I So Don't Do Makeup (16 page)

The guy pulls a walkie-talkie from his back pocket. “Do your parents know what you're doing back here?”

Ack. Eek. Ike. I do not want to be a store announcement. I peer at the name badge clipped to the pocket of his T-shirt. Drew!

Improv time. Although I was never an Oompa-Loompa. I stick out a hand. “Actually, Drew, we were looking for you.”

He does not take my hand. “You were making out.”

“Well, eventually, we would've been looking for you,” I say.

“Lacey sent us,” Josh says.

Oooh. From the way he jumps into character, Josh definitely has acting in his blood.

Drew steps back in confusion. He did not see that coming. “Lacey sent you?”

“Yeah, to pick up her makeup shipment,” Josh says.

Drew crosses his arms. “No way.”

“What do you mean, ‘No way'?” I ask.

“That makeup is my responsibility. I keep it locked up with the cigarettes and alcohol.” He yanks a cell phone from his front jeans pocket. It looks like a toy in his beefy hand. “I'm not handing anything over to anyone without Lacey's say-so.”

“Oh, uh, it's okay.” I'm stumbling over my words. I never envisioned the scenario playing out this far. “We won't take the makeup.”

“Don't move.” Drew pins us with his eyes, then presses the phone against his ear. “Lacey, a couple of kids are here asking for your packages.” He listens, then says to us, “What're your names?”

“Just tell her it's Sherry,” I say.

He repeats my name and listens some more. “She's here with a guy.” He keeps on listening. Lacey is certainly chatting up a storm. “I got it. They're good kids. And, yeah, I can keep the packages.” His voice goes all soft and mushy. “So, how are you?”

Josh checks a text on his phone. “We gotta go. My mom's waiting at the front of the store.”

“Don't move,” Drew says again.

I hope he's not planning to lock us up with the makeup.

Drew snaps his phone closed. He looks at us and starts nodding. And keeps on nodding, his eyes going all misty. “Thank you for helping her.” He pounds his
chest with his fist. “From here, guys.” He pounds his chest again. “I'm thanking you from here.”

I stick out my hand. This time, he grabs it, yanking me into a bear hug and patting me on the back. Except that with his strength, a pat knocks the air out of my lungs. “We gotta go, Drew,” I gasp. “See ya around.”

Josh reaches for Drew's hand. “Bye, man.”

Drew grabs Josh up in a hug too, pummels his shoulder blades a few times, then releases him.

“Thanks, man.”

  I make it home for dessert. The Ruler and I have this unspoken agreement where she breaks some of her nutzoid health-food rules and I break some of my sugary, fatty junk-food habits, and we meet somewhere close to the middle in the land called treats.

Tonight's dessert is brownies. The Ruler sticks with her aluminum-free baking powder and sea salt and rice flour. But, for me, she substitutes real chocolate chips for the bitter fake-o carob chips.

I slide into my chair at the kitchen table.

“How was dinner at Discount Mart?” The Ruler asks.

“Very pizza and soda.” I pull the plate of brownies over to me. “And free samples.”

“You missed my famous grilled burgers,” my dad
says, “and, uh, delicious grilled teriyaki tofu.” Of all of us, my dad's had the toughest time adjusting to The Ruler's healthy cooking. He's pretty much a red-meat addict. But he keeps trying, all in the name of love and lower cholesterol.

Family-ish chitchat ensues while I fork up bites of brownie. Sam and The Ruler have more gardening planned for the backyard. Dad bought a new CD by Céline Dion, his musical hero.

And then I'm up to my room. I text Junie to let her know Drew's not a makeup-business wrecker, just a very muscular lovesick puppy. So we're down to the Janes and Wacko Will as suspects.

I sprinkle fish flakes in the tank and gab with my bala sharks. I attack some math homework and put in time on my French-class presentation. Poor Kim will be
très, très
sorry she asked for separate grades. After the presentation, she'll probably beg to be my partner for the rest of the school year.

I'm eyeing my closet, picking out possible outfits for tomorrow. Outfits that will not point out my makeuplessness. So far, I have my jeans with bling + a hot pink T-shirt or plaid shorts + white T-shirt. I will make the final outfit decision tomorrow morning, depending on my mood.

There's a knock on my bedroom door.

The door cracks and Sam pokes in his head. “Sherry, I got something for you.”

“Cool.”

From his shorts pocket, he pulls out a small silver picture frame and hands it to me.

I stare at it.

It's a photo of me, Sam and Mom. It's the last photo of the three of us together.

“I bought the frame with the money I made selling plants and vegetables.”

“Wow. Thanks.” I swallow hard. “That was really nice of you, Sam.” Little brothers. Who can figure them out? With Sam and me, the sister-brother relationship is probably a little less antagonistic than in other families. Because we lost our mother.

“Where are you going to put the picture?” he asks.

“I'll keep it with me for a while. Like in my backpack.”

“That's what I thought you'd do.” My brother looks me straight in the eye. “Do you ever kind of feel like Mom's still with us? Watching over us?”

My throat tightens. I nod. “Yeah.”

“That's what I thought you'd say.” Sam leaves.

I finish my homework. The house quiets down as everyone heads to bed. I'm half sitting, half lying on my bed, the light from the aquarium and the hum of the motor keeping me company. I go over the events of the past few days. There's the weird behavior of the Janes and their upcoming demonstration. And Wacko Will, who dances around the mall dressed as a
chili pepper to encourage business. Plus Drew, who seems big and scary but is very kind to Lacey.

Chilling here all alone in the dim light of my room, I miss my mother. I miss joking around with her. I miss investigating with her. I miss discussing the case with her.

A feeling hard like a nut lodges in my stomach. I will solve this mystery. I will be perfectly behaved. Then, when I request five minutes of Real Time, Mrs. Howard will jump to say yes. And the foreign Academy will be so wowed by me that they'll invite me to sleuth for them with my mother. How will I get there? How will I convince The Ruler and my dad to let me go? I don't have to figure all that out today. First, I gotta solve the makeup mystery.

Tomorrow is Operation Break and Enter with Grandpa.

T
he school day passes in a fog. It's like when you have a fever, and you're in your own little world and slightly out of step with everyone else.

I'm in a mystery fog. All the pieces of the puzzle are bumping and shifting and crashing around in my brain, trying to fit together. It's brain tectonics.

I somehow navigate through my classes. All the way to French.

Even though Madame Blanchard is well aware that Kim and I are not actually working as partners for our
français
cultural project, she still forces us to sit next to each other in class. I am sort of waving a few of my more beautiful, flamboyant pages around. Kind of flaunting it to Kim that maybe she shouldn't
have been so speedy to ask for separate grades. Her pages are all boring and typed and black and white.

It's practically the end of the period when Kim turns her head to speak with me.

“Look, Sherry, I probably shouldn't say anything.” Kim zips and unzips her pencil case. “But you
are
dating my cousin and you
did
invite me to your slumber party. And I honestly don't think you're as mean as the rest of them think you are.”

I have no idea what Kim is blathering on about.

“Tomorrow, at the Janes' meeting, they're”—she zips and unzips faster and faster—“going to kick you out.”

“What?” I feel my face go slack with shock. In my entire life, I've never been kicked out of anything.

“You're just too, uh, radical for us. With all your violent ideas about sabotaging Naked Makeup cosmetics. We aren't interested in doing anything illegal like that.”

“Oh.” I lean back in my chair and tap my fingertips together. Well, that explains why I wasn't contacted by a Jane owning up to makeup tampering. I'm crossing the Janes off the suspect list. Which moves Will into first place. And I'm so busy mentally moving the mystery puzzle pieces around that I almost miss her next sentence.

“Besides kicking you out, they're planning to sort of, uh, embarrass you in front of everyone.”

“What?”

From her backpack, she pulls out the plastic bag full of makeup I handed in at the last meeting. Then she pulls out my school cosmetics bag, the one a Jane confiscated from me a few mornings ago. She plunks the loot on my desk.

“The plan is to give you back your makeup.”

“And that's supposed to embarrass me?” I'm hugging the bags to my chest, happy to have them home.

“Well, give it back, then force you to put some on in front of everybody.” She stands. “You and the Janes? It just wasn't meant to be.” Kim swings her heavy black backpack over her shoulder and trudges out of the classroom.

I slowly gather my stuff, bundling up my makeup bags and pushing them down into my denim purse. Yay for an oversized purse. I shove open the classroom door and step into the glaring Phoenix sun, shaking my head.

Embarrass me? They thought forcing me to put on makeup would embarrass me? More like it would be an educational lesson for the Janes. Kim's right. The Janes and I were so not meant to be.

I head over to the stone saguaro cactus in the middle of the courtyard, where Grandpa's perched on a thick arm, waiting for me. I suck in a couple of deep breaths, because honestly? Working with Grandpa is überstressful. He's a major loose cannon. I never
really know how he'll act. No one does. Also, he's difficult to understand. All in all, I've got legit worries that Operation Break and Enter might not go down smoothly.

It's up to Grandpa and me to get the scoop on Wacko Will and find out if he's next in line for a kiosk with a primo location. Josh, Nick, Amber and Lacey are out of commission for this part of the investigation because they can't know about Grandpa and his secret identity as a wren and the mascot for the Academy of Spirits. Junie could've helped but won't because there's a Latin club meeting after school. And she's the president.

As I edge up close to the statue, Grandpa squawks and flutters straight to my shoulder. I start sweating.

There are still oodles of students milling around and not one of them has a wren perched on her shoulder. I whisper out of the side of my mouth, “Grandpa, just fly along near me, but not like you're with me.”

He squawks again, then zips up in the air, circling overhead.

Grandpa and I trundle along. A car honks, then another, the drivers pointing up to Grandpa, who's keeping a distance of a couple of feet above me, but I guess it's obvious we're together.

I do not want this kind of attention. This is not the kind of write-up I want on the ghost Internet.
Mrs. Howard would so not be impressed with me or Grandpa.

The sec there's a lull in traffic, I say, “Grandpa, people are noticing us. In a ‘that girl looks like a total weirdo' sort of way.” My arm up high, I wave him forward. “Meet me at the mall entrance.”

He rasps out a string of unintelligible syllables and zips off.

By the time I get to the mall, Grandpa's already perched patiently in the big metal
O
of “Phoenix” in the Phoenix Mall sign above the entrance. I wave a Ziploc bag of sunflower seeds in his direction, then drop it in my denim purse. I hold the purse wide open.

He beelines for the opening and dives in, burying his head in the seeds. His ragged tail feathers poke up.

I gently push his bottom down and lightly hold the purse closed. So far, so good. He's contained, and I can sneak him into the mall.

I pull my phone from my jeans pocket, place it on my shoulder, then lean my ear against it. This way, I can talk with Grandpa, let him know the plan, and I'll just look like a million other people, chatting on a cell in public.

“Grandpa, ya gotta stay in my purse. You can't go flying around the mall, and you definitely cannot zip over to the food court for a big munch session. Once we get to the mall manager's office, I'll let you out so
you can check the files.” I fill in a bunch more details about what he's looking for and how we'll handle it if the manager's actually in the office.

Grandpa pokes out his little birdy head and says, “Okay.”

All in all, I'm feeling more confident with each step. I march past Brittani's Baubles and Movie World and Sequins.

March. March. March
. This can definitely work. I'm all focused on A, then B, then C, totally lost in my detective plan.

“Sherry!” My little brother barrels into me. Going about one hundred miles per hour.

I'm careening, losing balance, falling. I grab for a bench. Fingers grasping, clasping around a wooden slat. In the process, my big, heavy, overpacked purse slips off my shoulder, over my elbow, past my wrist.

It lands with a thump under the bench.

A balding cactus wren hops out, shakes his feathers and blinks his beady black eyes.

S
am blinks back at Grandpa. “Is that John Wayne?” Sam blinks at me. “John Wayne was in your purse?”

I lean over to grab my bag and whisper out of the side of my mouth to Grandpa, “Meet me at the office.”

With a raspy, “Okay,” Grandpa flaps off, flying high up by the vaulted ceiling. A mother points him out to her toddler, but for the most part, shoppers are looking at window displays or buying merchandise or talking with their friends. No one really notices him.