The girls gasped in interest.
I rubbed my locket. “Do-over.”
Ten-second rewind.
“Hey, did you hear about April Newsome?” Jade repeated.
“Oh, you mean about smoking under the basement stairs and catching her hair on fire when she tried to put the cigarette out in her ear?” I said casually. “I hear she’s going to an alternative school.”
Dad cast a little sideways glance at me, but I couldn’t concern myself with that right now. The other girls had leaned closer to my seat.
“And I hear cigarettes aren’t the only thing she’s smoking,” I said, turning toward them and raising an eyebrow.
“Elsa!” Dad barked.
“Sorry,” I muttered. True, I was ad-libbing. But it was probably true (I didn’t even know April Newsome, but if she was sticking cigarettes in her ear and setting her hair on fire, how bright could she be?), and it felt so good for the girls to be interested in what I was saying.
“Change the subject right now,” Dad said through gritted teeth.
I twirled a piece of hair in my fingers. Was the clique’s appreciation of my gossip worth my dad’s disappointment in me? And was it worth the rumors that would be swirling all over school Monday about some girl I had never even met but who would hate me anyway as soon as she realized that the gossip could be traced back to me?
I was starting to wish I could do over my whole life.
The girls chatted while I looked out the window. I stared into the bright blue sky, trying to see the outline of the invisible moon and stars. No luck. Mom? I said in my head. Ya there?
Dad pulled into the mall parking lot. We piled out of the car. “Meet you in an hour at the food court,” he called, and I turned around and waved.
Darcy, Jade, Jen, Carter and I were headed for the department store when we passed a little earring boutique. I decided to make a quick detour to cheer myself up.
“Hey, guys, let’s check this place out,” I said.
“Your ears aren’t even pierced,” Carter pointed out.
“Not yet…,” I said slyly.
The girls exchanged glances and giggled. “You’re getting your ears pierced now?” Jade said. “Without even asking your dad?”
A lady on a stool behind the counter cleared her throat and asked if she could help us.
“How long would it take you to pierce my nose?” I asked.
The girls gasped. “Elsa!” Darcy said, but she sounded impressed.
“It doesn’t take long at all,” the woman responded.
“Less than ten seconds?” I persisted.
The lady raised a single eyebrow. “Am I being timed?”
“Kinda…. I can’t do it unless it takes less than ten seconds.”
The lady rose from her stool. “Let the countdown begin.”
The girls looked on in astonishment as the lady rubbed alcohol on my nose, held a piercing gun against one nostril and zapped in a stud.
“Ooooowwww!” I howled.
But I took a second to check myself out in the mirror…and to check out the clique’s jaws, which were practically hanging to the floor.
Okay. I’d had my fun. Now I knew what I looked like with a pierced nose.
I rubbed my locket. “Do-over.”
Suddenly, my pierced nose was becoming unpierced. The pain immediately subsided and my nose was puncture-free.
“Let the countdown begin,” the lady repeated, picking up where she had left off ten seconds before.
“Nah. Changed my mind.”
The lady sneered at me as we breezed out of the store.
“Elsa, you are seriously whacked,” Darcy murmured as we followed her to the department store.
She made a beeline to a makeup counter.
“May I help you?” the salesclerk said.
Darcy curled a lip. “No,” she said briskly. “We’ll be just fine on our own.” She turned to me. “Elsa,” she commanded, “you sit here.”
I sat on a stool at the counter in front of a mirror that magnified my face ten times. My pores looked like moon craters. Darcy started fussing over the cosmetic samples. There were little rectangles filled with creams in various shades of red, ovals filled with blues, greens and grays and dozens of lipstick tubes. My mom had never worn much of this stuff, and I didn’t know one goopy glob from another.
But Darcy did. She immediately started smearing things into my cheeks, then my eyelids, then my lips. Sometimes she’d rub off her handiwork and start over again, frowning into my face. I glanced into the mirror every once in a while, but all I could see was a larger-than-life nostril. Sometimes Jen, Jade or Carter would suggest something, but Darcy generally ignored them.
“Don’t listen to them,” she said, as if they weren’t even there. “Jen and Jade are just now learning how to blend in their eye shadow, and Carter is hopeless.”
Carter stared at the floor.
“No offense, Carter,” Darcy chirped, “but redheads have to be very careful about their color choices. Especially your shade of red…that mousy, rust-colored red.”
But no offense, I thought sarcastically, wishing just once that Carter would tell Darcy where to get off.
“And quit wearing white,” Darcy told her sternly. “Really, that goes for all of you. It washes you out.”
“But you wear white,” Jen reminded her haltingly.
“Uh, duh. I’m tan.” Darcy was rubbing something on my cheeks, moving her fingertips in a circular motion.
“What if we feel like wearing white?” I asked, squirming uncomfortably on my stool.
Darcy smirked. “Then I’ll think you don’t have enough sense to listen to good advice.” She looked at the girls. “Wear white if you want to,” she said with a saccharine-sweet smile. “I’ll just have, like, a really bad cold that day and stay far, far away so I won’t spread my germs.”
The girls giggled.
This time, I couldn’t hold my tongue. “Why are you laughing?” I asked them, totally frustrated. “She’s insulting you.”
The girls stiffened. “I’m teasing them, Elsa,” Darcy said slowly. “Friends tease each other…unless they’re so, like, uptight that they can’t take it.”
The clique nodded in agreement.
“Okay, Elsa,” Darcy said sharply. “Time to pull out the credit card. And here’s a shade of lipstick I just love, in case you want to treat your best friend to a little gift.”
I was a pretty bright girl, right? So why was it taking me so long to catch on to the rules of this game?
Dad did a double take when we met him in the food court.
“Elsa?” he said, peering at me like I was an outer-space alien.
“Hi, Dad,” I said, managing a gooey Spicy Plum smile.
“How does she look, Mr. Alden?” Darcy asked.
Dad cleared his throat. “Colorful,” he finally said. “Uh, girls, how about a bag of cookies on me?”
“Yum!” Carter replied, and they started walking toward the cookie stand. Dad gently took my arm.
“Elsa,” he whispered in my ear, “what did she use to plaster that makeup on your face? A spatula?”
I smiled sheepishly. “A little over the top?” I asked.
“Not if you’re juggling bowling pins at a birthday party with a bright red nose on your face. Otherwise…”
I nodded. “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll wash it off when I get home.”
He squeezed my hand. “It’s just that you’re so pretty the way you are. And you are only twelve, you know.”
“Actually, I’m almost thirteen, Dad,” I reminded him.
“So you like this stuff slathered all over your face?”
I sighed in frustration. “Yeah, I guess so,” I muttered, staring down at my shoes.
Dad lowered his head until we were eye to eye. “Well, I don’t think you need it. You’ve got so much going for you, honey. You’re funny, smart, sensitive, sweet…”
I twirled my finger in the air. “Who
opee. Alert the media.”
“The media may not be impressed,” Dad said gently, “but I am. You know, last time we were at the mall, I couldn’t drag you away from the dolphin posters. That’s the Elsa I know.”
My lips tightened. That Elsa was starting to seem like a distant memory.
Dad smiled. “Hey, one thing’s for certain—your new friends sure do like cookies,” he said, looking over at the cookie stand, where they were making their selections. “Let’s go pay for them.”
SIXTEEN
Darcy asked if she could stay at my house for a couple of hours after our mall trip. “We need to work on my essay,” she said.
“We do?”
“Elsa, you promised!” she said indignantly.
“Okay, okay.”
We settled into my bedroom, spilling pillows around the bed and propping our elbows on them.
“Now,” Darcy said authoritatively, “here’s what we’ll do: I’ll tell you what I want to include in my essay, and you take notes while I talk.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why am I taking notes?”
“Uh, duh. I can’t exactly talk and write at the same time.”
She handed me a pad. “Here’s what we need to include in my essay: cheerleader, dance squad—and the first person in the history of Harbin Springs Middle School to make the squad in the sixth grade—be sure to write that down. And of course we’ll need to include all the pageants I’ve won, including this fall’s swimsuit competition, where I was by far the skinniest girl in the contest—”
“Darcy,” I interrupted, “Mr. Wright said we should avoid making a list of our activities.”
She threw her hands in the air. “I can’t exactly write about what I’ve learned in seventh grade if I don’t include my most important accomplishments.”
I rested my chin on my hand. “I think he wants us to go deeper than that,” I said. “Sure, we learned about photosynthesis and percentages…but what have we learned about ourselves? About life? I think that’s what the judges of the contest will be looking for.”
Darcy examined her nails, looking bored. “Right,” she said impatiently. “That’s why you’re here. I’ll tell you about the important stuff I’ve learned and you can string the sentences together and make it sound good.”
I caught her drift. “Then I would be writing your essay, Darcy,” I said.
“Not writing it,” Darcy protested. “Just making it sound better. I’m the one who did all that stuff, after all.”
I guess I didn’t look convinced.
“Look,” she said, sitting up on the bed. “I put makeup on your face today, right? But it’s still your face. I just made it pretty. All I’m asking you to do is return the favor. You take my life and put it on paper in pretty words.” She paused, stiffening. “This is what we agreed to, after all.”
Did we? I felt like burying my head under the covers, wishing Darcy and her pretty life would just disappear.
“I can’t cheat,” I groaned.
“I’m not asking you to cheat, Miss Perfect,” Darcy said. “I’m asking you to help me. That’s what friends do. They help each other.”
“Well…” I took a deep breath. “I’ll jot down a few notes and maybe come up with a rough draft. A very rough draft. Then you’ll be on your own. Deal?”
“Right.” Darcy smiled. “Oh, by the way, Elsa…did you bring your language arts notebook home?”
“Yes….”
“Great. I left my worksheet at school. Let me borrow yours so I can write the questions down.”
I didn’t feel good about it, but…“Well…all right. But I’ve finished my homework, so write down the questions only, okay?”
She smiled. “Of course, silly.”
Do-Over Day Twelve
“Darcy? Elsa? I’d like to see you both after class.”
Omigod. It was only Monday morning, and the week was already looking shaky. Why would Mr. Wright want to see us after class? Darcy spun around in her seat to face me. She held up the palms of her hands. The other kids filed out of the classroom, and we went up to Mr. Wright’s desk.
“Yes, sir?” I said nervously.
He glanced up from a pile of papers.
“Girls,” he said. “I had a few moments to glance over your weekend homework assignment.”
My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. What had Darcy written down when she borrowed my homework?
“Here’s the thing,” Mr. Wright said matter-of-factly. “Your answers were almost identical.”
I felt my blood boiling. That Darcy! That…that snake!
Mr. Wright tapped a pencil on his desk. “I need an explanation.”
Darcy waved a hand casually in the air. “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, Mr. Wright,” she said sweetly. “Now, Elsa and I did discuss the book…I mean, she is new, and I’ve been trying to help her get settled. So maybe when I was explaining the book to her, I might have used some words and ideas that she ended up…you know…borrowing for her homework.”
That skunk!
Mr. Wright shook his head.
“This is more than just a few similar ideas,” he said, sounding sad. “One of you copied from the other.” Pause. “And I’d like to know which one.”
I clasped my sweaty palms together, wishing the floor would swallow me.
“Truly, Mr. Wright, I don’t think anyone copied,” Darcy said. “I mean, yes, when I was trying to help Elsa understand the story, she asked if she could glance at my homework, and I said okay, you know, trying to be a friend, but truly, I don’t think she would have copied.” She gazed at me. “Would you, Elsa?”
My mind raced. Do-over? But what would I do? What would I undo? I had spent the past few days trying to convince Mr. Wright that I was an airhead. I guess I’d succeeded. I was too nervous to think straight.
“Did you cheat, Elsa?” Mr. Wright asked.
No, Mr. Wright, I didn’t. If I was desperate enough to need Darcy’s help understanding a book, I might as well quit school right now. Darcy copied my homework. Isn’t it obvious?
But I had no proof. It was her word against mine, and she gave her version first. Anything I said now would make me look guilty.
I couldn’t look him in the eye. “I don’t cheat, Mr. Wright. I don’t know how this happened.”
He cleared his throat. “Neither do I, Elsa, but unless you have other information, I have no alternative but to conclude that cheating is exactly what happened. Did Darcy do her homework first, then let you look at it?”
I shrugged, feeling like I was shrinking an inch a second. Darcy stayed cool. “I guess I really don’t know what happened,” I whispered.
“Well, with only one version to choose from, I’ll assume Darcy’s story is correct, and you get a zero on your homework, Elsa.”
Tears brimmed in my eyes. I’d never had a zero in my life.
Mr. Wright looked at me sternly. “If you need extra help understanding an assignment, come to me. And it wouldn’t hurt to start paying attention in class.” He paused. “That’s all.”
I slunk out of the classroom. Betrayed.
“How could you do that to me?” I said, my voice trembling. Darcy tossed her hair over her shoulder.
“Oh, Elsa,” she scoffed. “It’s no biggie. Just one stupid homework grade. I thought my story was the best way to go because I was just sure he’d cut you some slack, you being new and all. Who knew he’d be so uptight?”
I was too humiliated to respond.
Then the thought popped into my head: Use your do-overs wisely. Finally, I was wising up. My do-overs could come in handier than I’d ever imagined. I had taken my share of hard knocks at Horror Springs Middle School. Now it was Darcy’s turn.
LaniAck: Where have U been? I haven’t heard from you in days!
DolfinGrl: Sorry. I’ve been busy getting my nose pierced.
LaniAck: Very funny. How are the Harbin Springs Slice Girls doing?
DolfinGrl: Darcy copied my homework
paper and told the teacher that I copied hers. He gave me a zero, which I think I’ll stamp on my forehead to go with my nose ring. Thanks for that friendship advice, by the way.
LaniAck: Don’t blame me! Why didn’t you tell the teacher that Darcy’s the one who cheated?
DolfinGrl: Long story. But I have a plan.
LaniAck: Tell, tell!
DolfinGrl: I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. (LOL.) Let’s just say that the most popular seventh grader at Horror Springs Middle School is about to take a little trip to the Land of the Losers.
LaniAck: TELL ME WHAT YOU’RE PLANNING!!! You’re not going to get in trouble, R U?
DolfinGrl: That’s the beauty of my plan. Risk-free to me, with maximum impact on Darcy. Can’t give you any details, and I gotta log off…Dad’s pounding on my door telling me to go to bed…but I have a secret weapon. TTYL.
I logged off and grinned, rubbing my locket. I could hardly wait for school to start the next day. That was when my secret weapon would begin taking direct aim at Darcy.
SEVENTEEN
Do-Over Day Thirteen
Part one of my plan was to pay close attention to Darcy’s habits and routines. Oh, I wasn’t obvious about it, and I was careful to keep being nice to Darcy and her clique. The more she trusted me, the more she would play into my hands. Revenge would be sweet…right?
My first Darcy Do-Over wasn’t exactly the cleverest idea I’d ever had, but it was fun. After Mr. Wright’s class, she slipped into the restroom to primp. I followed her in and watched her put a bottle of hair spray on the sink. After she brushed her hair, she reached for the hair spray without looking at it, then sprayed her hair.
I grinned and rubbed my locket. “Do-over.”
Ten-second rewind. I glanced around the room quickly and saw a bottle of window cleaner. I swapped the window cleaner for the hair spray, then slipped out before Darcy could see me.
A few seconds later, I heard her yell, “Eeeeewww!”
Do-Over Page 9
