Whisker Wizard

by Jennifer L. Holm

  (Note to self: when famous, hire Penny as your official publicist.)

  I decided to tape a new tutorial about the “twiskers.”

  But what would make it special? I wondered.

  I thought about Fabi’s songs. She had one called “The Other Way,” about going the other way when you felt stuck in a rut. That was perfect!

  Basically, I did the exact same look but twisted my whiskers the other way.

  I uploaded the video and tagged Fabi’s username.

  Brilliant, I thought. How could she not love it?

  Now all I had to do was wait. (Well, wait and do math homework.)

  I wasn’t disappointed. The next day, Fabi tagged my video with a heart emoji!

  I knew this newfound fame could only mean my life was going to change forever. Everything would be completely different, now that I was friends with a celebrity!

  When I got home from school that day, Mom was sitting in the kitchen, reading mail.

  “Welcome home, Babymouse,” she said. “How was school?”

  “It was awesome!” I replied.

  I was going to tell her about the Fabi thing, but my mom wouldn’t know who she was. I would have to spend ten minutes explaining the internet to her, when I could be upstairs on my computer, interacting with my many fans.

  Luckily, she changed the subject.

  “You know, a big package arrived for you,” she said.

  She pointed to the dining room table, where a brown package sat waiting.

  “But I didn’t order anything,” I replied, confused.

  I grabbed a pair of scissors and ripped the package open. I was surprised to see a shiny silver gift bag inside. I slowly opened the bag. It was full of whisker products from Zany! along with a card.

  Now I was just plain bewildered.

  Did they get me mixed up with someone else? Did I win a contest I didn’t even remember entering? Was it a prank by Felicia and her friends, to trick me into putting glue or something nasty on my whiskers?

  I brought the package upstairs and carefully inspected it. The products were sealed. Seemed legit.

  Next, I looked online to make sure all the items in the bag were real Zany! products. They were, as far as I could tell.

  Lastly, I made sure the return address matched the company headquarters. It checked out, so I decided to have some fun playing around with the products. You might say I had a Zany! time.

  * * *

  I assumed the Zany! mailing was a fluke, but when I got home from school the next day, it happened again. On my doorstep were even more packages, from whisker-styling companies all over the country!

  I could barely get into the house, there were so many boxes in the way.

  I opened the boxes to discover all the top whisker products! There was whisker shampoo, conditioner, serum, mousse, mask, defrizzer, gel, and spray. They even included a whisker cap, which I learned is like a shower cap to keep your whiskers from getting wet.

  I still didn’t understand why anyone would send me all these #freebies, but it was certainly something I could get used to.

  I hoped Penny would be able to shed some light on the situation. When I saw her at school the next day, I told her what had happened. But instead of being worried, she was excited.

  “Babymouse! These companies want to sponsor you!” she explained.

  “Sponsor me?” I asked. I had never heard of that.

  “They want you to use their products and talk about them in your tutorials!” she continued.

  “Okay,” I replied slowly. “I guess I can do that.”

  It didn’t seem like a bad trade-off to get lots of free stuff in exchange for a little publicity. So when I got home from school that afternoon, I began to try out the products.

  Some were for straightening.

  Others were for curling.

  One was a highlighting dye.

  In a perfect world, I would have been patient and tried them one at a time. I would also have remembered which one was which, and what product did what. But in the end, I was so excited that I kind of used everything all at once.

  I had heard of all the products except one. There was a neon-orange tube of something called WHIZZZZKER. The label just said, “Guaranteed to give your whiskers that certain something.”

  I didn’t know what a “certain something” was, but it sounded better than an uncertain nothing. I decided to give it a try. What did I have to lose, right?

  As it turned out, the answer was…all my whiskers!

  Losing my whiskers was a major setback. How could I be the whisker wizard without my iconic Twist? If Fabi found out, would she drop me as a friend and follower?

  I needed Penny’s advice.

  It was obvious Penny didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. But what did I expect? She couldn’t possibly understand the pressure I was under. It looked like I was on my own.

  I searched my box of whisker goodies to see what I could do to fix my face.

  I stumbled across Whisker-Grow, a product from yet another #sponsor. It would supposedly make my whiskers grow back “20x” faster!

  After reading the instructions, I applied Whisker-Grow to my bare skin.

  Better not use too much, I thought. Don’t want to end up tripping over my own whiskers!

  But the next morning, my whiskers still looked exactly the same!

  Really, 20x faster? I thought. More like 20x slower! Talk about false advertising.

  But I had no time to think about it, because I would be late for school. Luckily, I found whisker extensions in my product box! (Thanks, #sponsors!) They would be handy for hiding my missing whiskers.

  * * *

  After I used Whisker-Grow and whisker extensions for a week, my whiskers grew back and my life returned to normal. Well, I guess “normal” isn’t the right word, because I was still really popular at school—and that was anything but normal.

  Anyway, in the midst of my popularity spike, someone new sent me a message.

  I didn’t want to just start talking to a random stranger—that could be dangerous!—so I looked up the Whisker Maestro online. I had gotten pretty good at looking things up on the internet. So in no time, I knew everything about this person.

  His name was Nicky. He wore a ton of makeup. He had an outlandish hairstyle (possibly a wig). But most importantly, he had fabulous whiskers.

  Nicky was what they called a whisker influencer. As the Whisker Maestro, his signature look was whiskers shaped like a musical note.

  I was flattered that he had reached out to me. I thought a little about it, and then decided to reply.

  Nicky messaged me back, and we continued texting. Soon, it was almost as if we were online friends. He even gave me advice on how to become an influencer like him! He told me what sites to go on, which kinds of posts got the most engagement, and so on.

  Nicky and I were always laughing. It really felt like the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

  I didn’t feel like I was on my own anymore, now that I was friends with Nicky. It was great to have someone new to bond with. My regular friends at school, especially Wilson, didn’t really understand what I was going through now that I was #sponsored.

  There was so much pressure. The sponsors were counting on me, and I didn’t want to let them down.

  Nicky and I could commiserate about the pressure of constantly creating new looks and filming tutorials. He even told me his little sister had filmed his videos, just like Squeak did for me! We were two peas in a pod.

  Meanwhile, I was still busy trying all the new products that came to my house. So many packages were arriving every day that I wasn’t reading the mailing labels anymore. I just assumed they were all for me, all the time.

  This was fine until I almost put Sea-Monkey eggs from my little brother’s science kit onto my whiskers.

  Gross!r />
  But it did give me an idea: if I could get Squeak to help me test the products, I could do twice as many tutorials in the same amount of time.

  And he was more than willing to participate…even though he didn’t have any whiskers.

  Nicky offered to help me out by liking my looks and using the same products. It was a whisker win-win situation! I decided to call our partnership #OperationBesties.

  Nicky and I started to work together online. We reviewed, recommended, and swapped products. Sometimes, we would just chat online for hours about absolutely nothing.

  I got a message from Nicky:

  The idea of a split screen sounded awesome! I pictured our video covered with bananas, whipped cream, gooey chocolate fudge, strawberry sauce, and a cherry on top.

  But when I looked it up online, I learned that a split screen was just two videos put next to each other. Oh well.

  Working together was fun, though. It was a lot easier to talk with someone else during a video than to do everything myself. Plus, Nicky had lots of cool technical skills, and could add filters and other special effects to our videos.

  Sometimes, it seemed weird that I had never met Nicky in real life. It was kind of unusual having a virtual-only relationship. But he and I worked so well together that I started to wonder if all my friendships should be virtual ones.

  The collaboration with Nicky seemed to be paying off. My subscribers and followers were still growing, and the likes and comments were ticking up on each of my videos.

  Just when I thought that things couldn’t get any better, I got a new alert:

  I was totally blown away. My idol, Fabi, had created a post about me! This was more than a heart emoji. It was a post specifically mentioning me by name!

  I immediately texted Nicky to tell him the good news. But just as my text went out, I got one from him.

  #OperationBesties was a total success! I felt like I was floating on air. Or sitting on top of the world. Or floating on top of the world. Or any number of the million other things people say when everything seems too good to be true.

  Nicky and I worked perfectly together. It was as if we had a Vulcan Mind-Meld. Or maybe a Whisker Mind-Meld.

  When I got to school the following Monday, something felt different. As I walked down the hallways, the other girls started to look at me funny, giving me a weird side-eye. No one ran up to me to talk about my latest look or ask for advice on how to do their whiskers. No one even acknowledged me at all (except, you know, my regular friends like Penny and Wilson).

  Instead, people started whispering when they saw me coming.

  I made a mental checklist of all the reasons why people could be talking about me.

  But no, nothing was different. Or at least, nothing about me was different.

  I took a look around. I couldn’t help but notice that more and more girls were doing their whiskers in a “note” instead of a Twist. The Whisker Maestro’s signature style!

  At first, I didn’t think anything of it, but I was a little bummed that my look wasn’t the most popular anymore.

  I tried to put it out of my head, but the musical note was taking over.

  Even on the lunch lady!

  * * *

  Things got even worse when I got home from school. There wasn’t a huge pile of products from potential sponsors. In fact, there was only one box, and it was from WHIZZZZKERS. What on earth was going on?!

  I ran upstairs with the package and dumped it on the bathroom counter. No way was I going to burn my whiskers off using that junk again.

  I’ll just go online and see my fans and feel the love, I thought. Then everything will be just fine.

  But things didn’t get any better when I logged on to my computer.

  I went to the Whisker Wizards website and saw I had lost some subscribers. I was shocked and confused.

  * * *

  The next day at school, I was in the bathroom when I overheard some girls from my grade gossiping. I was in a stall, so they couldn’t see me.

  At first, they were talking about teachers and homework and stuff, but then the conversation changed and they started talking about me!

  Could it be true?! I thought, shocked. Is the Whisker Maestro really telling everyone I used mayonnaise on my whiskers?!

  First of all, I thought Nicky and I were friends. Why would he do anything to hurt me or my reputation? Sheesh! So much for #OperationBesties!

  Second of all, it wasn’t even true! I used horseradish for my signature look, not mayonnaise.

  Third of all, what did it matter to anyone what I used on my whiskers?! They had loved my new look last week!

  I waited until their voices were gone, and then I flushed the toilet and went to wash my hands. As I looked at my face in the mirror, I noticed that my eyes looked puffy and my cheeks were pink from embarrassment.

  What did I do? What could I do?

  My twisted whiskers stared back at me, almost taunting me.

  I wondered if I should be changing my Twist look to a musical note, too. I wanted to be cool and on trend, but I didn’t want to betray my own style just to fit in. And what did it even matter? If people were avoiding me because they thought I used mayonnaise on my whiskers, they were going to avoid me whether I had a Twist or a note style.

  I was floored. Literally! I sat on the floor to think about everything that had just happened. I wanted to go home and hide under the covers forever. But there was still a whole day of school left. Ugh.

  I took a deep breath and exited the bathroom.

  SMACK!

  I ran right into the hall monitor. At first, I was relieved to see it was the same hall monitor from the week before. I knew he was a fan.

  But he handed me a detention slip—a real one—so I guess it didn’t matter.

  I didn’t understand what had happened. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and suddenly everyone had turned against me! It was all so confusing, and my feelings were more than a little hurt.

  Desperate, I turned to Penny for advice.

  “Babymouse, you have to spill the tea,” she told me.

  Spill tea? I hadn’t spilled anything since I was in kindergarten. (At least not on purpose.)

  Penny assured me that it didn’t matter what had actually happened. She said that with celebrity feuds, people only care about “juicy drama.” She convinced me to make a video telling my “side” of the story.

  I didn’t have any better ideas, so I wrote a script and practiced reading it over and over. And let me tell you, it didn’t matter how many times I practiced. As soon as the camera started rolling, I got tongue-tied like it was the first video I’d ever made.

  It ended up like this:

  I took a deep breath, uploaded the video, and refreshed the page. I was hoping that would be the end of it. I was wrong.

  Almost immediately, people started sending me comments and DMs that said my statement was offensive to people who did like to use mayonnaise on their whiskers.

  WHAT?! I thought. I couldn’t win!

  I had no problem with people using mayonnaise on their whiskers—I was just trying to say I don’t use mayonnaise on my whiskers!

  Ugh, I thought. What a headache!

  There was nothing for me to do but record another video, explaining myself yet again.

  * * *

  I was hoping this video would really be the end of it. But instead, it looked like I had just opened the floodgates on a debate about people using mayonnaise on their whiskers. Supporters started posting #TeamMayo, and haters started posting #HoldTheMayo. Then a new group of people started posting #MayoTheForceBeWithYou.

  In no time, #MayoGate had taken over the whole site!

  The Whisker Maestro didn’t hesitate to jump into the conversation. I guess I should have seen it coming. He even stooped so low as to take a clip from the original video, of me saying “The actual rumor
is that I use mayonnaise on my whiskers,” and cut it down to just “I use mayonnaise on my whiskers.”

  He posted the clip with the caption “Babymouse admits to using mayonnaise on her whiskers!”

  I couldn’t believe it. He totally took what I said out of context—on purpose! Some friend he was turning out to be….

  I tried to stop the drama by posting, “Look! I really don’t care at all about #Mayo!” But in my rush to post, I accidentally left a typo, so it read:

  Then a whole group of people with birthdays in May started sending me nasty messages.

  (Weirdly, I got a handful of support for my alleged hatred of May. Go figure.)

  This was spiraling completely out of control! Everything I did was only fanning the flames and making things worse. I decided, as hard as it was, to just stop posting and hope the thing would die down on its own.

  Unfortunately, it didn’t. A bunch of the companies that sponsored me immediately issued statements about the mayo controversy. I watched as they popped up, one by one, on my feed.