And this is how I know Jack is under some kind of curse. Because normal boys would not think that was cool. They would flee from me like they were wearing rocket socks. But he…he didn’t. I didn’t know why. All I knew was that I really, deeply, and totally missed him and I really, deeply, and totally could have used some of his kissing.
NASCARlad:
All the guys in the band are impressed. They want to know what it’s like to date a celebrity. You must be having a great day.
DrumGrrrl:
Not. But there is one bright spot. I’ve decided to go Bad.
NASCARlad:
What does that mean exactly?
DrumGrrrl:
I’m not sure. I need a Bad role model. Can you think of someone Bad?
NASCARlad:
…
DrumGrrrl:
Someone with a devil-may-care attitude and a smart sense of fashion?
NASCARlad:
Do you mean like Mr. T?
DrumGrrrl:
GENIUS! That’s it! And it’s vintage!
NASCARlad:
Why do I feel like I’ve just done something bad and am about to get into a lot of trouble with Polly?
DrumGrrrl:
Not bad, Bad. Rhymes with RAD.
NASCARlad:
... a LOT of trouble.
DrumGrrrl:
Ha. Mr. T scoffs at trouble.
NASCARlad:
Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, I really, really wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you. Or anything Bad. I’d miss you too much.
Suddenly all the exhilaration of Badness left me and I felt kind of stupid and weepy. Maybe it was the excitement of the day. Or maybe it was just how much I ached with missing Jack.
NASCARlad:
Hey, are you still there?
DrumGrrrl:
Yeah I just…I feel kind of…
NASCARlad:
I hate how far away you are, super girl. I wish I could fly there right now, but we’re having a bit of an issue here. Plus we’re about to start shooting the video. The one of your song.
DrumGrrrl:
It’s not mine.
NASCARlad:
I wrote it for you.
Okay, and that really did make me cry. And I saw how stupid I was. Not just because I was lucky enough to have the best boyfriend in the world, but because I was on the verge of telling him that I loved him even though we’d only had TWO dates. But really, REALLY good ones.
NASCARlad:
Crap, I want to hear more about your Badness but I’ve got to run and meet Candy at the studio. I’ll IM when I get back tonight around 1 A.M. your time. Will you be there?
DrumGrrrl:
I’ll see if I can fit it into my busy schedule.
NASCARlad:
That’s what I like to hear. Be careful out there!
DrumGrrrl:
Who’s Ca—
Candy? Who was Candy? WHO IS NAMED CANDY? Voluptuous blond women with turquoise eyes and sooty lashes, who are yogis and have tattoos on their ankles and neck which, when joined together, make a special picture they’ll be glad to demonstrate for you in the privacy of their candle-filled boudoir while telling you about the time they stopped a rhinoceros from charging by smiling at it.
That’s who.
And that was who my boyfriend was going to meet.
If ever anyone was in what I learned from studying my SAT vocabulary was a miasma of despair, it was me at that moment.
Little Life Lesson 14: Once you get the candy-inspired phrase “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands” into your head, it is very challenging to get it out.
I was in danger of sinking from Bad to Sad so I asked myself: What Would Mr. T Do?
Mr. T would laugh in the face of boyfriends melting and pals out gallivanting, I decided. He would Put Glumness Aside and pull himself up by his Badstraps. Therefore, so would BadJas.
And she’d do it all wearing her white leather pants. And a fitted white wool jacket with epaulets.
Once I was dressed with Baditude I had to take Bad Action. I heard my father’s voice in my head when I had left the hotel dining room saying, You are not leaving this hotel, Jasmine.
To which, following the WWMrTD code, I replied (in my head), I pity the fool who tries to stop me.
As if to prove that the path of Badness was the lucky one for me, Polly, Roxy, and Tom logged on just before I shut down my computer.
PrincessP:
Jas! Are you okay?
SheRox:
Had any good DOUGHNUTS lately?
DrumGrrrl:
Hello, my charming pals! I’m fine. But I’m no longer Jas. From now on I am BadJas. And I have a plan. And a slogan.
PrincessP:
What are you talking about?
SheRox:
What’s your slogan?
DrumGrrrl:
WWMrTD. What Would Mr. T Do. It’s vintage.
PrincessP:
No, it’s not.
MrT:
I like it.
SheRox:
Does that mean you’re getting a Mohawk?
DrumGrrrl:
Perhaps.
PrincessP:
Don’t encourage her, Roxy. Jasmine, precious, remember when you had your last plan? The one which almost got us killed in Vegas?
DrumGrrrl:
I believe you mean the plan I had that got us all safely home in Vegas.
SheRox:
But we were all there to help you then. Now you are on your own.
DrumGrrrl:
I have the Hench Twins.
PrincessP:
I just got chills down my spine.
SheRox:
I got chills and my hands began to shake.
DrumGrrrl:
Listen, it’s brilliant. Since being a Model Daughter didn’t get me anywhere, my new plan is to get into as much trouble as possible and show my father that Venice cannot hold me. Forcing him to send me home.
PrincessP:
Ah. I see that we are using the alternate universe definition of “plan” meaning “a massively horrible idea.”
DrumGrrl:
I thought you would like it! You’re always encouraging me to take an interest in things.
PrincessP:
Things. Like, you know, paint by numbers. Or shadow puppets.
SheRox:
Shadow puppetry would be a very unique thing to have as an extracurricular for college applications.
PrincessP:
But you won’t get to fill out any college applications if you keep hanging around with your new friend Arabella.
DrumGrrrl:
Really? You interest me strangely. What is she famous for, anyway?
PrincessP:
She was recently photographed wearing a unitard. A stirrup pant unitard. Do you understand what I am telling you, Jasmine?
DrumGrrrl:
That I shouldn’t take fashion tips from her?
PrincessP:
That she is unstable.
DrumGrrrl:
Have no fear. BadJas doesn’t get involved in others’ affairs. I am going to be Cool and Aloof. My new warning label is REQUIRES DEFROSTING.
PrincessP:
I think it should be OBJECTS IN MIRROR MAY BE SMALLER THAN THEY APPEAR. At least while you are wearing your Wonderbra. Which I know you are.
DrumGrrrl:
Your powers of perception delight me, CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE.
SheRox:
Hey, what’s my warning label? I want it to be something good, like VAPORIZES ON CONTACT.
DrumGrrrl:
Perhaps CONTAINS NUTS?
MrT:
Heh, good one, Jas. What’s mine?
DrumGrrrl:
You don’t need one, Tom. Anyone who can have Roxy for a twin sister and Polly for a girlfrie
nd and not turn to a life of crime deserves a medal, not a warning label.
SheRox:
Alas, BadJas, you are mistaken. Tom’s label should be MAY CAUSE EXTREME NAUSEA. The way he looks at Polly? It’s just wrong. That kind of devotion should be limited to items with the words “chocolate covered” in their names.
PrincessP:
Can we put that discussion on layaway and focus here? I’m serious, Jas. Arabella is bad news.
DrumGrrrl:
What has she done, apart from commit crimes against fashion?
PrincessP:
Well, everyone who’s ever been close to her ends up dead.
DrumGrrrl:
That’s not true. She talked about a brother in Italian class once.
PrincessP:
But her mother and her last boyfriend are. And I think one of her best friends lost a limb.
SheRox:
According to the article you gave me, Polly, her friend only lost mobility in half of her face—
PrincessP:
Same thing practically.
SheRox:
—as a result of a freak electrolysis accident.
MrT:
And her boyfriend committed suicide. It’s not like being with her killed him.
DrumGrrrl:
Poor Arabella.
PrincessP:
And poor anyone-she-gets-close-to. If she had a celebrity scent it would be called TROUBLE.
DrumGrrrl:
Wow.
PrincessP:
I knew that would impress you.
DrumGrrrl:
Actually I was thinking that “If She Had a Celebrity Scent It’d Be Trouble,” would be an ace title for a song. I bet there could be a long drum solo.
SheRox:
I hope you will be able to play it with your one arm.
PrincessP:
THAT IS NOT FUNNY! LIMB LOSS IS NO JOKE!
DrumGrrrl:
Of course it isn’t, P. Now I would love to stay and chat, but I told Arabella I would meet her at 10 and it’s almost time, so I should dash.
PrincessP:
Ha ha.
DrumGrrrl:
Don’t wait up. Y
PrincessP:
ou’re not going to meet Arabella, Jas.
PrincessP:
Jas?
PrincessP:
Hello? What happened to REQUIRES DEFROSTING?
PrincessP:
I KNOW YOU’RE KIDDING, JASMINE.
But I wasn’t.
What I’d realized was that if even a tiny dollop of what Polly said was true, there could be nothing Badder than going to meet Arabella. I was pretty sure that the Someone she thought was threatening her would turn out to be as innocent as the gondolier earlier—whose lips I had totally stopped thinking about (THANK YOU, MAKING-OUT TEENS)—but she still seemed like a good person to stick around if you were looking for Action. Or rather, BADction. Especially BADction that was so bad it got you in the papers.
I’d just touched up my lip gloss in case any reporters were loitering around, when someone pounded on my door and said, “Open up or I’ll kill you, Jas.”
Only one kind of creature has such a winning way about itself, so I wasn’t surprised to see the Evil Henches through the peephole. However they’d totally lied because opening the door was what almost killed me. With the agony of trying not to burst into laughter when I saw what they were wearing.
Alyson was sporting brown fur boots, a brown fur micro-skirt, brown fur vest, and brown fur hat with earflaps, and carrying a brown fur muff. Veronique was ensconced in a nearly identical ensemble, except in gray fur.
“I told your dad I’d check on you,” Alyson sneered.
“And we wanted to give you this.” Veronique extracted from her muff a piece of construction paper with a gold rock glued to it. “It’s the card the seventh graders made you. The crystal is supposed to help with your healing. It’s really important to be in touch with the vibrations of the universe.”
“I feel better already,” I told her. “But you didn’t have to skin some Ewoks and get all dressed up just to give me this.”
“Oh, we didn’t. Sapphyre and I are going to meet Reggie at a club called Centrale. Do you think you could give us directions?”
My interest was piqued. “Reggie? Is he the two-comma kid?” When Veronique nodded, I said, “I’ll do better than give you directions. I’ll take you myself! I happen to be going there too.” I hadn’t planned on having companions on my journey, but we Bad are always happy to bestow the pleasure of our company upon others, especially others who want nothing to do with us.
Alyson shook her head. “Um, that was ‘we,’ meaning the two of us”—gesturing at the two people wearing fashions from a galaxy far, far away—“not ‘we’ meaning ‘And friend.’”
I gave her one of the wide-eyed looks of gratitude and surprise I’d been practicing. “You consider me a friend? I’m so touched!”
She was too speechless to even make the “in the head-slash-brain” comment that under normal circumstances would have oozed out without her even thinking, but Veronique pulled it together enough to ask, “Are you sure it’s good for you? To come out with us?”
“Tiger’s*Eye, it’s so like you to think of my well-being, but don’t worry, my social standing can take being seen with Alyson—”
“Sapphyre.”
“—even if she is dressed like an extra from Star Wars on Ice.”
“What are you wearing?” Alyson demanded. “You look like you’re ready to attend a comic-book convention as Catwoman, version two-point-loser. Are those leather pants? I can’t believe Polly would let you have white leather pants.”
“She isn’t aware of them, but I’m sure she’ll learn to love them as I do. But tell me, how do you know about comic-book conventions? You seem to be very knowledgeable. Do you have a secret life, cuz?”
Veronique gave an audible gasp but whether it was because of what I said or because of the elbow that Alyson planted in her ribs, I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that this was turning into the Best. Night. Ever. WWMrTD was definitely an excellent life motto.
Things just kept improving.
We went Badly out via the back stairs of the hotel, and wended our way toward Centrale. Veronique had just explained that their faerie names were part of a larger program of spiritual awakening adopted from Spirituality for Dummies, which included talking to the spirits of the departed, when I noticed a spotlight with a large group of people crowded around it on the edge of a canal. Correction: a large group of people, most of whom were in police uniforms.
For six weeks a sight like this would have been a dagger in my eye. I would have forced myself to look and then skulk away, never wondering why there were members of both the police and the coast guard there, or what they were doing with the crane mounted on the back of the ambulance boat.
But not BadJas.
Little Life Lesson 15: Bad loves a crime scene.
Without my even having to suggest it, my feet drifted in that direction until I was standing at the edge of the group. The light was focused on an object, and as I peered over the heads of shorter people, I saw that the object was a body. A body wearing black leggings, a black sweater, and black motorcycle boots with shiny silver buckles.
Arabella’s body.
Chapter Nine
As I watched, they pulled a sheet over Arabella’s head.
My heart started to pound and my knees got weak and I felt tears pricking at my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. Arabella dead? Oh. My. God.
For a moment my brain went completely silent trying to take it all in. Then I blurted in Italian, “This is my fault, officers. I want to make a statement.”
Or that’s what I meant to say.
What I actually said was “I’m the guilty one, Fuzz. I want to confess.” Which, while close, is not exactly the same thing in several crucial ways.
Little Life Lesson
16: Announcing you want to confess to a murder is an excellent way to go from Invisible to It Girl when surrounded by a group of police officers.
Little Life Lesson 17: Referring to the police as “Fuzz” also does wonders for your popularity.
What I meant was that I felt responsible. That if I’d taken Arabella seriously from the start and gone to the police or been more encouraging or something, none of this would have happened. But as a meaty hand closed around my upper arm, I had time to think that watching CHiPs, while very educational, might not be the best way to master the subtleties of a foreign language.
Still, it was enough for me to understand it when the voice attached to the arm said, “You again,” and I looked up and saw I was staring into the eyes of Officer Allegrini. Whose gaze wasn’t quite an application for the leadership council of the I-Heart-Jas fan club. In fact his expression was a bit on the ferocious side.
A woman in a suit said, “Take her in for questioning,” and before I knew it I was being dragged away from the crime scene to Points Unknown.
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