Picture-Perfect

by Laura Dower

  “Aren’t you in Mr. Danehy’s section?” Madison asked the girl after a while.

  “Yes,” the girl said softly. She introduced herself as Carmen, but she didn’t have much to say after that. She barely even smiled.

  The longer Madison looked, she saw that Carmen wasn’t just pretty, she was prettier than pretty. Her long, thick, black hair rolled down her shoulders, and she had light, hazel-colored eyes. Carmen dressed really nicely too, like some magazine models. Her fingers and arms were long and thin and her skin was a pale brown color, as if she’d been to a tanning salon or something.

  Carmen wore a plain sweater and spoke in a whisper, but none of that mattered to Madison. She stood there wishing that she looked and talked the same way as Carmen. She was suddenly self-conscious about her clothes, her hair, and even her feet. Madison quickly checked her own sweater for fear that she had food stuck on the front or cuffs. Carmen had on leather shoes with tiny buckles. Madison had on old sneakers.

  “Line up in alphabetical order!” their homeroom teacher demanded.

  It turned out that Carmen’s last name was Forrest; and she ended up right behind Madison Finn for the duration of the fire drill. No one was supposed to talk, but Madison leaned in to talk anyway.

  “Do you like Nikki?” Madison asked after a moment or two of silence.

  Carmen shook her head. “Not really.”

  “Oh,” Madison said. “How come? I think she’s the coolest—”

  “She’s okay,” Carmen said, cutting her off.

  “Oh,” Madison snapped back. She didn’t understand why Carmen had to be rude all of a sudden like that. Carmen was obviously like all the pretty girls. The prettiest girls in school always acted supersnobby.

  Madison decided right there that Carmen was a supersnob.

  “Okay,” the teacher said. “We’re going to file back into the school quietly, and you should all report directly to your next period class. Is that clear?”

  Everyone pushed a little as they headed back into school. Madison’s eyes scanned the crowd for signs of Aimee or Fiona.

  Did they know Carmen?

  Did they have any more ideas about the chaperone for the concert?

  Where were they?

  Up ahead, Madison saw a familiar, brown, curly head.

  Hart Jones.

  She hurried to catch up with him, but other kids kept getting in the way. Hart was probably headed up to art class, the same destination as Madison. She’d chosen art as a spring elective, and luckily Hart had ended up in the same section. They’d only met for class once before, so they hadn’t picked final seats yet. Madison hoped that she’d be seated near her crush.

  As they headed into the school lobby, Madison nearly went flying. Egg caught her elbow. He’d been right behind her the whole time.

  He was chattering on and on about some stupid new video game that he’d bought. He was obsessed with computers. Of course Madison loved them just as much, in a different way. But listening to Egg could get so boring—so fast.

  Up ahead, Madison still had her eye on Hart, plowing through the crowd with his backpack on his back. But as he turned to head up the stairwell toward the art classroom on the fifth floor, Madison noticed something she hadn’t seen before.

  Hart was walking with another girl.

  And that girl was Carmen.

  Chapter 4

  THE ART ASSIGNMENT IN class was to draw a still life. Madison hung her head down in despair. She was floundering.

  Mr. Duane, the art teacher, stood over Madison’s desk, arms crossed, and looked at what she’d drawn so far.

  “Is that a pear?” he asked, pointing to a green blob in the corner. “And is that a bowl?”

  Madison shook her head. “That’s supposed to be a hand.”

  “Oh,” Mr. Duane said, patting her back lightly. “Well, keep trying.”

  They’d only been in class for ten minutes, and Madison already felt as if she were choking on old air. The greenhouse space where they took art classes was filled with warm, spring light, but it made Madison itchy all over.

  Even worse, Hart was sitting across the room next to Carmen.

  The students were organized into a semicircle. Everyone was drawing a still life of a bowl of fruit from a different perspective. Madison got stuck with the side that had a pile of pears. It seemed like everyone else was drawing way more interesting fruit, like bananas, apples, and grapes. Madison was sick of the green smudge on her paper.

  She tore it off her desk pad and started another drawing.

  Mr. Duane had made his way around the room by then to Carmen’s desk. Madison watched as a smile spread across his face.

  “Very fine,” he complimented her, patting her back, too. “Lovely colors and use of the shapes.”

  Madison wanted to wipe the smile off Carmen’s face, but she went back to drawing the fruit instead.

  A few moments later, Mr. Duane excused himself. In addition to being the drawing, painting, and sculpting teacher, he was also the photography instructor. He had forgotten to turn off the faucets in the darkroom. He’d leave the art students for five minutes to draw.

  “Why don’t we turn on a little music for you,” he said, turning on a beat-up-looking black radio and tape deck in the corner of the room. Classical music filled the air as he escaped into the dark room.

  No sooner had he disappeared than some kids rushed the radio.

  “Mr. Duane’s music stinks,” they said, and changed to a more popular radio station. Pop sounds filled the air.

  I wanna be closer still

  There’s a place in my heart that you fill

  Madison perked up. It was a Nikki song! Luckily, everyone voted to turn up that station. Madison even started humming along. Everyone was.

  I could be sugar-sweet like you

  Sugar, sugar-sweet

  The pears on Madison’s paper actually seemed to look better as she sang along with the radio.

  A few moments later, Egg’s sister Mariah came into the art studio, and things got even better.

  “What’s up, Maddie?” Mariah asked, stopping next to Madison’s stool.

  “Hey,” Madison said. She looked up at Mariah’s cool orange hairdo. She was wearing all of her earrings in all of her pierces today, even though it was against the rules.

  “Cool art,” Mariah said, pointing to Madison’s desk.

  “Really?” Madison said with disbelief. “You don’t think they look like trolls?”

  “Oh,” Mariah said. “What are they supposed to be?”

  Madison sighed. “Pears.”

  “Oh,” Mariah said again, recovering. “Yeah, I see it now. I was just looking at it from the wrong angle. Pears.”

  Mariah had come upstairs to drop off a few canvases from her freshman art project. She was one of the most talented artists at Far Hills Junior High, and Mr. Duane was helping her with a special spring exhibition of her work.

  “What else is new?” Mariah asked.

  “Well, we won tickets to a concert on the radio,” Madison said. “A Nikki concert.”

  “For real?” Mariah said. “Who won? You and Aim and that new girl Fiona?”

  “Yup. Only problem is that we need to find a chaperone now.”

  “Why not your mom?” Mariah suggested. “She’s cool.”

  “I don’t think we want to go with a mom,” Madison said. “What about you?”

  “I’m not old enough to be a chaperone, Maddie,” Mariah said. “I mean, I would if I could, but—hey, you’ll find someone else. I don’t like that Nikki chick anyhow. She’s so fake. Look, I gotta run.”

  Madison waved good-bye as Mariah walked into the back part of the art studio. A cloud of gloom settled back over her art desk.

  The pears were still just smudges.

  The Nikki song had stopped playing.

  At lunch, Madison had been the number-one cheerleader for Nikki and the concert, but now she was feeling decidedly unoptimistic about the whole pla
n.

  Mr. Duane came back into the class and asked everyone around the room to stand up and share. This was the part of art elective that Madison, even after only one class, had begun to dread.

  The idea was to walk around the room in a circle and examine everyone else’s art. That way, you could see how a group of people sitting in the same room looking at the same objects could see something so differently.

  Madison walked to the desk next to hers and was happy to see more messy pictures like hers. Not everyone in the room was a natural artist; thankfully, she wasn’t alone.

  Around the room, some kids had drawn amazing pictures, however.

  Madison stopped to stare an extra-long time at Carmen’s art. She’d drawn a beautiful bowl of fruit that actually looked like fruit.

  Hart’s picture was good, too. Madison hadn’t realized that in addition to being cute and funny, he could draw, too. She felt one of those deep-down pangs that only a crush delivers. Then she nervously saw that he was now standing directly across the room in front of her pears.

  Gulp.

  “Hey, Finnster!” Hart called out softly. He hadn’t said hello before that, but now he was yelling across the classroom.

  How embarrassing.

  “What are these supposed to be?” he said, chuckling. Hart gave her a big thumbs-up. She wanted to melt into the floor. Was Carmen smiling?

  “Now, class!” Mr. Duane announced as everyone arrived back at their original seats. “I have an assignment for you.”

  “Homework for art!” one kid cried. “Are you serious?”

  “Of course,” Mr. Duane said without batting an eyelash. “I’d like you to try drawing something else for the next class. In pencil.”

  “What?” the same kid yelled.

  “Are you trying to get on my nerves?” Mr. Duane said.

  The class laughed. The kid shut up.

  “Now, as I was saying,” Mr. Duane continued. “I’d like you all to draw a self-portrait for next week’s class.”

  Madison’s stomach flip-flopped. “Self-portrait?” she asked aloud, without even realizing it.

  “You mean like in a mirror?” Hart asked next.

  “Exactly,” Mr. Duane said. “Examine yourself in a mirror, and then draw what you see. The important thing with this assignment is that you should draw the details like facts. Draw as if your face were a group of simple shapes, just as you did today with the apples and grapes. Try to toss away your ideas about what a face should look like. Follow the lines and curves you see in the mirror….”

  Mr. Duane’s voice faded into white noise.

  Madison wanted to run away. Her self-portrait would be nothing more than a page full of black-and-white blobs, just like the green blobs that were supposed to have been pears. Blobs were pretty much all she saw when she looked in the mirror lately, too.

  Across the room, Hart and Carmen appeared to be whispering to each other. Was Carmen still smiling?

  Supersnob.

  Carmen’s self-portrait would probably be picture-perfect, just like her.

  Finally, the class bell rang. Madison grabbed her orange bag and tore out of the room. She headed downstairs toward the lockers, hoping to find Aimee and Fiona nearby. She could use some cheering up.

  On the way down, she ducked into a girl’s lavatory. As she was inside one of the stalls, she heard a bunch of eighth graders talking. One girl was applying lip gloss while the other two were gossiping.

  Madison could see them through a crack in the door.

  “I think I’m going to blow off that history test next week,” the first girl said.

  “You can’t do that!” the second girl said. “You’ll get detention.”

  “Like I care,” the girl replied.

  The third girl started describing an outfit she’d be wearing at the Nikki concert. The other girls oohed and cooed. Then they left.

  The Nikki concert?!

  Madison walked out into the main part of the bathroom by the sinks. She couldn’t believe her ears.

  Was absolutely everyone going to the concert—except her and her friends?

  They had to convince someone to take them to the concert. And they still had to go and get their cool outfits for the show, too.

  As she washed her hands, Madison looked into the mirror at her reflection. She couldn’t believe that Mr. Duane had assigned a self-portrait for the next art class. Her picture would surely look like a troll—for real.

  Madison leaned in closer to the mirror to wipe a spot off her forehead, but she was disappointed to discover that it was not removable.

  In fact, this was no ordinary spot.

  “Ahhh,” Madison gasped to herself. “Zit.”

  Of course she had had pimples before, ones that could easily be masked with a slight dab of cover-up makeup and powder. But this was clearly no ordinary zit. This was a massive blemish-in-the-making. The more Madison looked at it, the redder it appeared.

  In fact, it had mysteriously appeared during the school day.

  The urge to run came over Madison again.

  Run away, run away.

  She couldn’t believe she’d faced Carmen looking like this. Or Ivy. Or even worse—Hart.

  They must have been laughing at her behind her back. It looked like a volcano brewing right there just above her nose. And it was only going to get worse.

  Madison dug around in her orange bag for some powder or some kind of makeup to mask the blemish, but the only thing she could find was strawberry-kiwi lip gloss. That wouldn’t do the trick. She wasn’t about to give her super-zit a fine, gleaming shine. It was doing that well enough on its own.

  Another girl came into the bathroom and went into a stall. Madison patted down her ponytails and rushed out.

  Thankfully, it was the end of the day. And it was Friday.

  She only had one thing left to do today, and that was to stop in and help at the animal clinic. Fiona had agreed to go with her, and they were going to take the bus across town together. Madison knew that the dozens of puppies and kittens waiting to be adopted wouldn’t mind about the zit. That was some relief.

  By the time she arrived at the lockers and met up with Fiona, Aimee had already left for her ballet class.

  “She wants us to go to the dance studio to meet her,” Fiona said. “Then she said we could go over to the bookstore and ask her brother about the concert chaperone thing.”

  Although they were far away from everyone’s home and the neighborhoods of Blueberry Street and Ridge Road, the clinic and Aimee’s dance studio were located only a block apart. This was a huge help with rides and car pools. Sometimes Madison’s mom would drop them off and pick them up; other times, Aimee’s dad would do it. His bookstore was just another short block away in downtown Far Hills, too. The three friends would coordinate their activities whenever they could, so hitching rides or hanging out together was easier.

  As they shuffled out of the building, Madison saw Hart standing around with Egg. She didn’t see Carmen, and that was a good thing, but she still didn’t want Hart to see her.

  “What are you doing?” Fiona said as Madison quickly tugged Fiona’s arm in the opposite direction. “Wasn’t that Egg over there? I wanted to say hi.”

  “Later, Fiona,” Madison said, pushing through swinging doors into the school’s main lobby. They went outside and crossed the street to take a bus together to the clinic. “We’ll see them later.”

  “You’re acting so weird,” Fiona said, giggling. “What’s going on?”

  Madison collapsed onto the bench at the bus stop.

  “I have a giant zit,” she confessed, as if that explained everything.

  Chapter 5

  WHEN FIONA AND MADISON arrived at the clinic, they were greeted by a rowdy Jack Russell terrier jumping around in the waiting area. He nipped at their heels and bags. Across the room, a terrified tabby cat hissed from the safe perch of its owner’s lap. The owner hissed, too. There was a man to his left holding a giant igua
na, also on a leash.

  “Whoa,” Fiona said. “It sure is busy around here.”

  “Wait until you see the main kennels,” Madison said, taking Fiona through a set of doors into the back of the clinic.

  Eileen Ginsburg, the all-around office manager and nurse, was seated at a computer terminal adjacent to the front desk. She had on one of her usual far-out T-shirts. Madison read the front: BEAUTIFUL is A STATE OF MIND.

  “Hiya!” Eileen chirped. “Who’s your friend, Maddie?”

  Fiona introduced herself. “I’m Fiona Waters, and I like animals very much,” she said. “I always wanted a puppy.”

  “Is that so? Well, we got a whole back wall full of ’em. Have a look,” Eileen said. “Oh, and by the way, Dan was looking for you earlier, Maddie.”

  Dan Ginsburg, Eileen’s son and all-around volunteer at the clinic, also happened to be a Far Hills seventh-grade classmate of Madison’s and Fiona’s. He had been working with the clinic staff since elementary school, so he knew how to do almost everything there.

  “Are you here for feeding?” Eileen asked.

  Madison nodded. “And to show Fiona around. We’ll be here about an hour, okay?”

  “A few of the cages need cleaning, too,” Eileen said, before disappearing back out front. “You don’t mind taking care of it, do you?”

  Madison gave her a funny little salute and then turned to face the back walls. All the dogs started to bark at once.

  “Wow,” Fiona said as they approached the kennel cages. “They’re so loud.”

  “Yeah, you get used to it,” Madison said. “Now, we just have to fill all the bowls with kibble….”

  “Is this the kibble?” Fiona asked, picking up a bag that read: 4-T-FY DOGGY MEAL. “I can’t even lift it.”

  “Not from there,” Madison said, showing Fiona the back bins where the dog food had already been opened and sorted. “You refill from here. Scoop it out and put it out. Easy.”

  They sorted and scooped for fifteen minutes.

  “My hands smell like dog food now,” Fiona complained. “Gross me.”