Power to the Purple!

by Sophie Bell

  A division of Penguin Young Readers Group

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  Copyright © 2013 Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

  ISBN: 978-1-101-60449-6

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 2: Starting with a Bang

  Chapter 1: O No She Didn’t

  Chapter 3: Why O Why?

  Chapter 4: Geek Love

  Chapter 5: Welcome to the Club

  Chapter 5 1/2: Boys in Black

  Chapter 6: Paint My Name, Paint My Name

  Chapter 7: Sweet and Vi-Shush

  Chapter 8: Uninvited

  Chapter 9: The Outsiders

  Chapter 10: Boys Come and Go

  Chapter 11: No One Must Know

  Chapter 12: The Theater of Hard Knocks

  Chapter 13: What’s the Deal?

  Chapter 13 3/4: Poke Her Face

  Chapter 14: Boys and Swirls

  Chapter 15: Sprinkled and Shushed

  Chapter 16: Fifty Shades of Purple

  Chapter 16 1/4: Black Balloon

  Chapter 17: Just Thinkin’ About...

  Chapter 18: Are You There, Candace?

  Chapter 19: Mama Drama

  Chapter 20: Gossip Girls

  Chapter 21: Prism Break

  Chapter 22: Unfashionably Unfabulous

  Chapter 23: Scary Smileys

  Chapter 24: L’Eau No Again!

  Chapter 25: Sticky Stuff

  Chapter 26: Not Cute

  Chapter 27: Boys Come and Go: The Sequel

  Chapter 28: Solar Awesomeness

  Chapter 29: Return of the Mall of No Returns

  Chapter 30: Get Out!

  Beaucoup Gracias: Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  For Diamond Eila

  Starting with a Bang

  {Yes, That’s Right, We’re Beginning with Chapter 2}

  WIELDING HER HANDS LIKE TWO LASER LIGHT SABERS, purple ringlets whipping behind her as she turned, Iris took aim and—zzvonk! zzvomp!—sliced blistering twin beams of rainbows through the air. The multicolored blades slashed within a hairsbreadth of Opaline’s body, and she staggered back into the lockers. “Owie!” she screeched, feeling the heat. Her arms flailed at her sides, spastic with her own high voltage. But quickly she regained control and returned fire, flicking off lightning bolts between her fingers as if they were arrows in a bow. Iris took one hit to the shoulder—“Ungh!”—another to the hip—“Oof!”—the crackling electric daggers stabbing through the flimsy fabric of her dress. “That was brand-new!” she cried, furious, and fanned out a shield of pure ultraviolet rays to block the next lightning spear. It exploded into the invisible barrier, bursting into a thousand electric embers.

  And the duel flared on, blazing beams versus lightning bolts, searing sunshine versus heavy storm clouds. Out of the corner of her eye, Iris could see Scarlet, her ponytail glowing aubergine. She had the lizard girl by the tail and was swinging her over her head so fast that it created a vortex right there in the hallway. The wind blew Iris’s hair back. And Opal’s cloud away. The strange two-faced cheerleader on the sidelines kept rah-rah-ing. Then Cheri’s voice carried above the fray.

  “Stop it, you guys!” she called. “Dingelmon’s coming!”

  At the sound of the principal’s name, Opaline lost her focus for just a second. That was all Iris needed. She pinned Opal against the lockers, pressing her hot forearm across Opal’s shoulders like the bar that bolts you in on an amusement park ride. The two girls glared eye-to-eye—Opal’s brown orbs streaked with milky swirls, Iris’s blues shining a whiter shade of pale.

  “Opaline,” she panted, recoiling once more at the strange, gross smell wafting from her frenemesis. “Keep your hands off the skunk.”

  “Whatever.” Opal tried to laugh, but the pressure from Iris’s arm made it hard for her to breathe. “Soon I’ll have the whole school at my command. So you can keep your stinky little mascot.”

  The bell braaaanged and the girls broke apart. Opal shrugged off Iris’s arm, electric volts still fizzing around her shoulders. Shaking, she swung her hand in a wide circle, snapping her fingers twice: once above, once below. “Fall in, O+2!” she ordered. Shoved forward by Scarlet, the lizard girl limped alongside her. The beatnik cheerleader brought up the rear, her orphan pompom rustling like a bad breeze.

  “Have a super-sparkly day!” Scarlet shouted after them.

  With Opaline and her hangers-on shuffling away, Cheri stepped back into the middle of the hallway, clutching Darth close in her tote bag. Scarlet straightened out the tiers of her tutu. Iris examined the holes in her dress.

  “Well, that’s one way to start the school week,” Scarlet muttered.

  “Lizards give me the creeps,” Cheri said, tapping out a quick post to all her Smashface friends to defend Iris and deny the juice rumor.

  “Lizards I can deal with,” Scarlet huffed. “But a two-faced cheerleader? Now that’s creepy!”

  “What the swell was that smell?” Iris wondered, unwrapping a fresh lollipop. “And why did Opaline want Darth?”

  Before they could discuss it any further, the booming bass voice of their principal snapped them to attention.

  “Didn’t you girls hear the bell?” he said.

  “Sorry, Mr. Dingelmon!” the three Ultra Violets chorused sweetly. Then they dashed off to class.

  O No She Didn’t

  {Fifteen Minutes Before the Bang}

  WAIT, WHAT JUST HAPPENED? HOW DID WE GET HERE? And where is here, anyway?

  A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away?

  Not.

  The morning after the night before the weekend after the school trip when three besties officially became secret superheroes and the fourth went all evil on them?

  Oh swell yes.

  And so it begins. Or rather continues. This being the start of the second saga of the purple-empowered Ultra Violets and the villainy Opaline, aka the girl that got away. Here being a sort of alternate universe, in the twinkling city of Sync, at an oddly egg-shaped school called Chronic Prep. Now being fifteen minutes before the rainbow laser beam blasts.

  As Iris Tyler rushed to join the throng of students streaming into the school that morning, her long, lilacalicious ringlets bounced all the way down her back. And if you had special infra-violet goggles, you might also spy a faint purple aura pulsating all around her, as pale as her periwinkle eyes. Iris’s classmates knew about the purple hair—since it was totes obvious—but not about the aura. Or about Iris’s ability to mind-paint things whatever color she wanted. Or
shoot blazing ultraviolet rays from her eyes. Or beam out a rainbow with just a wave of her hand.

  The only people who knew about that stuff were her girls, Cheri and Scarlet.

  And also their bestie gone rouge, er, rogue, Opaline Trudeau.

  And ALSO their erstwhile (that means “used-to-be”) babysitter, Candace Coddington—more on her later.

  But that’s it!

  Standing outside the school’s revolving doors, Cheri Henderson snuck a grape to a grapeful Darth Odor, the sweet little violet-striped skunk hidden in her bag. Then, from beneath the veil of her berry-red hair, she freshened up her bubblegum lip gloss.

  “Careful!” Scarlet Louise Jones gave her friend a playful poke in the ribs. Cher answered with a yelp as her hand slipped.

  “Scar!” she exclaimed with a stamp of her platform roller skates. A dab of glittery pink gloss now decorated the tip of her nose.

  Scarlet giggled at the sight and sprang away, her black ponytail popping up like an exclamation point, before Cher could poke her back.

  She kidz bcuz she luvs, Darth thought, sticking his nose out of Cheri’s bag.

  Well, the way Scarlet spells it, love is a four-letter word! Cheri thought back, rubbing the stray gloss from her nose. True, love was a four-letter word no matter who spelled it. But ever since Cher had developed supersonic math skills, she couldn’t help counting everything in her head. And ever since she’d developed animal telepathy, she liked to think things over with Darth.

  Scarlet glid (that’s how we spell it) back toward Cheri just as Iris joined the two girls at the entrance.

  “Hey,” Iris said with a smile.

  “Hi, Iris!” Cheri said back, while Scarlet greeted her with a graceful demi-plié.

  Iris took in Scarlet’s outfit: battered kicks, black leggings, rock-n-roll T-shirt, and . . . “The tutu is killer, Scar,” Iris exclaimed, her eyes widening. “Totally you.”

  “Whatever that means.” Scarlet shrugged, slightly embar-rassed, then continued her twirling within one Plexiglas wedge of the revolving door. Cheri rolled into the school building behind her. Iris followed. Getting slimed four years ago with crazy-goo had given Iris her purple hair and color-prism powers. It had gifted Cheri with her beautiful brains.

  Scarlet got dancing.

  Uh-huh. Her superpower was dancing.

  And she was still trying to deal.

  She’d scanned the comic-book collections of all three of her older brothers, and as far as she could find out, dancing was NOT a traditional superpower. So at first Scarlet had been kind of irked and kind of freaked to find herself spontaneously pirouetting. But her cancan kicks had come in handy on more than one strange occasion already. And all of a sudden she found satin ballet slippers terribly pretty—though, being more tomboy than girly-girl, Scarlet didn’t go around announcing that through a bullhorn. Yet here she was, wearing a tutu to school. It was all a bit confusing. She—repeat—was still trying to deal!

  As the three girls (plus secret skunk) made their way down the hall and toward their homeroom, Iris began to feel self-conscious. The Jensen sisters skittered by, their high-pitched whispers whistling through the gaps in their twin buck teeth. Brad Hochoquatro elbowed Ian Rundgren when he saw her, and the two boys broke out in guffaws. Was Iris just imagining things, or was everyone talking about her? After four years away, she’d been back in Sync City and at Chronic Prep for some time now, purple hair and all. She thought she was past that awkward “new girl” phase. But . . . maybe not? She could feel the eyes of other students on her, and their harsh laughter scratched at her ears. Her cheeks began to burn, and she tried to hide her red face behind her violet ringlets as she fumbled with her locker.

  Down the hall, Cheri was just placing a few books in her locker when Julie Nichols stopped by.

  “Cheri!” she said breathlessly. “Did you hear?”

  Ooh, gossip! Cheri thought. Just what she needed to juice up her morning. “No, what?” she gushed. “Tell me!”

  “Check your Smashface page,” Julie called back as she continued toward their classroom. “Or text me and I’ll send you a link!”

  Cheri took out her smartphone just as Scar and Iris joined her. They gathered around while Cheri pulled up her Smashface page, Scarlet simply curious, Iris filled with dread.

  Cheri scrolled down her screen, then frowned. “Oh, it’s actually nothing,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant as she hurried to put her phone away again.

  “Wait, what does it say?” Scarlet demanded, shooting up en pointe in her sneakers and taking out her own phone. Iris asked softly, “C’mon, Cher. It’s something about me, isn’t it?”

  Cheri’s green eyes were bright. “It’s just a stupid Smashface post,” she said, dismissing it with a wave of her sparkly silver manicure. “Everybody knows you can’t believe half of what you read there.”

  “You dye your hair with prune juice?!” Scarlet blurted out, finding the post, too. Her voice boomeranged around the corridor, and the other kids all turned to stare at the trio. “That’s ridic!” Scarlet said more quietly, coming back down to first position. “And—”

  “And apparently my hair’s ‘not the only thing that’s purple,’” Iris finished for her, reading the post off Cheri’s phone. Cheri bit her lower lip. “Nice,” Iris added.

  “Ignore it!” Cheri tried to reassure her. “They’re just jealous!”

  “And it’s not like we can tell everyone your hair is purple because, oh, BTdubs, your DNA got altered in a Heliotropium accident in the FLab four years ago!” Scarlet muttered, glancing around to make sure no one else could hear them.

  “I know,” Iris agreed with a sigh, distressed all the same. “But who started this rumor, anyway? Who’s supposedly so ‘jealous’?”

  The three girls stared at the post, Scarlet on her own phone, Iris and Cheri on Cheri’s. At the bottom, they noticed what looked like a logo: a white circle outlined in black, with an acid-yellow lightning bolt cutting across it.

  “O,” Iris said, her lips forming the shape of the letter.

  “O no,” Cheri whispered.

  “O sugarsticks,” Scarlet practically spat.

  “O na na, what’s my name?” a singsong voice echoed off the lockers.

  The Ultra Violets looked up from the phone screens to see a girl standing across from them in the shadowy hallway. A starched Peter Pan collar stuck out above the neckline of her yellow velour tracksuit. A quilted black lightning bolt blazed across her chest. And microscopic volts of electricity sparked from her shoulders.

  “Opaline!” Iris growled in spite of herself, the white-violet aura intensifying and her purple corkscrews vibrating with currents of their own.

  An anxious energy filled the corridor. Even though Chronic Prep was carefully climate-controlled, the temperature inside the school felt hot and humid all of a sudden. Sensing the rising stress levels, all the other students scooted off to their homerooms, casting nervous glances at the clutch of girls who remained. Iris stepped into the center of the hallway; Cheri and Scarlet lined up behind her. Cher planted her platforms firmly on the floor. Scar clenched her hands into fists at her sides and drew one foot up in a delicate coupé arc beneath her knee.

  Opal sauntered across the hall to meet them, flanked by two other girls. At first the UVs couldn’t remember ever having seen them before. But then they recognized trendoid Karyn Karson with her lank spaghetti-blond strands and a slithery lizard tail poking out from the waistband of her skinny jeans. The second girl seemed to be suffering from acute, uncute, split personality disorder. Head to toe, one half of her was all gloom and goth, the other all perky and pep squad. Like a cheerleader crossed with a Twihard. Which was a way less adorable combo than a pug-beagle puggle. (Cheri would know: She volunteered at an animal shelter.)

  “Mutants!” Scarlet whispered.

  Iris ga
ve a subtle nod, her ringlets barely bobbing behind her.

  Cheri just thought, Ew.

  Dubble ew! Darth thought back, peeking out of the tote bag at the two-faced girl.

  You see (if you’ve already read the first book, you can skip this paragraph), the Ultra Violets were not the only weirdness happening in Sync City, as the girls had recently discovered. It was strange enough that they had grown superpowers four years after getting doused with triple-top-secret Heliotropium goo in the Fascination Laboratory, or FLab, where their doctor-moms all worked. But just across the river, in an abandoned mall, at a company called BeauTek, a rival lab, the Vi-Shush, seemed to be . . . maybe . . . Cheri was 99.9 percent certain . . . well, that the Vi-Shush was manufacturing mutants.

  Mutants!

  Monster ew! Darth added, hearing Cher’s mind.

  The girls weren’t sure exactly what was up at BeauTek. But you didn’t have to be a superbrain like Cheri to know that a mutant factory mall was definitely not a positive development. The Ultra Violets had vowed that, with the help of their erstwhile (that means “once-upon-a-time”) babysitter Candace, they’d do everything in their power to protect the citizens of Sync City from these hideous creatures.

  Even if those citizens were completely clueless about the fact that their lives now depended on three middle-school girls.

  But back to the pre-bang hallway. Where Opaline Trudeau, the girl who had gone rouge-slash-rogue, was standing in her Peter Pan–collared tracksuit, staring down her ex-bestie Iris Tyler.

  “Opal,” Iris said, trying to smile. Not long ago at all, they’d promised to be BFFs. As much as Opal had upset her since then, Iris was still determined to get her back on Team Ultra Violet. “I know we have, um, issues, but did you really have to go and post lies about me to the whole school?”

  Opal smirked in response. “Would you prefer I post the truth?” she taunted, batting her lashes. Tiny white storm clouds streamed across her brown eyes. “About you and your ‘Ultra Violets’? Like anyone would believe it.”