me
, like I’d had anything to do with it.

“I didn’t write any of that,” said Cassidy. “What she’s saying?”

“She’s kind of a free spirit sometimes,” I said quietly.

“Anyone having any information about the stink bomb is instructed to contact Principal Monroe,” Olivia
continued. “You know, funny thing. I went to a bonfire on Friday night myself. Anyway …” She finished the news report and listed off the school events for the day.

“You may have missed the first meeting, but it’s not too late to join the Endangered Animals Club,” she said. “In fact we’re selling T-shirts for just ten dollars each, and they’re really cool, each designed by me—”

Since when was it her designs?

“As you may already know, I’m in charge—”

Wait a second
, I thought. Wasn’t I co-chair?

“So, come to our next meeting, whenever it is, or buy a T-shirt. And on a personal note, anyone who doesn’t sign up or get a shirt is just plain ignorant, misinformed, and stupid. Have a great day, Panthers!”

As Cameron shut off the camera, I glanced at Cassidy to gauge her reaction. “It wasn’t what I gave her,” she said, sounding defensive. “After, uh, last week, Mr. Brooks reviews all the text himself.”

Olivia stood up and looked over at me from the news desk. “How’d I do?”

“Um …” I shrugged. “Slur much?” I said without thinking. I coughed, hoping to cover up the fact I’d just insulted her.

“What?” Olivia asked. “What did you say?”

“Do you think you could possibly sssslur your esses any more?” I said. Then I put my hand over my mouth.

“Yeah. Not so good.” She winced. “But
you
try talking with this stuff in your mouth.”

“What?” Mr. Brooks looked so shocked that he was temporarily unable to form sentences. “What was with that last comment? Ignorant and stupid?”

“Oh, that? It was a joke. Ha-ha.” Olivia faked a very, very, insincere laugh.

Mr. Brooks frowned. “Miss Salinas, you should know, in fact, it should be ingrained in you, that we don’t use those sorts of words in our school.”

Olivia nodded. “You’re right, I’m sorry. Totally sorry. I guess.”

“The whole thing was out of control, out of bounds,” Mr. Brooks continued.

The first bell started to ring.

“You’ll need to do a makeup broadcast tomorrow with a public retraction of those comments,” Mr. Brooks told Olivia.

“A re-whation?”

“Retraction,” he said. “It means apology. It means you take back what you said in a very public way.”

Olivia let out an annoyed sigh. “Really? You think that’s a good idea?”

Mr. Brooks raised his eyebrows. “It’s a very good idea, Olivia. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, but I think you’re being too sensitive,” she muttered as we headed out the door.

“And another thing,” I said. “What was with saying you were in charge of the club? I’m working with you. We’re co-chairs,” I added. “ ‘Co’ means two, as in cooperating.”

“I know what it means,” Olivia said. “I may be spacey but I’m not stupid. Why, what did I say?”

“You said, ‘I’m in charge.’ ”

She laughed. “Well, that’s dumb.
You’re
not in charge. We both are.”

I threw up my hands. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you!”

The second bell rang just then, and I was glad to slip down the hall into algebra class. How could I argue with Oblivia and win?

“Madison? Madison! Wait up!” Cassidy called after me.

I stopped and glanced back at her. “I don’t want to be late to class,” I said.

“This will only take a sec,” she said.

True. Her insults usually didn’t take long.
Here it comes
, I thought. “Yeah?” I asked.

“You know I’m having my big Halloween party Thursday night, right?” Cassidy asked.

“Um … yeah,” I said slowly, remembering how she’d uninvited me in front of the entire middle school cheerleading squad on that humiliating day a week ago.

“I
really
hope you can come,” said Cassidy.

“Really? But you said—”

“Yes, definitely,” she said. “Tradition’s tradition, right?”

“Right,” I said slowly. “I guess.” But had tradition meant anything to her lately? I didn’t know what to think of her invitation, but I guessed I’d show up and
find out. What else would I do on Halloween? “Can Olivia and Taylor come, too?”

“Of course. What a ridiculous question,” she scoffed. “Like they wouldn’t be invited?”

Either she was starting to have a split personality … or maybe our little ceremony had worked some magic, after all. Had she forgotten that we had all been uninvited to the party?

First the stink bomb, now this!

“Who are
you
supposed to be?” I asked. I had just opened the door to Olivia, who was wearing a green dress, green tights, and a pair of old pink Ugg boots. She had a purse slung across her shoulder, with fake arrows—actually, on closer inspection, they were pens with feathers glued to the tops—sticking out of it.

“Robin Hood. I steal from the rich and give to the poor!” Olivia came inside and closed the door behind her. She looked like a fairy that had gotten kicked out of fairy school. “Really, I just needed to find a costume that I could wear green tights with, because those are the only tights I have right now without holes, and this was all I could come up with. I look silly, I know.”

Taylor laughed. “Kind of. Then again, look at me. This costume was my little cousin’s last year, but since I’m so short I can wear it. There are some advantages to not growing tall.” She twirled around in her Snow White costume, waving her arms in a delicate, graceful, Snow-Whitish way. She wore a black wig that made her hair look like a plastic shell, and a white headband.

I’d improvised at the last minute, turning myself into
a wicked witch with a black cape, a pointed witch’s hat, lots of green face makeup, and a carefully positioned fake wart on my nose. I was wearing a wig from my mother’s testing days—I think it had been tested on about a thousand times, because the long black hair was as matted as a shaggy dog’s.

“Has anyone figured out why Cassidy reinvited us?” Taylor leaned over to fix her shoe, nearly losing her headband and her wig. “I still say they’re setting us up for something.”

“And I still say you’re paranoid,” I said. “She seemed genuine when she asked me. And we’ve always gone to her party. Why would we stop now?”

“Duh. Because she told us flat out last week that she didn’t have space for us,” said Taylor.

“She must have recalculated. So. Is everyone ready?” I asked.

We picked up our treat bags for collecting candy after the party, and stepped outside into the cool October night. “I can’t believe it’s nice out,” said Olivia. “This is so unexpected.”

I gazed up at the clear sky, and the nearly full rising moon.

“Remember last year? It rained and we were completely drenched by the time we got to the party,” Taylor said. “Which was not a good look for a girl band.”

“Especially not when everyone tried to get us to sing,” I said. “Nightmare.” I remembered how Cassidy
had started a chant, demanding that we sing. We weren’t planning on singing. We’d only dressed like we were.

Once we’d escaped that threat, we’d been challenged to play the Rock Band video game, and with Olivia on drums, we didn’t stand a chance of winning. So why exactly were we so eager to go back?

“This time there’s nothing they can do to embarrass us,” Olivia declared. “No more group costumes.”

Taylor laughed. “That just means we’ll get singled out on our own!”

“I don’t know. I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said.

“Why not?” asked Taylor.

“I just have a feeling. I can’t explain it,” I said. “Of course,
I’m
not dressed like a miniature Snow White.”

We all started laughing so hard that we couldn’t stop. We half walked and half skipped over to Cassidy’s house, which was only about four blocks away. This seemed so normal, going to Cassidy’s for Halloween, like I had every year since I was eight. But a week ago, if someone had told me we’d end up there this Halloween, I’d have said they were crazy.

So who’s crazy now?
I wondered.
Me for going after I was disinvited, or Cassidy, for re-inviting me?

As we neared her house, I could see plastic skeleton heads poking onto the ends of Cassidy’s front-yard fence posts, and cobwebs draped on bushes and trees. A steady line of guests was filing in, while Cassidy’s
mother, Amber, was standing outside and handing candy to smaller kids who were trick-or-treating.

“Whoa. Popular much?” asked Taylor.

“Hey, Madison!” Cassidy’s mom greeted me. “Taylor, Olivia—it’s so nice to see you guys here. Thanks for coming!”

“We wouldn’t miss it,” I said with a smile, thinking,
We almost missed it, but your daughter did a 180-degree turn
.