Glitter Girl

by Toni Runkle

  Kat was sitting on the edge of the pool with her feet in the water, talking to a girl Jules didn’t recognize. Kat said something to her and the girl laughed loudly. That’s Kat, thought Jules. She makes everyone feel better about being around her. It was a gift from the girl gods.

  “Kat!” said Chelsea with Jules in tow. “Look what I found!”

  Jules looked severely at Chelsea. That did not sound good coming from her.

  “Jules!” said Kat, enthusiastically coming up to her with her arm around the new girl. “Have you met Angie Ferris? She’s just transferred from Boyton Middle School. She’s in my second-period computer class.”

  Kat and Angie looked at each other smiling and simultaneously burst out, “Windows for Blonds!” as if it were the funniest thing ever. “Isn’t that cool?” Kat continued.

  “Uh,” said Jules, not nearly as comfortable with new people as Kat was, “I guess.”

  “We were just saying that we hoped you didn’t get lost!” said Mrs. Connors, coming over to Jules with a tray of drinks in her hand and offering her one.

  “Angie,” said Chelsea, pulling her away from Kat’s grasp a bit, “why don’t you show Jules where the other girls are putting their things?”

  “I could do tha—” said Kat.

  “That’s okay,” said Chelsea, cutting her off sweetly. “This will give Jules and Angie a chance to talk.”

  “Uh, okay,” said Angie obediently. “Come on.” She took Jules and the two made their way back into the house.

  As they walked into the living room, they passed the huge box that Jules had seen the brown truck deliver earlier in the day. Since its arrival, it had been decorated with colorful wrapping-paper designs, and a gigantic lace ribbon that now smiled at passersby from the top of the box. Above the box, suspended from the ceiling, was an enormous digital clock that looked like a frilly pink version of one of those Countdown Clocks the bad guys were always using to blow up the world in the spy movies from the 1960s that Jules liked to watch with her dad.

  But this clock was counting down to something far cooler than the end of the world and the destruction of every living organism on the planet. This clock was one of fifty perfectly synchronized clocks, all designed to read “00:00:00” at precisely 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, when all the Glitter Girls from around the country would simultaneously experience Glitter Girl products for the first time. It was another of Chelsea Ambrose’s little touches that had impressed the Board of Directors at Remoulet headquarters. The clock now read thirty-seven minutes to go. A few girls crowded around the box and watched the numbers on the Glitter Girl clock tick down. They giggled in anticipation.

  Angie pulled Jules away from the clock and up the stairs toward the bedroom.

  “Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you where the bedroom is.”

  Jules could hardly believe what she was hearing. A few months ago, this girl hadn’t even known Kat and was going to some school on the other side of town, but now she was giving her a tour of Kat’s house? It would be laughable if it weren’t so weird. Jules knew it wasn’t Angie’s fault, so she dutifully played along as Angie pointed out things Jules had known about since she was in diapers.

  Meanwhile in the backyard, Chelsea had cornered Kat by the Connors’s wet bar near the pool.

  “Kat,” said Chelsea, still cool as a cucumber, “I don’t remember seeing this girl Jules on the list of names you gave me.”

  “Oh that. Yeah, I meant to tell you,” Kat lied. “Kelsey Miller couldn’t make it so I asked Jules to step in at the last minute so we would still have twenty girls.”

  Chelsea studied Kat carefully, not sure if she was telling the truth or if she was as effortless a liar as she was herself.

  “Well, that’s fine. It’s no problem for me,” Chelsea said, throwing in a whopper of her own. “I just hope she’ll feel comfortable around the other girls. She’s just, you know, not like them.”

  Kat knew exactly what Chelsea meant but defended her friend anyway. “No,” she said, “Jules is cool. It just takes her a while to get comfortable at parties. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’,” Kat said, smiling sweetly at Chelsea.

  “You have no idea,” said Chelsea in a way that, despite the sweet smile she flashed back at Kat, left Kat totally unnerved.

  Chapter 10

  We Few, We Happy Few

  “Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One!”

  Like on New Year’s Eve in Times Square in New York City, the girls counted down along with the Glitter Girl clock as it made its way backward to 00:00:00. Then suddenly what seemed like a thousand little hands descended on the huge box and began ripping it apart. The ripping was so ferocious that it was hard to believe it came from dainty fourteen-year-old fingers painted in innocent pink, purple, and teal rather than a pack of jackals bringing down its prey. Those pretty little hands could do some serious damage, because within a minute the big box was totally gutted and dozens of smaller boxes were spilling out everywhere. It was like a mamma box had given birth to a giant litter of baby boxes!

  Before you knew it, all those “baby” boxes were mercilessly ripped open and their contents revealed. Contents such as bedazzled hair accessories, shimmery eye makeup, body glitter, solar-powered key chains that flashed your name, rhinestone-encrusted flip-flops, super-cool sunglasses with mirrored lenses, leopard-print throw pillows with a secret compartment for a diary, and tankini swimsuits covered in the cutest little cherry print ever. Then of course there was a whole line of accessories from T-shirts to notebooks and pens that sported the words “Study? I’m Here to See My Friends” and nail polish that actually changed color depending on your mood!

  And that wasn’t even the coolest stuff. There was software that let you design your own line of clothing and then stage a totally fabulous virtual fashion show to the music of your choice (downloaded for a small fee, of course). There were MP3 players with an app that could figure out the star charts of you and up to five of your BFFs and then calculate the next ten years of your daily horoscope! There were flash drives in every animal print imaginable, as well as fuzzy slippers with a recordable chip that you could make say things like, “It’s too early. Wake me when it’s noon,” or, “Step aside. Fabulous coming through,” whenever you took a step.

  Kat looked around at it all and proclaimed at the top of her lungs, “This is the most therocious night ever!” The girls all cheered.

  • • •

  Two hours later, the house looked like the aftermath of the most decadent Christmas morning ever. The girls, now in their pj’s, sat amid a mountain of discarded packaging. Tufts of hot pink, white, and black marabou floated through the air like puffy snowflakes as the girls excitedly tried everything in sight.

  “Cool! Awesome! Sweet!” were some of the words still heard as the girls tried out various items, sometimes even getting into a tug-of-war over them.

  Kat sat cross-legged on the floor near the fireplace with her laptop across her knees. She’d promised her readers she would live blog the whole night, and she typed a mile a minute as the other girls pranced around in their new Glitter Gear. She was positively beaming over this stuff.

  Guess what?

  she wrote,

  I feel confident that the forecast for this fall is sunny and warm, with a definite chance of glitter and a “cool” front moving in!

  She loved weather analogies.

  Chelsea Ambrose, who had been peeking over Kat’s shoulder as she typed, walked around the room, surveying the frilly chaos she had created.

  A feeding frenzy, Chelsea thought as she watched it all with a self-satisfied smirk. She scanned the room and noted the hungry look in the eyes of this pack of girls. The look from which big sales are made. It was the look that they all had. All of
them except…that Jules girl. Chelsea’s smirk faded.

  Jules sat at the center island eating off a picked-over snack tray, observing the madness from afar, not even tempted to pick up a single Glitter Girl item. It irked Chelsea. Who did this girl think she was, sitting there high up on her bar stool like she was above all this?

  “Is there a problem?” asked Chelsea, sidling up next to Jules.

  Not sure she was being spoken to, Jules looked up, surprised, dropping a glob of guacamole from her chip onto her white capris. But Chelsea was indeed looking straight at her.

  “No,” said Jules, trying to wipe the guacamole off her pants and only making it worse.

  “Then come and join the fun,” said Chelsea in a voice that was more threatening than inviting.

  “No thanks. I–I’m not really into this kind of stuff,” said Jules as she wiped up the mess she’d made on herself.

  “You’re not into ‘this kind of stuff’?” Chelsea repeated quite loudly, sounding offended.

  Suddenly the room went quiet as Jules realized that all eyes had turned to her. That included Kat, who had been blogging about the makeover Aly Washington was doing on Misty Wilkins using a triple palette of blue eye shadows (cerulean, cornflower, and a shade called mouthwash). Kat was having such a good time capturing the moment that she had forgotten all about Jules.

  “Well, I’m sorry you find this all soooo boring,” said Chelsea pointedly.

  There were a few snickers from around the room. Zoe sniffed haughtily and gave Kat an “I told you so” look. Kat didn’t like where this was heading. She quickly set down her laptop and jumped in.

  “Here, Jules. Try out this eye shadow Aly’s using. It would look so good with your skin tone,” offered Kat, holding out the little container.

  Unlike Kat, Jules was always on the verge of humiliation when she was the center of attention. She was already feeling really out of place at this ridiculous party. She wouldn’t know what to do with three shades of eye shadow if her life depended on it. And now the whole room would know. So instead of admitting her true feelings, she relied on her usual defense mechanism, sarcasm.

  “Yeah, maybe if I was a Smurf or one of the Na’vi on the planet Pandora,” she replied.

  Tittering and whispers could be heard around the room. Even a barely audible “lame” that Kat was sure came from Zoe. Kat cringed in embarrassment. How could Jules do this to her? In front of Chelsea? When she knew how badly Kat wanted to be the Face of Glitter Girl!

  “There’s other stuff here I’m sure you’ll like,” said Kat, trying to salvage the moment.

  “Yes, Jules. Surely there’s something here that would be interesting—even to a girl like you,” said Chelsea. More snickers from around the room.

  A girl like you? This is exactly what Jules had been worried about. Not fitting in. And she was mad now that these stupid girls were laughing at her. And mad at herself that she had ever even wanted to come to this stupid party to begin with.

  “I doubt it,” she said, digging in her heels.

  “Oh you’ll like this!” offered Darcy from the corner. As usual, she was completely oblivious to the tension that now filled the room. “It’s so cool. Look, it’s shaped like a pretty, little pink daisy pin but like, it’s secretly a camera!”

  Desperate to end the weirdness, Kat rushed over to Darcy and grabbed the pin, making a huge point to gush about it. “What? That’s amazing! How does it work, Chelsea?”

  Temporarily forgetting Jules, Chelsea came over and proudly explained, “Oh, this is fabulous. It’s called a Slam Cam. It’s a tiny covert video camera specifically for spying.”

  “Ooooh!” went about eight of the girls simultaneously at the word “spying.”

  Chelsea smiled and continued, “You can catch your friends and family in funny situations and post the videos on the Internet. Or let’s say you and your friend are having an argument. You can secretly record it, and later when your friend denies saying something, which, let’s admit, they always do…you just pop out the drive, put it in your computer, and bingo! She’s busted!”

  There were more “oohs” and “ahhs” around the room. Zoe proclaimed she absolutely had to have one. But then…

  “That sounds creepy. Not to mention illegal.”

  Kat turned. She couldn’t believe it! Jules just refused to shut up!

  “My mom’s a—” Jules began.

  “Yeah, we know. Your mom’s a lawyer. But not everything’s a major crime. Some things are just fun,” said Kat.

  Jules was a little stung by her friend accusing her of not seeing the fun in things. But not all things were funny. Not to her. Suddenly she felt very defensive.

  “Oh, come on. You have to admit…this is a major crime!” said Jules. She picked up an engineer’s cap from a pile of Glitter Gear. It was pink-and-white plaid with rhinestones all around the band.

  “Excuse me. But I’ll have you know that our market research shows this hat will be the hottest next trend in teen wardrobe accessories,” said Chelsea.

  “Well, as an actual teen, I can tell you it’s lame,” said Jules. “Ask Kat. She’ll tell you the same thing.”

  Smiling, Jules looked at Kat, knowing full well that Kat did not do hats. Not ever, under any circumstances, nuh-uh. This Chelsea chick was in for a rude awakening.

  “Kat?” Chelsea held the engineer’s cap out to Kat to put on, daring her really.

  Now all eyes were on Kat. She could not believe Jules, putting her on the spot like this. Knowing full well how she felt about hats.

  Kat took the hat from Chelsea, hemmed and hawed a bit, and held it out in front of her as if it were one of her little cousin’s dirty diapers. “It, uh, it’s pretty sweet,” said Kat finally. And to Jules’s amazement, Kat put on the hat. Kat! Who had never, not once, not in all the years Jules had known her, ever put on a hat.

  Not even that one time at the new Aquatic Center for Ellie Boyle’s fifth birthday party when it was like a hundred degrees. Her mom had said she had to wear a hat or she couldn’t be in the sun, but Kat wouldn’t budge. She sat underneath the picnic table the entire time and even sang “Happy Birthday” and ate her cake from under there, just to avoid wearing a silly birthday hat.

  And now Kat was wearing a hat. She was, well, Kat in a hat! Chelsea gave Jules a pretty snotty look as looks go. Jules thought she would barf.

  Jules looked around at the girls, most of them snickering at her. Except of course Darcy, who was on Kat’s laptop trying to use the design program and failing miserably. She saw Zoe, who was staring at her guacamole-stained capris, whisper something to Misty, and they both cracked up.

  Angry and upset, Jules grabbed her sleeping bag and headed to the front door.

  “Jules! Wait. Where are you going?” asked Kat. Even if she was ticked at Jules, she didn’t want her to leave.

  “Home.”

  “Don’t forget your goodie bag, sweetie.” Chelsea shoved a bag in her hand and Jules could have sworn Chelsea was nudging her out the door.

  Jules ran out of the living room. Kat hesitated a second and then went after her.

  Kat caught up to Jules on the front porch of the house.

  “Hey, stop. Don’t be that way,” said Kat.

  “What way? You mean be myself unlike some people I know?” Jules looked at the stupid hat Kat was still wearing.

  Self-conscious, Kat pulled it off. “I’m just having fun. What’s wrong with that?”

  “If being a sell-out is your idea of fun, I don’t want any part of it.” Jules stormed off.

  Kat looked back into the house to see the rest of the partygoers crowding at the front window, watching the whole thing. She saw that Chelsea was watching too, looking her up and down. How much had she seen of that mess? Kat wondered if Chelsea was at that very moment striking her off the list of candidates to be
the Face of Glitter Girl. Kat was angry at Jules for embarrassing her like this. She took a deep breath and stepped back into the house.

  “I am sooo sorry for that whole scene,” said Kat, completely red-faced.

  “I told you not to invite her,” said Zoe.

  “I guess I should have left her off the list like we had planned in the first place,” Kat admitted, desperate to make things right in Chelsea’s eyes.

  “Then why did you invite her?” asked Chelsea in a penetrating way that made Kat feel like she’d better come up with a very good answer or else she was definitely not going to be the Face of Glitter Girl.

  “Well, I don’t know, I—uh—her brother was standing there—”

  “Her brother is really cute,” added Zoe and several girls nodded, which empowered Kat and made her feel she was on the right track.

  “Yeah. And I felt guilty. And, and I guess, I guess it was like a, you know, a pity invite!” said Kat.

  There were murmurs of understanding from some of the girls. But it was Chelsea’s reaction that concerned Kat.

  Chelsea broke into a smile. She went over to Kat and put her arm around her.

  “You have a good heart, sweetie, but you’ll have to learn that in life, heart will only get you so far. Not everyone is Glitter Girl material. Now. Who wants some free lip gloss?”

  The girls cheered and as they all started back to the family room, bubbly and talking and laughing, Kat was relieved the party was back on track. Still, she felt a pang of guilt deep inside and took a quick glance out the big picture window where she could see the light go on in Jules’s room. When Kat finally rejoined her friends at the party, that guilt made it hard for her to appreciate the OMG! prettiest shade of gloss she had ever laid eyes on.