by Sophie Bell
“Toodles, then!” Cheri called to the boys with a flit of her fingers, too concerned about an increasingly neon Iris to flirt. “How perfect that the police are chasing you, because we really must dash, too, alas.”
Iris, in a daze, still held tight to Sebastian’s hand, so Cheri yanked her by the ankles like a rope in a tug-of-war while Scarlet pushed from the waist. “You know how it is, boys,” Cheri continued. “Ice creams to choose, parties to plan, interventions to stage . . .”
“You’re having a party?” the boy with the almond-shaped eyes blurted out. “Because I’m Malik—”
“Douglas!” the sideburned one introduced himself next.
“Enchantée, truly,” Cheri said, because she was rather charmed to meet them. For vandals, they seemed like polite boys. “But we have to go now. À bientôt!” She added that last bit because she kind of did want to see them some other time.
The yelp of a police siren from the street cut short their chat. Scarlet and Cheri pulled Iris in one direction; Malik and Douglas pushed Sebastian to leave in the other. But for a moment there in midair, Graffiti Boy and Purple Girl held hands. And as they each let go, Sebastian gripped one of Iris’s bracelets and it slipped off her wrist.
She could still see him clutching it, fist to heart, as Scarlet carried her away.
Sweet and Vi-Shush
SASSAFRAS PISTACHIO, CHERI PONDERED AS SHE SKATED home the following Sunday from her volunteer gig at Helter Shelter, Sync City’s haven for strays. Caramel Raisin Rose. Because that was how she rolled. Honey Blue-Blue, since Iris hearts berries. She was making a mental menu of ice-cream flavors. And Peach Melba, especially for Opaline . . .
Cheri wondered what Darth’s favorite flavor was. She’d have to ask him. He was probably napping now up in CVUV. Cheri couldn’t very well bring a skunk to an animal shelter! And she couldn’t bring him home, either, because of her mom’s allergies. But Iris would smuggle him back to her before school tomorrow. The thought of stroking his soft fur again and telling him all about her weekend actually made Cheri look forward to Mondays.
Slappity-slappity-slappity-slappity . . . A jogger with a bullfrog’s wide mouth and webbed feet leaped past her, bringing a halt to her happy thoughts. “Ugh!” she shuddered, watching him go. “Mutants!” The last thing Cheri wanted to do was battle another army of them. If only they could beat the odds and get Opal back on their side, maybe they wouldn’t have to.
Her apartment building was just a block away. But right as she reached her corner, Cheri’s platform skates seemed to short-circuit. Sparks spat from the wheels, and with a staticky zzzt! she fizzled to a stop.
“Furi,” she said, pulling out her smartphone by the woolly green bunny ears of its crocheted case, “reboot platform roller skates.”
“I’m sorry,” came Furi’s clipped robotic response. “No can do, gurl. System Override.”
“System Override?” Cheri repeated, staring down at her feet. “Skates, don’t fail me now,” she muttered. “I’m almost home!” She tried to upload the wheels back inside the platform heels so that she could at least walk the rest of the way, but the app wouldn’t complete that function, either.
“System Override,” Furi cyber-spoke again.
Cheri stuck out her lower lip and blew a random strand of auburn hair from her eyes. She debated whether she should take off her sandals altogether and go barefoot. To gauge the distance, she glanced toward her doorway. But when Cheri looked up, her supercomputer brain didn’t just clock the precise mileage (10.4 yards, FYI). It locked onto a figure leaning there, waiting.
Little bolts of electricity fizzed from the girl’s shoulders. Grinning at Cheri like some of the sneakier cats she knew, she raised a pinkie finger to her lips and blew on it like a smoking pistol.
“System Override, my eye,” Cheri grumbled, carefully tiptoeing forward on her locked wheels. “Good thing Darth’s safe back at Club Very!” But, her mind on her menu and her menu on her mind, she summoned up her cheeriest Cheriest bestie voice and called out, “Hi, Opaline! Here to see me?”
Oh, it was indeed awkward. Awkward indeed. Inward awkdeed, which doesn’t even make sense, that’s how tense it was! Cher had not had a civilized conversation with Opal since all the Albert drama went down. She didn’t want to give anything away about the ice-cream sandwich intervention. But maybe this was her chance to soften Opal up.
Much to Cheri’s surprise, Opal shot a smile back at her. As long as Cher ignored the black lightning bolt zigzagging across her tracksuit, Opal almost looked the same as she had before she went electric. When she was Opaline Unplugged, Cheri wistfully recalled. She even thought she saw traces of her old friend in the warm brown of her eyes—until clouds of white roiled over them.
Cheri = wary.
Opal held out a lollipop. Which should have been nice of her, but just seemed weird, because that was what Iris always did. Cheri took the candy anyway and tried to smile. “Prune!” she noted. “Yum?” Remembering Opal’s nasty Smashface slam, the pruney rumor she’d started about Iris, Cheri tucked the lollipop in her tote bag instead.
“I’ll save it till after dinner,” she said.
Then both girls just stood there for what felt like forever: Opal snap-crackle-and-popping with electric currents, Cheri’s mind whirring with millions of possible outcomes of their encounter. And her nose wrinkling at Opal’s faint but foul scent.
“So, Cher,” Opal said at last. “I know I kind of lost it before over . . .” Opal paused to roll her eyes. Maybe she meant it as a way to bond with Cheri. But with her all-white sockets and voltage sizzling off her shoulders, she looked terrifying. “ Albert Feinstein,” Opal continued. “But boys come and go.”
“Oh!” Cheri said, desperate to lighten the mood. “Are there boys coming, too?” She craned her neck to search past Opal down the street.
Opal screwed her lips into a twist, and for a second Cheri thought she heard thunder. But then Opal took a deep breath through her nose and unwound her mouth again.
“It’s just an expression,” she said drily. “What I meant was, we shouldn’t let some nerd like Albert come between us when we have so much in common.”
This is what Cheri had been trying to tell Opal all along! So why did she feel so doubtful now?
“Um, yes,” Cheri agreed, calculating her next sentence extra carefully. “The four of us should definitely be besties again. I know Iris and Scarlet want that, too.”
Opal narrowed her eyes so tightly her brows nearly met above her nose. Her stick-straight hair began to rise sideways. This time Cheri definitely heard thunder.
Once more, Opaline inhaled.
“You know,” she said to Cheri, releasing her breath, “you don’t really need the Ultra Violets. You could have even more, er, sparkly fun hanging out with me, BellaBritney, and Karyn. Bring that little skunk of yours along, too. O+2 could always multiply to O+3, right?”
Cheri was not liking that math.
Opal gave her a nudge. The spot where her elbow made contact felt like it had been Tasered. “After all,” she asked a vibrating Cheri, “didn’t you used to hang out with Karyn all the time before Iris came back to Sync City?”
And before Karyn went all LIZARD! Cheri thought, aquiver. But she didn’t say it, because she hadn’t packed her polka-dot umbrella that morning. If Opal got any madder, she’d surely make it rain. “That was a long time ago,” is what she said instead. “Before you came to Chronic Prep, too, Opaline!” She tried to toss in a lighthearted laugh at the end, like “ha ha ha!” But it came out all high-pitched and trilly, like “ha-he-eek?”
In a gesture so sudden it made Cheri jump, Opal raised both hands to her face. Then she began rubbing her temples, as if she had a headache. “Cher,” she said in a low, flat tone, her head bowed. “You know, and I know, that you’re different from Iris and Scarlet. One’s a painter, the other’s a
dancer, big whoop. You’re the one with the brains.”
“Alas, ’tis true!” Cheri said with a heavy sigh, slouching against the opposite side of the doorway. “I can’t deny it.” She was still struggling to embrace her mathematic superpowers, and every morning she reminded herself it would be petty and ungracious to be jealous of her best friends’ gifts. Even if, in her heart of hearts, she still sometimes wished the Heliotropium goo had given her the dancing superpower instead.
“No!” Opal snapped in frustration. A bolt of lightning sliced through the sky. “Don’t you get it, Cheri? Your math brain is the best power of all! Who needs to draw a rainbow or dance a tango?”
Cheri shrugged. “I’d settle for a samba,” she said, imagining herself in a fabulous feathered headdress.
“Cher . . .” Opal sounded irked. “The Vi-Shush—”
“The Vi-Shush!” Cheri cried out before Opal could say another word. “That horrible place?”
“It’s not horrible!” Opal protested.
“They had bunnies in cages!” Cheri exclaimed. “They turned Darth Odor into a chemical weapon!”
“Exactly!” Opal shouted, clutching her head again as the gathering clouds clapped.
The first time the Ultra Violets had come together as a supergroup was when they stumbled across BeauTek’s top-secret lab, the Vi-Shush, on level C of the Mall of No Returns. In an epic battle, the UVs had beaten Opal’s army of mutants and freed the test monkeys. And Darth! As far as Cheri knew, Opal’s mom still worked there.
“Listen, Cheri,” Opal argued, her hair now fully horizontal. “The Vi-Shush is doing lots of cutting-edge research! Not like the silly FLab, where all they do is, like, track missing socks! With me as a one-girl electric company and you as a math whiz on roller skates, just think what we could achieve!”
“What, Opal?” Cheri demanded, all the bestie friendliness gone from her voice. “What did you have in mind?”
Opal fell silent, and the two girls stared at each other. But now it was way beyond awkward. It was . . . raw.
“I thought I could reason with you.” Opal rolled her white eyes again, like that had been the craziest idea ever. “But one way or another”—she glared at Cheri, and the thunder grumbled doomily as she spoke—“I’m going to change your mind.”
The threat sent a chill through Cheri. And suddenly the scent of Opal’s perfume seemed so overwhelming that she thought she might be sick. But she didn’t show it. She just stared back at Opaline, past the milky white clouds to the warm brown underneath, desperately searching for the sweet, shy girl she once knew. The girl who blushed when she confessed her crush on Albert Feinstein. The girl who NEVER would have thought test bunnies were okay! Was she really gone for good? How could an ice-cream sandwich ever be enough to bring her back?
“Oh, Opes,” Cheri said, sounding more sad than angry. “All I want to change now are my shoes.” The encounter had depressed her completely, but she tried to salvage a smile. “See you tomorrow at school, okay?”
Without waiting for an answer, Cheri clomped into the lobby of her building on her locked roller skates. She could hear the rain as it started to fall, stabbing the sidewalk in thick liquid spears. But she didn’t, she wouldn’t, she refused to look back at Opaline. She didn’t have to. She knew Opal was still standing there, stormy. The stench of her perfume crept out like grasping fingers, clinging to Cheri’s clothes, to her hair.
The second I’m inside my apartment, she thought, I’m taking a shower!
Just as Cher started up the stairs, a thin white line of electricity snaked through the doorway and hit her wheels. They spun to life again. Cheri lost her bearing on the bottom step. She flailed. And her smartphone crunched in her back pocket as she landed on her butt. The crocheted bunny ears didn’t do much to break her fall.
“Platform Roller Skate System Restored,” Furi reported in her tinny voice. “And owie, you are sitting on me.”
Uninvited
“IN A WORLD WHERE CHEERLEADERS HAVE SPLIT personalities and trendoids have tails . . .”
Iris did this thing where she introduced their lunch periods like movie trailers. At first she had just pretended to film the cafeteria through the frame of her fingers. But then she started recording the little videos on her smartphone.
“In a world where your lab partner just might be a mutant . . .” she continued in a mock voiceover, panning across the room.
“How come, in trailers, it’s always ‘in a world’?” Scarlet wondered, flipping open her brother’s hand-me-down Batman lunchbox with so much force that it bounced back off the tabletop, nearly catching her fingers. “Where else would it be? It’s got to be in some world or another, doesn’t it?” She unwrapped her sandwich. Tuna fish again. She wished her mom would change it up a bit.
Iris swung the lens around, zooming in on Scarlet. “Sometimes,” she said, echoing Scarlet’s comments, “in some world or another, the secret of life can be found . . .”
Scarlet held up half her lunch “. . . in a sandwich!” she chirped with a wide fake smile, tossing her head so that her ponytail whipped around as she worked the camera.
“And scene!” Iris clicked off her phone and sat down at the table. “Sync City Pictures presents Eat, Yay, Fudge: The Almost True Story of an Ice-Cream Sandwich Intervention. Scar, very persuasive. All your acting practice is really paying off!”
Cheri managed a smile. She’d sort of told Iris and Scarlet about the awkward-slash-scary-slash-depressing-slash stinky encounter with Opal yesterday afternoon. But not really. Scarlet was so obsessed with her upcoming audition for the school play, and Iris so into planning the surprise birthday party, that Cheri didn’t want to rain on their sundaes the same way Opal had rained on hers. Even if, after Opal’s latest storm, the forecast was cloudy with a chance of evil.
Cheri was a vegetarian, but she’d take a chance of meatballs over evil any day of the week.
The girls were going to e-mail everyone right after school, with a big “Shhh! Surprise!” in the subject line. Next to her lunch tray, Iris turned on her tablet and opened their guest list. At the very bottom, in swirly letters surrounded by stars and hearts and question marks, she had written with her rhinestone stylus:
“Sebastian plus two?” Scarlet read upside down off the screen. “Graffiti Boy and the other two skater punks?”
“Malik,” Cheri said, remembering their names. “And Douglas.”
“Iris,” Scarlet said sternly, “I don’t think you should see Sebastian again if you’re going to go all rainbow! We can’t let anyone know about our powers, remember? And what do we even know about those boys? What if they’re spies like the Black Swans?”
Iris just stirred her straw in her blueberry juice and sighed.
“Gosh, I hope not, but Scar’s right, RiRi,” Cheri agreed with reluctance. She believed in all kinds of star-crossed love, be it mouse-elephant, chocolate–peanut butter, or Lucy-Schroeder. But the Ultra Violets absolutely, posismurfly could not risk revealing their powers. “Rainbows are a no-no. And all your other pretty colors, too.”
Iris sighed again, a faraway look on her face. Then, to tease her two friends, she asked, “You mean colors like these?” And she flashed through a slideshow of patterns, her face quick-changing from rainbow stripes to polka dots to camo before returning to normal. “Anyway, how would I even find him again?” she said, thinking back for the trillionth time to Sebastian floating on his hoverboard, clutching her bracelet to his chest.
Unbeknownst to Iris, Cheri had already developed a Sebastian algorithm—a bunch of steps that, if followed, she was sure would lead to Graffiti Boy sooner or later, even in a place as big as Sync City. She’d run all the outcomes in her brain. But nuh-uh, Cheri was not about to say so, oh swell no. Between Iris’s uncontrollable rainbow outbursts, Scarlet forgetting her own strength, and Opaline threatening electrical storms, Cheri wasn’
t sure what to do anymore. She sat silently at the lunch table, chewing on a celery stick and contemplating a chip in her manicure. In her bag on her lap, Darth nibbled on a slice of celery, too.
With a sudden shake of her curls, Iris snapped out of her daydream. “Oh well, whatever, never mind!” she said. “Boys come and go, right?” She didn’t sound very convinced. It was more of a question than a statement. But Cheri still sat bolt upright: Opal had said the exact same thing!
“And,” Iris went on, “we already have a different ‘plus two’ to deal with.”
All three UVs turned their attention to the other side of the cafeteria.
Opaline was holding court in Nerdsville. Or what used to be Nerdsville. The girls didn’t know what to call it anymore. Before, in yet another combo of star-crossed opposites, the nerds sat next to—but never with—all the popular kids in the outpost of the cafeteria known as Trendster Nation. But now the two groups were mixed together like chocolate chips in cookie dough. The social networks had been stirred up. That should have been a good thing, the in-crowd chilling with the geeks and vice versa. It should have been . . .
So why was the vibe in the cafeteria so Debbie Downer?
Nobody seemed to be laughing much, or gossiping. Girls weren’t gathered together around their phone screens, texting or posting on their Smashface pages. Jocks weren’t playing catch with defenseless pieces of fruit. A few students on the fringes had their noses in their notebooks, finishing up assignments before the afternoon classes. Others were just holding their noses, trying not to inhale the potent pong of brussels sprout sweat socks emanating from Opal’s corner. The whole cafeteria was so quiet, they may as well have been in the library.
Cheri scanned the ceiling for any sign of clouds.
