Designed for Disaster (2 page)

Quincy looked up. “Well, then I'm interested too because I'm not looking forward to all the chores Mom said she has planned for me during the summer if I want an allowance.”

The class laughed, but Nancy noticed that all the boys' teams had now huddled together to talk about what they were going to do.

When the recess bell rang twenty minutes later, Bess leaned over to Nancy and George and said, “I wonder what Mrs. Corwin is planning to do with our designs.”

“That's funny”, Nancy whispered back. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

As they headed out of the art classroom, Deirdre and Katherine came up behind them.

“I wonder what Mrs. Corwin will do with our designs”, Deirdre whispered.

George grinned knowingly at Nancy and Bess.

“We have to find out”, Katherine said. “It could affect our new careers!”

Nancy thought about it for a minute.
Should the Clue Crew try to solve the mystery right away,
she wondered,
or should we just wait until Mrs. Corwin tell us?

On Friday morning all the fashion designs were turned in by the girls
and
the boys, and now everyone was waiting to hear what Mrs. Corwin was going to do with them.

Nancy, Bess, and George had decided not to spoil Mrs. Corwin's surprise by trying to solve the mystery.

“I have a dear friend from college who's a fashion designer in New York City,” Mrs. Corwin told them. “She wants to start a new clothing line, so she's agreed to look at your designs to see if they'd fit with what she has in
mind. I'm going to scan them and then e-mail them to her this morning.”

“Oh, wow!” Nancy said. She looked at Bess and George, whose eyes were wide with surprise. “Can you believe it?”

“Never in a million years!” Bess said.

“When will we know?” Deirdre asked.

“Monday morning,” Mrs. Corwin said.

During the weekend all anyone could talk about were the fashion designs.

When Monday morning finally arrived, Nancy, Bess, and George hurried into Mrs. Corwin's room and took their seats.

“Class, this is my wonderful friend, Juliana Marigold,” Mrs. Corwin announced, “and the young lady next to her is Nicole Whitcomb, a fashion model. She's in the third grade too!”

Bess looked at Nancy. “I didn't know girls our age could be fashion models,” she whispered.

Juliana smiled at the class. “I absolutely adore all your designs,” she said.

The girls cheered.

Mrs. Corwin held up her hand for silence.

“Unfortunately, I can only use about half of them,” Juliana added.

There were several groans.

Some of the boys said, “I hope you don't use ours!”

“I'm sorry that I had to make a choice,” Juliana said. She consulted a piece of paper she was holding. “I'm using the designs from Nancy's team, Deirdre's team, and Quincy's team.”

“Let's give those teams a hand,” Mrs. Corwin said.

Everyone applauded politely.

“Each item of clothing will have ‘Rhes!' embroidered on it with the subdesign label below.” Juliana walked to the chalkboard and wrote
Rhes!
Beneath that, she wrote
Mystery Girls!

Nancy, Bess, and George gasped.

“This is a dream come true,” Bess breathed.

“Excuse me, what does ‘Rhes!' mean, Juliana?” George asked.

“River Heights Elementary School!” Juliana said.

“Cool!” the class said.

Bess turned to Nancy. “Everyone in the world will know about our school,” she said.

“We're going to be rich!” Nadine said.

“I think my ONITAP designs are cooler than the ones you chose, Juliana,” Amanda Johnson said. “I feel cheated.”

Everyone turned to stare at Amanda.

“I could have been rich too!” Amanda added. “It's not fair.”

“Amanda, please,” Mrs. Corwin said. “We're going to discuss that in just a minute.”

Nancy turned to Bess and George.

“What's wrong with Amanda?” she whispered.

“She's never acted like that before.”

Bess and George shrugged. “None of you will be getting rich,” Mrs. Corwin said. “Instead, Juliana is going to make a big donation to our school for the use of the designs. No one in the class will receive any money.”

Everyone looked at one another. Was that fair?

Mrs. Corwin looked at Juliana. “I think you can explain this better than I can,” she said.

“I know you may be disappointed, but it would be difficult for any of you to enter into a legal agreement because you're not old
enough,” Juliana said, “and second of all, it would be very difficult for you to sell only a couple designs to any fashion house. At least this way you will have a connection to the industry that you can use when you get older.”

Nancy noticed that a few people still seemed unhappy.

“Juliana and I also have another surprise that we'll tell you in the morning,” Mrs. Corwin said. “You'll never guess what it is, either!”

“The fashion world is coming to River Heights!” Juliana announced the next morning. “That's my new surprise. I'm going to debut my ‘Rhes!' clothing line in your school auditorium!”

There was a collective gasp from the class. Nancy could tell that even the boys were surprised.

Deirdre's hand shot up. “Juliana! Juliana! Juliana!”

“Yes?” Juliana said.

“Does that mean that River Heights will be just like New York, Paris, and Rome during their fashion weeks?” Deirdre asked breathlessly.

Juliana nodded. “As close as we can make it,”
she said. “There will be national and international coverage of the event by fashion magazines and television crews!”

“Models walking the runway and all that?” Bess said.

Juliana nodded again. “And speaking of
that
, let me introduce the rest of my models, who just arrived this morning,” she said.

Just then a side door opened and three girls and one boy walked inside. They all wore sunglasses.

“You've already met Nicole, who accompanied me, and now I want you to meet Felicity, Elizabeth, Marissa, and Cory,” Juliana said.

With that, Elizabeth, Marissa, and Cory paraded in front of the class the way they would walk on the runway during the fashion show, swinging their hands back and forth.

“What's wrong, Felicity?”

Juliana asked. “Why are you just standing there?”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “I don't feel well,” she said.

Juliana sighed but didn't say anything.

After the other three models had paraded back and forth several times, they left the room. Felicity hurried to catch up.

“I'll see you in the auditorium in a few minutes!” Juliana called after them.

Bess looked at Nancy and George. “You can
actually feel the electricity in the air,” she said.

“Yeah, and if you touched Felicity, you'd probably get shocked,” George said. “She definitely doesn't want to be here.”

Juliana turned back to face the class. “As promised, there's still one more surprise,” she said. “I'm planning to have some of
you
model your designs for the show.”

There was a loud shriek from some of the girls.

“Modeling is a perfect job for good-looking guys like me,” Quincy said.

“Don't flatter yourself, Quincy,” Nadine said. “My mother told me that modeling agencies hire all kinds of models, not just people who look like movie stars.”

“Quincy doesn't look like a movie star, Nadine,” Peter said. He grinned. “You need glasses.”

“That's not what I meant, Peter!” Nadine said. “Modeling agencies hire
real
people too.”

“Well, class, I think we're getting off the subject,” Mrs. Corwin said. “What we need to do now is start planning for the big event. It'll
take all of us working together to pull it off.”

“You can do it,” Juliana assured them. “I need to go to the auditorium now, but Nicole has agreed to stay with you to answer any questions you might have.” She smiled at Nicole. “Nicole is a natural. She doesn't need as much practice as the others.”

Nicole smiled back. “Thank you, Juliana,” she said.

When the bell rang to signal the end of art class, Deirdre balanced her art book on top of her head and started walking out of the room.

“What in the world are you doing?” George asked.

“I'm doing what models all over the world do, George,” Deirdre said. “I'm practicing my runway walk.”

“With a book on your head?” George said.

“I suggested it to her,” Nicole said. “I just want to make sure you know all our secrets.”

“Well, that is nice of you, Nicole,” Nancy said.

“I didn't want to say anything, but unlike you …” Bess paused. In a whisper she continued, “Those other models seem kind of stuck-up.”

Nicole made a face. “Yeah, they can be,” she agreed. “But never mind. In modeling school we always practiced our runway walks with a book on top of our head to get proper balance and good posture.” Addressing everyone who was around her, she added, “I'd advise you to do the same. Remember that there will be people from all over the world here photographing you.”