Power to the Purple!

by Sophie Bell

  Watching from their corner spot, Scarlet stuck out her tongue. Ick-facing back, Iris whispered, “That has got to be the least awesome sauce ever.”

  Iz stinkz like her purfoom, Darth thought, peeking out of Cheri’s tote bag.

  “Yeah,” Cheri said, “all it’s missing is a dash of sweat socks!”

  At the cake table, K-Liz sidled up to Opal, her forked tongue flicking in anticipation. “Quick!” she hissed. “Make a wisssh and blow it out.”

  “Before it—yay!—burns away!” BellaBritney jumped up and down, her cheer half getting the best of her goth half for a moment. But just a moment. “Let it burn,” Goth Bella intoned somberly, “and then we can eat the ashes that symbolize our ravaged youth.”

  Ignoring BellaBritney’s tasteless comment, Opal leaned over the still-flaming cake. But she didn’t suck in a big breath to blow out the fire. She just stared at it, small orange embers kindling in her brown eyes. Suddenly, out of thin air, a teeny-tiny storm cloud formed just above it. Like a ceiling sprinkler in a burning building, it doused the blaze with a quick shower.

  The dazed party guests slow-clapped. The applause was not sarcastic-slow. Just sad. Opal didn’t seem to care. She beamed at her future servants school friends. Then she picked up a gleaming silver cake knife and brandished it above her head.

  “O sit!” she ordered.

  Instantly, all the already-zombotomized students slunk lower in their chairs. The other guests—the few still in the line, and in their right minds—scrambled to find seats. The Ultra Violets grabbed the last three in the back: Scarlet using Iris’s messenger bag to give herself a boost so that she could still see; Iris slouching down so she wouldn’t stand out. Her glance fell upon the back of Sebastian’s neck, the cute way his ears stuck out just a little, the cool way his hair started off short and tapered at the nape and then got shaggier and more tousleable toward the top. (Ahem, Iris! Now is not the time for crushing on a boy!)

  “Before I cut the cake,” Opaline said to the crowd, lowering the knife again, “I want you all to know that this is no ordinary birthday party.”

  “Nokidding!” Scarlet coughed, waving aside some smoke that had drifted back their way.

  “At my birthday party,” Opal continued, the wall of creepy smiley balloons nodding behind her, “all of you are going to leave with a present!”

  As the guests groaned with excitement, Opal swung her arm in her trademark circle, snapping her fingers twice. Like hostesses on a game show, BellaBritney and K-Liz skipped behind her. Each grabbed a corner of the IT’S THE BIG 1-2! banner and pulled it down like a window shade. Opal pressed an icon on her smartphone, and a strange animated poster appeared on the unfurled screen.

  In stark black, white, and yellow, it showed a graphic illustration of Opal. Her hair was precisely parted and pulled back tight. In the center of her forehead, a small lightning bolt struck, again and again and again. Her eyes spiraled, swirling chocolate and vanilla and orangey-peach. One eyebrow was sharply arched. On the side opposite it, one corner of her mouth smirked.

  Maybe it was supposed to be a smile.

  But it just looked like a smirk.

  And in her hand, the Opaline poster girl held some kind of small cannonball. But instead of a lighted fuse, like you’d see in cartoons, the bomb had one of those poufs you squeeze to spray perfume. In rhythm with the zzzt-zzzt-zzzt of Opal’s blinking lightning bolt, the bomb spritz-spritz-spritzed perfume. Underneath the animated picture, in big block letters, it said:

  “L’eau?” Cheri whispered. “As in French for perfume?”

  “L’oh Dopes?” Scarlet sounded it out.

  “L’eau no!” Iris said, putting it together. “It’s Opaline’s perfume!”

  P-ew, Darth thought, and not for the first time. Smelz bad 4 u.

  “So that’s the present?” Scarlet grimaced. “Opal’s funky stank?”

  “I think we’re about to find out,” Iris answered, anxiously tugging on one of her fake-beigey tendrils.

  “Students of Chronic Prep,” Opaline said, while her mother stood by, puffed up with pride and snapping photos. “Are you feeling kind of blue?”

  “Myneah,” the zombos agreed listlessly—although Goth Bella sighed with contentment, her half of her face splitting into a smile.

  “Too much homework bringing you down?” Opal prompted.

  “Way down!” Albert shouted, his eyes strangely vacant and his face flushed with rage. Watching him out of the corner of her eye, Cheri winced. Albert was captain of the mathletes. He lived for homework! Or at least he used to . . .

  “Worried you don’t have any friends?” Opal taunted. “Any forever-and-ever besties you can call your own?”

  Iris’s blood ran cold. She was sure Opaline hadn’t spotted them, in the back of the room in their beige camo. But still Iris felt that the sharp barb in Opal’s question was somehow aimed straight at her.

  “Mmmnurgh!” the zombotomized guests moaned in their seats. Some of them gnashed their teeth. Others clawed at the air. Zombo Emma gnawed on her thumbnail. Zombo Rachel started to sob. Even Sebastian looked stressed, running his hand through his hair. It grew so quiet in the party room that the only sounds to be heard were the whirs from Dr. Trudeau’s camera phone and the occasional squeak when one balloon rubbed against another.

  Iris looked closer at the scary smileys. Something was different about them. Something was changing. It wouldn’t have been noticeable to the naked eye. But Iris’s infraviolet vision suddenly perceived mold-green vapors seeping from the balloons. Out of the eerie lightning bolts between the dot eyes. Ever so slowly, they were all leaking . . . air?

  Opal continued with her speech. “Maybe most important of all”—she dropped her voice and leaned forward, speaking out over her rapidly melting Peach Melba brussels sprout birthday cake—“do you never . . .”

  She let the question hang in the air for a few seconds.

  “. . . ever . . .” she said, a little bit louder now.

  “. . . EVER . . .” she repeated in a shout, electric currents crackling off her shoulders “. . . WANT TO HAVE B.O.?”

  Zombo Julie shrieked in terror. Zombo Abby fainted into her plate, a slice of cold pizza her pillow. Malik subtly lifted his elbows and sniffed his armpits to check. The entire room erupted into murmurs about the dual menaces: too much homework and rampant sweat.

  “Students of Chronic Prep,” Opal said again when the furor had finally died down. “And special guests . . .” she added, glancing over in the direction of Sebastian, Douglas, and Malik. She gave the boys a flirty wink that made Iris’s hair curl even curlier. “I’m here to tell you,” Opal oozed, “that you’re never going to have to worry about any of that stuff again.”

  By this point in Opal’s oration, Scarlet had been kicking her chair leg with the back of her heel so hard that it dented in. The seat dipped dangerously to one side, and like a gymnast on a pommel horse, Scarlet had to push herself up on her arms just to keep from sliding off.

  Opal had paused for dramatic effect, dipping a pinkie into her cake and scooping up a dollop of cabbagey green cream. “You won’t have to worry,” she went on, licking her finger, “because you guys are all getting the gift of—”

  “Lohhhhhhhhh Dopes!” BellaBritney cut her off with a drawn-out cheer. For once her two sides were in agreement, shaking the solitary pompom with both hands.

  Miffed that BellaBritney had stolen her thunder, Opal aimed that same pinkie, still coated with brussels sprout sauce. And she shot a razor-blade lightning bolt straight at the pompom, shearing it in half. The sliced-off plastic fringe fell to the floor like dry needles from a dead pine tree.

  “Gimme a wah,” BellaBritney moped, now as bummed out as all the rest of the zombos.

  “Yes, my signature scent,” Opal announced, back in command. “L’eau d’Opes. Perfume for the girl
s. Aftershave for the boys! All it takes is a lil’ spritz, and sadness? Gone-o. Homework? Forget o-bout it. Friends? Thousands o’ them, fo-ever!”

  At the sound of lil’, Scarlet’s ears perked up, and she whipped her head around so fast that her own licorice-stick-straight ponytail hit her smack in the eyes. They began to water. She blinked furiously to clear them, tears from the sting trickling down her cheeks. But she couldn’t wipe her eyes without lowering herself back down on the broken chair. She’d thought she’d detected some movement, a disruption, somewhere in the crowd. By the time she could see again, she couldn’t be sure.

  “L’eau d’Opes!” Opal was wrapping up her speech, bobbing her head in time with the leaking lightning-bolt smileys. “Breathe it in and troubles begone!” she said. Off to the side, Dr. Trudeau mouthed the words along with her daughter, even acting them out with controlled waves of her hands. Using urgent little jabs, she pointed to her mouth. “Oh, right,” Opal said, taking the hint. “And bonus! It’ll keep your breath minty-fresh, too!”

  “Mmnrawrs!” Zombo Brad roared, then began pounding his table like a caveman. “O-Dopes! O-Dopes! O-Dopes!” The rest of the zombos picked up the chant. They moaned and groaned so loud, the sound squished the slowly deflating smiley balloons against the wall.

  Standing over the peach melba brussels sprout birthday cake, Opal savored the moment. It was a pretty perfect party. The entire class was shouting her name. Pledging their allegiance to her. As her dopes! Now it wasn’t just K-Liz and BellaBritney: She had tons of followers. Real kids, too, not mutant freaks. So what if I had to numb them all with nerve gas perfume and short-circuit their brains to get them? she bickered with the doubting voice in her mind. But even the shouts of all those kids couldn’t silence it.

  To shake it off, Opal jerked her head from one shoulder to the other, static electricity crackling through her brown bob. With all the strength she could summon, she swung her arm in the widest circle possible, snapping up high, snapping down low. Sparks shot out as her fingers clicked, and the kids at the party shut up.

  Dr. Trudeau scuttled to her daughter’s side, a glass perfume bomb big as a basketball tucked under her arm. A greenish-gray liquid sloshed around inside it. Just like on the poster, the bottle had a poufy atomizer embellished with an acid-yellow tassel. Dr. Trudeau gave it a single pump, and an oily mist filled the air, evaporating into the same moldy vapors Iris had spotted seeping out of the balloons. “Everyone gets a spritz before they leave!” she promised. “Right after we serve the cake—and the birthday girl finishes with her, er, receiving line. Right, honey? I think there are a few kids you still haven’t, ah, ‘said thank you’ to.”

  “I know, Mom!” Opal rolled her eyes and climbed back onto the birthday throne while Dr. Trudeau put down the perfume bomb and held up one of the sulfurous yellow goody bags. She swung it back and forth, back and forth. The zombos swayed along. “And nobody forget to take home a fun-size party favor!” Dr. Trudeau chimed. “The first sample of L’eau d’Opes is free.” Then, in a rushed voice, running all her words together, she added: “Use code OPAL12 for a two-percent discount in stores or online first-time customers only not to be combined with any other offers shipping and handling extra certain restrictions apply. And no returns accepted.”

  No Returns! Iris’s eyes popped open. That’s where I’ve seen those yellow bags before—the Mall of No Returns!

  “L’eau d’Opes is not just phony aromatherapy, guys,” Iris hissed to Scarlet and Cheri. “I think it’s some kind of airborne poison! From BeauTek! That stinky perfume Opal’s been wearing must be what’s bringing everyone down—lowering their resistance so that she can rewire their brains! And those scary balloons are full of it!”

  Like I sezd, Darth thought, though only Cheri could hear him, sumting’s rotten.

  Sticky Stuff

  THE CLASS OF CHRONIC PREP SHORT-CIRCUITED INTO slaves. A trio of punk-rock Graffiti Boys curious about a cure-all aftershave. Three supergirls in the ugliest beige tracksuits you have ever seen. And a wall of balloons leaking toxic perfume. That’s the “Previously On” of The Ultra Violets # 2: Power to the Purple!

  So now what?

  That’s exactly what the Ultra Violets were asking themselves.

  “So now what?” Scarlet said. (See, told ya.)

  “IDK,” Iris fretted, her eyes darting across the room. Opal’s mom was spooning out the melted Peach Melba into soup bowls. K-Liz trailed behind her, a pitcher of crème du brussels sprout sauce gripped by her tail. She drizzled it on top of the melty ice cream and cake whether or not a guest asked for it—which even the zombos didn’t. And back on her vinyl diner throne, Opal held a tankard of her birthday dessert in one hand, taking sips through a bendy straw as she prepared to dole out the last of the electric wet willies with the other.

  “Opal’s mom said everyone would get a baddy bag at the end of the party,” Iris deliberated, “but this whole room is filling up with the poison perfume as we speak, weakening anyone Opal hasn’t zombofied yet. So let’s start by stopping the electroshocks, to spare whoever’s still okay.” Including Sebastian, Iris thought, her heart pounding. How can I save him from Opal and still keep the mystery alive?

  Keeping that particular worry to herself, Iris looked from Cheri to Scarlet to see if they agreed about cutting the power first. But neither one said anything. They just stared back at her. Like they were the deer and she was the headlights. Then Scarlet gulped hard enough for Iris to hear, and Cheri fumbled frantically in her tote bag. She pulled out a small mirror and, cupping it in the palm of her hand, held it up to Iris.

  “OMV,” Iris whispered, slinking down even deeper in her seat.

  The mirror didn’t lie. Iris’s long ringlets were still dull lavender blond at the ends. But the entire top half of her hair had turned back to deep purple.

  “What happened?” Cheri said, finally finding some words. “Can you change it to blond again?”

  “I don’t think so!” Iris replied, desperate. “For some reason my purple hair is the only thing I can’t seem to colorize, at least not for long!”

  “How ironic,” Scarlet muttered. “Guess the ka-pow’s on us!” Then she reached forward, and for a split second Iris didn’t know what Scarlet was going to do—pull her hair? How would that help?! But Scarlet just said, “Yoink!” And yanked up the hood of Iris’s tracksuit.

  “Oh, right,” Iris breathed, shoving the bulk of her hair into it. The beige hoodie really was not a festive party look, and she felt a bit like a monk in sweatpants. But what choice did she have?

  “That’s it; I can’t take it anymore!” Cheri balked. She passed the mirror back to Darth, who had her tube of lip gloss at the ready. Cheri rolled on a sheer layer of sticky lilac glitter before Iris or Scarlet could stop her. “Sorry,” she said once the deed was done. “But if we’re about to take down this party, I’ve got to be feeling it, you know?”

  “I hear that,” Iris sighed, rolling her eyes at her ridiculous hood.

  Iris said it in sympathy. But Cheri took it as a cue. With a few expert dabs, she dotted some gloss on Iris’s and Scarlet’s lips, too.

  “So much better!” Cheri smiled, while Iris’s and Scarlet’s sparkly mouths fell open in surprise. “Purple is the CCF!”

  “CCF?” Scarlet repeated.

  “Coolest Color Forever,” Iris guessed, spelling out the letters. “It really does go with everything.”

  “C’mon guys, makeovers after, okay?” Scarlet pressed impatiently—even though the lilac lip gloss did look terribly pretty against her smoky gray eyes. She pulled up her own hood and tucked her ponytail inside. “It’s time for Opera-tion Get-O, Plan Whatever-Letter-of-the-Alphabet-We-Still-Have-Left!”

  “’K!” Iris said. Because she agreed. And because they hadn’t used that letter yet.

  There in the corner of the back room of Tom’s Diner, the Ultra Violets b
owed their heads into a huddle and touched pinkie fingers again, powering up. Scarlet’s bangs took on a distinctly aubergine glow. Cheri’s berry-red waves flushed magenta. And beneath the cover of her beige hood, Iris’s curls shone ultraviolet.

  “Polymer, please?” Iris asked Cheri, who was reluctantly cramming her own hair into the hood of her tracksuit.

  From the tote bag, Darth passed up the jar with the purple cream. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think it was just another pot of lip gloss. But it wasn’t. Iris popped the lid and scooped out a gummy plummy glob. Then she slipped her hand inside her hood, making a mini-ick-face as she grabbled around underneath it.

  “Iris, are you sure you’re sure about this?” Scarlet asked, getting to her feet. “It’s risky! Can’t I just cancan-kick Opaline across the river?”

  “No way,” Iris hissed, shoving her hands into the pockets of her hoodie. Heads down, the three girls shuffled toward the front of the line. “Then everybody would see your superstrength!”

  “Right,” Cheri added. “No one must know!”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Iris noticed Opal’s mom heading their way, her arms loaded up with Opal’s presents. She brushed right past them and out the doors to the diner, not giving the girls a second glance.

  “Well, if anything goes wrong,” Scarlet continued, troubled, “then it’s vio-clobbering time. And I won’t care who sees!” She folded her arms and twisted her glitter-dusted lips into a tight knot to keep herself from saying anything else.

  The three girls cut the line, just ahead of Sebastian, Douglas, and Malik.

  It’s not too late. Iris kept her head down. I hope!

  “Oh, excusez us,” Cheri said to the other kids behind them, “hope you don’t mind! It’s just that we’re seriously late for an extremely beige soccer match, and we didn’t know there was going to be a big speech about a wonder-perfume, and we wouldn’t want to leave without giving the birthday girl our bestiest wishes, because that would be rude.”