by Sophie Bell
Then the bell rang. Without a word in response, Iris got up from the table, her skin drained of rainbow shades and pale once more. Opal watched her walk back to Cheri and Scarlet. Cheri gawked at Iris, questions in her eyes, while Scarlet glowered across the aisle at her.
Iris stood still for a moment, burying her hands in her mess of hair and blinking. She looked from Cheri, to Scarlet, and then over her shoulder to Opaline.
Suddenly a rush of emotions surged through her. As nuclear as a supernova, Iris burst into light. It shot out of her—her hands, her hair, her eyes, her mouth—burning into all four corners of the cafeteria. The other kids, even Scarlet and Cheri, cried out and cowered. If Iris had blazed for any longer than that infinitesimal Planck length, she would have blinded them all.
But it was only for a Planck unit. The briefest possible measurement of time. So *phew* no faces got melted.
Her temperature rapidly dropping again, Iris gasped “Oh!” at what she’d done. Brushing past her two besties, she bolted out of the cafeteria alone.
Never Say Never, Like, Ever
{*Roman Numeral 10 Is a Big, Fat Kiss!}
SO IRIS HAD A MOMENT. A SUPERNOVA DIVA MOMENT. Who doesn’t every now and then? Anyone who doesn’t, should. Because sometimes . . .
When the weight of the world is on your shoulders . . .
When it’s (ugh) Monday . . .
When the boy you like gives you the cold shoulder before you ever make it to a second date . . .
When your once-upon-a-bestie asks you point-blank to take her back even though she has beyond betrayed you before . . .
And when, to top it all off, it’s going to take an entire bottle of conditioner to undo all the gnots in your gnarly purple bedhead . . .
Then SOMETIMES you indulge your inner diva and storm out of a cafeteria all by yourself.
Given her artistic temperament, Iris was more prone to mood swings than the other Ultra Violets. Four years of astronaut-offspring boarding school and the influence of her highly logical scientist mother had done zero to squash her overflowing feelings. Au contraire, actually. Whenever Iris tried to gulp down her emotions, they had a way of gushing back up again at some even more awkward moment. Not that that excused being rude. Or going nuclear in the cafeteria. But she knew her friends would understand. Hopefully.
Being an artist, and therefore big on symbolic gestures, Iris had stopped by Tom’s Diner on the way home from school to pick up some extra-special takeout. Then she took a soothing hot bubble bath—Darth hung out with her, soaking up the steam. After she’d wrapped her freshly washed hair in a clean towel, she texted Cher and Scar to come over (“please?”) to CVUV for an emergency meeting. And while she waited for them to arrive, she fetched a carton of ice cream from the freezer.
When Cheri and Scarlet passed through the beaded curtain into the clubhouse, they were greeted by the sight of three slices of strawberry-rhubarb, each topped with a scoop of classic vanilla.
“Let me guess . . .” Cheri said, giggling.
Iris could feel the heat coloring her cheeks as she answered, “Yes, mumble pie. It’s my turn to eat it.”
“Yum!” Scarlet swooped in and scooped up a spoonful. “The rhubarb has a real kick!” she exclaimed—while literally kicking, of course.
“And the strawberry is so sweet!” Cheri teased. “Just like you, RiRi.” She gave her friend a hug, which just made Iris blush more.
“You guys, I’m sorry I was such a diva at lunch today!” she apologized. “I’m sorry I solared out like that! The Sebastian thing has got me so bummed, and then Opal said some stuff that pushed me over the edge, I can’t even!”
“We know,” Scarlet said. She’d already finished her first piece of pie and was slicing a second. “We still love you, even when you’re a radioactive drama queen!”
Iris was so relieved she thought she might start crying again. Luckily, she was pretty cried out from the weekend. “Thanks,” she mumbled instead.
The girls settled into the clubhouse, Iris sitting sideways in the fuzzy orange egg chair, Cheri lounging across the marshmallow sofa with Darth in her lap, and Scarlet setting her second piece of strawberry-rhubarb beside the silver beanbag while she danced an impromptu lindy hop in front of the massive flower window.
“So, the suspense is making us dizzy!” she shouted, spinning to a stop. She flopped down into the beanbag and picked up her plate.
“Yes, do dish, Iris, s’il vous plaît,” Cheri said, feeding a strawberry to Darth. “What did Opal say?”
As she ran a wide-toothed comb through her wet hair, Iris repeated the conversation as best she could. She only verged toward emotional at the very end part—the part when Opal asked if the girls would take her back. The ice cream melting on her piece of mumble pie helped her keep a cool head.
“Whoa,” Scarlet said when Iris had finished.
“OMV,” Cheri agreed.
“I know!” Iris said. “I mean, this is what we’d wanted for so long—for Opaline to come back . . .”
Frum da dark side! Darth thought, though only Cheri could hear him.
“But after everything she’s done . . .” Scarlet shook her ponytail. “Cher, didn’t you say there was only, like, a one-in-gazillion chance Opal would ever turn good again?”
“Not exactly,” Cheri demurred. As her mind raced to find a formula in which her hopes were equal to or greater than the statistical data, her hair took on its magenta pink tint. “I think I said the likelihood was that she would go badder first. Which she did! With the whole poison perfume thing! So maybe she’s peaked—like on a chronological line graph. And now her rate of meanness is in decline?”
The green of Cheri’s eyes blinked with a chart that hypothetically tracked the downward progression of Opal’s evildoing.
Iris and Scarlet didn’t even bother exchanging confused glances. By now they’d gotten used to Cheri peppering her comments with mathematical terms. Terms that were kind of like the diametric opposite (see? That was one of them right there!) of her funny slips of tongue. “Mumble pie” made Iris and Scarlet laugh. “Chronological line graph” made them think. Most of the time, if they just paid attention to the rest of what Cheri was saying, they figured out her meaning. Eventually.
Iris was working on an especially snaggly knot. From behind her scrim of wet ringlets she said, “I just remember how she told me she’d ‘never ever ever’—like, ever!—get back together with us. Though that was before her birthday party disaster.”
“Never say never?” Scarlet offered. “Isn’t that what the song says?”
Each girl sat with her thoughts for a minute. Well, Scarlet didn’t sit with hers—she danced a bolero, trying to remember the rest of the lyrics to that never song. With each sharp turn she made, she considered a new side to the controversial topic of Opal’s return. Cheri had taken out her sequined lilac nail polish again and was touching up her manicure as she talked things over with Darth: Since Opal had tried to take the superpowered skunk from the Ultra Violets, his vote definitely counted. And Iris, tucking her damp strands behind her ears, tapped open her tablet computer to draft one of her helpful pros-and-cons lists. She wrote it down with her rhinestone stylus:
COOLNESS?
1. Opaline is our best friend from all the way back in kindergarten.
2. She was with us in the FLab when we got slimed by the goo, so she is an Ultra Violet, too.
3. We took a BFF vow and sealed it with wax!
4. It is totally understandable how she lost it when she saw Albert kissing Cheri. (Now that Iris was having romantic turmoil of her own, she felt a newfound sympathy for Opal on this particular point.)
5. Her powers could maybe help us fight mutants.
6. She has insider knowledge of BeauTek.
7. Everyone makes mistakes.
8. Everyone deserves a second chan
ce.
LAMENESS!
1. Opaline led a mutant uprising.
2. She started that prune-juice rumor about me!
3. She tried to take Darth from Cheri!!
4. She shot lightning bolts at Scarlet during her school play audition!!!
5. And almost electrocuted me in Chrysalis Park!!!!
6. And zombotomized most of our class at her birthday party (! x 5)
7. Where she also tried to bowl me over with high-voltage balls (! x infinity)
8. Fool us once, shame on you; fool us twice, shame on us?
Cheri came over from the sofa, Darth riding on her shoulder. Scarlet finished her bolero with a definitive foot stomp, then hooked her arms over the back of the fuzzy egg chair. Iris held up her tablet so that both girls could see the list she’d written.
“A tie,” Cheri said, noting how the pros and cons lined up.
“I can’t decide, either,” Scarlet said as she scanned the two columns. “The bottom line is, after everything that’s happened, I just don’t know if I can ever trust Opal again.”
Iris sighed. She always wanted to believe the best of people. Believe they could change for the better. But Opal had really hurt her, inside and out! Iris couldn’t help it: She felt the same as Scarlet did.
But more than just their friendships was at stake.
“I hate to be so calculating—” Iris began.
“Hey, that’s usually my jam!” Cheri interrupted. “Calculating, multiplying, dividing . . .” She and Darth high-fived at the joke.
“Seriously,” Iris said with a smile, “our personal feelings aside, we’ve got to think strategically about this, too. How can we find out what Develon Louder and Mayor Blumesberry were talking about? And Cher, you were right to bring up the poison perfume yesterday. How can we be sure it’s all been destroyed?”
Cheri read down the Coolness? column again, her eyes lingering on the points about mutants and BeauTek. “Hmm, that does add up, RiRi. Even if we don’t trust Opal, it could help to have her on our side.”
Scarlet did a backward cartwheel. “Like, keep your friends close,” she said, landing in a split on the shag rug, “and your frenemies closer.”
We Interrupt This Gym Class . . .
PSHREEEEEEEEEET!
The shrill peal of Ms. Skynyrd’s platinum whistle brought the girls in Chronic Prep’s gymporium to a halt. Scarlet had just dropped to her knees and bumped the volleyball four inches (Cheri did this calculation) before it hit the floor. It arced up over the net, bonking first a distracted Lillian, then a giggling Gillian Jensen on their identical twin heads before bouncing out of bounds and underneath the bleachers.
Darth, who was hiding there in Cheri’s bag, watched it roll by.
“Owie,” the sisters whined together, each rubbing the sore spot on the other one’s head.
Scarlet straightened up. “That was a clean shot,” she said loud enough for Ms. Skynyrd to hear, wondering why the teacher had stopped the game. “No foul play.” She glanced across the net at her opponents.
Opaline had ended up on the other team, which was just as well. The Ultra Violets were still unsure what to do about her. Since the start of school that morning, they’d been friendly—but from a distance. The way you might be with cousins you only see on holidays. Her other classmates were being even less nice—understandably, considering her recent attempt to turn them into zombos.
“Bleachers, girls!” Ms. Skynyrd commanded with a clap of her hands, completely ignoring Scarlet’s commentary. The gym teacher shoved up the sleeves of her black-and-yellow tracksuit, then gripped one of the volleyball poles and began turning it toward the other until the net resembled a giant, tightly wound scroll.
Evidently, PE was ending early today.
Breaking off into their usual cliques, all the girls took to the bleachers. Rachel Wright snapped the elastic at the end of her braid back in place. Abby O’Adams snapped her gum. Emma Appleby tugged at her shorts, which were a little too, um, that.
“Cheeky,” Iris joked as she started up the benches.
“Did Emma get taller, too?” Scarlet muttered, cutting a sidelong glance at the classmate who had outgrown her uniform. As far as Scarlet could tell, other girls were always getting taller, just not her.
“Maybe?” Cheri replied as she casually retrieved her tote bag—and their mascot. “I’m not really sure.” She actually thought Emma might have gotten a bit wider . . .
But dont sez dat! Darth thought, peeking his head out to see for himself.
Oh, I’d never! Cheri answered. That would not be nice.
The three Ultra Violets sat down on the top row of the bleachers, their backs against the wall. From the bottom bench, Opal cast a forlorn look their way, blinking her brown eyes at them like an abandoned puppy dog. Iris pretended not to notice, occupying herself with a brand-new knot in her hair. Cheri offered a mild smile before turning her attention to her suddenly fascinating manicure. Scarlet’s immediate reaction was to wrinkle her nose and raise her fist. Opal twisted back around the minute she saw that.
“Oops,” Scarlet said, switching to a small hand wave when it was already too late. “Old habits die hard.”
It was only then that the girls noticed the ginormous video monitor descending from a slot in the ceiling. Its molded corners brushed against the climbing ropes as it lowered down. All the classrooms in Chronic Prep had similar monitors, but the one in the gymporium, like the one in the auditorium, was jumbo-sized. It came to a stop just above the basketball net, which swung beneath it like scraggly white whiskers.
“A citywide announcement,” Iris said, giving up on the hair knot as Ms. Skynyrd trotted over to join the students. “This must be important.” The teacher sat next to Opal.
A sharp buzz of static crackled through the speakers, amplified by the gymporium’s fiberglass walls. Girls rushed to cover their ears as the screen blipped to life, thousands of bitmapped Technicolor rectangles gradually resolving into a single image. Beaming down at them in high-definition 3-D, her ruddy face some ten feet square, was Mayor Rosenmary Blumesberry. A silver banner emblazoned with the seal of SynchroniCity hung from her podium.
Darth let out a little squeak at the sight and burrowed back into his bag.
“But she can’t see us, right?” Scarlet asked, slouching down in her seat.
“I don’t think so,” Iris said. “I mean, cameras must be everywhere”—she scanned the gym, realizing she’d never really thought much about it before—“but wouldn’t it be hard for the mayor to speak if she was watching video images of everyone in the entire city all at the same time?”
“It’s creepy,” Scarlet stated plainly. “And not in a good horror-movie way. I wish we were still playing volleyball.” All around them, their classmates were having some version of the same conversation. All except Opal, who sat mute beside Ms. Skynyrd. The teacher was gesturing for the girls to quiet down.
“SHUSH!” suddenly boomed throughout the gymporium, stunning everyone into silence. Ms. Skynyrd slapped a hand across her mouth as if, for an instant, she thought she was the one who’d shouted it. Until she searched across the gym and spotted her bullhorn all the way on the other side. The order had been much too loud.
On-screen, the gale-force wind of the colossal shush had flipped up half of Mayor Blumesberry’s root-beer-brown hair like she’d been blasted sideways by a blow-dryer. A pair of hands came into view, briskly combing the layers back into place.
“I bet those hands belong to her personal stylist,” Cheri confided. “Can you imagine it’s somebody’s job just to follow the mayor around, freshening up her makeup and fixing her hair all day long?”
“That could be useful.” Iris frowned at her vexsome violet knot again. The curls must have gotten tangled during the volleyball game. Iris wondered, and not for the first time, if her hair had
a mind of its own.
Camera-ready once more, Mayor Blumesberry began to speak.
“Citizens of Sync City,” she said, a big smile on her face. “After the joyous celebration of Synchro de Mayo this past weekend, I’m breaking into your Tuesday to bring you this special announcement about our newest initiative—”
“BEAUTEKIFY!” The shout came from offscreen, flattening half of the mayor’s hair again. Just as the disembodied hands of the stylist re-entered the frame, the screen froze.
All the girls stared at the stalled image of a bitmapped Mayor Blumesberry, her hair vertically shocked, her eyebrows peaked in surprise, her mouth caught in an Oh! The thin teeth of the stylist’s comb sawed out in 3-D over the bleachers. In the center of the screen, dots blinked in a circle, indicating that the live stream was rebuffering.
Then the transmission kicked in again, and all the digital tiles of the still image rapidly dissolved to a live shot of the mayor blotting the shine from her cheeks with dabs of her giant powderpuff. Caught in the act, she personally froze in this new pose for another split second before the random stylist hands appeared once more to take the powderpuff away. Or try to. The mayor refused to let go, and a dusty tug-of-war took place on-screen until the stylist gave up.
“As I was saying”—the mayor fanned a hand through the air to dispel the cloud of powder—“on behalf of the city council, and with the generous sponsorship of the BeauTek Corporation, I’m proud to announce, effective immediately, Projekt BeauTekification.”
“This had better not be some lame reality show . . .” Scarlet muttered.
“Whatever it is, it can’t be good,” Iris hissed back.
“Not if BeauTek’s behind it,” Cheri seconded.
Oh swell no, Darth thirded the thought.
“Starting, hmm, about a couple of days ago now,” the mayor said, “BeauTek, er, volunteers will be in Chrysalis Park. Shampooing the trees. Waxing the grass to keep it neat and trim. Glamming up the squirrels with blue eye shadow . . .”
