13 on Halloween (Shadow Series #1)

by Laura A. H. Elliott

  “Hi Danielle, what’s up?”

  My plan doesn’t work because the minute I answer my phone Ally bolts. Like I mean she would have won the gold medal in The Olympics of Bolting.

  “The limo is coming by to pick us up at Landon’s at 6:30 so I just wanted to be sure you and Hayden will be here by 6,” Danielle says.

  “Ah, yeah, about that, we might be a little, um, late,” I say.

  Silence.

  “Well, I guess we can wait for the Homecoming Queen,” she says.

  I hang up and stare at myself in the round vanity mirror. Some Homecoming Queen. My mascara is all smudged and my hair is a mess. I hope that I can do my dark brown, highlighted hair up special enough so that my look says Homecoming Queen. I get another text. And then another. One’s from my mom another from my dad.

  Mom’s wondering why I didn’t make my hair appt.

  Dad’s wondering why I had the accident.

  I wiggle out of my cheerleading outfit and head over to my closet. I want to get a good look at the dress. Sort of visualize how it will look on me at the big dance. I open the doors to the closet. The dress hangs there. Amazing. It’s the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen. Very simple, which I think is cool. It’s tangerine, no beading, and only a few sequins. Very form-fitting.

  I get another text.

  Cant wait 2 C U, from Hayden.

  I can’t breathe. I run into the bathroom and hop in the shower. The warm water calms me and I scrub at my face to try and wash off the grimy, old makeup. I rub my eyes to get all the mascara off. They burn.

  When the stinging stops I spot a razor, it’s pink and cute and propped in the corner of the shower where the tile meets the floor-to-ceiling glass door. I hold it in one hand and rub my legs with the other. My legs feel like sandpaper.

  I’ve never shaved before. I pick up the razor and examine the blade before I run it over my skin. I do my pits first. Two swipes here and two swipes there. It sort of burns a little. No wait, it burns a lot. Way a lot. There’s this pink bottle in the corner too that I didn’t see before, Skintimate. I take the cap off and squirt some fluffy cream in my hand and put an inch-thick layer over my calf. I try again. It feels better until. Something burns.

  Blood pours out of a gash at my ankle. I run the wound under the water but it just turns into a red river pouring down the drain. I press down on the gash. I think I might have to put a tourniquet on to make the bleeding stop like the Boy Scouts fake-do with the real me on Red Cross Disaster Days back on Earth where all their little sisters are the victims.

  I imagine the headline, Homecoming Queen bleeds to death in first known shaving fatality. I must have sliced an artery or something. I can’t breathe. I finish suds-ing up and rinse off. I reach for a towel just outside of the shower and use it to keep the pressure on. Water all dripping down into my eyes and ears and then I see it. Hair. There. And I don’t mean my head. My heart skips a beat.

  The blood slows but doesn’t stop. I towel off fast and rifle through the cabinets. The only kind of band-aid I find is this big square one so I put it on over the cut. I’m happy my dress is long. It will hide it. I’m sure of that. But I’ll know it’s there. And dorky looking. So dodo.

  I walk over to the vanity and check my cell. I have a cell. 5:30. No time for makeup. Hayden will be here in half an hour and I won’t be ready at all, my hair will still be wet for freak’s sake. I sit down thinking, if I can just get my makeup on, I’ll look OK and my hair can just dry naturally. I will be fine.

  So I sit on the beautiful small, velvet-cushioned seat and I open the drawer on the right-hand side. And I reach in for some skin-colored cover-up. But when I dab it on, I just look like a zombie wombat, so I go back to the bathroom sink and scrub my face with a rag. I get out the blow dryer and dry my hair instead of bothering with makeup, hoping dry hair might make me look beautiful, when the doorbell rings.

  Brian yells upstairs, “Roxie, it’s for you?”

  5:50––it’s too soon. There’s no way it’s for me. No way it’s Hayden. I throw a robe on because that’s all I can think to do and I take the stairs slow. They are spirally and as I go downstairs I try pinching myself. But I don’t wake up. And there, at the bottom of the stairs is a handsome boy. Another boy. It’s not Hayden. I have no idea who this boy is.

  “Roxie?”

  Wow, like he doesn’t even recognize me? Wooops.

  “Yeah, hi.” Whoever-you-are.

  “I couldn’t pick up Trina before I stopped by to see you,” Mr. Dashing says.

  Trina. He must be my ex. I’ve got ex-s. That’s so cool.

  “I saw, uh heard, what happened to you today and I wondered if you were ok,” Brad takes a couple steps closer to the staircase. I walk backwards, up one step.

  Really? Cause isn’t that what cell phones are for? I have a feeling that popular Roxie would still be mad about Trina stealing her boyfriend, or Brad dumping her for Trina, or whatever-the-heck-happened. All would not be pink and fluffy between her and this guy Brad. But I don’t even know how to be that girl.

  “That’s sweet. Ah, yeah, I’m fine. I’m not really myself.”

  “Me neither,” he lets out a sigh and smiles.

  I unclench my robe tie. I’d been holding onto the belt so tight my fingers have turned purple. Blood flows back into my fingers.

  “You know, when I got in the car tonight, automatic pilot brought me here. I always thought you and I would go to Homecoming together.”

  Wow this Roxie even has guys stop by who aren’t dating her. And then I freak, full-on silently star-nose mole––which I think takes years off a person because only their heart knows how freaked out they are––because I’m not dressed yet.

  “I, ah, should go get ready,” I say all skipper about two hot guys wanting to be with me. A me I don’t know how to be.

  “Oh, yeah, you look great,” Brad says.

  “I’m in a robe.” I blush. “Thanks,” I say.

  “Save a dance for me tonight?” he says.

  “Sure,” I say not knowing if that’s what Peacock Roxie would do, but he seems tortured. Like he doesn’t really fit in either. I sort of like his pain. His face looks how I feel.

  I smile and on Brad’s way out the door, Hayden walks in.

  “Brad?” Hayden says.

  They exchange glances but Hayden doesn’t say anything. He just gives me a sort of accusing stare.

  “Hey, bro, I was just leaving,” Brad says, patting Hayden on the back. Brad sort of half-smiles at me on his way out the door.

  Hayden gives me the once over and I think I catch a look in his eye. Something I’ve never seen in a boy’s eye before. It’s not mad, it’s not happy it’s––star-nosed moley.

  “You had your chance with Roxie and you blew it,” Hayden yells out the door. “Roxie, what’s going on?”

  “No idea. He just showed up here.”

  “Just showed up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you’re still in your robe?”

  I want to tell Hayden everything. About the way he makes pretzels in our cooking class and how his hand brushing over mine makes me all tingly inside. And now he’s standing in front of me years older, like four years older, looking fabulous and I look like a beauty-school dropout. But, I can’t tell him. And if I go to the dance, it’ll just be a matter of time before he finds out about the real me, the dodo me. And he’ll dump me. But I want to go so bad.

  “Roxie, you can tell me.”

  “Hey, I got a late start, that’s all. I had an accident.” I don’t think you could really call driving a car I don’t know how to drive an accident. And doing said-thing all because I want to be a peacock more than anything and now that I am, I can’t handle it. “And anyway, I’m just going to go upstairs and get my dress on, ok?”

  “Accident?”

  “Yeah, I’ll tell you about it on the way.”

  “Yeah, my perfect sister drove her Porsche onto a hill at school.” Brian say
s in a way that keeps my stomach from twisting like Hayden’s perfect pretzels. Because I secretly like it when Brian teases me. I miss it. And it feels good to hear something familiar. Brothers, even when they’re hot they can be so annoying.

  “No way,” Hayden says.

  I slip upstairs while Brian fills Hayden in. I feel Hayden’s eyes on the small of my back and it makes me smile. I know what he’s thinking. There’s a big difference between thirteen and seventeen. Huge. About as big a difference as there is between a dodo and a peacock. I know this whole thing is too good to be true. And I want it to be true. I’m going to freaking rule The One Enchanted Night Homecoming Dance. I’m going to rock that tiara and I’m going to look the best I’ll ever look in my life.

  I hunt for a hair straightener. Every peacock girl has one. I might be late, but I’ll look great, who cares about the photos we are supposed to take before, that’s what I keep telling myself. I put my hands on one of the things Mom never allowed me to have. And I straighten my super-curly, wiry hair. Then I do what I can with the makeup. Since I almost poke my eye out when I try to put it on, I skip the mascara. I swipe on some blush and lip gloss and stick them in my white, puffy feather purse.

  I love Peacock Roxie’s taste. I look in the mirror one last time. And for the first time in my life, I love the way I look. My beautiful tangerine dress sparkles a little at the off the shoulder tie and hugs my seventeen year old body in all the right places. The white, feathery puffy-ball-of-a purse and a white flower in my part-up, part-down hair go great with the dress. I like my gold eye shadow and it will always be my favorite. I feel like Cinderella just after her fairy godmother got her ready for the ball. This is my ball and I’m going to make the most of it no matter what happens. I’m on top of the world. Ready to rule it, like peacocks do.

  I take a long, deep breath and walk down the steps rocking four-inch heels, taking my time.

  “Roxie, you, you are, you look amazing,” Hayden says.

  He doesn’t seem to care about the fact I’ve suddenly lost the ability to put on makeup, even on this epic night. He doesn’t even seem to care that I beached my Porsche in the student parking lot. He looks at me like a prince must look at his princess, takes my hand like he did in the attic and slides a corsage over my wrist––all white roses, baby’s breath tied up with a purple ribbon. I love purple. I’m guessing Peacock Roxie does too. I’m guessing we aren’t so different after all. I remember the purple ribbon on my birthday present. The shattered glass. The message in the bottle. Moonlight on the attic floor.

  “What have you done to my sister,” Brian says in a real cute, semi-stunned way. Like he sort of means it.

  I laugh. I must have done something right because here I am making two boys act all squirmy and weird. And I get all squirmy and weird inside too.

  Chapter 11

  Hayden and I are the last ones out of the limo. All the girls stand around in little groups on the school steps eyeing me. I wiggle in my four-inch heels, fidgety because the way the girls look at me I feel like I’ve forgotten something.

  Boys huddle in a circle on the sidewalk outside of the high school like they’re cooking up something big. And the girls crowd around me. I own this. I keep saying over and over in my mind. This is me having the best night of my life and nobody, not Adrianne or Ally or Brad or Trina or anything I might say or do that’s different than everyone expects is going to spoil it for me.

  “So, Roxie, you feeling alright?” one girl says, I wish I knew her name.

  “No, way?” another adds. And then there’s this sort of critique of me that goes around the circle of girls I’m with.

  “You look so washed out.”

  “Yeah, you know if it were me...”

  “I’d have done something more with my hair...”

  “I’d have worn makeup especially the way that tangerine washes you out. I mean you look like you’ve just gotten over the flu or something.”

  “Here girls, let’s go fix her up,” a girl smiles and digs her claws into my arm wanting me to follow her.

  “I like the way I look,” I say. But I’m in a herd and the herd sweeps me away. I look over my shoulder to try and catch Hayden’s attention. When I do, he just smiles and nods, like everything is ok and I get this feeling everything won’t be.

  “Roxie, don’t you trust us?”

  In the pit of my stomach I don’t. I like being part of a pack, but this one is a stampede.

  We walk through the gymnasium door and practically crash into a huge, real palm tree. Everything is palm trees and miniature Christmas lights and fountains and waterfalls. Homecoming’s One Enchanted Night with an enchanted island theme.

  We duck into the girl’s bathroom, all done up with white towels and little bottles of perfume and makeup and a velvet sofa.

  “You can’t win the crown looking like this.”

  “No you have to look, regal,” one girl says.

  “Perfect,” says the other one.

  “Yeah, we’ll make you over,” Ally says.

  Finally a familiar face. You’d think I’d know everyone here, right. But dodos don’t really know each other. We’re invisible. Even to each other. So I barely know any of the girls. Ally pulls out her mascara, and the tension leaves my body. I decide everything will be all right. I take a deep breath and sit at the round, velvet bench by a large mirror where another girl stands and finishes her final coat of lipstick. She halfway-smiles on her way out.

  Another girl has a brush with thick black liquid on it, eyeliner. “Look up,” she says.

  I blink and blink. I trust Ally because she’s Ally and it’s genetically impossible for me not to trust her, even if she’s just a shadow. So I do what they say. I blink when they tell me to. Try not to when they tell me not to. I don’t like being patted and poked. I don’t want any more makeup. And when I stand to look in the mirror, their eyes go wide.

  “Um, Ally...” a girl says, pointing to the back of my dress.

  Ally peeks over my shoulder. “Take your dress off,” she says.

  No. Cinderella never takes her dress off.

  “Guess someone’s visitor came a little early.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say the only one not in on their joke.

  “You know, Aunt Flo?”

  Then Ally says it in a way that I totally understand, “Roxie, here.” Ally holds this long thing in a paper wrapper out in front of her and it takes me about two seconds to figure out what it is. I take it in my hands. My heart sinks to my knees and I turn around, slowly. An oblong, red stain breaks the spell like Cinderella’s chimes at midnight. This dodo can’t win. Even on Planet Popular.

  I wrap the dress around me, walk over to the sinks and grab a paper towel. I put down the feminine supplies, what my mom calls them, and run the towel under water. I pat the red spot on my dress and lose my breath when I can’t quite reach and my eyes tear up. I’m mad and humiliated all rolled up into one. I mean the most beautiful dress I could ever imagine, ruined. I miss my mom.

  This doesn’t happen to Homecoming Queens. Planet Popular is turning out to be The Planet of Horrors. And just then little sharp pains make me want to throw up.

  “Bet you’d kill for a brownie right about now, huh?” one girl says laughing.

  Every one of those cheesy period TV commercials replays in my head. The ones I’ve mostly ignored. And now I am one of those commercials––Don’t let this happen to you on the biggest night of your life.

  Of course it never would happen to you if I wasn’t a freaking thirteen-year-old in a seventeen-year-old body. And then part of me is like, finally. Ally had gotten hers. And I always thought it was weird that it took me so long to get mine. I thought I’d be the last one in my class. But now that it’s here and I’m living the nightmare of it, I never want to get it ever again.

  The only one not laughing is Ally. I don’t know if it’s because she actually cares about me, or if she hates seeing her most popular best frie
nd go down in a ball of flames on the biggest night of her life––unpopular by association.

  Then a girl, a very beautiful girl, another girl I don’t know walks into the bathroom. She’s our age, and takes my hand and leads me out of there. Away from the mascara toting, laughing girls and down a dark hallway. I pull away from her. I don’t want anyone to see me in my red-stained dress. No one. Especially Hayden. She holds out the message in the bottle. Yeah, that message from that bottle. And doesn’t say a word.