Meanicures (2 page)

You know how sometimes you just really, really want to believe something? And so you do? “Seriously? He wants to ask me something?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. He said something about the eighth-grade dance!” Kayley said.

What? Me?
Me?
I’d never been asked to any dance before. I looked at Taylor. “Should I?”

“I don’t know,” she said softly. “If you want …” She shrugged.

I was feeling brave. Don’t ask why, because I don’t know. These flashes of bravery come to me from time to time, like lightning strikes. What if it was true and I didn’t act on it?

I walked slowly toward Hunter and stopped in front of him. “Um, hi. I heard you might talk to me?
Want
to talk to me, I mean.”

He was still texting and he didn’t look up. “Yeah. Just a sec.”

I waited a couple of seconds. Then I said, “Hunter?”

“Just a sec,” he said again.

He wasn’t good at math. He probably had no idea what “a second” even meant. I was too impatient and curious to wait another minute. “If you were going to ask, um, the answer’s yes.”

He finally looked up and stared at me blankly, his sandy-brown hair falling into his hazel eyes.

“The dance,” I said. “Yes.”

“Yeah? Cool. See, I can’t go to the dance unless I get a C in math. I can’t even play in the football game
before
the dance if I don’t get a C. So I can borrow your homework?” he asked.

“Huh?”

“That was what I needed to know,” he said. “You
said
yes. I’ll give it back after homeroom.”

Math homework
. He wanted to cheat off my math homework, not ask me to the dance. Of course.

“Um …” I sorted through my backpack, trying not to show him how embarrassed I was for getting things wrong.

“What happened to your hair?” he asked. “Looks green. Sort of like seaweed? You might want to get that checked out.”

He just compared my hair to seaweed
. I wanted to grab Hunter’s phone to call my mom right then. I would tell her:
I am no longer willing to be a test subject, and I think your seaweed shampoo recipes are full of salt and a lack of scientific knowledge, and do you realize you’re the reason I will never, ever have a date?

I just smiled at Hunter. “It’s a long story,” I said. A long, long, pathetic story. I handed him my math homework and walked away—bumping right into Alexis, who was taking our picture.

“Why are you taking my picture?” I asked.

“It’s candids for the yearbook—we’re taking them of everyone. Go back and stand next to Hunter,” she said.

“No, thanks—” I started to say, but she had already snapped the photo.

“Perfect!”

I slunk away, wishing I were invisible, along with my helmet head and green hair.

“So? What did he
say?”
Cassidy asked eagerly, stepping in front of me.

I stared at her with a blank expression. “He said my hair looked like seaweed.”

“Ouch.” Cassidy’s mouth twitched as though it was killing her not to giggle.

Silently I cursed my mother again, using all the bad words I knew she’d ground me for saying. How had I not noticed this before I left home? How had she not mentioned it? You’d think my little brother would have had a field day.

“You guys could have said something,” I said angrily.

“I tried—” Taylor began.

“I just thought you were, you know.” Cassidy grinned. “Trying to show your Panther pride.”

“How so?” I said.

“Green’s one of our school colors, right?” said Alexis.

“You know, you really need to have a talk with your mother about this shampoo stuff,” Kayley commented, with the emphasis on
poo
.

“Yes. I know,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’m well … aware of that.”

I suddenly saw Olivia walking toward us. She was wearing her usual funky attire: two-toned Converse sneakers, black skirt over striped tights, and jean jacket. Her wavy brown hair was pulled up in a beaded barrette. She was carrying a little pad of paper in one hand, and a pen in the other, and I suddenly got nervous on her behalf. If she was planning on writing things down, that must mean she wasn’t comfortable talking.

She had just gotten braces on Saturday, and I wondered how much the mean girls would make fun of her. She had to wear this thing called a pendulum appliance, which made her talk funny because she wasn’t used to it yet.

“Don’t you have someplace else to go?” I asked Cassidy, hoping she’d leave before she got a chance to hear Olivia try to speak. “Some other person’s morning to wreck?”

“Yu mnpf dot wck,” said Olivia. “Munez.”

The mean girls stared at her, smiles widening on their faces.

“What
did you just say?” Alexis asked her.

Cassidy laughed. “Yeah, what happened to you?”

“They’re called braces. Everyone’s heard of them. Come on, guys.” Taylor took both of us by the arms and started to pull us away, into the school building.

Olivia quickly scribbled something on a piece of paper and held it up for us to read.
I knew I should have worn my Wednesday underwear!

“You have
to help me!” Olivia pleaded a minute later, as soon as we were alone in the girls’ bathroom on the second floor. Her speech was still indistinct, but I could figure out what she was saying.

“Help you? Look at me!” I cried. Now that I could see my hair in the mirror, I was cringing. All I can say was, my mom was not even close to figuring out the new edamame formula she was experimenting with for her Edamommy Baby Shampoo.

She usually hires hair models to try out new formulas on, but every once in a while she’ll get inspired and it’ll be the middle of the weekend, and so I become her test subject. Thank goodness, the seaweed shampoo recipe was perfect now. But you know those no-animal-testing symbols on shampoo? I’d like to have one that says: “No Madison Testing.”

Still, I have to admire her. I go into a drugstore and look at all the shampoos and conditioners on the shelves, and I think,
It’s all been done, Mom
.

She doesn’t see it that way. She’s made a million with her Original Sea Clean products. She even bought
a big house for us
by
the sea. So who was I to question her when she said she wanted to try making edamame baby shampoo?

But obviously, I should have questioned her. In case you don’t know, edamames are green vegetables, kind of like peas.

“Couldn’t that be the green paint in here reflecting off my hair? Or the fluorescent light, maybe?” I asked.

“Sorry,” said Taylor. “But no.”

I sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You had your helmet on until we got here—I didn’t know!” said Taylor. “And I tried to get you to wear my hat, didn’t I?”

I tried arranging my hair to hide the green streak. The problem was, there wasn’t just one. The streaks blended into one another. I quickly pulled my hair into two braids and flattened them down. It wasn’t stylish, and I looked like a green Pippi Longstocking, but it was better than before. I pulled Taylor’s black Mainely Gymnastics cap over my head to complete the look. Nerdy, but safe.

“Okay, that’s better. Now, what do you need help with?” I asked Olivia as we walked out into the hallway, toward our lockers.

In spite of the braces, she managed to get out that today was the day she was scheduled to host “Panthers Update,” our school’s TV morning news. For some reason the Payneston powers-that-be had decided that every student should host one morning each school
year. Not just those who wanted to, but also those who
didn’t
want to, who would rather run screaming from the building and get hit by a bus than be on camera.

Like Olivia. Normally she loved being dramatic, and she didn’t mind any extra attention that she earned with her brightly colored, offbeat shoes or clothes. But not this Monday, not now when she couldn’t speak straight.

“I hate to point out the obvious, but since you knew you were getting braces on Saturday, why didn’t you just reschedule it?” Taylor asked as she stacked her science book onto her math book. Taylor’s the queen of logic and can never understand why everyone else doesn’t act as rationally as she does. When she found out she was sneezing all the time because of her new puppy, she decided she’d just have to give him away—to Olivia, who kept about eight different pets. She didn’t even shed a tear.

Olivia shrugged. “I forgot?”

She really can be such a space cadet. Sometimes she’ll forget what class she’s supposed to go to, or head down the wrong hallway to her locker. You have to take pity on her. It’s like she’s spending all her brain energy caring for her guinea pig, rabbit, hamster, ferret, three cats, one newly adopted-from-Taylor puppy, and one older dog. She wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up, but I don’t know if I’d trust her with surgery. She might be the type to leave important surgical stuff inside your pet—like scissors.

Olivia handed me a piece of paper.
Come on, Madison. I can’t talk. Please, can you do it instead? I already went in and cleared it with Mr. Brooks
.

“Me?”
Pity was one thing. Insanity was another. “No. You can do it. Practice talking! You know, ‘Four-score and seven years ago, our fathers …’ all that kind of stuff.”

“ ‘She sells seashells by the seashore,’ ” I added, though frankly, I’d never seen anyone ever selling seashells, by the seashore or anywhere else.

Olivia tried to say something and sprayed me with spit. It sounded like … well … like a sailboat slicing through the water.

I realized how dire her situation was. I might be teased if my green hair was picked up on camera, but she’d get laughed off the screen. “Okay, fine. You’re not doing it,” I said. “But why should
I
do it?”

She handed me another note:
Don’t forget to mention the Endangered Animals Club meeting after school today
. Then she pushed me toward the TV studio door, spitting something about how I was good in a crisis.

“No, I’m not!” I said. “Taylor’s the one who—”

The door closed. I brushed the spit off my corduroy jacket as Mr. Brooks, who ran the studio, explained how things would work. It seemed straightforward enough—I would read the news while looking at the camera, make eye contact with the camera, smile for the camera, and enunciate (to the camera, no doubt).

“Enunciate. E-nun-ci-ate,” Mr. Brooks said. “You
know, like in
My Fair Lady
. Quickly. Quickly!” He seemed to be panicking and saying everything twice because of it. “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain. You know, like that. Five minutes till airtime, everybody! Cameron’s running the camera, Cassidy’s our director—if you need anything, just ask Cassidy.”

Just ask Cassidy?
I’d rather gargle with glass. Since when did Cassidy take over the morning news?

It figured, though. She’d always wanted to be either an actor or a news anchor, which I think she’d be perfect for, considering she already knows how to act fake all the time. And she was great at cheerleading—a natural performer.

“Um, where is she, anyway?” I asked Cameron. He was also in seventh grade, but I didn’t know him very well. His one distinguishing feature was that he looked kind of like the actor in those vampire movies. I mean, the werewolf dude.

He shrugged. “Late, as usual,” he said.

“You can’t wear that hat, though, Madison,” Mr. Brooks said, pointing to Taylor’s hat. “You must know the dress code: no hats in school.”

“Mr. Brooks, please! I
need
to wear a hat. My hair is, uh, off-color,” I said.

He raised his eyebrows. “Off-color? What do you mean by that?”

“It’s—not right,” I said. “Turned green last night.” I slowly removed the hat.

“I’ll say,” added Cameron, looking closely at me.

I frowned at him. Go ahead, kick me while I’m down. Maybe I
didn’t
want to know him better.

Mr. Brooks shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re being too sensitive. Looks fine to me. No hats.”

Cassidy breezed through the door just then. “Hey, Cam, hey, Mr. Brooks,” she said with a wave. “So sorry I’m late. The printer was not working at all.” She stopped and did a double take. “Madison? What are you doing here? Olivia was signed up for today.”

“She’s not feeling well,” I said. That, and she can’t talk, I added silently.

“Oh. Well, you know the routine, right? Okay, I have your text all ready, right here.” She waved a couple of sheets of paper in the air, then handed them to me. “Do you need anything before you go on? I mean, I know how you hate doing makeup, right? If you want, I could help.”

I glared at her. Would a mouse accept help from a snake? Even if the mouse did look … a little mousy and green and in no way ready for her close-up.

And what was with her saying she knew I didn’t like makeup? Was that a slam?

“No. That’s okay.” I coughed, wondering if she might actually be offering something good for a change. “Do people usually wear makeup when they do this?”

“Not everyone, but if you want to look good …” She paused, waiting for my answer.

“Okay, I guess,” I said. “But what are we talking about?”