“Actually, no, not at all,” she said. I let out a sigh of relief. At least we were on the right track.
“Even about the washing every day part?” Kristen clarified.
“Even that,” Violet said. “I don’t necessarily recommend washing every day. It can actually create too much buildup and weigh hair down.”
I made an obvious point of grinning at Kristen. She rolled her eyes but grinned back.
“As for the towel-drying part, that’s a good start,” Violet said. “She can also keep her hair wrapped in a towel for several minutes to try to get some of the water out. After that, give it another towel scrub with her hair flipped upside down. And when she dries it she should start from the ends and work her way up to the roots.”
“Sounds like she’ll spend a lot of time with her hair flipped,” Lizbeth said.
“True,” Violet said. “She should know that other than those little things, there’s not much she can do to dry her hair faster if it’s that thick. And remember, she doesn’t have to dry it all the way, either. She can try letting the rest air-dry and having her hair style itself naturally.” She combed out her client’s hair and turned back to us. “Does that help?”
“Totally,” I said, finishing up my notes. “Thanks so much, Violet.”
“Yeah, thanks,” the girls agreed.
“Any time,” she said.
We moved to the waiting area of the salon and I looked over what I’d written. “This is such a good start,” I said. “With Kristen’s picture and this question—which is a really good one—we have a lot of new stuff to post today.”
“So let’s get it up on the site,” Lizbeth said. “And then I’m ready for a pedicure.”
“Me too,” Kristen said. “Hard work makes me want to pamper myself.”
“Want me to take it home and do it?” Eve offered.
I looked toward Mom’s office. She was just coming back from washing her client’s hair so I quickly asked her if we could use the computer in her office.
“You may,” she said as Maxine settled in. “But I don’t want everyone going in there. One or two of you can go, but not all.”
Kristen texted the picture she’d taken to me and I got ready to type up the answer on Mom’s computer.
“Eve, come with us for pedis,” Lizbeth said.
“Or with me to post this,” I said. “You can help me write the answer.”
“I’ll fight you for her!” Kristen joked. “Come on, Eve. Work or relax—there’s no competition.”
Eve laughed and said, “I’ll work now and relax myself later.”
“I win!” I said.
“You two need a lesson in the art of pampering,” Kristen said.
“Do you guys want to see the answer before I post it or are you okay with us writing this up and publishing it?” I asked Kristen and Lizbeth.
“I say go for it,” Kristen said. “We all worked on the answer together so it’s not like we don’t know what’s going up.”
“True,” Lizbeth said. “And I’ll think up the next DIY accessory while we’re downstairs.”
“Okay, if you’re sure,” I said.
“Don’t worry, we’ll write perfect answers,” Eve said. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“If you decide to leave before we go, come down and say bye,” Lizbeth said to us.
“We will,” I said.
“I call Karen,” Kristen said as the girls started downstairs.
“No fair!” Lizbeth said, trailing after her. Karen was our best manicurist and everyone loved her.
Eve and I worked together to post everything to the site. We stayed in Mom’s office a bit longer and messed around online, looking at videos and gossip sites. When Eve finally said she had to get home, I tried to do some homework. I didn’t get much done, though, because every few minutes I jumped on the computer to see if anyone had sent in a new question or posted a comment to what we’d done so far. When you’re on the verge of an exciting change, it’s hard to concentrate.
CHAPTER 11
“I don’t understand how you can be so into a school assignment,” Jonah said the next morning on our walk to school. “You usually wait until the last thirty seconds to finish your homework and now you’re acting like this is a real job. It’s weird.”
“You’re just jealous because my assignment is actually going well,” I told him. “And I’m having fun.”
“Fine, I’m jealous,” he said. “You’re actually excited by your project. But I still think it’s weird. Mickey Wilson, kicking butt on a school assignment.”
“How’s your project going with Kyle?” I asked.
“Humph,” he muttered.
“Doesn’t sound good.”
“We were excited about it for a full two seconds, when Kyle had the idea of looking at other skate sites to see what they did,” he said.
“Hey, that was my idea,” I said. I was glad to know I had helped my friends out.
“Then that means he hasn’t done anything,” Jonah said. “We can’t get this thing going because dude has, like, no drive.”
“Really?” I asked. I’d never thought of Kyle that way. If anything, he was just a bit quiet sometimes, but I never took that for being, well, driveless.
“Yeah, sort of,” Jonah said. “I don’t want to do this project at all, but especially not by myself.”
“Well, what have you done?” I asked.
“Mickey!” he said defensively. “Lots!”
Which pretty much meant the opposite. I decided to not press the issue.
I realized once again how complicated things got when you had a boyfriend. Was I supposed to talk to Kyle about this? Or was I supposed to keep my mouth shut? Could I help Jonah without telling Kyle he’d said something?
“Wait up!” we heard. I turned to see Kyle running across the street, having just been dropped off by his mom. “Hey,” he said, jogging up beside me.
“Hi,” I said, a huge smile spreading across my face at the sight of him.
“I was just telling Mickey how lazy you’ve been about our project,” Jonah said, slapping Kyle’s hand in greeting.
“Dude, I’ve been working,” Kyle said as we walked up to the school. “You just keep shooting down my ideas.”
“You’ve had two ideas,” Jonah said. “And one of them was Mickey’s.”
“Well, what ideas have you had?” Kyle said.
“The whole skate thing was my idea, plus the name,” Jonah said.
“Fine,” Kyle said. “I’ll brainstorm some stuff today. Happy?”
“Yes, now I am. See you later, then,” Jonah said and headed inside.
You know what’s funny? That wasn’t sarcasm in Kyle’s statement. And that wasn’t even really a fight he and Jonah just had—more of a letting out of annoyances. And suddenly, it was over. The thing that had been bothering Jonah about Kyle had been aired and resolved in about a minute.
Sometimes guys made it look so easy.
“So what are you guys calling your blog?” I asked.
“SINACIR,” he said.
“Sin-a-sir?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
“An acronym Jonah came up with—Skating Is Not a Crime in Rockford.”
“Oh boy,” I said. If that was all they had, they were in trouble.
“You didn’t know?” Kyle asked, tugging on the strings of his gray hoodie. “I mean, you haven’t been to our site yet to check it out?”
“Well, no,” I said, suddenly feeling guilty for not even having thought to look. “Have you been to ours?”
“Every day,” he said. “I even thought about asking a question but couldn’t think of any problems with my hair.”
“Well, it is stellar hair,” I said, reaching up to ruffle it. “You’re lucky you don’t have a cowlick like Jonah’s.”
“Hey, speaking of the brilliant brain boy,” Kyle said. “Are we on for this weekend with Jonah and Eve? We’re thinking movies on Saturday night.”
&n
bsp; “Yeah,” I said, realizing how excited I still was to be asked out on a date. “I’m in.”
“Cool,” he said. “You have work, right?”
I nodded.
“So let’s meet at the theater at six thirty. Sound good?”
“Perfect,” I said.
“See you at lunch, then.”
Before I could even get to my first class, I was swarmed by my friends.
“Did you see it?” Lizbeth asked, her eyes wide and her hair looking a little like she’d been raking her hands through it. Normally she brushed it between (or during) every class. Now it looked a little raggedy.
“It is so not cool,” Kristen said, her arms crossed, shaking her head.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Come on, we’ll show you,” Eve said.
We walked into homeroom and found a computer.
But then Eve didn’t pull up our blog. She pulled up Cara’s blog.
I’d been so wrapped up in our small successes with DIY Do’s and making sure it got going that I hadn’t even thought of looking at anyone else’s project. Now that Eve was pulling up another site, I became very curious—and suspicious.
I barely had a moment to take in the eggshell color of the site with cool, faded pastels and straightforward font and all its whiteness and blankness and blah. Eve clicked quickly through (so expertly that I figured she must’ve been there a few times before) and took us right to a large sidebar on the right called Today’s Style.
A picture of Emma Sealy, who I had history with, came up. Beneath the photo of Emma standing with her hand on her popped-out hip read: “Today we’re loving Emma’s fem, flowing, sheer top paired with cropped and torn jeans. Girly tough!”
“I can’t believe it,” I said, staring at the photo. It was just like our Do of the Day!
“Yeah, and check out the description,” Eve said, aiming the cursor to just above the photo. “‘Get noticed! Your styles are the best inspiration for us, so we’ll search the halls every day for great looks to highlight here. Because you’re our style icons!’”
Why would she do this to us? Copy our idea after dissing my mom’s salon?
Somewhere in the background, the bell rang. None of us moved.
“If that doesn’t make you want to be a hacker just to delete the whole site,” Kristen said, “I don’t know what will.”
“Should we ask her about it?” Eve suggested. “Has anyone actually talked to her?”
“She can’t do that,” I said, ignoring Eve. I could hardly breathe. I felt frozen with anger. “That’s like fraud or something.”
“For real,” Kristen said.
“You guys, I have to tell you something,” I said. Suddenly the run-in I had with Cara in the hall the other day was very relevant to our blog. “I ran into Cara yesterday and you know what she said to me? She basically said she’d never go to Hello, Gorgeous!, like, ever. And remember what she said to me about where we got our advice from? She wanted to make sure we didn’t get it all from the salon. I’m telling you, this girl has some problem with me and my mom’s salon and I’m just saying—that’s not cool. All you have to do is look at this.” I gestured back to the computer and Today’s Style.
“She really said all that?” Kristen asked.
“Yes!”
“But why?” she said. “I didn’t think she had a problem with you.”
“Neither did I, but I guess I was wrong,” I said.
We sat quietly for a moment, thinking about why Cara would do this to us.
Eve stared at the monitor and said, “Well, you have to admit that maybe this isn’t the most original idea.”
“Thanks a lot,” Lizbeth said.
“That’s not what I mean,” Eve said. “It’s just that I think some magazines and other sites have this, too.”
“Name one,” Kristen said.
Eve slumped in her chair. “I don’t know. It’s, like, on-the-street style.”
I wasn’t sure why she was so quick to defend Cara, but it really didn’t matter. As far as I was concerned, if Cara Fredericks wanted a battle, she’d get one.
“I think we have to step it up,” I said, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “Maybe we need to be more creative.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing with Do of the Day,” Lizbeth said.
“It’s not enough,” I said. “Clearly. We could have, like, a Hollywood glam style section or maybe, like… a ponytail day! Choose a day that everyone wears a ponytail and take pictures of all the different styles. That’d totally get buzz all over the school. But we have to do something. Don’t you guys agree?”
Kristen muttered something under her breath but I ignored her. She’d barely contributed anything as it was.
“We better get to class,” Eve said, closing the browser. “We can brainstorm at lunch.” She gathered up her bag and hitched it over her shoulder. We all turned toward the classroom door.
“I happen to think that what we’re doing is good enough,” Kristen said.
“Great companies weren’t built on ‘good enough,’” I said as we entered the empty, quiet hall. “No one ever said Coke was ‘good enough.’ We have to keep pushing.”
“I think I might need a nap before homeroom,” Kristen said. She waved her hand around my head and said, “All this energy.”
I shrugged. Kristen could think what she wanted, but I felt pretty clear—we had to kill the competition.
CHAPTER 12
In second-period math, I tried to concentrate as I calculated the mean, median, and mode of the worksheet Ms. Warner had given us. I couldn’t help but take breaks every two seconds to jot down other notes in my notebook for DIY Do’s. (Weekly guest expert? Contest to win styling session at Hello, Gorgeous!?) What was Cara’s problem? We came up with the idea first, so what was her problem with me? Clearly this was personal and she was out to get me. I knew I could either confront her head-on and ask her what her deal was, or I could shut her down completely with the success of my blog.
As I worked, Madison Howell leaned across the aisle and tapped her pencil on my desk.
“Hey,” she said, eyeing Ms. Warner. Madison’s extralong, extraglam hair hung over her desk, tucked behind her ear on the side.
“Hey,” I whispered back, hoping she didn’t ask me about the math problems. I struggled with algebra.
“My friends and I love your blog,” she said.
“Really?” I asked.
She looked up at Ms. Warner again, and this time as she turned her head I noticed her hair wasn’t tucked behind her ear, but clipped back—with a button barrette, just like we had posted! Hers had vintage sea-glass buttons on it. So cute!
“Your clip looks really good,” I told her. “Can I take a pic after class for the blog?”
“Sure!” she said. Madison pointed behind her with her pencil to Sasha Clemens, who was listening. “We did them last night.”
“She did, I watched,” Sasha said. “But I love the site, too. Great stuff, Mickey.”
“Thanks,” I said. Cara may have stolen our idea, but she could never outstyle us.
“Girls,” Ms. Warner said from her desk, and we turned back to our worksheets. Getting praise from them felt good and I wanted to enjoy it, but I still couldn’t help wondering if Cara and Maggie were getting praised, too.
Through the rest of the day, I kept a close watch on the girls in my classes to see who else had possibly visited our blog. Two girls came up to me to say they really liked the site, and I spotted another girl wearing the DIY barrette we’d shown. I took her picture like I did with Madison and Sasha.
“Thanks!” Jane said after I snapped her picture.
“I really love your site. It has so much good info on it,” the other girl said, touching her barrette. “My best friend, Megan, was on Cara Fredericks’s blog just the other day. Hers is great, too. You’ve seen it, right?”
I shrugged noncommittally, like I hadn’t heard or didn’t care. “Th
anks for the pic. We’ll put it up later today.”
Before lunch, Eve posted an easy everyday look, complete with step-by-step instructions and a picture from a magazine she’d found. I even found a quick moment to post the barrette pics to the site.
For a little while that day I allowed myself to bask in the glory of our new success and I have to say, it felt good.
Still, in the midst of my own success I saw signs of Cara’s. I saw three girls wearing vintage military patches sewn onto cargo pants and jean jackets and thought that it probably wasn’t a coincidence—lots of girls were obviously reading her blog, too.
After lunch as I walked to my locker, I spotted Cara alone. I gathered my courage (and controlled my anger) and approached her. I realized I couldn’t pretend like something wasn’t happening, because clearly it was.
“Hey, Cara,” I said, walking up beside her.
“Mickey,” she said. “Hey.”
“How’s your project going?” I asked.
“My blog is awesome,” she said.
“That’s good,” I said, waiting for her to ask about mine. When she didn’t, I said, “DIY Do’s is amazing.”
“What is that?”
Oh, please! Like she didn’t know! “It’s my blog,” I said, controlling my tone. “The one I’m doing with Eve, Lizbeth, and Kristen. You haven’t seen it?”
“Um, I’ve checked out a few in class,” she said, stalling as though she were trying to remember mine. “Maybe.”
She kept her eyes locked forward and seemed to be avoiding looking at me. Even though I was going out of my way by walking with her, I kept going. “I saw your new section, Today’s Style. That’s a good idea.”
“Yeah, it just sort of came to me last night.”
“Really? Just, poof? Came to you?”
“Yeah, it did,” she said, cutting her eyes at me. “Everything is so of-the-moment, you know? What’s in style today could be totally ugh tomorrow.”
“Right. Ugh tomorrow,” I said. “So, remember how we talked about linking to each other’s blogs? I was thinking we could do, like, a head-to-toe look, with me doing the hair and you doing the clothes.”
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