Makeover Magic

by Jill Santopolo

  Aly flopped against her own chair. “I’m all polished out too. And braided out. And talked out. And everything-ed out.”

  “Everything-ed out,” Brooke repeated with a sigh. “That’s totally it. I’m everything-ed out. But at least everyone will look beautiful at the Fall Ball. I know you said before that we’d be like fairy godmothers today, but I think it’s more like we were Cinderella’s mice, racing around all day. No wicked stepsisters, no carriage turning into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight . . . but everyone really will look like princesses.”

  “Or princes,” Aly added, looking around the room and noticing how much straightening up they had to do. She slowly got up and started putting polish bottles back in the display.

  “You know, Brooke, I wish we could see the whole thing—everyone all dressed up, the party lights, the dancing, the fancy food . . .”

  “Me too,” Brooke said. “Actually, I could use some fancy food myself right now. Maybe we can clean up later?”

  “Food would be good,” Aly said. “But let’s bring Mom the money from the donation jar first—make sure she’ll take it for True Colors so all our work will have been worth it. Can you believe we’ve been able to keep this a secret from her for so long?”

  Before Aly even finished her sentence, Brooke was already heading into the main salon. Aly grabbed the donation jar and followed.

  Everyone had left True Colors except for Mom, who was at the reception desk, going through the day’s receipts; Joan, who was cleaning up her manicure station; and Mrs. Franklin, one of the girls’ favorite regulars, who was zipping up her purse and heading out the door.

  “Joanie,” Brooke said, “do you have any cookies today? Aly and I are Starvin’ Marvins.”

  Joan tucked some hair back into Brooke’s braid. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t have a chance to bake last night.”

  Mom looked up from the reception desk and checked her watch. Aly checked hers too: 5:52. “I just have a few more things to do,” Mom said, but then she noticed that Aly was holding the Sparkle Spa donation jar. “Why are you carrying the jar, Aly?”

  “Mom,” Aly began, waving Brooke to her side. “We’ve decided to give True Colors our donations. We didn’t count it, but it looks like a lot.”

  “Oh, girls,” Mom said. She looked like she was about to cry.

  Brooke added, “There’s a lot more money in there than usual, not only because of all our extra customers for the Fall Ball, but because we came up with suggested donations for our special services today. Please take it. We want you to have it all—to help keep True Colors open.”

  “Plus,” Aly said, “if it weren’t for True Colors, there wouldn’t be a Sparkle Spa. And we don’t want Princess Polish to put both of us out of business.”

  Mom didn’t say a word. Aly couldn’t tell if she was angry or happy.

  After what seemed like forever, she finally said, “You girls amaze me. But as kind and generous and thoughtful as you are, I can’t accept your donation.”

  “But why not?” asked Brooke. “We did this for you.” Now it looked as though Brooke might cry.

  Mom pulled Aly and Brooke close and kissed the tops of their heads. “True Colors isn’t a charity. And while I’m not happy that Princess Polish has moved in across the street, my business is doing fine. You don’t have to worry. But I love you girls more than I can say for caring as much as you do. We’ll figure out a different charity to donate the money to—maybe Businesswomen Unite this time? It’s a charity that helps women entrepreneurs start their own businesses.”

  Mom hugged both of the girls again. “How does that sound?” she asked.

  “If you think that’s best,” Aly said. And then her stomach chose that time to rumble.

  “You two really are hungry, aren’t you?” Mom asked.

  Aly was, actually, very hungry. She hadn’t eaten lunch today.

  “We are!” Brooke answered.

  “Why don’t you let them run out and grab something from the Sweetery, Karen?” Joan suggested.

  Mom pulled a few bills out of her wallet. “That’s a good idea,” she said. “Here’s ten dollars. While you’re at the bakery, Joan and I will start cleaning up Sparkle Spa for you.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Mom,” Aly said. She wanted to show her mother she and Brooke were responsible business owners, which meant cleaning up after themselves.

  Mom squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “But don’t get used to it either.” And she winked.

  “Wow! I haven’t been outside all day,” Brooke said once the sisters left True Colors. “The fresh air feels good. . . . I think I’m going to get something chocolatey with sprink—” Brooke stopped mid-sentence and tugged on Aly’s sleeve. “Look, Aly.” She pointed across the street.

  Princess Polish was dark. The lights were out.

  “It looks like they closed early,” Brooke said.

  Aly squinted. “I think there’s a sign on the door.”

  The girls walked to the corner and crossed the street to check it out.

  CLOSED FOR AN EMERGENCY, the sign read.

  “Do you think they really had an emergency?” Brooke asked.

  Aly shook her head. “Not a real one. I think they used old polish and cheap feathers and ended up with a lot of unhappy customers.”

  Brooke nodded. “Do you think they’ll close for good?”

  Aly looked at the sign and peered in through the window. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Maybe it’s temporary, until they get new supplies.”

  “Well, I hope it’s for good.” Brooke slipped her hand into Aly’s as they kept walking toward the bakery.

  “Me too,” Aly said. “And I hope no other nail salons open up nearby.”

  “Just True Colors and Sparkle Spa,” Brooke said.

  It was funny, though. Aly was thinking that having Princess Polish there did make Sparkle Spa better—it had made them come up with some new ideas, which was always a good thing.

  The bells from the church downtown started to ring. Aly counted the bongs. One, two, three, four, five, six.

  “When does the dance start?” Brooke asked as they walked into the Sweetery.

  “Right now,” Aly answered, standing at the back of the line.

  Aly thought about what it would feel like to win an On the Ball trophy and how nervous some of the sixth graders must be now. But it was a good kind of nervous, she figured—the way you feel right before you open a present you’ve hoped for and dreamed about getting.

  eleven

  Good Knight

  After Aly and Brooke ate their treats—a peanut butter cookie for Aly and a rainbow cookie covered with chocolate sprinkles for Brooke—the girls quickly walked back to True Colors.

  “Mom, Mom, you’ll never believe what we saw,” Brooke blurted out. “It looks like Princess Polish might be closing!”

  Mom looked at Joan, her eyebrows raised. “Well, that’s interesting. Let’s see if they open for business tomorrow,” she said.

  But that wasn’t the only news. As Mom and Joan were cleaning up, they had discovered a canvas bag in the back room. “Aly, we found this in Sparkle Spa,” Mom announced, holding it up. “Did one of your customers leave it? There are trophies inside.”

  Miss Gonzales! That bag was Miss Gonzales’s! She had been holding it when she ran into Sparkle Spa after Maxie screamed. She was the teacher in charge of the Fall Ball and the awards. Aly gulped. “They’re for the On the Ball winners!” she said.

  “Oh no!” Brooke cried. “What if they can’t announce the winners because there aren’t any trophies? Because the trophies are here, in True Colors, instead of there, where they should be!”

  “Where should they be?” Joan asked.

  “At school!” Brooke and Aly said together.

  “Well,” Mom said, “it’s almost time to go anyway. I’ll drive you over to Auden.”

  “Go, go,” Joan said, shooing all three of them out the
door. “I’ll lock up here.”

  On the way to school, Brooke could hardly sit still. “Hey, Aly,” she said. “Do you know what this means?”

  Aly shook her head.

  “It means we get to go to the Fall Ball.” Brooke’s smile was so huge, it seemed to take up half her face.

  Aly grinned. “You’re right.” Even though she was pretty sure her smile wasn’t as big as Brooke’s, Aly couldn’t wait to see how everything looked.

  “I’ll wait right here,” Mom told them as she pulled up to the curb. “In and out, so we can get home to Dad and Sparkly and dinner.”

  “In and out!” Brooke said. “We promise.” She took Aly’s hand, and they scooted out of the car. They ran toward the entrance, straight into Mr. Thomas, the security guard.

  “Good evening, girls. Where are you going?” he asked. “I don’t think either of you is old enough to be going to the dance.”

  Aly held out the bag with the trophies inside. “We’re making a delivery.”

  “A very important one,” Brooke added. “It’s the trophies for the On the Ball winners. Miss Gonzales left them at our nail salon.”

  “I see,” Mr. Thomas said. “That is very important. Let me lock the door and escort you in.”

  Aly, Brooke, and Mr. Thomas walked down the second-grade hallway, past the nurse’s office, and into the gym. Aly and Brooke paused in the doorway.

  The gym didn’t look anything like a gym.

  The balloons had covered all the lights, so the whole room had a purple and gold glow.

  The glitter on the posters sparkled, and the streamers swayed gently back and forth.

  There was also some sort of machine that blew bubbles from under the stage.

  And Mr. Mehta, the music teacher, was up on the stage with big speakers and a computer.

  “Wow,” Brooke said breathlessly.

  “Whoa,” Aly said. It was even more beautiful than she’d imagined. Then she focused on all the sixth graders. They looked so fancy and grown-up. She spotted Anjuli in her bright purple dress. And Bethany and Mia. Then she saw Jenica in her Good Knight–colored dress dancing with Lee, one of the boys who had come into Sparkle Spa earlier that day.

  “Okay, enough looking, we have to go deliver the trophies.” Aly said to Brooke.

  It felt funny to walk into the ball wearing shorts and a T-shirt, but Aly did it anyway. She looked around the edges of the gym for teachers and finally spotted Miss Gonzales, then headed straight toward her. Miss Gonzales was talking to an adult Aly didn’t know.

  “Miss Gonzales, Miss Gonzales,” Aly shouted over Mr. Mehta’s loud music.

  Miss Gonzales looked up.

  Aly held out the bag. “I think you left these at True Colors today.”

  “I—oh!” Miss Gonzales said, taking the bag from Aly. “That’s where I left them! Thank you so much for bringing them over. I’ve been going crazy trying to find my bag . . . and trying to figure out where I could find another set of trophies somewhere else in the school.”

  Aly smiled. “Happy to help.”

  She was about to turn and leave when Brooke said, “Um, Miss Gonzales, are you announcing the winners soon? Do you think maybe you could do it right now?”

  Aly couldn’t believe Brooke! But it would be nice if they could hear the announcements.

  “Actually, it’s almost time anyway,” Miss Gonzales said. “And now that I have the trophies, I don’t think anyone would mind if I sped things up by a few minutes.”

  She walked up on the stage and spoke to Mr. Mehta. The music got softer, and Miss Gonzales tapped the top of a microphone.

  “Hi, sixth graders!” she said.

  “Hi, Miss Gonzales!” a few of them answered.

  Miss Gonzales held the microphone a little closer to her mouth. “As you all know, winning an On the Ball trophy at Auden is a very big honor. These trophies go to two members of our community—one boy and one girl—who embody the Auden spirit of helping others.

  “So many of you sixth graders have worked on wonderful community projects this year, from fund-raising to tutoring to food drives and toy drives. I wish every single one of you could win a trophy.

  “But there are two students whose projects stood out as exemplary to all the teachers. And they are: Jenica Posner, for promoting team building and sharing knowledge through Superstar Sports, and Oliver Shin, for focusing on those less fortunate and changing school policy through the Helping the Hungry at Lunch program!”

  Along with the rest of the kids at the dance, Aly cheered for Jenica. She cheered for Oliver, too, even though, personally, she would have picked Cute Lucas for his Reading Buddies project.

  Next to Aly, Brooke was jumping up and down, yelling, “Yay, Jenica! Three cheers for Jenica!”

  Jenica and Oliver walked to the stage, and Miss Gonzales presented them with the trophies. Then Mr. Mehta started playing the school song on his keyboard, and all the kids—including Aly and Brooke—sang along.

  The sixth graders grabbed hands and formed a circle that was almost as big as the whole gym. When they got to the last line of the Auden Elementary song—“And we will always love our community”—everyone raised their clasped hands in the air and shouted: “Go, Auden!” Then they clapped and cheered. It was one of the coolest things Aly had ever seen.

  Even though Aly and Brooke weren’t sixth graders, they both felt like they were part of the celebration. After all, a lot of those hands that had been raised in the air a moment ago had been in Sparkle Spa that afternoon. Knowing that they had contributed to the Fall Ball—just in this small way—made them feel proud and a part of something bigger than themselves—their community.

  Aly had to admit, it was a pretty magical feeling.

  How to Give Yourself (or a Friend!) a Caramel-Dipped Pedicure

  By Aly (and Brooke!)

  What you need:

  Paper towels

  Polish remover

  Cotton balls

  Clear nail polish

  Two colors of polish (I recommend purple and green; Brooke recommends pink and yellow)

  What you do:

  1. Put some paper towels on the floor so you don’t have to worry about spilling polish. (Actually, you might want to do two layers. Once, I spilled so much that it went through the first layer. But I don’t do that anymore.)

  2. Take one cotton ball and put some polish remover on it. If you have polish on your toes already, use enough to get it off. If you don’t, just rub the remover over your toenails to get off any dirt that might be on there. (Sometimes there’s sock fuzz on your toenails. Gross, I know.)

  3. Rip off two paper towels. Twist the first one into a long tube and weave it back and forth between your toes to separate them a little bit. Then do the same thing with the second paper towel on your other foot. You might need to tuck in the paper around your pinkie toe if it pops up and gets in your way while you polish.

  4. Start with a coat of clear polish on each nail. (You can do your toes in any order you want. Aly and I like going from big toe to pinkie toe.) Then don’t forget to close up the polish bottle tightly when you’re done.

  5. Open up the polish color that you want to be the main one for all your nails. Paint it on. (You should be a little more careful with this color than with the clear, to make sure you don’t get it on your skin.)

  6. Fan your toes a little to dry them a bit, and then repeat step five, adding a second coat. (Remember, be careful! And close the polish when you’re done.)

  7. Once your toenails are dry, open the second color—the one you want your big toes to look “dipped” in—and wipe the brush on the side of the bottle opening so it’s not drippy at all. Then, very carefully, paint a straight line across the top of your right big toe, then the left. (Try not to let your hand wobble much so the line will be straight.)

  8. Fan your big toes, drying them a bit before you apply a top coat of clear polish to all your toenails. Again, be sure to close the bottle up tight. />
  9. Now you have to let your toes fully dry. You can fan them with a magazine or use a nail dryer if you have one or sit and make a piece of jewelry or read a book or watch TV or talk to your friend. It usually takes about twenty minutes, but it could take longer. (After twenty minutes, check the polish by really lightly touching the stripe on your big toe with your fingertip. If it still feels sticky, let your toes dry longer so they don’t get smudged!)

  And now you have a beautiful caramel-dipped pedicure! Even after the polish is dry, it’s a good idea not to wear socks or closed-toe shoes for a while. Bare feet or sandals are best so that all your hard work doesn’t get smooshed. (Besides, that way, you can show people how fancy your toes look!)

  Happy polishing!

  JILL SANTOPOLO is a big fan of sparkles. She’s also a big fan of sisters. And spas. And writing. In addition to the Sparkle Spa books, she’s the author of the Alec Flint Mysteries. You can find her online at www.jillsantopolo.com. Or you can find her in person in New York City, where she likes getting her nails painted with Good as Gold nail polish.

  * * *

  Read more Sparkle Spa books!

  * * *

  ALADDIN

  SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK

  Meet the author, watch videos, and get extras at

  KIDS.SimonandSchuster.com

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Jill-Santopolo

  Also by Jill Santopolo

  Book 1: All That Glitters

  Book 2: Purple Nails and Puppy Tails

  Coming Soon

  Book 4: True Colors

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division