by Jess Keating
But I decided that Liv was right. If shaving my legs (or Nairing them in my case because heck no to the razors) was going to get me a kiss, then it had to be worth it. I mean, maybe Nairing my legs was what a shark would do too, and therefore the perfect “take charge” idea?
Even though it was terrifying.
Diiiiiinnnnnggggg!
I scrambled for my computer mouse, clicking the “Receive Call” button. Liv’s face appeared on the monitor. She was in her bathroom, with her laptop propped up on the sink. Her hair was wrapped up in a towel.
“Hey!” she squealed. “Are you ready? Why aren’t you in the bathroom? You’re not bailing on me, are you? This is the perfect plan!”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not bailing,” I reassured her. I didn’t tell her how freaked I was about razors. Or about losing my leg hair in general. “I’m going to use Nair,” I said. “It’s supposed to last longer than shaving, and that way I don’t have to use up bathroom time until it’s time to wash it off. Daz won’t be able to bug me in here,” I said. Everything in my explanation sounded reasonable. I tried to channel my bravest, sharkiest thoughts.
“Oh, gotcha,” she said. “So you want to go at the same time?” Her eyes glimmered with excitement. “I’m so glad we’re doing this. Leilani said she started shaving her legs when she was ten!” She grabbed the can of shaving cream beside her and squirted some into her palm.
“Ew, why?” I asked, wishing I could take the words back the moment they popped out. I tried not to show Liv how much Leilani annoyed me. Especially considering I had never even met her. But still.
She shrugged. “Okay, you go too,” she said, once her leg was lathered up. “This way I can shave while you’re waiting for the Nair. How long are you supposed to leave it on?”
I shook the tube and read the label. “It says five to seven minutes,” I said. “Here goes nothing.” I opened the tube and leaned over in my chair, running a thick line up my shin. “It’s cold,” I muttered.
“Does it smell good? Maybe I’ll use some next time,” Liv said.
I took a whiff. “Oof.” My stomach lurched. “It smells like rotting plants! Gross!” Liv giggled as I spread the lotion around on my leg. It was like icing a stinky leg cake. Already my skin was beginning to tingle. As I did, Liv ran the razor from her ankle to her kneecap.
“This feels weird,” she said. “Like tugging on my leg. I think it’s working though!” She grinned to me, showing off the missing strip of shaving cream.
I smiled back. Maybe this was okay, the whole shaving thing. Maybe some things should happen whether you were ready for them or not, you know? I wiped the leftover Nair from my hands and set the timer on my computer to ding in exactly five minutes. The tingling on my skin was getting more intense, so it must be working. My hairs were probably dissolving magically under all that goo.
“So…” I ventured. “Do you have a plan for your first kiss yet?” I asked. I didn’t tell her that I’d planned an almost-date with Kevin, because I still had hopes I could forget the whole kiss part of it.
When we were younger, we had a pact to eat only things that started with the letter b. And like the kiss pact, it was her idea. She lasted two days, and after eating about a zillion bananas, broccoli, and bread, she decided it was a dumb idea. All I had to do was wait it out. Maybe this kiss pact would be the same? If she hadn’t had any luck so far, this could be the perfect way out of our pact without me looking like a little kid.
“Yes!” she squealed.
My heart fell as she dipped her razor in the water and took another swipe. “His name is Ryan! He’s one of Leilani’s friends, and ever since I moved here, he’s been super nice to me.” She sighed dreamily. “We’re all going to the movies next weekend, so I’m thinking maybe then! It’s dark and cozy in those theaters, you know?”
I frowned at my legs. The tingling was getting worse now. I imagined all the tiny hairs, slowly meeting their demise. I wasn’t surprised Liv had already met a cute guy, but how could she want to kiss him already? I’d known Kevin for years and I still didn’t feel brave enough to kiss him.
“How about you?” She shaved another clean line up her leg with the razor. “What’s the plan for Kevin?”
I peered at the timer on my screen, cringing when I saw I still had three minutes left. This was starting to hurt.
“What’s the matter?” Liv asked. She moved closer to the screen, inspecting me from a zillion miles away. “You look like you ate some bad eggs!”
I winced. “I think…” I said, leaning down close to my legs. The smell was awful, but that wasn’t my only problem. “I think something’s wrong with the Nair.” What started as tingling had now morphed into burning.
Like fire.
On the surface of the sun.
“Is burning normal? Should it hurt? Ahh, it’s really stinging now!” I panicked, zipping around my room, trying to get some cool air onto my legs. “Oww!”
“I don’t know! Maybe you should wipe some off and see!” Liv’s eyes were wide. She was still gripping her razor but didn’t budge from the screen.
I scrambled for the cool, damp towel that I’d stolen from the bathroom earlier. Swiping at my knee, I felt an instant blast of coolness.
“Oh God, what is that?” Liv screeched.
I stared down at my knee. “No, no, no!” I said. The dread in my stomach mixed with the smell of the Nair threatened to make me puke. Angry red bumps stared back at me, covering the entire section of my leg that I’d cleaned off.
I was hairless, all right. But now I was also a leper.
“Go take it off! Now, Ana!” Liv yelled. “With water!”
“I gotta go!” I said between clenched teeth. I didn’t want to seem like a giant baby here, but wow this hurt. I beelined for the bathroom and hopped in the tub, turning on the cold water. And because the world can’t give me one single, stupid break, Daz burst in the room.
“Hey! I was just coming in here. I have to pee!” He paused, taking in the sight of me standing in the tub in my shorts, frantically clawing at my legs, and the angry, red welts that were sprouting all over them.
“What’s all that? Ooh, dude, that looks like a horror movie!” He leaned in excitedly and swiped at some of the Nair on the towel with his fingertip. He sniffed it. “Gah! What is this?! It smells like zombies!”
“Get out of here!” I yelled, then clutched at his shirt sleeve. “Is Mom home?!” I could feel hot tears streaming down my face. It hurt too much to care about. I twisted the faucet to even colder water.
Daz scratched his head, looking worried. “No, she’s with the lions. Do you want me to call an ambulance?” His face was serious.
“No!” I screamed. “I don’t know! It kills!”
Daz dashed from the room, returning a couple minutes later with Dad in tow. “Don’t worry! I got Dad!”
“Okay, sweetheart,” Dad said. He gripped under my armpits with his hands. “Let’s get you out of here so I can check you over,” Dad said, pulling me toward him. I couldn’t remember the last time I wanted my parents so bad.
So much for being tough and taking charge of my life.
I bet there have been zero sharks in history that needed their fathers to save them from Nair attacks.
It took a few minutes to calm me down, but once Dad gave me one of the antiallergy pills from the medicine cabinet, the burning began to calm down.
“You had an allergic reaction,” Dad explained. He handed me a glass of cold lemonade. “Did you talk to your mother about using Nair on your legs? I think she’s allergic too,” he said.
Well, that information might have been nice before I slathered it all over myself.
I shook my head. “Liv and I wanted to do it together,” I said. I didn’t tell him about our kiss pact (hello, he’s my dad and how embarrassing would that be?), but I did t
ell him that it was Liv’s idea and that I was simply trying to avoid using his razor, which was sort of a white lie, but partly true, right?
“Ana,” he said sternly. “I know she’s your best friend. But what works for her might not always work for you, and that’s okay. And next time, talk to your mother or me if you want to try some weird product.” He sniffed the air. “That stuff stinks, kiddo.”
I swallowed hard. Sometimes I didn’t get parents. Usually, Mom and Dad are always going on about me doing things that I’m afraid of, like presenting in front of people and trying to eat artichokes for the first time. They say it’s good to do things that you aren’t ready for, right? It meant you were brave or fighting against your fears.
Or something.
Now I was getting lectured to not try new things without running it by them? Couldn’t they make up their minds?
“On the upside,” Dad said, his face breaking into a smile, “at least we know Daz isn’t allergic.”
“Huh?” he asked, plunking down beside us with his own lemonade. A strip of his eyebrow, right at the edge of his left eye, was missing.
Dad wrapped his arm around Daz, who squirmed under the weight. “Did you touch some of the Nair, Daz? And then touch your face perhaps?” His shoulders shook with laughter.
I giggled as Daz checked out his reflection in the toaster. A smear of Nair was still streaked by his temple, beside the missing half of his eyebrow.
“Aww, man,” he said, wiping the cream with his sleeve.
“You look like a Picasso painting!” I yelled, pointing at him. “Bahahaha!” I toppled over beside Dad. Okay, so the allergic reaction totally sucked, but Daz losing his eyebrow? Pretty much made this whole thing worth it.
“Wait till your mother hears this one,” Dad said, and shook his head with fake pity.
Chapter 17
Great white sharks can sense electric fields.
—Animal Wisdom
Can they sense people who lie through their teeth and pretend to be your friend by helping you shop for swimsuits? Didn’t think so.
They say traumatic situations can give you a whole new perspective.
That’s partly true, because after that whole Nair experience, you wouldn’t catch me within ten feet of that evil goop again. But the part that didn’t change about my perspective was how much I wanted to get back at Ashley. Somehow, the fiery welts on my legs had made me even angrier.
I needed to dig deep. Put on my big girl panties and all that.
So the next day, armed with a fresh set of almost spot free legs, I showed up to the Adventure Zone. But now things would be different. I wasn’t going to kid myself this time. Ashley was a jerk. She was a two-faced pretender who tricked me, and though I felt ridiculously stupid about it, I would hold my head high and be the bigger man.
Woman.
Whatever.
And my number-one priority? I would think of the perfect revenge.
Ashley was organizing a display of shark jaws when I stepped beyond the tarp.
She looked up. “Hey,” she said softly.
Seriously? After she sabotages me, she has the guts to say hello?
No. I told myself. Don’t fall for it again. Ashley is not your friend. She’s probably worried about looking bad in front of Patricia, now that I know the truth.
Instead of responding, I glared at her. Let her see what it feels like. I even tried to raise my eyebrows in that super-haughty way that I’d seen her use at school.
“Ana,” Patricia said. “Welcome back.” She reached out and squeezed my shoulder. She was trying to be extra nice, but I didn’t want to think about it. Not now, when I was doing my best to give Ashley the cold shoulder.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said. “Logan is gone for the day, and I need you guys to prepare for Saturday’s grand opening. We need to have this place completely cleaned and tidied, okay? Ashley can do floors, and you can clean the tank windows.”
“Okay,” I said. I didn’t mean for my voice to sound so cold, but could she blame me? I couldn’t help but notice that all around me, scary creatures were circling. Ashley outside the tanks, and sharks inside them.
I ignored Ashley as I set off to the back room to collect the cleaning supplies. For the next half hour, I spritzed all of the tanks with cleaner, wiping them down with paper towels. The silence in the room spread out around us like a storm cloud, angry with rain and ready to burst.
I didn’t hear Ashley approach me at the sea dragon tanks. “How’s it going?” she asked. Her voice was low and hesitant.
I gave her my best “I’m above this conversation” look. “What does it matter to you?” I said coldly. Ugh, I was so bad at this. Already I felt guilty and jerky and stupid all wrapped up into a ball of mean. But I couldn’t give in. She had proven who she was.
Be the shark.
Her face morphed into an angry mask. “What’s your problem, Ana?! I thought we could forget about all this and get back to normal, okay? Is that so wrong? Why are you being such a pill?!” She crossed her arms over her chest.
I snorted. “Oh, sure. Just forget that you’re a total jerk and you tricked me into actually liking you for a moment. Not gonna happen, sorry.” My face burned so hot I was afraid the water around me would start steaming.
Her mouth tipped down at the corners, and her eyes narrowed. “I told you I didn’t do anything. You were the one who’se name wasn’t on that journal! And I wasn’t tricking you! Thanks for telling Patricia I did it! I’m the one who should be angry at you!”
I rolled my eyes. “Yep. My name randomly decided to wipe itself off, and that cage magically opened by itself.” I stood up from the tank. “You were the only person here, Ashley! It’s not like I would sabotage myself.”
The air was cool around us, but it felt thick and sticky, like tar, to me. Like I was stuck in a pool of messed-up feelings and couldn’t get out. “Look. I promised I’d help you with your presentation, and I’m not a lying jerk, so I will, if you want. But that’s it.” I kept my voice hard.
She sniffed, but her face turned icy. It was like watching a switch go off inside her head. One moment, she was angry. The next, like she was a robot. How did someone get so good at turning off their emotions like that?
“I don’t need any more help,” she spat. “I made flash cards from everything to study, and Patricia told me I could use my notebook if anyone has questions that stump me. So I will,” she said simply. She clutched the blue notebook I had given her to her chest. A dark flicker of amusement blipped inside of me when I thought about my own blue notebook and how it was filled with every mean thing about Ashley that I could think of.
“Fine,” I said.
Ugh. I hate the word fine. It means anything but fine and everyone knows it. But I didn’t care.
“I don’t know why you’re being so immature here.” Ashley’s lip curled in disgust. “I didn’t do anything. You’re the one being a whiner about everything.”
A whiner?!
My insides felt like they were cracking at the seams. I glared at the notebook in her arms, wanting to grab it from her and rip it to tiny pieces. I bet she wouldn’t feel so confident if she didn’t have her precious notes.
That’s when the idea hit me.
It wasn’t nice.
It wasn’t like me at all.
But it was definitely a shark idea, and that had to be a good thing.
Memories of my first crocodile presentation came flooding back. The snarky look on Ashley’s face when she was hoping so badly for me to mess up. The way she tried to film the whole thing, so she could put it on the Internet for future generations to see how much of a loser I was.
The idea wrapped around my heart like a boa constrictor, squeezing me desperately. She’d tried to ruin my presentation.
So maybe my perfect sharky plan wo
uld be to ruin hers.
No, I wasn’t going to cause a scene and make her forget her notes or anything. That would probably end up with me looking stupid somehow. Instead, I could switch my notebook for hers.
It was obvious she was nervous and would need her notes, right? So instead of opening her notebook and seeing shark notes when she needed them, she would see all the reasons she was a total backstabbing jerk to me.
It was simple.
It was brilliant.
I just needed some help to get it done.
“Good luck,” I said sharply.
I knew what I needed to do.
Later that night, I left a note in Daz’s room, tapped to the side of Oscar’s tank.
Daz,
It’s me. Remember how I said I might need your help with something? Meet me by the scorpions in the Americas Pavilion at 4:30 tomorrow afternoon. I’ll explain everything then.
—A
P. S. Burn this letter. No wait, don’t do that. You’ll probably set the house on fire and Mom will freak. But seriously, tear it up and eat it or something. This is top-secret business. <>
Chapter 18
Cuttlefish can blend seamlessly into their surroundings by changing color.
—Animal Wisdom
Think like a cuttlefish. Think like a cuttlefish.
So it turns out that being a criminal is a lot more nerve-racking than it sounds.
The next day, I waited until our work was almost done and excused myself early, with my stomach performing Cirque du Soleil’s latest acrobatic routine. Ashley didn’t bat an eyelash, and Patricia was so busy getting ready for the opening tomorrow that she barely knew we were even there in the first place.
Nobody knew that I didn’t really have a stomachache. Nobody saw me double back around the exhibit and sneak over to the Americas Pavilion. The scorpion exhibit was dark, with glow-in-the-dark posters of bugs all around. It was the perfect place to hatch my plan without anyone hearing.
