All That Glitters (7 page)

“So I'll do you,” Aly told Heather, “and Brooke will do Tali.”

“Who's going to do me?” Jayden asked.

“Both of us,” Brooke told her.

Jayden seemed intrigued by that.

Aly kneeled down next to the pedicure basin to get to work, but it turned out that first graders are much squirmier than sixth graders.

“That tickles!” Heather squealed when Aly rubbed soap on her feet. But she didn't just say it, she also kicked water on Aly's shirt.

Brooke took a break from working on Tali to explain the bite-your-tongue-so-you-won't-feel-the-tickle trick, which made things a little better, but Heather was still pretty wiggly. Aly had to hold on to
her feet super tightly to keep the polish in the right place.

“Hey, you got it on my skin!” Aly heard Tali say to Brooke as she wiggled in the chair.

Brooke cleaned off the polish and told her, “You've got to try to stay still, or that's going to keep happening.”

“I can't help it!” Tali said. “It's hard to sit still.”

“Is it my turn yet?” Jayden asked.

Aly looked around to find something for Jayden to do. Her eyes fell on the box of beads and the string that Mrs. Fornari had given Brooke.

She quickly opened the box of beads and handed it to Jayden. “While you're waiting to get your nails done, you get to make a bracelet. You can use any color beads you want,” she said.

“Wait!” said Brooke. “I just had a better idea.
Everyone
can make bracelets. Ankle bracelets, actually, since they're bigger. That way, you'll have
something to do in the chair to help you stop jiggling.”

Brooke quickly cut three lengths of string and gave one to each girl, telling them to knot one end so the beads wouldn't slip off. The girls all starting beading. And they finally sat still! And Heather bit her tongue so she wasn't ticklish. This party was turning out okay after all.

Aly finished up Heather's Red-Hot Pepper toes just as Brooke finished up Tali's Silver Celebration pedi. “One foot each?” Brooke said, handing a second bottle of Silver Celebration to Aly.

“Great idea.” Aly smiled.

Working as a team, the sisters finished Jayden's toes in no time. All three girls worked on their bracelets as their nails dried.

“So,” Aly asked, “how do you like your toes?”

“Mine are beautiful,” Jayden said, wiggling them and watching them sparkle.

“Mine too,” Tali agreed, glancing down at her feet.

“I”—Heather sniffled—“I hate mine! Red-Hot Pepper is the worst color ever!” And she burst into tears.

Aly looked at Brooke in a panic. Brooke was looking panicked too.

“Um,” Aly said. “Wait—we can redo it. Do you want Silver Celebration like your friends?”

Heather shook her head. “I want a sp-special birthday c-color.”

“How about . . . Under Watermelon? Or Strawberry Sunday? Those are both really sparkly,” Brooke said.

“Not red or pink,” Heather said, wiping her eyes. “Something even more special.”

“My favorite's Purple People Eater,” Aly offered. “How about that one?”

“That's a scary name,” Heather said. “I don't want one with a scary name.”

Brooke's favorite was Pinkie Swear, which didn't
have a scary name but wouldn't work anyway, because Heather didn't want pink.

Brooke's eyes opened wide. “Hold on,” she said.

She ran out into the main salon and came back with two bottles of Lemon Aid, bright yellow
and
super sparkly.

Heather stopped crying.

Since teamwork had worked so well with Jayden, Aly and Brooke did it again.

“What do you think
now
?” Brooke asked when they'd finished.

“I think they're beautiful!” Heather couldn't stop staring at her feet. “They're the brightest, sparkliest toes I've ever seen.”

Brooke gathered up the cotton balls and nail polish bottles. “We did it,” she whispered to Aly.

Aly opened the pedicure basin drains. “Nice job,” she whispered back.

Then there was a knock at the door. “Okay, girls, party's over,” Aly said, heading over to let in Heather's babysitter.

But when she opened the door, it was Suzy Davis.

“You have a silver splotch on your leg,” Suzy said.

Aly looked down. Sure enough, there was silver nail polish there, in the shape of a very small banana.

“Oh,” she said. “Thanks.”

“I came to get my sister and her friends,” Suzy said. “But before we go, I want a pedicure too.”

Was Aly really going to have to polish Suzy's toes? Heather's birthday party had been hard enough. And now this?

“I'd like a rainbow,” Suzy said. “With . . . with hearts painted on each toe. In opposite colors.”

Opposite colors? What did that even mean?

“It's the first day of our salon,” Brooke said from behind Aly. “We're closed now. This was just a test
run. Our grand opening is set for another day. You can come back then.”

Sometimes Aly had no idea where Brooke came up with this stuff.

“Who are you?” Suzy said.

“Aly's sister Brooke,” Brooke answered. “Who are you?”

Aly looked over at Heather and her friends. They were still admiring their feet.

“I'm Heather's sister, and I want a rainbow pedicure. Aly's going to give me one.”

“No,” said Brooke, “she isn't. If you want a rainbow pedicure, please make an appointment in the main salon with one of those manicurists. I said we're closed.” Her hands were on her hips now.

Brooke looked at Aly and gave her a Secret Sister Eye Message. Aly gave her one back:
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

“What if I tell your mom that you won't give me a pedicure?” Suzy's hands were on her hips now too.

“This is our salon,” Aly said, finally finding her voice and stepping forward. “You can try telling our mom that, but it won't make a difference. We have our own rules here.”

Suzy looked hard at Aly. She looked at Brooke. And back at Aly.

Then she looked around the back room. “Everyone at school was saying how great this place is. But it's kind of gross. I'm going to tell everyone it's a dump. And that they should go to the place across the street when it opens. This place is fine for first graders, but no one else would ever step foot in here.” Suzy walked over to her sister and her sister's two friends. “Come on, let's go,” she said.

Next thing Aly knew, Suzy, Heather, and the
rest of the girls were leaving the back room. As they walked out, Aly heard them talking.

“This was the coolest birthday party ever!” Tali said to Jayden. “I want it for my birthday. It's February first. Can you come?”

Aly smiled. Well, at least Tali had had a good time.

And then she heard Suzy say to Heather. “Hey, your toes look pretty. Nice color.”

Well, that was interesting. Aly hadn't expected Suzy to say anything nice about the salon.

But then Aly remembered the other things Suzy had said. And as she looked around the back room, Aly realized Suzy was right. It
was
a bit of a dump, filled with boxes and water bottles and mismatched everything. If this place was going to be a hit, they'd need to do some redecorating. Otherwise, like Suzy said, their only customers would be first graders.

S
ince Dad was back on the road, dinner was going to be just the girls. But Aly wasn't interested in food at all.

Besides worrying about how Mom was going to react to the unofficial first day of the salon before the grand opening, Aly also couldn't stop thinking about what Suzy had said. The back room really did look more like a huge storage closet than someplace special.

If they couldn't make it look really cool and
inviting, they wouldn't get any customers—well, except for maybe the sixth-grade soccer team. But they'd need more clients than that to make the salon real.

By the time they'd gotten home from True Colors, it was later than usual for a school night. So Mom made “breakfast for dinner.” It was super fast to make—eggs, toast, tiny sausages, and sliced-up orange smiles. Aly and Brooke sat down at their usual spots at the kitchen table, next to each other. Aly pressed her left leg against Brooke's right one. For courage.

“Okay, girls,” Mom said when she sat down.

Aly braced herself for trouble. Instead, Mom gave them a few more rules that were actually helpful: All appointments made at school had to be written down and then run by Mom before they were confirmed. No more parties until they got the salon up and running
smoothly. And they couldn't forget about the charity donations. (Heather and her friends had not donated. But that might have been because Aly and Brooke had forgotten to ask them to donate.)

With their stomachs full of breakfast for dinner, Brooke and Aly went up to their room.

“Okay, so what can we do to make our salon look better?” Brooke asked. “I don't want our grand opening to wind up as our grand closing.”

Other than the two teal pedicure chairs and the two blue manicure stations, everything in the back room was pretty much the same shade of Chocolate Brownies, which, even though it had a tasty-sounding name, was the girls' least favorite polish color ever.

“Let me get some paper,” Aly said. “I think we're going to need a list.”

The girls brainstormed:

• Curtains

• Paintings/pictures for the walls

• Cushions for the manicure and pedicure chairs

• Rugs

• Special floor pillows for when people make bracelets in the drying area

• A beautiful, fancy donation jar

• Signs that tell people about the donations

• A shelf to display nail polishes

• A sign for the door

Brooke looked at the list. “We're missing one thing,” she said. “A name! Our salon needs a name!”

Brooke was right.

“Any ideas?” Aly asked.

Brooke shrugged. “Maybe . . . Twinkle Toes?”

Aly made a face. “We do manicures, too.”

Brooke tucked one braid behind her ear. “I'll keep thinking.”

The girls went downstairs to show Mom the list. She agreed to everything except the curtains and the rugs. And she offered to let the girls go on a treasure hunt in the attic for cushions and pillows and shelves.

Aly and Brooke hadn't been in the attic for ages. All they remembered was that it was kind of dark. And that whenever Mom or Dad wanted to store something there, they would usually just pull down the ladder and throw stuff up on the landing.

Aly grabbed Brooke's hand as Mom pulled the creaky ladder down from the ceiling. A duffel bag came tumbling out and landed on Mom's head.

Mom dropped it on the floor next to her. “Take that as a warning,” she said. “It's going to be pretty messy.”

Mom climbed up slowly until her head disappeared
from view. “Can one of you girls flick on the light?”

Brooke was right next to the light switch and turned it on. The attic looked like it was glowing.

“Come on up, girls!” Mom shouted down.

With the hand that wasn't holding Brooke's, Aly grabbed the railing tightly. The ladder creaked with each step.

Aly imagined finding mountains of colorful pillows and cushions and shiny new shelves. It was okay if the attic was a mess as long as it was filled with treasures.

But when she got to the top of the ladder, Aly was shocked. There wasn't anything new and shiny about the attic. Just dust and piles of junk all over the place.

From right behind her, Brooke whispered, “We'll never find anything cool up here.”

But then Mom laughed. “Look at this!” she said. She had lifted a dusty flowered bedsheet off a table
and picked up an old cookie jar shaped like a strawberry.

“That's perfect for the donation jar,” Brooke said, getting excited.

“Where did you even get that, Mom?” Aly asked, taking a few steps closer to the craziest-looking cookie jar she'd ever seen. The strawberry was enormous enough for the giant in “Jack and the Beanstalk,” and it was painted a sparkly teal.

Mom flipped the jar over. “See these initials?” she said, showing the girls the
KB
at the bottom of the jar. “They're mine. Karen Benson. I made it in art school. I remember this color—it was called Teal Me the Truth. I used it because I loved the name so much.”

“
You
went to art school?” Brooke said. Her eyes were huge. “How come you never told us?”

Mom's cheeks turned pink. She hugged the sparkly
strawberry to her stomach. “I never finished.”

She never finished? Aly couldn't believe it. Her mom
always
finished what she started. It made Aly think something bad had happened back then. “Why not?” she asked softly.