Picture Perfect #3: Best Frenemies

by Cari Simmons

  “Alice,” her mom said in a warning tone, but before they could talk more, Alice grabbed her backpack and stormed up to her room, slamming the door. She stood in her darkening room for a moment, not sure what to do now. Homework? Ugh.

  Alice booted up her computer, telling herself that she was going to get to work on the study questions Mr. Nichols had given them for their new book, Animal Farm. But first she logged onto IM, just for a second, anyway. Cassidy was online, and Alice couldn’t resist the urge to talk to her best friend when she was feeling down.

  AISFORALICE: Hey there. I just got into a fight with my mom ☹ Bummed about that and not being able to see each other. AND we’re having fish for dinner tonight :P

  BALLETCASS: That stinks! In more ways than 1.

  AISFORALICE: Yeah . . . I wish we were hanging out right now. I hope things get easier soon with homework so we can see each other more!

  BALLETCASS: Totally.

  AISFORALICE: Sorry you had a bad day. Hugs.

  BALLETCASS: Hugs back at you. Sounds like you ended up having a hard day too.

  AISFORALICE: Yeah, maybe it just needs to be tomorrow.

  BALLETCASS: Okay, I can’t believe I’m saying this but you should get to ur hw.

  AISFORALICE: I guess. You’re a good friend.

  BALLETCASS: I know ;) See you tomorrow.

  Alice signed out, sighed, then pulled her pillow onto the floor so she could get started on the reading for class. The smell of fish wafted up from the kitchen, and she wished she had one of Mrs. Turner’s forbidden incense sticks to keep the smell out of her room. Putting off her reading for just a few more minutes, she pulled the notebook out of her bag and flipped through it. To her dismay, she realized that neither she nor Cassidy had written in it for a couple of days. This would be an excellent time to write, but what did Alice have to report? Breaking news: Homework is the worst. Salmon is the second worst.

  But that wouldn’t make for a good entry. The notebook would just have to go blank another day until Alice could think of something interesting or new to say.

  She sighed and flopped on her back on her bed. Up until this point, she had been able to balance her friendship with Cassidy and her schoolwork. What if it turned out that she had to pick one?

  CHAPTER 9

  ENTERING THE FORCE FIELD

  A week later, Alice woke up feeling out of sorts, and it wasn’t just the low gray sky that was getting her down. Alice had convinced herself that she’d figure out a way to see Cassidy more despite homework getting tougher, but things didn’t seem to be quite working out. The day before, they had ridden the bus together and were poring over a silly celebrity gossip magazine that Tess had “borrowed” (without asking) from her older sister. The girls’ favorite was the “What Were They Thinking?” section, which featured celebrities wearing highly questionable outlets.

  “Oh my goodness!” laughed Tess, tapping a pink sparkly finger at a photo of an actress prancing down the sidewalk in an outfit that could only be described as pink-sequined shorteralls: overalls, but with shorts. “Cass, isn’t that the exact same thing you tried on at the mall yesterday?”

  “Well, first of all, when I tried it on, it was clearly a joke,” sad Cass. “And second, you know I looked amazing in it!”

  “You kind of did,” said Tess. “I don’t know what your secret is.”

  “I’m a witch!” said Cassidy, waving her fingers in the air in a somewhat witchlike motion.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Alice asked, trying not to sound the way she felt, which was, specifically, five miles behind this whole conversation.

  “Oh, Cass and a couple other kids from our homeroom and I went to the mall yesterday after school,” said Tess.

  “We were just goofing around, no big deal,” added Cassidy.

  “Sounds fun,” Alice said, trying to smile like it didn’t bother her. She and Cass used to love to go the mall and find a million stupid things to laugh about. Sometimes they had a contest where they could see how much stuff they could buy for ten dollars. If you went to the right store, you could get like seven pieces of jewelry! Admittedly, they were the kind that turned your ears green, but that wasn’t the point.

  “Oh, girl,” Cassidy said, laying her head on Alice’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I hope you don’t feel left out. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, and I assumed you had too much homework to do.”

  “It’s true.” Alice sighed. “I did.” But still, it would have been nice to be asked. She and Cassidy hadn’t been to the mall together since the summer, before school started, and she wondered when they’d go again. An uncomfortable little sensation had started gnawing in her stomach that there was something not quite right with their friendship. They weren’t in a fight, but they weren’t in sync the way they usually were.

  To make matters worse, Alice hadn’t had a spare second to write in the notebook in the last couple of days. She’d leave it as a “treat” for the end of the night, but then she was always too tired to think of anything clever to write. She worried that the friendship was like the notebook: if she took too much time away from it, it would be forgotten.

  In the meantime, classes were starting to kick Alice’s butt, which was a new feeling to her. First, they were studying the makeup of cells in biology, and there were way more things to remember than Alice was used to. What the heck was the difference between mitochondria and a Golgi apparatus? She worried she’d never get it straight. Meanwhile, Mr. Nichols had assigned Animal Farm to the class, a book about talking animals that was way freakier than a book about talking animals should be. Even worse, the students’ assignment was to look up the Russian Revolution and write a paper comparing the different animals to what happened in Russia.

  “But we haven’t even studied the Russian Revolution yet!” Aaron Woolsey cried out, not even bothering to raise his hand. “How are we supposed to know anything about it?”

  Mr. Nichols smiled and went to the board, writing the letters L-I-U on the chalkboard.

  “Liu? Who was that, like, one of the fighters in the revolution?” Christy Gillespie asked.

  Mr. Nichols smiled again, seeming to relish what he was about to impart upon them. “L-I-U stands for ‘look it up’ and is something you should get used to doing in my class.” The Nerd Herd groaned. “And a word of caution before you head right to Wikipedia. You can’t trust everything you read on the internet. You never know when a teacher with too much time on his hands might go online and start filling in some fun fake historical facts. So go to the library. Your parents might be able to explain to you what an encyclopedia is, if you’ve never heard of one.”

  “Whoa,” Mr. Kinney had said, eyebrows up, when Alice complained about the assignment to him over meat loaf and mashed potatoes. “That’s hardcore.”

  “Don’t say ‘hardcore,’” Alice said. “It makes you sound weird.”

  “Pardon me,” Mr. Kinney said. “What I meant to say is ‘That sounds like a tough assignment.’ Is it okay if I say that?”

  Alice rolled her eyes, even though she wasn’t really mad at her dad. She just felt out of her element. She wasn’t used to feeling challenged like this, like she might actually not do well on this assignment. That was practically unheard-of.

  To try and get a grip, Alice took the early bus to school to get a little bit more reading and research done before class began. She wouldn’t want to do it all the time, but it was kind of nice to be on the quiet bus, with only a few students heading in early for sports practice or extra help. Despite the gloomy weather, a morning of reading might actually be okay.

  However, when she got to homeroom early, she was surprised to discover that she didn’t have the room to herself, like she expected. Nikki Wilcox sat at her desk with her head on her arms. Her long black curls covered her face, but based on the way her shoulders were shaking, it looked like she was . . . crying?

  Part of Alice instinctively wanted to ask Nikki if everything was okay. Fo
rce field! she remembered. What if Nikki bit her head off? It was probably best just to leave her alone. But before Alice could silently back out of the room, Nikki lifted her head to blow her nose.

  “Oh,” Nikki said, looking at Alice blankly. “Sorry.” Her eyes were puffy and her normally porcelain-fair skin was flushed and blotchy.

  “Sorry for what?” Alice asked, taking a hesitant step towards Nikki, who was now gathering her long hair in a ponytail in her hand and fanning the back of her neck with it.

  “Um, I don’t know,” Nikki said. “For being weird? Just ignore me.” Her flat voice, paired with the stuffiness in her nose, made her sound miserable.

  “Is . . . everything okay?” Alice asked, despite Nikki asking her to ignore her.

  Nikki sighed. “It’s fine. It’s just . . . I’m having a hard time with math right now.”

  “You?” Alice asked incredulously. She couldn’t believe Miss Perfect could have a hard time with anything, let alone admit to such a thing. Nikki’s face crumpled.

  “Not everyone is as naturally good at math as you are, Alice,” she sniffled. “I’m sorry if that’s hard for you to believe.”

  “No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Alice said. This is what she got for trying to be nice. But instead of scowling and looking away, Nikki kept her dark brown eyes on her. “It’s just that . . .” Alice tried to think of a diplomatic way of saying, “You act like you know better than us all the time—that was a mask?”

  “You seem so confident all the time.”

  “Ha,” Nikki said bitterly. “Yeah, well, I definitely am not.”

  Alice sat down at a nearby desk, unsure how to proceed. She sighed, thinking of her mom, who always tried to see the best in everyone, and decided to shut off the force field momentarily

  “What part of the math homework is giving you a hard time?”

  Nikki sighed. “I just have no idea how to keep track of all these stupid shapes! Triangles, parallelograms, trapezoids, cubes—volume, circumference, surface area. They all just swim past my eyes and I freak out and feel so overwhelmed. I am definitely going to bomb the next test, and I’m never going to hear the end of it from my parents.”

  Alice couldn’t believe it. She had never for a second thought that Nikki would have ever had any problems with the schoolwork. Nikki never asked questions in class, and since she stayed to herself, Alice had never heard her talk about being worried with the other students. For that matter, Alice couldn’t even imagine Nikki having parents. Alice had always just sort of envisioned her staying on the bus all night, not even sleeping but just curling up in her seat at the end of the day and powering down.

  “I’m having a hard time too,” Alice admitted. “This Animal Farm assignment is freaking me out.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nikki asked, in fake shock. “L-I-U, Alice. Just L-I-U!”

  Alice laughed. Who knew Nikki Wilcox had a sense of humor?

  “So what’s your secret for knowing all that math stuff?” Nikki asked.

  “I just have weirdly good memorization skills, I guess,” Alice said. “A couple little tricks. It’s kind of like a game.”

  “A lame game,” Nikki said.

  Oh, Alice thought. There’s Negative Nikki again. But then Nikki surprised her. “Maybe . . . maybe sometime you could show me some of those tricks?”

  “Sure,” Alice said, surprised. Wait, did I just agree to potentially, voluntarily, hang out with Nikki Wilcox?

  The homeroom began to fill up with the rest of the class and Ms. Garrity began the announcements. Alice kicked herself for wasting the effort of waking up and coming in early, only to get no work done on the Animal Farm assignment. But she felt better, though, talking to Nikki, knowing that she wasn’t the only one having a tough time with honors work. Idly, Alice’s gaze wandered over to her. Nikki scowled at something she was writing in her notebook. She flipped her pencil around, erased furiously, and glared again, blowing an errant curl away from her face. She glanced up, saw Alice, and gave a tiny smile.

  Are there two sides to Nikki Wilcox? Alice pondered. Maybe even more? The tough, superior-seeming girl was possibly disguising a softer side. Alice wondered what else she didn’t know about her.

  Just wait till I tell Cassidy! Alice thought, pulling out the notebook, grateful to finally have some news to report. But as she flipped open to a blank page, she stopped, her pen hovering over the page. Nikki was struggling just like she was, and she had confided in Alice when she didn’t have to. Maybe it wouldn’t be the nicest thing in the world to blab to Cassidy about it. Alice wouldn’t like Nikki telling her friends (if she had any) about the fact that she was having a hard time with the reading. Plus, anyway, there were only a few minutes left in homeroom, Alice reasoned. She didn’t have time to write the whole story out. Maybe later.

  The bell toned for class change. Maybe Mr. Nichols would give them some sort of hint today that might make the assignment easier. Alice’s thoughts drifted back to Nikki. She wondered if it would be easier to keep Nikki’s struggles a secret for now, because Cassidy might say something like “Wait, I don’t understand. First Nikki’s the biggest pain in your life—now you feel sorry for her and are offering her help?” It might just be too confusing.

  As the classes switched rooms, Cassidy ran up to Alice. “Hey! It was weird not riding the bus with you. Did you get your reading done eventually?”

  “Uh . . . yeah!” Alice said, deciding it would be awkward to say that she didn’t without explaining why.

  “Cool. Well, you’re not the only overachiever on the street. I’m going to get some help with French during lunch, so I won’t get to see you. I’ll write you, okay?”

  “I haven’t had the chance to write yet,” Alice confessed, handing Cassidy the notebook.

  “No worries. You’ve been busy!” Cassidy disappeared into her next class. But once the day was over, Alice didn’t get the chance to get the notebook back and see what—if anything—Cassidy had written her. After ten minutes of craning her head, looking for Cassidy’s smiling face to appear between the bus aisles, the doors shut, ferrying Alice back to her street—alone.

  Why didn’t she tell me she wasn’t taking the bus home today? Alice wondered. Maybe she was mad at me for not riding with her this morning. Maybe she had a doctor’s appointment. Maybe she somehow knew I was talking to Nikki.

  But that last part was silly. Right?

  CHAPTER 10

  BIG NEWS

  “What do you girls want on your pizza?” asked Mrs. Turner, holding a finger to her palm like she was writing down an order. She didn’t actually have to write anything down, because she knew what each girl was going to order, but she still liked to ask them, for old times’ sake. Alice and Cassidy were doing a minihang: they would have dinner, but no sleepover, since Cassidy had to go visit her grandparents in the suburbs the next day. Something was better than nothing, though. Plus: pizza!

  “She is going to have half pineapple, because she’s crazy,” Cassidy said, pointing a newly wet purple fingernail at Alice, who was bent over, trying the same color on her toenails.

  “And she is going to have half spinach, because she’s gross,” Alice said, pointing the nail-polish brush back at Cassidy.

  “Okay, just making sure,” Mrs. Turner said. “Pizza in about an hour.”

  “O-kay!” the girls singsonged, and giggled.

  “Please don’t drip anywhere—my mom’s going to kill me if I stain the carpet,” Cassidy said, looking worriedly over at Alice. “Here.” She slid something over to Alice.

  “You want me to use the notebook as a nail-polish shield?” Alice asked, dismayed but still daintily resting her toes on the brown cardboard back cover of it.

  “I’m not throwing it in the trash or anything,” said Cassidy. “Besides, it might as well be good for something!”

  Alice frowned. “It bums me out that it’s being abandoned, so sad and lonely.”

  “Oh, don’t look like t
hat,” said Cassidy. “I’m just teasing you. We’ll get back to it. Besides, we’re hanging out right now, and maybe the nail polish will, you know, give it a fresh new look.” She scooted next to Alice and painted a flower on the back cover with some pink polish.

  “That does look pretty good,” admitted Alice.

  “I’m an artistic genius, what can I say?” Cassidy asked. Alice smiled. She had to admit that if it was between the notebook and actually spending time with her best friend, nothing beat the real thing. Before coming over, Alice had made a mental list of all the news for them to catch up on (especially things that were not Nikki related): how ballet class was going, the Nerd Herd, thoughts on what to put together for their upcoming annual Halloween scary-movie-a-thon, plus making lots of plans for Alice to look forward to—they hadn’t gone to the mall, or out to Walker Bros. restaurant for pancakes, or done a clothing swap, or taken a stroll downtown while window-shopping—in ages.

  “Speaking of artistic genius,” Cassidy said. “I have big news.”

  “Oh yeah?” Alice looked up.

  “I’m doing the school musical!” Cassidy gushed, getting so excited that she jumped up and did a leap nearly all the way across her bedroom. “I tried out last week, and then yesterday after school they posted the results, and I got in! Mr. Shankman said I had a really strong audition. I mean, everyone who auditions gets to be a part of it in some way, but not everyone gets to perform. Tess got stuck with just doing makeup. I’m actually in the show—and he gave me a solo! Not a big one, but still! I’m the only one in our grade who got one!”

  “You’re what?” Alice asked, confused. Normally she and Cassidy talked at length before trying anything new: an outfit, a class, a hairstyle. Not, like, that Cassidy needed to get Alice’s permission, but Alice just felt out of the loop. Maybe she had been asleep or something when Cassidy had talked about it before?

  “We’re all doing it!” Cassidy sang with a twirl.