Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
about the author
praise for how i found the perfect dress
“Teenaged girls who like a little fantasy with their romance will thoroughly enjoy this sequel . . . Amusing and delightful.”
—VOYA
“Morgan returns as funny as ever.”
—TeensReadToo.com, Gold Star Award
“I literally could not stop reading this book. It had me in its clutches from the moment I opened it and started reading the first page! I was thrilled to see the return of one of my favorite heroines . . . hilariously entertaining . . . a seriously fantastic book.” —Teen Book Review
“Full of sarcastic, witty humor, more hysterical magical beings, and meddling faeries. Wood has created an absolutely wonderful, sparkling read.” —The Compulsive Reader
why i let my hair grow out
“[This] is a rockin’ book! It includes a dude who is madly in love with a toad . . . a talking horse; several extremely hot guys; magical mysteries . . . and much more that makes me recommend it . . . extremely highly.”
—E. Lockhart, author of The Boyfriend List
“This romantic and magical adventure had me cheering and laughing out loud. I can’t wait for the sequel!”
—Sarah Mlynowski, author of Spells & Sleeping Bags
“Great storytelling . . . makes a strong case that to enjoy and live life, ‘to thine own self be true’ . . . Teen readers will jam with the heroine.” —Midwest Book Review
“The perfect mix of real life, romance, and magic.”
—Wendy Mass, author of Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life
“For readers who like just a bit of fantasy with their reality . . . Even if you have no hair issues, you are sure to find this book well worth your reading time. I highly recommend it.”
—Flamingnet, Top Choice Award
“This is a funny, smart book that readers are sure to love!”
—TeensReadToo.com, Gold Star Award
praise for the novels of
maryrose wood
“Irresistible . . . hers is a voice that is way plugged in.”
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Uproariously funny . . . strong, pitch-perfect narration will easily win readers.” —Booklist
“Will provide hours of laughter and empathetic nods from readers.” —School Library Journal
“Pure entertainment.” —Kirkus Reviews
Berkley JAM titles by Maryrose Wood
WHY I LET MY HAIR GROW OUT
HOW I FOUND THE PERFECT DRESS
WHAT I WORE TO SAVE THE WORLD
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This book is an original publication of The Berkley Publishing Group.
WHAT I WORE TO SAVE THE WORLD
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Copyright © 2009 by Maryrose Wood.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
BERKLEY® JAM and the JAM logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley JAM trade paperback edition / December 2009
eISBN : 978-1-101-15167-9
An application to register this book for cataloging has been submitted to the Library of Congress.
http://us.penguingroup.com
For Peaches, Ralph and Lil, who prove that “unlikely” does not mean anything remotely like “impossible.”
acknowledgments
Thanks to my agent, Elizabeth Kaplan, editor Jessica Wade, publicist Caitlin Brown and all the lovely people at Berkley JAM. Special thanks to illustrator Sarah Howell and designer Monica Benalcazar for yet another magically eye-catching cover.
Many thanks to the readers of this series! You are a hilarious bunch of incurable romantics, and your e-mails always brighten my day.
And remember, you don’t have to be a half-goddess to save the world. I hope each of you will find some way, large or small, to make your own communities a better place to live. Clean up a park, tutor a kid, visit a nursing home or volunteer for a cause you believe in. Maybe you could even run for office! You’ve got my vote.
Maryrose Wood
July 21, 2009
one
“and so, in the immortal words of polonius—”
“In the words of Shakespeare, he means,” Sarah hissed in my ear. “Polonius was fictional! God, that ex-boyfriend of yours is such a dweeb—”
Raph stepped back from the mike and adjusted the tassel that hung over the edge of his mortarboard an eighth of an inch to the right. Apparently it had slipped from the perfect photo op-ready angle.
“ ‘ To thine own self be true,’ ” he intoned, nodding like he’d just thought of it.
Some goofball guys in the seats up front whooped with fake enthusiasm, but I couldn’t see who they were. Sarah and I were seated in the back with the rest of the juniors, way out past where the white tents cast some badly needed shade over the graduating seniors and their guests.
The metal folding chairs were heating up in the sun. My cotton sundress was sticking to my legs, my legs were sticking to each other and my ass was sticking to the seat. If the school administration had actually buttered the chairs before the ceremony they could have served sunny-side-up juniors for lunch. “Hot East Norwich Teens Actually Fry to Deat
h,” the headlines would read.
At least that would have put me out of my misery. Instead, I had to watch cool-as-a-cucumber Raphael, my onetime boyfriend, now senior class president and valedictorian, as he wrapped up the Speech of His Awesome Lifetime So Far.
This was his perfect moment, the one he’d fantasized about since he was voted Most Likely to Color Inside the Lines in kindergarten. Raph on the podium. Raph at the microphone. Raph telling his classmates how to live the rest of their lives, while his proud parents snapped one flash photo after another.
“My fellow graduates of East Norwich High School!” He was practically yelling now, as he built up to his big finish. “You are ready, you are willing, you are totally able! Be true to yourselves and you cannot fail!”
The black-robed seniors jumped to their feet, cheering. Following Raph’s lead, 522 square black hats flew into the sky. Raph grinned and pumped his fists in the air like a rock star.
His girlfriend du jour, a bubbly, pretty junior named Alyssa, was sitting two rows in front of Sarah and me. She was the only junior to leap up from her seat and clap along with the seniors.
Leave it to a cheerleader to show excess enthusiasm, I thought. I wondered how long Raph would wait after graduation before ditching her. When it came to girls, Raph liked to wipe the slate clean at the end of the school year. Like emptying out your locker. This I knew from personal experience.
The senior class of East Norwich High School had been set free. The boys yelled and pounded one another’s backs; the girls hugged and cried. There was some comical ducking and evasive maneuvers as the mortarboards crash-landed back on earth.
What goes up, must come down . . . But the rules of gravity didn’t seem to apply to Raph.
“so obnoxious. it’s like he’s the freakin’ king,” sarah muttered as she washed her hands. “Why do they make the juniors sit through the ceremony, anyway? I have more valuable things to be doing on a beautiful day like today.”
Now that we were inside the air-conditioned chill of the school, I was too busy trying to peel my sweaty dress away from my body to answer right away. My face felt like it had spent the morning in a toaster oven, right under the broiler.
“Can you believe all those people are waiting outside for the Porta Potti?” Sarah shook the excess water off her hands. “Guh-ross.”
Of course, none of those poor shlubs were on a first-name basis with the school janitor. He was a major b-ball fan who was only too happy to let Sarah, star center of the school’s undefeated girls’ team, and me, her unathletic but needing-to-pee friend, into the building to use the facilities.
“Yikes. Your face is really red.” The soap dispenser by my sink was empty, so Sarah gave me a squirt from hers. “Ever hear of sunblock?”
“I forgot.”
“Skin cancer, Morgan. Wrinkles. Freckles. You have to be more careful.”
Sarah, always sensible, had been wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat all morning. On her it looked ironic-retro-glamorous, like she was the star of one of those made-for-cable movies based on a Jane Austen novel. On me, a hat like that would look like a stack of pancakes had fallen on my head.
“If I’d known they were going to leave us stranded in the desert to die . . .” I bent over the sink and gently splashed cool water on my scorched cheeks.
“I know, right?” Sarah laughed. “Why does the school administration hate the juniors so much? Maybe they’re still punishing us for what happened at prom.”
I lifted my head and saw Sarah watching me in the mirror, waiting for some kind of reaction. It’d been three months since the junior prom. All Sarah knew about my adventures that night was that, ten minutes after I’d arrived, I was sprawled on my butt in the lobby fountain of the East Norwich Country Club, dripping wet in my ironically pink prom dress and looking like I’d just woken up from a truly excellent dream.
I’d never told her what really happened, but what was I supposed to say? Should I tell her that, while she and her boyfriend, Dylan, and all the rest of our class were ooh ing and aah ing over the streamers and balloons, I’d swum through a portal to the faery realm?
Where—surprise!—I’d arrived at my own seventeenth birthday party, thrown by Titania, Queen of the Faeries, with music provided by Kiss and mosh-pit diving provided by a happy leprechaun? I’d even scored a truly magical birthday kiss from my one, my only, my true love, Colin, the freckle-faced hunk o’Irish hottie who pwned my heart, even though he lived an ocean away.
Surely that was the kind of newsworthy development that needed to be reported to my BFF, ASAP, right?
Nope. I’d never mentioned any of this to Sarah, or to anyone else, either. She and the rest of my classmates had interpreted my pink taffeta-clad water ballet as a cool and rebellious act of anti-prom performance art. So much so that nearly all of the other prom-goers had repeated the stunt at some point during the evening. Truly, it was the soggiest junior prom ever.
The school administration had not been pleased. Neither was the management of the East Norwich Country Club. The owners were frantic that those “awful teenagers” might have damaged their precious fountain. Little did they know: It takes more than some pranking kids to mess up a portal to the faery realm.
But when the principal, Mrs. Calhoun, tried to suspend any student who’d been seen going home wet, a bunch of parents (some of whom were lawyers) sent threatening letters about “the school’s liability in endangering our children by placing them in an environment known to contain hazardous bodies of water.” After that the incident was mysteriously dropped, which just goes to show that the ability of the Faery Folk to conceal all evidence of their existence pales next to the ability of East Norwich parents to protect their kids from the consequences of their own stupid behavior.
I patted my wet face gently with a paper towel before answering Sarah’s questioning look. “They just want to give us something to look forward to. Graduation: proof that our suffering will someday end.”
Then I crumpled the paper towel, tossed it at the trash can and missed. Sarah chuckled as I retrieved my bad toss. Sarah had once settled a bet between Dylan and some wiseass by burying twenty free throws in a row. The ball never touched the rim, and the wiseass had to wear Sarah’s “Chicks Rule!” T-shirt to school every day for a month.
“A year from today it’ll be us throwing our goofy black hats in the air. Oh my God, I can’t wait! College is going to be so awesome compared to this.” Sarah fluffed her hair and put the pancake hat neatly back in place. Then she looked at me with her legendary I-have-a-great-idea-that’s-against-the-rules expression. “Hey! Let’s go look at the college wall.”
“Sarah, we’re not even supposed to be in the building—”
But she was already loping out of the bathroom door into the cool, empty hallway.
It beat going back out into the sun, so I followed.
the college wall was right outside the school’s main office. It was where the guidance counselors posted copies of the seniors’ acceptance letters as they came in.
Personally, I hated the college wall. To me it was just another way for the seniors to put themselves in rank order, and I’d had enough of that kind of posturing when I was with Raph. But most of the juniors were drawn to it like pod people being summoned back to the mothership. It was as if there was some magical clue about our own futures hidden in all that official-looking correspondence.
Sarah let out a whistle. “Sweet! Two more people got into Brown.”
I didn’t bother to ask who they were. East Norwich was the kind of school where practically everyone who graduated went to college. But there was the posse of superstar seniors (led by Raph, of course) who were genetically programmed to attend Ivy League schools and for whom nothing less would do.
I figured the two future Brown undergrads must be from Raph’s crowd. Naturally, Raph had gotten into his first choice: MIT, early admission. Like there was ever any doubt.
Sarah was transfixed by the wall.
Watching her read each letter, slack-jawed with concentration, reminded me of how my little sister, Tammy, would go all glassy-eyed in front of the TV, watching the same Disney movie over and over and over . . .
“Hey, look. Curtis Moore got into Northwestern.”
“Good for him.” I kept glancing down the dim hallway to see if the security guard was coming to throw us out.
“Cute! Eileen Rossiter and Mark Schmidt are both going to Stanford.” Eileen and Mark had been a couple since middle school.
“Adorable,” I said. “I predict they’ll break up by Christmas.”
Sarah punched me in the arm. “Don’t be such a cynic.”
“What about you and Dylan?” I countered, not very nicely. “Will you be filling out ‘his and her’ college applications? Or will higher education be the end for true love?”
Sarah scowled. “It’s not funny, Morgan. Dylan has his heart set on BCM.”
The look on her face made me instantly sorry that I’d joked about it. Sarah was a star athlete with good grades, and it was just a matter of time before the basketball scholarship offers came rolling in. She would have her pick of a dozen schools. However, the Boston Conservatory of Music was not likely to be one of them.
“Sorry, bad joke. You two will work it out.” I knew all too well how hard it was to be apart from the guy you loved. “You and Dylan are meant for each other.”
What I Wore to Save the World Page 1
