dos and Don'ts

by Taylor Morris

  “What does this have to do with Kyle?” Kristen asked.

  “Nothing! Forget about Kyle,” I said, frustrated.

  “Well,” Kristen said, “you already have.”

  I stopped and stared at her. “Come on, Kristen,” I said when I found my voice again (with an extrasharp edge to it). “I have not forgotten about Kyle. We’re fine. I’m just really focused on this school project. Our progress reports are due tomorrow, in case you didn’t remember. We should talk about that so I can get back to work and back to my phone to text Kyle.”

  “Mickey’s right,” Lizbeth said. “We are here to talk about the project. But if you need to talk about Kyle later, we’re here for you,” she said to me.

  “Thanks, guys.”

  “So,” Lizbeth said. “Progress reports.”

  “Ms. Carter said that all we need is to show, you know, progress, and we’ll be fine,” Kristen said. “Let’s just show the questions we’ve gotten and some traffic numbers and we’re good to go.”

  “I think we should do more than that,” I said. “At least make a poster board showing traffic.”

  Kristen shrugged indifferently. “I think just talking is fine.”

  “Well, who’s going to talk?” I asked.

  Lizbeth looked guiltily between us as I waited for her to step in and say something rational. Instead she said, “Maybe we shouldn’t overthink it.”

  “Okay,” I said, like I didn’t care. “Fine by me.” Except I knew I’d think of a little something extra tonight, anyway—just to make it more special and show that I actually cared about this stuff.

  “Hey,” Kristen said, perking up. “Let’s see if my headband thing got any traffic.”

  “Sure,” Lizbeth said, pulling up the page on her phone. As we waited, I tried to calm myself into not being upset that the girls didn’t want to do any extra work on the site, not even for our reports. Then, just as the page began to show, I remembered that I had ever-so-slightly tweaked Kristen’s answer… without telling her.

  “Oh, um, by the way, Kristen,” I began.

  “Here, let me see,” she said, taking the phone from Lizbeth.

  “I forgot to tell you—”

  “What is this?” Kristen said. She looked at Lizbeth’s phone more closely. “This isn’t what I wrote. What happened to my answer?”

  “I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you,” I said, and I really was. I also didn’t want to hurt her feelings, knowing Mom didn’t agree with what she wrote. “My mom slightly disagreed with your answer so I tweaked it.”

  “Mickey,” Lizbeth said, “you should have shown this to us—or at least to Kristen—before you posted it.”

  “I told Eve,” I said quickly. Though, I wasn’t sure she’d heard it since I’d blabbed during the movie.

  “That hardly counts,” Kristen said. “Not to mention that this is the complete opposite of what I wrote.”

  What could I say? That her answer seemed like she hadn’t thought it out at all, not to mention the fact that she took forever to get it to me? No way. I had to keep the peace.

  “It’s not the complete opposite,” I said. “You’re right, I should have showed the tweaks to you guys first. I won’t do it again. But the other questions you and Eve did,” I said to Lizbeth. “They’re auto-posting today. I posted them exactly like you both wrote them. Plus, we have new questions. Did you guys see them?” I asked, knowing they hadn’t.

  “Not yet,” Lizbeth said.

  “There’s this one about split ends that Violet already answered. And just before I came over we got one about getting a cut that adds body—that’s easy. We’ll tell her to get layers.” The girls stared back, disbelieving. “I’ll check with Violet or someone,” I said, because I would.

  “Just remember that this is a group project, Mickey,” Lizbeth said. “Don’t think that you have to do all the work yourself.”

  “I don’t,” I said, although the thought of this being a solo project wasn’t so bad, especially since I had checked the site today and they hadn’t.

  “Have you guys seen Cara’s site today?” Kristen said, looking closely at the screen. “I could totally wear my new silk scarf just like that.”

  Especially when my teammates said things like that.

  I had barely put my wallet back in my cubby when a girl about my age came into the salon in tears as her mother held an arm around her and Violet inspected her oddly cut hair. It looked like someone had surprised her from behind with a pair of scissors.

  “I think we may have to lose some of the length,” Violet said as the girl cried even harder, reaching back to grasp her hair.

  “Are you sure you have to cut more?” her mom asked.

  “If it’d been left alone we might have been able to do something different,” Violet said, inspecting it more closely.

  “Well, what should I have done?” the girl asked in a slightly accusatory tone. “I already tried vinegar on it. It was disgusting! I stunk up the whole house, not to mention my head. Forget the cut, can you get the smell out?”

  “We’ll take care of both, honey,” Violet said. “Don’t worry. What made you try to use vinegar to get gum out of your hair?” Violet asked.

  “I read it online,” the girl sniffed.

  She should have read our blog, I thought. Then she’d know to use peanut butter and not vinegar. How strange! I mean, where did people get their information? Thank goodness we researched our stuff before posting.

  Violet leaned her back in the sinks. She applied an oil-like serum to the girl’s hair. “There’s still a little bit of gum in here,” she said, taking a comb and brushing gently. “Let me know if I pull too hard.”

  The girl wiped her nose and tried to settle her breathing.

  “We’ll get you fixed right up,” Violet assured her. “I have five ideas of cuts that’ll look great on you!”

  Hardly appeased, the girl huffed, “That’s the last time I take advice online.”

  I looked more closely at the girl. She looked a little familiar, but it was hard to tell with her head tipped back in the sink. Then I looked more closely and noticed her belt—a silk scarf tied around her waist. Suspiciously like the Many Ways Cara had done on her blog.

  She may have been taking Cara’s advice, but she should have been taking mine.

  CHAPTER 16

  “And so our site is doing really well. I love looking out for the girls who have written in. I’ve got to keep my eyes open for lots of great hair today. Don’t you think that’s cool?”

  “I guess,” Jonah said on our walk to school the next morning. “Hey, what was your deal Saturday night?”

  “Ugh,” I moaned, just thinking about it. “I feel bad about that. But everyone’s on my case like I don’t. I totally spaced. Did Kyle say something?”

  “We all said something,” he said. “I mean, it’s just clear how badly you spaced. You practically stood the poor guy up. He thought you were ditching him—and I mean, like, for good.”

  “No!” I said. “It was just work and the blog and Mom leaving town. There’s a lot going on, you know. The movie was the last thing on my mind.”

  “The movie and your boyfriend,” Jonah said.

  “Come on,” I said, feeling even more terrible when I thought of Kyle standing in the lobby of the theater, wondering if I was going to show up—ever again. “That’s not fair.”

  “I’m just saying,” Jonah said. “And then all day yesterday I had to watch him stare out the window at your house like a dog waiting for his owner to come home. It was straight-up pathetic.”

  “Really?” I said. “So you’re saying I’m a terrible girlfriend? Thanks, Jonah.”

  “I’m saying,” Jonah said, “that Kyle likes you a lot and you’ve been kind of ignoring him.”

  “Oh. Point taken,” I said, thinking of how I could make things up to him. “So what are you guys doing for today’s progress report?”

  “I don’t know. Probably fart the alphabet,”
he said.

  “Nice.”

  As we got to school, we spotted Kyle locking his bike up on the racks.

  “Hey, guys,” he said, smiling. Somehow he managed to look good even under a silver-and-black biking helmet.

  Jonah smacked his helmet head. “’S’up?”

  Kyle nodded his head in recognition of Jonah’s hello but he kept his eyes on me.

  “I’m outta here,” Jonah said.

  “Later, skater,” I said, and watched him walk away.

  “So how’s it going?” Kyle said, taking off his helmet. His hair was slightly smushed and damp with sweat. He ran his fingers through it, shaking it out. I wondered where the girls were and if I should tell them about the gum girl from the salon yesterday. She’d been on my mind even in the midst of everything else. I scanned the crowd of students streaming into the school, looking for her.

  “Hey,” Kyle said.

  I turned back to him. “Yeah, what? Sorry.”

  He shrugged. We started toward the school. “You’ve been kind of out of it lately.”

  “No, I haven’t,” I said quickly, but then remembered what the girls said to me just yesterday—and what Jonah said five seconds ago. “Okay, maybe I have been but I haven’t meant to be. And I’m sorry again about Saturday night.”

  “It’s no big deal,” he said, trying to be cool even though I knew he’d been really hurt—and rightfully so.

  “Yes, it is. And I promise it won’t happen again,” I said.

  He slipped his hand in mine and said, “Okay then.” We walked up to the school together. “I didn’t hear from you yesterday, either, so I just wanted to make sure everything is cool.”

  Oh no—I’d totally forgotten to text him back after I met with the girls.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again. “The salon was pretty crazy, what with Mom gone and everything. I’m not ignoring you, I promise.”

  “I know you’re not,” he said, but I think that’s exactly what he was worried about.

  “I promise to be less of a scatterbrain,” I said.

  “I don’t want you to change who you are,” he said, and I nudged him with my shoulder. He leaned over and kissed my cheek, right there in the hall. Our very first PDA. I smiled. I liked it. “I’ll see you in homeroom.”

  Kyle didn’t have to worry too much about me changing who I was, because in classic Mickey style I was a bit unprepared for our progress reports. At least, as a team I was unprepared. We’d never really figured everything out—all we’d done was have Eve pull the traffic numbers. Still, last night I’d made up a poster to show the traffic instead of just talking about it. I held it rolled up by my side.

  The girls and I met in the hall outside the Little Theater, where our assembly was being held. I did a double take when I saw Lizbeth.

  “What are you wearing?” I asked.

  “Hello to you, too,” she said.

  “What order are we going in?” Eve asked, referring to a sheet of paper. “Should someone be the main speaker?”

  “I’ll be the main speaker,” I sighed, because of course I had to take over. Then I turned back to Lizbeth and eyed the white-and-blue patterned silk scarf she wore on her head. “You can’t wear that during our presentation, Lizbeth. Seriously.”

  “Seriously. Why not?” she asked.

  “Seriously?” I asked. I couldn’t believe she was being so dense. “That’s straight off Cara’s Web site! Why are you even on her site?”

  “How do you know that I was on her site unless you were on her site?” Lizbeth asked.

  “I wasn’t!”

  “Then how do you know this is from Many Ways?” Lizbeth asked.

  “Aha!” I said, pointing to her. She knew the name of the section!

  “You guys! Knock it off,” Eve said, putting her hands up between us. “Mickey, calm down.”

  “Yeah, this is a bit extreme, even for me,” Kristen said.

  “I have to read her Web site,” I said to Lizbeth. “She’s my competition.”

  “Wait,” Eve said, stepping in. “What do you mean your competition? We’re all in this together, right?” She looked between me and Lizbeth.

  “Of course we are,” I said. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “And what’s that?” Kristen said, pointing to the poster in my hands. “I thought we decided to just talk about the growth numbers Eve sent out?”

  “I had some extra time last night,” I said. “It’s no big deal, right?”

  They all looked at me for a moment, no one saying anything. Finally Eve said, “We better get inside.”

  We walked in single file and I tried to renew my hopes that we would be at the very top of the class with the biggest numbers. I was feeling okay about it until a girl nudged around us—which would have been no big deal if the girl nudging hadn’t been wearing a silk scarf headband. Eve saw it, too.

  “It’s not that big of a deal,” she said to me. “I mean, I think I saw it in a magazine, anyway.”

  I knew she was trying to make me feel better. I wish it had worked, especially after what I saw next.

  As we walked down the aisle I spotted a girl in my history class wearing a silk scarf wrapped around her upper arm. Eve and I cut our eyes at each other. As we slipped down a row of seats, we passed a girl wearing a scarf as a choker. Kristen looked back at us, noticing now, too. Down the row, two girls wore jackets with old military patches. Another girl walking down the aisle had one sewn onto the back pocket of her jeans. Finally, Lizbeth turned to look at us, her mouth open and a look of sheer panic on her face.

  “Maybe it’s not…,” she began. But she didn’t bother finishing. By then, we all knew.

  CHAPTER 17

  Once we settled into our seats, I knew for sure that Cara’s blog had legs. Sitting on the stage with a spotlight on her was Ms. Carter with her silk scarf worn as a belt. Was it even appropriate for a teacher to be taking fashion advice from students? Didn’t that show favoritism? Hello—ethics, anyone?

  I looked around the theater to try to find Cara. I spotted her across the aisle, the ringleader wearing a scarf as a headband—a bold orange, green, and white number. She and Maggie sat a bit slumped in their seats, laughing and talking and generally seeming pretty relaxed about their upcoming report. One of her friends leaned across the aisle and pointed toward Ms. Carter and her Fashion Fixin’-inspired belt. Cara smiled and nodded. Of course she’d noticed.

  “I have butterflies,” Lizbeth said, holding her stomach. “I hate public speaking.”

  “I read online that most people fear public speaking more than they fear death,” Kristen replied.

  “It’ll be fine,” I said, seeing how pale Lizbeth looked. “I’ll do most of the talking. It’ll be over in three minutes.”

  “But everyone will be staring at us,” she said.

  “Oh, lip gloss,” Kristen said, digging in her bag.

  I was surprised to see Lizbeth so nervous. I’d seen her give presentations before and she’d been fine. I guess the anticipation was worse than the actual event.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, scrambling out of the aisle before Ms. Carter started the assembly. I glanced toward Cara as I passed her row, then tried to pretend I hadn’t when she turned her head my way.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Carter?” I said at the foot of the stage, looking up.

  She raised her brows. “Yes, Mickey?”

  “I was just wondering if my team could go first,” I said. “Um, some of the girls are having massive anxiety attacks and they just want to get it over with.” She considered for a moment. “Please?” I said. “By the way, I really like your belt.”

  Honestly, I wasn’t exactly sure what I meant by that—was I trying to call her out on reading Cara’s blog or kiss up to her to get my way? Either way it made Ms. Carter pause.

  “These are just simple progress reports, Mickey. Nothing too extravagant. But if your team would like to go first, then that’s fine by me. Are you girls ready no
w?”

  “Yes,” I said, looking back to them. Lizbeth was sinking lower in her seat. “We’re ready.”

  I got Eve’s attention and waved for them all to come up with me as Ms. Carter approached the microphone. The color dropped from Lizbeth’s face when Eve got up and motioned for them to follow.

  “I’m not ready,” Lizbeth frantically whispered as she followed me up on stage. “I’m not ready!”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “As you can see,” I said once we were onstage and had begun. I pointed to my poster board that Eve and Lizbeth held up. Kristen stood on the end staring out at Tobias, trying to get his attention. “The more often we add content, the more active our readers are. That’s why we’ve tried to put up a couple of new items each day so that there’s always something for everyone. For example, our Everyday Styles section, headed by Eve, has been really popular. I even think I see a couple of girls wearing some of these styles today!” I shaded my eyes as if the bright lights of the stage blinded me and looked out at the audience. I heard some chuckles.

  “We also found that posting in the early evening gets good responses,” Eve chimed in. “So we try to do that when we can. We also—”

  “Because we know you’re looking for tomorrow’s style!” I said. I didn’t like the sound of we try to do that when we can. We should always! And we did! Mostly. And from now on. “It’s actually a new policy of ours to post new looks by seven p.m. each evening because we know you’re looking for them!”

  “I really think this is something we could sustain even after the official project ends,” I continued. Kristen, who had been smiling adoringly down at Tobias, quickly turned her head toward me on hearing that remark. Lizbeth stood frozen and Eve was looking like she actually wanted to talk, but I didn’t mind taking one for the team.

  As we walked down the stairs from the stage and back to our seats, I said, “I think we did great. Don’t you guys?”

  “We? You did all the talking,” Kristen said.