Rebel McKenzie

by Candice Ransom

“I can’t eat a bite,” Lacey Jane said. “My stomach’s too nervous.”

  “My stomach never skips a meal.” I ate a big bowl of cereal and drank two glasses of milk, one after the other.

  “Milk is gassy,” Lacey Jane stated. “You’ll probably make all kinds of weird noises onstage.”

  Rudy made farting sounds with his hand in his armpit, cracking himself up.

  “Ha-ha,” I said. “Can you rinse our bowls? Thank you.” I uncapped the mascara brush and leaned into the mirror propped against the milk carton.

  “According to the book, you’re supposed to swish the brush sideways across your lashes, wiggling it through so you don’t get clumps,” Lacey Jane said.

  “My eyelashes don’t grow sideways. They grow straight out. That’s how I’m putting this stuff on.” I gripped the brush tightly and dragged it from the base of my eyelashes to the ends.

  “Rebel, the mascara’s all globby!”

  “It’ll dry okay.” I stared at myself in the mirror. “My eyelashes are straight as pokers. I wonder how Lynette gets hers so curly?”

  Rudy plucked a medieval-looking contraption from the box. “Mama uses this.”

  “What is that?” The bottom of the tool had loops to put your fingers in, like scissors. I opened and closed the mouthlike top.

  “An eyelash curler. I’ve seen those,” said Lacey Jane. “You slide the open part over your eyelashes and squeeze the handle.”

  “And it’ll make my eyelashes curly?”

  She nodded. “Longer and thicker, too. Go ahead, try it.”

  It wouldn’t do to have skimpy eyelashes. Rabbit lashes, Bambi called them. She’d mentioned an eyelash curler in her beauty tips.

  It looked safe enough. Holding the curler in the open position, I eased it over the eyelashes of my left eye.

  “Like this?” I asked Lacey Jane, blinking like crazy.

  “Yeah, but back farther. Where your eyelashes grow from your eyelid. And quit blinking.”

  Pretend you are digging up a Toxodon, I told myself. One of its fangs is broken in a million pieces. Move your hand very delicately—

  Holding my breath, I squeezed the handle.

  “Press again just to make sure,” Lacey Jane urged.

  This time I clamped down hard. Then I slowly opened the curler and moved it away from my eye, releasing my breath.

  I stared at the tool in my hand.

  The rubber pads of the eyelash curler wore a fringe of short hair, like a teeny tiny wiglet. I grabbed the mirror. My left eye had only about four stubby lashes.

  “Lacey Jane!” I shrieked, jumping up. “My eyeball is bald ! You said I’d have thick, curly eyelashes! I don’t have hardly any!”

  Lacey Jane examined the hairy eyelash curler. “Hmm. Maybe you weren’t supposed to use this after you put on all that mascara—”

  “Now you tell me! What am I gonna do? We have to be at the pageant in”—my glance flicked to the clock over the sink—“less than two hours!”

  “There’s only one thing you can do,” she said soberly. “Pull out all your lashes so your eyes match.”

  “What?” I turned around. “Rudy, is there a sign on my butt that says ‘Kick Me’?”

  “I don’t see one—”

  I whirled on Lacey Jane. “You did this on purpose. ‘Go ahead, try it.’ You let me jerk all my eyelashes out because you want to make sure I’ll lose.”

  Lacey Jane stood up. “If that’s what you think, Rebel McKenzie, then I’ll drop out of the pageant that you begged me to enter.”

  Would she? I doubted it. Hanging around Lacey Jane was like walking on the edge of the La Brea Tar Pits. One minute you’re on solid ground, the next minute you’re sinking out of sight. It didn’t pay to be friends with her, not even fake friends.

  Using Lynette’s tweezers, I pulled out each little hair from the eyelash curler and tried to stick them back on my eyelid. The lashes fluttered to the surface of the mirror like a bunch of parentheses.

  “One eye seems bigger than the other,” I muttered. “I’m Alien Girl.”

  “I told you what you should do.”

  If there was anything I hated more than Lacey Jane messing up my chances at the pageant, it was Lacey Jane being right.

  With a sigh, I picked up the curler, slipped it over the lashes of my right eye, and squeezed hard. When I took the curler away, most of my eyelashes came with it.

  Both eyes looked like buzzard’s eggs.

  When our doorbell rang, Rudy rushed to answer it. Miss Odenia came inside and right away noticed me sitting at one end of the sofa with Lacey Jane clear at the other end. I wore a tea towel draped over my face, but I could feel her stare.

  “You two fell out,” she proclaimed.

  “Something fell out,” I said sourly.

  “Over the pageant, I bet,” she went on. “Rebel, you don’t have to worry about a draft indoors.”

  I snatched the towel off my head and glared at her. “No, but I should have worried about back-stabbers.”

  Miss Odenia stopped short when she saw my nearly naked eyeballs. “Oh, my.”

  “I did not stab you in the back,” Lacey Jane said. “You should have followed the instructions.”

  “There weren’t any. Anyway, you seemed to know all about how to use an eyelash curler. What are you, Bambi the Second? Since when do you know so much about makeup?”

  “Girls!” Miss Odenia held up one hand like a policeman. “Rebel, these things happen—”

  “But not right before a beauty pageant!”

  “Oh, yes they do. Even makeup artists make mistakes. I’ve seen girls go to a photo shoot looking like zombies. Mistakes can be fixed.”

  “Not this one,” I said glumly.

  Miss Odenia came over and tipped my chin up. “Okay, you’ll have to live with this particular mistake. But you don’t have to let it get you down. Appearance is only one third of the pageant score. And beauty isn’t just eye shadow and lip gloss and hair spray. It’s who you are. Let the judges see the real Rebel McKenzie.”

  “I don’t suppose I can hold a picture of me when I had eyelashes over my face?” I asked hopefully.

  “Nope. Go get your dresses. Time to get ready.”

  Lacey Jane cut in front of me as we hurried down the hall to Lynette’s bedroom, where our dresses were hanging. I clipped her out of the way to reach the closet first. Our eyes locked, but we didn’t say one word to each other.

  War had already been declared.

  Dryer Sheet Curls and Vaseline Teeth

  The air over the carnival grounds shimmered with excitement.

  Toy pistols at the shooting gallery cracked and popped. Teenage boys in muscle shirts swung the mallet overhead, trying to hit the strongman gong. The merry-go-round played a tinselly tune as little kids ran to pick their horses.

  Miss Odenia smiled wistfully up at the Ferris wheel. The ride wasn’t moving, but the top car—the one her friend Ercel would rock to make her scream—seemed to touch the low, white sun.

  “The stage is set up over there.” Miss Odenia steered me, Rudy, and Lacey Jane across grounds littered with straw.

  My palms were slick, but I couldn’t wipe them on the skirt of my pageant dress. “Miz Odenia, do you have a Kleenex?”

  She glanced at me. “Uh-oh. We need to fix your melting makeup. Your face looks like a Hostess cupcake in Death Valley.”

  Comments like that filled me with all kinds of confidence.

  “How about my face?” Lacey Jane asked frantically. “Is my makeup okay?”

  “You must tolerate the heat better than Rebel,” Miss Odenia said, blotting my forehead with a tissue, then giving me another to pat my hands.

  The folding chairs in front of the stage were filled with picture-snapping parents. Also people we knew. Viola Sandbanks sat front-row center, flapping a funeral home fan. Her mouth twisted in annoyance, either at the sweltering heat or the sight of her daughter Palmer cozied up to Mr. Beechley two seats away. He looke
d a little green, but maybe he was the type that didn’t do well in the heat either.

  Rudy spotted the woman who won big at bingo every week and the man with the football-shaped thing on his neck. Rudy ogled the man until Miss Odenia said it wasn’t polite to stare and that poor Mr. Lake couldn’t help it he had a goiter.

  In the very front, two men and a woman sat at a table with notepads, pencils, and grim expressions. I’d seen happier grave diggers.

  “The judges,” Miss Odenia told us.

  We found Mrs. Randolph, the world’s oldest and smallest pageant director, scurrying back and forth onstage. A whistle swung from a lanyard around her neck.

  “Sweet Peas over here!” she yelled, raising her arm to reveal a pit stain the size of North Carolina.

  Little girls in poufy skirts and clackity patent leather shoes milled around like baby chicks. Their mothers fluffed curls and yanked dress-tails down over ruffled underpants.

  Fweeeet! Mrs. Randolph blew her whistle so hard, her face turned as red as a pickled beet. “Line up, Sweet Peas!” Her whistle shrilled again, and a couple of the little kids’ faces puckered up.

  A teenage girl with craterlike acne (obviously not a contestant) told us in a bored monotone, “All contestants wait under the tent till their group is called. There’s cold drinks in the cooler. And a Johnny-on-the-Spot over by the Tub O’Fun if you have to go.”

  The tent was behind the stage. Girls sat at picnic tables while their mothers fussed over them.

  “I’ll see to you girls,” Miss Odenia said. “Then Rudy and I’ll go out front.” She checked the program the girl handed her. “Sweet Peas are first. They don’t have a talent category. The Daisies go next—appearance and talent. According to this schedule, you Violets are on at twelve thirty. Lacey Jane, I’ll give that girl your music.”

  She kissed us both on the cheek and left with Rudy. I slipped around to the side so I could see.

  Music blared from speakers on either side of the stage. Dressed in a white suit with a baby-blue shirt and baby-blue shoes, Mr. Randolph, owner of the pest control part of Better-Off-Dead, hopped up onstage like a flea on a hot greased griddle. His loose stomach jiggled as he danced around with his microphone, grinning at the crowd.

  “All righty, folks, let’s get the third annual Miss Frog Level Volunteer Fire Department beauty pageant rollin’!” He spoke so loud, spit sizzled on the microphone, which he didn’t even need.

  “This year’s pageant, like last year’s and the year before’s, is brought to you by those fine people at BetterOff-Dead Pest Control and Bridal Consignment, owned and operated by yours truly and my mama, Mrs. Maybelline Randolph! Give Mama a big hand, folks! She’s worked like a mule plowing potato hills to make this pageant happen.”

  Everyone clapped and cheered.

  “We’ll begin with the sweetest young’uns this side of heaven,” Mr. Randolph yelled. “Anita! Music, please!”

  The crater-faced girl pushed some buttons on the sound system and a song about the good ship Lollipop drooled from the speakers. The Sweet Peas straggled across the stage, not looking at the judges or where they were going. They started and bumped into each other like train cars switching tracks. Finally Mrs. Randolph got them herded at one end. The first Sweet Pea scuffed to the center of the stage.

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?” Mr. Randolph boomed.

  The girl stuck her finger in her mouth.

  “C’mon, honeypie, tell these fine folks your name. I bet it’s as pretty as you are.”

  The girl’s mouth formed a square as she began to howl, mascara streaking down her heat-flushed cheeks. Her mother rushed onstage and hauled her off.

  Mr. Randolph faced the audience and said, “She told me her life’s ambition is to spread joy to everybody she meets. Give that little lady a big hand!”

  I’d seen enough. I went back around to the tent.

  Even though we weren’t speaking, Lacey Jane turned to me and said, “This pageant has no place to go but up.” She was right about that.

  The other Violets joined us. Four of them were so much alike—blond ponytails, blank blue eyes, and bland personalities—that I called them all by the same name. Chanel-Winter-Baylee-Shelbylynn. Definitely no threat.

  Then Bambi Lovering’s mother strode into the tent as if clearing trash from her precious daughter’s path. The two glasses of milk I drank earlier churned in my stomach. Lacey Jane’s eyes widened and the Chanel-Winter-Baylee-Shelbylynns gasped.

  Bambi was a puredee sight to behold.

  Her hair was impossibly golden, perfectly curled, and very big. A village of chipmunks could have lived in that hair. Her cheeks blushed a rosy color. Creamy shadow made her eyelids glow like pearls. Lynette would say Bambi was “overdone,” but the judges would think she was pretty from where they sat.

  And her dress! Made of soft pink material that seemed to float, the long skirt stood out like a ball gown. Sparkly pink beads formed flower designs all over the top, which circled her neck in a halter style. Long see-through gloves like pink cobwebs covered her arms. Clear sandals with a strip of pink rhinestones peeked out from beneath the hem. Bambi’s toenails and fingernails matched her dress.

  Next to Bambi’s dazzling outfit, Lacey Jane’s dress was a pink nightmare.

  Bambi’s mother set a tote bag on one of the tables. A little furry head popped up and Kissy scrambled out. Her toenails matched Bambi’s dress, too.

  Bambi flashed me her famous pageant smile. “You did show up.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I said. She wasn’t going to scare me off even if her Cinderella gown made me feel a little dowdy.

  “For one thing, your face looks like it got caught in a blender—”

  “Bambi,” her mother said sharply. “No talking to the other contestants. You need to save your voice. Now, hold still.”

  She took out a box of dryer sheets from the tote bag.

  The rest of us Violets gaped as Mrs. Lovering wiped each of Bambi’s curls with a dryer sheet.

  “So my curls won’t frizz in this humidity,” Bambi explained. “It’s one of the tips in my book—”

  “Shh,” her mother said, whisking a tube of lip gloss from the tote. She applied pink gloss to Bambi’s lips, then stood back and frowned, like she was grading a science project. “Good. Remember, don’t sit down, don’t drink anything, and don’t speak to the other girls. Bare your teeth.”

  Bambi pulled her lips back like a snarling wildcat. Uncapping a jar of Vaseline, her mother swiped a fingerful of the icky stuff over her front teeth. Then she scooped up Kissy, who was busy smelling everyone’s feet, and plunked her back in the tote.

  After her mother left, Bambi said, her lips sliding like ball bearings on ice, “Schkeeps your schmile from schticking.”

  “Are you going to talk like that in your interview?” I asked.

  “Schome of the schlickness will schwear off by then.”

  We peeked out at the stage. The Sweet Peas were toddling down the steps. One dragged a huge ribbon sash like a too-big diaper. The Daisies filed onstage to their music.

  While the Daisies answered questions from the judges, the Chanel-Winter-Baylee-Shelbylynns chattered about school and swim team practice and movies. The Rose girls—the teenage category after us—came in, tanned and gorgeous. They sat together and ignored us Violets.

  Lacey Jane picked at her fingernails. I went over my recitation, neatly written out on notebook paper. To make sure I wouldn’t stumble over the prehistoric names, those words were printed in red ink. Bambi tuned her ukulele.

  Mr. Randolph announced the name of the winning Daisy. From where I sat I couldn’t see the winner being crowned, only the disappointed backs of the losers.

  Suddenly the whistle shrilled and Mrs. Randolph screeched, “Violets onstage! Line up in alphabetical order! Walk out and turn, then walk back.”

  Lacey Jane shot me a look. I thought she might say, “Good luck,” but she silently took her place at the end of t
he line, behind one of the Chanel-Winter-Baylee-Shelbylynns. Bambi Lovering flounced in front of me. The other three C-W-B-S girls went ahead of her.

  We pageant-walked straight across the stage. I remembered to keep my head toward the judges and smiled so wide the edges of my mouth cracked. The judges sat like crows on a fence.

  I was doing great until the pivot turn at the far end of the stage. Bambi’s long dress swished behind her like a fishtail, and I stepped on the hem. Her head jerked back, but she kept her balance, her smile never slipping as she hissed, “Nice going, klutz!”

  Rattled, I reversed the pattern of the pageant-walk, balancing on my heel instead of the ball of my foot. I clumped back across the stage as if I were wearing army boots. Through her ever-present smile, Bambi went, “Hee-hee.”

  I mustered up the nerve to check out the audience. Lynette sat in the second row, between Miss Odenia and Rudy. She gave me a thumbs-up.

  “Now it’s time to meet this bee-oo-ti-ful bunch of girls,” Mr. Randolph boomed. “Come on up, sweetheart, and tell the world your name and your life’s ambition.”

  Baylee, the first of the Chanel-Winter-Baylee-Shelbylynns, marched up, stated her name, and announced she wanted to save Canada geese from being endangered.

  “Well, that’s real nice, Miss Baylee,” Mr. Randolph said, “but I don’t think Canada geese were ever in danger. I got so many in my back field, they look at me like I should be worried!” The audience laughed.

  The next two C-W-B-Ss didn’t do any better. They both giggled, and one of them couldn’t remember her own name.

  Then it was Bambi’s turn. She glided to the front of the stage and dipped in a little curtsy.

  “My name is Bambi Amberleigh Lovering,” she said. “Amberleigh is spelled with an l-e-i-g-h, not your more common l-e-e.” That settled, she added, “My life’s ambition is to stop world hunger.”

  The audience murmured approval, and Bambi’s smile brightened another fifty watts.

  But Mr. Randolph didn’t let her off the hook so easy. “An admirable goal, Miss Bambi Amber-l-e-i-g-h. Do you have a plan?”

  “Oh, yes!” she said. “It’s so simple—all we have to do is make an extra sandwich. Say you’re fixing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for school. Make two and send the other one to the hungry people!”