Charlotte walked a few steps closer to Aly and snapped a knot in a Plum Delicious–colored balloon. “For your information,” she said to Suzy, “Sparkle Spa has a packed schedule tomorrow. And I’m braiding hair.”
“Well, Heather and I,” Suzy said, “are going to Princess Polish to get ready for our parents’ anniversary party. I’m sure that their braiders are better than you.”
Aly clenched her fists. Insulting Sparkle Spa was one thing, but insulting Charlotte was something else altogether. “Charlotte is the best hair braider around,” Aly said. “I bet she could braid circles around any of the grown-ups at Princess Polish.”
Charlotte and Aly were standing shoulder to shoulder now, staring at Suzy.
“Whatever,” Suzy said. “Sparkle Spa will always be for babies.” Then she marched off in the direction of the poster team.
“She is the pits,” Charlotte said, rubbing the balloon she was holding across her head to make her hair all staticky.
“The absolute pits,” Aly agreed, even though she couldn’t help feeling that Suzy was a little bit right.
Aly looked around at the transformed gym. Tomorrow night the sixth graders would be having the best time ever, and hopefully Sparkle Spa would have something to do with that—no matter what Suzy Davis thought.
eight
Very Ice Try
Aly felt a thud on her chest and then a lick on her cheek.
“Stop, Sparkly,” she giggled. But Sparkly kept licking until Aly got out of bed.
It was just as well that Sparkly woke Aly up early, though, because today was the day of the Fall Ball.
Aly got dressed quickly and took Sparkly out for a walk. By the time they got back, Brooke was sitting at the kitchen table, ready to go.
“I’m so excited, it’s almost like we’re going to the ball ourselves,” Brooke said on the drive to True Colors.
But Aly shook her head. “I think it’s more like we’re the fairy godmothers and all our customers are Cinderella.”
Brooke laughed. But then she got serious. “Remember, I’m not doing boy feet.”
“I don’t think we have any boys scheduled for pedicures,” Aly said after swallowing a bite of her granola bar. “Just for cleanings and thumbs-up man-icures.”
“Ew,” Brooke said. “That means their feet will be even grosser. It’s a good thing fancy boy shoes cover up their toes.”
Aly and Mom laughed. “Brooke, I don’t know where you come up with that stuff,” Mom said. Brooke just shrugged and laughed a little herself.
Once they got to Sparkle Spa, the sisters set out all the fall-themed polishes on a special table. Brooke also drew the shape of a foot on a piece of paper. Then Aly polished the toenails with Brooke’s special “caramel-dipped pedicure” so everyone could see what it would look like. And she pulled out the strands of multicolored beads Brooke and Sophie had strung all week. There were dozens of them in at least eight different colors, and Brooke had organized them in rainbow order. They looked beautiful all by themselves, but they were going to look even nicer in people’s hair.
By ten thirty, the girls were ready for the big day ahead, and Jenica was the first customer to arrive. She was carrying a royal-blue dress with spaghetti straps and ruffles. “I brought my dress to make sure the polish matched,” she said. “I’d hate to get home and find that the polish clashed with this color.”
Brooke had a very serious expression on her face. “You’d never want that,” she said, tugging on her braid. “What color are your sandals again?”
“Silver,” Jenica answered.
Brooke nodded. “Aly can start on your hair. I’ll bring you different color choices for your nails.”
Once Jenica sat down, Aly asked, “Silver beads to go with your shoes? Or blue?”
“Silver!” Brooke called from the polish display.
Aly smiled and raised an eyebrow at Jenica.
“Silver,” Jenica confirmed. “And can you do that kind of braid that goes across my head? Like a crown?”
“Sure,” she said, picking up a strand of silver beads to start.
Meanwhile, Brooke came back holding a bottle of silvery Very Ice Try and a bottle of hot-pink I Like to Mauve It Mauve It. “Here’s what I’m thinking,” she said. “Pink looks really good with bright blue, so I can use mauve on your toenails and then a stripe of silver on your big toes. And then we could do the opposite for your fingernails—silver with a stripe of pink.”
“Will that be too much silver on her toes, since her sandals are silver?” Aly asked as Jenica’s silky hair slid through her fingers.
Brooke ran back over to the display. She returned with Good Knight, which was almost the exact color of Jenica’s blue dress. “Pink with a blue stripe on her toes. Then silver polish with a pink stripe on her fingers.”
“Love it,” Jenica said, and gave Brooke a high five.
Aly tucked the ends of Jenica’s braid underneath the braid itself and lifted up a hand mirror. “What do you think?” she asked.
Jenica breathed out slowly. “Wow, Aly, I hardly recognize myself. Thank you.” She gave Aly a big smile before she followed Brooke to a pedicure chair.
As soon as Brooke began working on Jenica’s toes, the rest of the Auden Angels soccer players started flowing in for their appointments. Just like Jenica, a lot of the sixth graders had brought along their dresses to make sure the polish they picked would look good with their outfits.
• Anjuli’s dress was bright purple.
• Giovanna’s was light pink.
• Mia was wearing orange.
• Avery, emerald green.
• Aubrey, mint green.
It was so busy for the next few hours that Aly really didn’t have time to think about Princess Polish once. Okay, maybe once. All but four of the sixth-grade team members were there—Bethany, Joelle, Maxie, and Valentina—and Aly tried not to let that bother her, but it was kind of hard.
“My mom is letting me wear lip gloss,” she heard Mia tell Giovanna. “Actually, it’s more like tinted ChapStick. But it makes my lips a little pink.”
Giovanna sighed. “I’m not even allowed to wear that. Just clear ChapStick. It’s so not fair.”
“But do you get to wear heels?” Brooke asked.
“Little ones,” Giovanna said, showing Brooke the height with her thumb and pointer finger—about half an inch, Aly figured.
Aly had just finished painting Aubrey’s fingers Candy Corn on the Cob with a crown of Very Ice Try on the thumbs when she looked up and saw Lucas Grant standing in the doorway, right on time. Her breath caught in her throat.
Cute Lucas! At Sparkle Spa! And she was going to do his nails! She’d known it was going to happen, but it still caught her off guard. She had to remind herself to breathe. And to talk.
“Come on in, Lucas,” she said. Only her voice sounded more like a croak than real words. His friend Oliver was behind him. “You too, Oliver,” Aly added. They were the first two boys scheduled.
They walked in slowly—like they weren’t sure they really wanted to do this—and the minute they entered, all the girls stopped chattering.
It was the quietest Sparkle Spa had ever been.
“Um, hi,” Lucas said.
Every one of the girls—in the manicure chairs, in the pedicure chairs, and at the braiding stations—stared at the boys.
Was this a mistake? Aly wondered. Were the man-icures a bad idea?
The air seemed so thick that Aly felt like she would need nail clippers to cut it. She took a deep breath.
“I think it’s so neat that you guys are here,” Mia finally said from where Charlotte was braiding her hair. “Right, Giovanna?” she asked.
Giovanna nodded. “Definitely,” she said. “Extra cool.”
Aly saw Oliver smile. Maybe this was going to be okay after all.
Lily looked at the appointment book. “Lucas, you’re first,” she said. “You can go over there with Aly. Oliver, you’re welcome to wai
t in the corner on the pillows until he’s done. Then Aly will do your nails.”
Oliver plopped himself down next to Aubrey, whose nails were drying. Lucas sat across from Aly.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” Aly said back, suddenly very aware that she was touching a boy’s fingers. A really cute boy’s fingers.
But Lucas didn’t seem to notice how awkward she felt. He just smiled so that a dimple appeared on his left cheek.
Aly smiled too. When she was done with his nails, Lucas looked at his fingers and grinned. “My hands look like my dad’s now,” he said. “Like, important. Nice job.”
Then he jammed his hands in his jeans pockets and traded seats with Oliver.
As Aly started cleaning Oliver’s nails, some more girls came in, and then Garrett and Caleb, even though they weren’t going to the dance.
Mom poked her head in and winked at Aly. Aly winked back. It was kind of like a Secret Sister Eye Message, except it was with her mother instead of her sister. The wink clearly meant: Princess Polish is not going to stop Sparkle Spa!
“Aly,” Garrett shouted across the room. “What’s the best rock star nail polish color for my thumbs-up man-icure?”
“I’ll help him, Aly,” Brooke said, walking Giovanna to the drying area.
Brooke pushed her glasses up against her nose. “Well,” she said, “I like Guitar-ange a lot, but you have gray eyes, so you might like Heavy Metal or—”
But before Brooke could finish, Bethany, Maxie, and Joelle raced into Sparkle Spa. “HELP! You have to help! Look at what Princess Polish did to us!”
nine
Heavy Metal
What happened? Let me see!” Brooke ran over and took Bethany’s hand in hers. It was terrible. The polish, which looked like it had started out pink, was turning into a weird orangey yellow at the edges and peeling away from Bethany’s fingernails.
Aly could see tears in Bethany’s eyes. “We were done about an hour ago,” she sniffed. “And then we all went home, and next thing I knew, I looked at my hands, and this had happened. And then I called Maxie and Joelle and found out their polish was doing the same thing. Valentina’s, too, but her mom’s trying to fix it at home.”
Maxie held out her hands. Her blue nails were peeling and turning green. Joelle’s red nails were peeling and turning orange.
Aly pulled Joelle’s hand closer and inspected the polish. “I think it’s old,” she said. “Like, really old. Maybe the stuff that makes the polish work like normal went bad.”
“Can you fix it?” Joelle asked. “Please? We never should have gone to Princess Polish, right, guys? We’re sorry.”
Bethany nodded.
“We’re so, so sorry,” Maxie added. “We just . . . we thought it would be neat to go to a grown-up salon. But Sparkle Spa is so much better.”
Aly heard what Maxie said, and she kind of understood it, but before she could answer, she was distracted by a purple splotch on Maxie’s forehead, just under a purple feather that was woven into her hair. She looked at the rest of the purple feathers in Maxie’s hair. Every single spot where a feather touched her skin, Maxie had a purple splotch—on her neck, her ears, and her forehead.
“Um,” Aly said, “I think your feathers are turning your skin purple.”
“What?” Maxie ran to a full-length mirror on the closet door and screamed. She turned back to Aly. “You have to fix it. All of it!”
Maxie’s scream brought Mom running, with Miss Gonzales, the sixth-grade teacher from Auden, behind her. Miss Gonzales put down the bag she was carrying and hurried over to Maxie. “What’s wrong?” she asked, just as Mom said, “Is everything okay in here?”
“Take a look for yourself,” Aly said. “Princess Polish bought cheap feathers, and now Maxie’s turning purple.”
“Let me see,” Miss Gonzales said, inspecting Maxie’s forehead. Maxie tilted her head closer to the teacher. “I think you can get it off with soap and water. It’ll be fine. You’ll still look lovely tonight.”
As Miss Gonzales and Mom returned to True Colors, Maxie pleaded, “Can you get me back to normal, Aly? Please, please, please?”
Brooke stared at Aly over her glasses, sending the Secret Sister Eye Message: I am still very mad at them. But Aly shook her head at Brooke. What kind of people would they be if they let Bethany and Maxie and Joelle go to the Fall Ball with messed-up nails and color-splotched skin? They were more professional than that.
“We can do it,” Aly answered. “But you’ll have to wait. We have other customers with booked appointments,” and she pointed to the group of boys now waiting at the door.
“That’s right.” Brooke nodded. “You’ll have to wait.”
Aly handed cotton balls and polish remover to Maxie, Joelle, and Bethany. “And you’ll have to help out,” she added.
But the girls weren’t looking at Aly, they were staring at all the boys in Sparkle Spa.
“What happened to you three?” a lacrosse player named Aiden asked.
“Don’t look!” Bethany squealed as she turned around and tried to hide her face in her arm.
Maxie covered her face with her arm too. “Ack! I can’t believe that the one day I have purple spots on my face is the same day that boys are at Sparkle Spa.”
Joelle stood her ground. “We had a feather problem,” she told the boys. “But it’s going to be fixed.” Then she turned to Aly and said, “Thank you for fixing us.”
“Thank you,” Bethany echoed. “So much. We’ll never go anywhere else to get our nails done again.”
“Never,” Maxie agreed, her face still in her arm.
The boys looked at one another. “Did she say ‘feathers’?” asked Lee, who played the trumpet in the band with Lucas.
“She did,” Lucas confirmed from the spot where he was waiting for Oliver. “But don’t worry. They don’t do feathers in here. You’re safe.”
Aly couldn’t help but laugh. Then she returned her attention to Oliver’s man-icure.
“This place is crazy!” he said to her as she finished filing his nails.
Aly nodded. “Today for sure,” she said. “It’s a good thing our dog is home with our dad.”
“Sometimes there’s a dog in here too?” Oliver asked.
“A little one,” Aly said. “Okay, I think you’re all done now.”
Oliver held up his hands and inspected them. “My hands do look kind of different. My nails are, like, smooth and shiny. Thanks, Aly.”
Aly smiled. “Well, you’re welcome to come back whenever you want.”
Oliver called out to Lucas, and just as they left another sixth-grade girl burst through the door. She had green feathers in her hair and green splotches on her skin. Aly knew what she was going to say before she opened her mouth.
“Do you need us to fix you up before the Fall Ball?” she asked.
The girl nodded.
Aly ran her fingers through her hair. “Okay, just go talk to Lily—she’ll schedule you in.” She pointed the girl in Lily’s direction.
Soon after that, two more sixth graders came in with the same Princess Polish problems. And just when Aly thought there couldn’t be any more surprises, the biggest one of the day walked through the door.
Suzy Davis.
Followed by her younger sister, Heather.
“What are you doing here?” Brooke asked.
They rushed past Brooke, right over to Aly. Suzy stared at the floor, and she spoke so softly, Aly could barely hear her.
“Tonight’s my parents’ anniversary party, and Heather and I went to Princess Polish. I don’t know what happened, but our nails are peeling and turning colors, and Princess Polish won’t do anything about it. I know Sparkle Spa isn’t as fancy as they are, but, um, I was wondering if maybe you could, um . . . Ugh!” Suzy looked up. “Could you help us?”
Aly thought about all the awful things Suzy Davis had said and done at school over the years. If Aly started from kindergarten, she could probably count
up to a hundred. That gave her an idea. One of her better ones, she thought.
“We’ll help,” she said, “but you have to make me a deal. If we redo your nails, you can’t say anything mean to me for the rest of the school year.”
“Mean? Who’s mean?” Suzy said. Then she rolled her eyes. “Fine, Aly. Whatever. Deal. You just have to fix us.”
Deal? Aly couldn’t believe Suzy had agreed.
“Okay, then,” Aly said. Honestly, she would’ve fixed Heather’s nails anyway, and maybe even Suzy’s, but this was fantastic. She wondered if Suzy would keep up her end of the bargain and actually leave her alone at school now. It would be fun to see.
Aly directed Suzy and Heather over to the waiting area, handing them some cotton balls and polish remover to give them a head start. Then she sat down at her manicure station across from Garrett.
“Did Suzy Davis just promise to be nice to you?” he whispered, handing her a bottle of Heavy Metal for his thumbs-up man-icure.
“Yes,” Aly said as she dunked his hands in warm, soapy water.
“Is it always this weird in Sparkle Spa?” he asked.
Aly laughed. “No,” she said. “Today seems extra weird.”
But it was also extra exciting.
Aly looked around the salon. Brooke was giving one pedicure after another, and Charlotte was furiously unbraiding and rebraiding hair. And the bracelet-making area was filled with waiting customers.
Aly and Brooke were grinning from ear to ear as they sent each other one of their silent messages: This is one of the most sparkly days ever!
ten
News Prince
Three hours later Sparkle Spa was empty. Only Brooke and Aly were left, sitting in the pedicure chairs, hardly able to move. All their customers were gone, and Charlotte’s mom had just picked her and Lily up to take them home.
“That was the craziest day ever,” Brooke said, flopping back against the seat cushion. “Since it’s Saturday, I’d say it’s time for us to do each other’s nails. I’d been thinking News Prince because of the extra glitter, but maybe tomorrow. I’m all polished out.”
Makeover Magic Page 4