Cinderella looked from Belle to the sign and back again. “What would your mom say?”
“It doesn’t matter, it’s my decision. I’m tired of being treated like a baby. It’s like the car thing earlier. I should know when I’m ready to do something, but my mom doesn’t get that.” Belle was getting frustrated having to explain herself to Cinderella. “I’m doing it,” she said.
“Okay,” said Cinderella, trying to smooth the situation, “I wasn’t trying to talk you out of it, but do you want to wait? Make sure it’s something you really want to do?”
“No,” Belle replied, and she motioned for the girl behind the counter. The clerk appeared to be in her early twenties, with a lower layer of magenta hair showing through the black strands that rested on top. She had several piercings going all the way up one ear and a diamond stud in her nose.
“Okay,” Cinderella hesitated. “But are you sure you want her to do it?” she whispered.
“Are you kidding me?” Belle asked. “Look at her!” she added, holding her hand out. “She looks like she has plenty of experience.”
Cinderella hurried over to where Aurora was holding up two pairs of earrings for the others, trying to pick the best ones.
“Belle’s getting her belly button pierced.”
“Really?”
“What?”
“Why?” The three responses came out as one. Almost immediately, Cinderella turned around and the others followed. She led them back toward the front of the store where Belle was now lying on a bench, her shirt pulled up part way.
“You sure?” Snow White asked.
“I think it’s cool,” said Aurora.
“You would,” retorted Ariel.
“Doesn’t she have to have her mom’s permission or anything?” Cinderella asked the clerk. Belle shot her a menacing look.
“Oh yeah,” the girl said, looking from one cousin to the next. “Are you eighteen?” she asked, her eyes finally landing back on Belle. Belle looked at her cousins, waiting to see who would rat her out first, but no one said a word. The girl rolled her eyes. “Look, this is my last day so I really don’t care just as long as your parents aren’t going to hunt me down and sue me or anything. I assume you’re not going to tell them?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.
Belle looked at Cinderella, her eyes narrowing into tiny slits. Cinderella shook her head. “I’m sorry, I’m done,” she said, raising her hands in defeat. Belle looked back to the clerk and, without responding, pulled her shirt up again. Then, as the gun drew closer to her soft, tan naval, Belle shut her eyes tight and sucked in a deep breath.
Chapter Thirteen
Around 2:30 that afternoon the Princess sisters were running through the mall in a race to see who could get to the food court first. With their perfectly formed legs, the twins arrived first, only a few seconds apart. Cinderella was a close third and Snow White, to her surprise and delight, was not last. When Belle tried running, she found she was suddenly very aware of the new addition shaking in her skin as she ran. Without thinking, she kept slowing down to clutch her stomach. Her running turned into a brisk walk from one end of the mall to the other.
Mary gave them a stern look when they arrived, but then she grinned and handed them each some cash for lunch. They all briefly separated to get food from the large variety of restaurants while Mary saved a table in the middle of the cafeteria-like setting. Cinderella came back with her slice of pizza and a coke to take over guard duty while Mary got some lunch for herself. Then Snow White appeared with her Chick-Fil-A sandwich and waffle fries, followed by Aurora with a taco salad and Belle with some fettuccini alfredo. Mary came back to the table next and they all looked curiously around them for Ariel. A few minutes later she came strolling up with a tray full of something that resembled colorful balls of slime.
“What’s that?” Snow White asked, crinkling her nose.
“Sushi.”
The following “EW!” was so loud several people sitting nearby turned and stared.
“Oh come on, it’s not gross.”
“Have you actually tried it before?”
“Well no, but I’ve always wanted to. Come on, in all the movies we watch they always go out for sushi.”
“Yes,” said Mary, “But I don’t think they get it from a shopping mall.”
Ariel looked around at all the eager faces watching her. She picked up the nearest roll between her thumb and index finger, dipped it in her paper container of soy sauce and placed the entire thing in her mouth. It was bigger than she had expected so Ariel found herself with very puffy cheeks, rolling the rice, seaweed, cucumber mix around on her tongue as she tried to chew. When she was finally able to swallow, she smiled at the others.
“That’s not bad!”
“If you liked that, honey, I should take you out for the real stuff sometime,” Mary said with a wink.
“You like sushi?” Belle asked her mom in surprise.
“Yeah! It’s really good!” she said, picking up a piece from Ariel’s tray and placing it in her mouth. Ariel thought Mary made it look much more graceful than she had probably looked. Then after swallowing, Mary added, “Yup. I definitely need to take you out for the real stuff.”
They casually chatted as they finished eating their multi-cultural meal. Belle, who didn’t like being shown up by anyone, finally tried one of Ariel’s California rolls. She was able to eat the whole thing without gagging once, although she did make the amateur mistake of trying to eat her roll in a few small bites and rice went everywhere.
As they were dumping the wrappings from their food in the trash, Snow White spoke up.
“So are you going to tell your mom?” Belle gave her youngest cousin a look of death. Then after thinking for a moment, she turned to Mary and relayed the story of their earlier encounter with the angry lady from the department store.
“That’s not so bad,” she said. “I was kicked out of a restaurant once for being too loud.”
Belle was more shocked by the sushi story than this one, so she said nothing. Then Mary turned to the others and waved goodbye as she headed out the doors to her car. She had finished her shopping, but the girls insisted they weren’t done yet. So Mary had agreed, after a bribery of waffle fries, to come back and pick them up in two hours.
“What was that for?” Belle gave Snow White an angry push with her hand.
“Sorry!” Snow White replied, shrugging.
“No harm done,” Cinderella added, coming between them. “You covered it up nicely,” she added, looking at Belle.
The Princess sisters made their way to the other side of the mall and entered a store with beautiful Homecoming dresses on display in the front windows.
“Let’s try them on!” Aurora said excitedly, rushing into the store. The other four looked around at each other and shrugged before following her in. When they caught up to her, Aurora was already holding up two dresses and looking at them against her body in the 3-way mirror.
“Put them on!” Ariel said.
“Which one?”
“Why choose? Try them both!”
Aurora looked again at her reflection and grinned. “Okay!” She hurried toward the dressing rooms and then paused. “You guys all have to try some on too!”
“We’ll be right behind you,” said Cinderella. She then began flipping through a rack of lavender gowns to her left. The other three, giddy with excitement, spread out through the store. Once they each had a decent armload, they too scampered for the dressing rooms.
A door on the far end opened just as they approached and out stepped Aurora in an emerald, floor-length dress. She was stunning! Everyone stopped and awed.
“Hurry in!” She waved them forward.
“Can we all fit?” Snow White asked.
“Yes, but hurry.” Aurora glanced in either direction before pulling the fitting room door closed behind them.
The Princess sisters found themselves in the largest fitting room, with a wood bench along one wall and a wide, ful
l-length mirror just behind the door. Aurora took charge, gathering up each girl’s dresses and hanging them from the three hooks on the wall to the left of the door. Her four cousins sat squished beside each other on the thin bench, so only one pair of feet could be seen at a time beneath the door. Aurora slid out of the figure-hugging gown and returned it to the hanger before slipping back into her khaki capris and tight, pink shirt.
“Who’s next?” she asked, facing the others with her hands on her hips.
“I’ll go!” Belle jumped to her feet. She reached for a cerulean blue dress with a silver beaded flower pattern along the breast and bottom trim. Once the dress was over her head and pulled down into place, Belle attempted a battle with the zipper in which the zipper won. No matter how she twisted and squirmed and bent her arms in awkward positions, Belle was unable to get that silly thing up the last two inches. Cinderella finally got to her feet and, without a word, easily pulled the zipper into place. Just as she returned to the bench, Belle turned around and the other girls all gasped.
“You look incredible!”
“Wow!”
“That’s it, the first dance you get asked to, we are coming back for that dress!” exclaimed Aurora.
“You really think so?” asked Belle, examining her reflection. Her voice carried doubt, but the way she flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and continued to smile at her own image from every angle suggested that she knew exactly how stunning she looked.
The girls continued to take turns trying on various dresses, in many cases all five of them putting on the same dress to see who looked best in what color and which style. It took some coaxing from her cousins to get Snow White to participate, but she eventually joined in too.
Cinderella stood in front of the others, showing off a peach colored knee-length dress with lots of ruffles, which resulted in a burst of loud laughter, quickly followed by the cousins covering each others’ mouths so the workers wouldn’t discover the five girls crammed into one dressing room. The contrast between the frilly dress and her combat boots was too much for the girls to handle. The Princess sisters were still fighting back laughter, when they overheard some voices in the next fitting room. The four girls sitting on the bench lowered their camera phones and subconsciously leaned closer to the adjoining wall.
“What is it?” Cinderella asked. Aurora, who was closest to the voices, silently brought her index finger to her lips and waved Cinderella forward. She quietly obeyed and was soon listening to what sounded like three girls in the stall next door.
“So what was inside the balloons?”
“Hershey kisses! And then his name was on one of those little papers inside the kiss!”
“Awwwwwww! That’s the best way ever!”
“How do you think he’ll ask you this year?”
“I dunno. It’ll be hard to beat.”
“I just hope I get asked better this year. Remember the pumpkin?”
“Oh man, that was so gross!”
“I don’t know what he was thinking. Like I’d go to a dance with someone who wanted me to stick my hand in pumpkin guts!”
“Ew! Who was it?”
“I don’t remember. Some nerdy guy who had a crush on me I think.”
“Hey, you never told me how you answered Brad.”
“Oh yeah! Well first I got some of those glow-in-the-dark stars…”
The Princess sisters never got to hear the end of her response because the three girls had left the dressing rooms and were walking away. They all looked around at each other, some with raised eyebrows and others with confused, furrowed brows.
“What do you think they were talking about?” asked Belle, finally voicing their silent question.
“It had something to do with getting asked to a dance…” Snow White’s voice trailed off.
“Let’s ask Dave,” said Cinderella. “He’s been to school dances, he might know.”
The Princess sisters’ curiosity was piqued now. They had no more desire to try on dresses and take pictures of each other posing. Instead, they hurriedly scooped up the pile of gowns and dumped them just outside the dressing rooms. They then made their way back through the mall to be picked up by Mary so they could go home and investigate.
Chapter Fourteen
“So let’s say you wanted to ask me to Homecoming. You’d put a plate of brownies on my front porch with a poem or something rather than call and ask me?” Belle looked at Dave hard, waiting for him to crack and say he was making the whole thing up. But he just smiled back at her.
Dave had been getting the mail when the Princess sisters pulled up. They were all out of the car and ambushing him before Mary even had the chance to turn off the engine. After tossing four letters and a magazine onto his porch, Dave followed them inside and up to Belle’s room. They all sat sprawled over Belle’s bed as well as the blankets on the floor from the previous night, listening intently as Dave explained the confusing conversation they had overheard at the mall.
“That’s right,” he said.
“Weird,” said Snow White, shaking her head.
“It’s a lot more fun this way!” Dave added. “And believe it or not, it’s way less scary!”
“Scary?” asked Aurora.
“Yeah, the thought of having a girl reject you to your face…that sucks. This way you get rejected through a note or something else. It’s not nearly as bad.”
“When have you ever been rejected?” asked Cinderella.
“Well, no one would reject me,” Dave said in a haughty voice as he ran his hand over his dark hair. “But I’m sure it would suck for all those other guys.” Then Dave smiled his ever-charming smile and the girls forgot about giving him a hard time for being cocky.
“So how do you know who the person is that’s asking you?” Ariel spoke up.
“Oh man, that’s the best part! You hide your name!”
“What?!”
Dave sighed and looked from one anxious girl to the next. All eyes were on him. The corners of his mouth twitched slightly. He had never held so captive an audience and Dave found it amusing how concerned they were for learning the ways of high school. He sat up on his knees and raised his hands for dramatic affect.
“Well,” he finally began, “When you ask someone to a dance you don’t merely put something on their porch. You write something funny or ‘cute’” he made air quotes with this last word and grimaced slightly at the sound. “Then you hide your name inside it and the person has to search through everything to discover who asked them!”
“I don’t get it,” Snow White whispered to Cinderella. But Dave overheard.
“Let me give you some ideas...” he folded and unfolded his arms as he loudly pondered “Hmmmmmm.” He then tapped his pointer finger against his chin. It only took the girls a few moments to realize he was trying to be funny.
“Dave!” they all shouted as he started laughing.
“Okay, okay, okay! Once I asked a girl to a dance with popcorn.”
“Popcorn? How romantic!” Belle said, batting her eyelashes in an equally obnoxious way. Dave just glared at her before continuing.
“Yes. First, I had a friend drop off a big tub of butter at her house.” The girls exchanged glances but said nothing this time. “Then we went back an hour later with three big garbage bags full of air-popped popcorn and a sign that said: Just thought I’d butter you up before popping the question. Will you go to Prom with me? My name was printed on a little piece of paper hidden in one of the bags.”
The Princess sisters all smiled up at him. There was no laughing now. Dave could tell they were impressed.
“That’s actually really cute!” Cinderella said.
“Aw! You ruined it! Cool. Let’s just say it was cool.”
Now it was time for the girls to laugh. They all mimicked Dave in their best man voices.
“Cool. It was cool.”
“Shut up,” he said, rolling his eyes.
“So wait...” started Aurora. �
�Then how do you answer someone? Do you just call them up and say yes?”
“Of course not,” said Dave, rather smugly. “You answer in a fun way too.”
“Example?” asked Belle.
“I had a girl answer once with a huge jar full of M&M’s. The note said: If there is an even number of candies, I’ll go with you. If there is an odd number...eat one!”
“That’s cu...ool,” said Ariel, recovering quickly.
“Tell us some more examples,” said Cinderella, unconsciously scooting closer.
“Let’s see...” Dave said, doing his thoughtful chin-tap again. “Oh! I asked a girl to the Christmas dance once by going to her house and making a trail from her entryway to her bathroom with Hershey kisses.”
“How did you get in? Did you talk to her parents?” Snow White interrupted.
“No I broke in...Of course I asked her parents!” Dave shook his head and then continued. “Then I left a dozen roses in her shower. The sign said: Now that I’ve kissed the ground you walk on and showered you with roses, will you go to the dance with me?” Dave got the exact reaction he was looking for. All five of them made the typical girl noise in unison.
“Awwwwwww!”
“Her answer was the best too! She covered my bedroom floor in Starbursts and said: Check the starburst for my answer. I spent hours opening starburst wrappers and didn’t find anything! That night when I lay down in bed, I looked up and in glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling was a big YES.”
“That seems mean!” said Cinderella. “Making you spend all that time looking for nothing!”
“It was actually a lot of fun!” said Dave. “When I saw the stars, I just laughed cause I knew she liked me. See, the harder you make it, the more you like a person.”
“Because that makes so much sense,” said Ariel, throwing her hands up.
“No, I’m serious!” Dave said. “I know it sounds crazy, but the bigger the display, whether good or bad, the more effort the person put into it. Meaning they must like you. Get it?”
“Kinda like hitting the girl you liked on the playground when you were little?” asked Ariel.
The Princess Sisters (The Princess Sisters Series) Page 8
