Bling It On! (4 page)

“Okay, boys' team, here we go!” AP Amari bellowed. “At the carnival we're going to have: Oliver Shin's Figure It Out!, the sixth-grade boys' basketball team's Can You Dribble It?, Daniel Martinez and Bennett Johnson's Win a Fish!—I always love a good fish booth, don't you?”

“Yes!” a few kids in Aly's class responded, including Daniel and Bennett, who had huge smiles on their faces. Aly would've laughed if she hadn't been so nervous.

AP Amari continued. “Then we have Caleb Cane, Garrett Brower, and Cameron Castelli's Tattoo You booth.”

A huge cheer erupted from where Caleb, Garrett, and Cameron sat. Cameron looked over at Charlotte
and rubbed his stomach, pretending he had just eaten a cookie. Charlotte ignored him.

And then Suzy Davis shushed the boys. “I want to hear!” she said.

“For our fifth booth, we have Lucas Grant and Lee Goldenberg's Name That Tune,” AP Amari said, “then Sebastian Gray's Wheel of Chance, the boys of the checkers club's King Me, Simon Lebret's Find the Rock Under the Cups, Ian Sachs and Chris Gomez's Sports Trivia, and last, but certainly not least, Ryan Fishman's Roll a Hole in One. Congratulations, boys.”

“Oh, man!” Theo Anderson said when AP Amari stopped talking. “I can't believe my Lick a Lizard booth didn't get chosen.”

In the meantime, Caleb, Garrett, and Cameron were high-fiving again, and so were Daniel and Bennett. The rest of the boys who had won were in
different classes. Most of them were sixth graders, Aly noticed. She hoped that didn't mean sixth graders got priority.

“Now,” Principal Rogers said, “I'm happy to announce that we have ten wonderful booths from the girls this year.”

Aly held her breath.

“First we have the Auden Angels' Soccer Score, then Daisy Quinn and Uma Prasad's Paint Your Face, Talia Lieber's Create a Cookie, Maria Sanchez and Sara Robinson's Marry Me, Samara Amin's Wheel of Fortune, the Carson triplets' Famous Facts, Carina Chang and Daniella Snow's Soda Straw Spin Art, Kerry McCarthy's Balloon Darts, and Aubrey Adair, Maisie Wallis, and Jade Marino's Be a Super-Model.”

Aly was counting. That was nine. She let out her breath. Why had Principal Rogers stopped talking? What was number ten?

“For our final booth,” Principal Rogers said, “we're doing something unusual. We're asking the students to make a small tweak to their proposal. When this announcement is over, will Aly Tanner, Charlotte Cane, and Lily Myers please come to the main office? Our final booth is going to be A Sparkle Spa Celebration. Congratulations, girls!”

The end-of-the-day bell rang, and everyone in Aly's class got up to grab their backpacks off the hooks in the back of the room. Instead of grabbing her backpack, Aly ran to Charlotte's desk. Lily was there too.

“What do you think Principal Rogers wants from us?” Lily asked, just as Charlotte said, “Our booth got chosen!”

Aly looked at Charlotte first. “I know!”

Then she turned to Lily. “I don't know!”

Charlotte and Lily both laughed, but Aly didn't.
She didn't like it when she couldn't figure out why someone wanted to talk to her about something.

*  *  *

“Come in, girls, come in,” Principal Rogers said when the girls reached her office.

Aly had never been in the principal's office before. She couldn't help looking around. There was an orange couch the exact color of Teeny Tangeriney polish, a huge wood desk, four really tall bookcases filled with books and picture frames and a tennis racket, and a red, orange, and yellow striped rug on the floor.

“I like the idea of your booth, girls,” Principal Rogers said, “and am thrilled to have you include your braiding and nail polishing at the carnival. I think you'll raise a lot of money for the girls' team.
But
I'm afraid you're not going to be able to have a photo booth. The budget is too high, and Aubrey, Maisie, and Jade's Super-Model booth is very similar, but much less expensive.”

Aly swallowed. “But that was how we were going to make extra money and maybe get the boys as customers too.”
And not have to ask Joan to bake,
Aly thought.

Lily and Charlotte nodded.

Principal Rogers thought for moment. “Well, I wouldn't worry too much about appealing to the boys. I think you'll get enough customers at your booth to keep you busy for the whole carnival. However, if you'd like to think of an additional idea, that would be fine. It just can't be a duplicate concept or theme.”

“Okay,” Aly answered. “Thanks, Principal Rogers.”

The girls shuffled out of the office and down the hall. Aly was happy and relieved about being chosen, but what would they come up with? She really didn't think manicures and braiding would be enough on their own. Especially since the boys were doing tattoos.
Maybe we should have included Sparkly,
Aly sighed to herself, even though the idea wasn't great.

T
he next day at lunch, Aly was feeling mopey. She and Brooke had talked the night before and couldn't come up with one good idea to add to the Sparkle Spa Celebration booth. She was also feeling a bit guilty over not telling Brooke about the cookie bet. Or Mom. Or Joan. Or anyone.

“Brooke thinks we should just leave it with manicures and braiding and nothing else,” Aly told Charlotte and Lily as she took a bite of her cheese sandwich. Even her lunch seemed sad today. A cheese
sandwich, an apple, water, and a bag of pretzels. Sad sad sad.

“I really think we should add something else,” Charlotte said, biting into a donut. Aly was pretty sure her own mother would not consider a donut with frosting and sprinkles and something gooey inside appropriate lunch food.

“But what?” Aly answered. She knew Charlotte was trying to help with the bet too. “With everything Brooke and I thought of, either another booth is doing it, or it's too expensive, or too hard to pull off.”

“Well, what was on your list?” Lily asked. “Maybe we'll come up with something new.”

Aly pulled the Sparkle Spa schedule notebook out of her pocket and turned to the inside cover, where she had written the list. She handed it to Lily.

Lily read, then sighed. “You're right,” she said. “This has pretty much everything.”

“Let me see.” Charlotte looked over Lily's shoulder. Aly could see Charlotte's lips moving as she read everything from glitter tattoos (the boys were doing tattoos, so that was out), to face paint (Daisy and Uma were doing that one), to make your own bracelets (too expensive), to make a music video (too expensive
and
too hard to pull off), to spin art (ditto—and also too similar to Carina and Daniella's booth).

Aly was taking another bite of her sandwich when someone asked, “Is anyone sitting here?”

The someone asking was Suzy Davis. And Suzy Davis rarely asked anything. If there was space at a table, Suzy usually just sat in it, even if someone else was trying to save it for a friend.

“Um, no,” Aly said. “You can sit there if you want.”

“Thanks,” Suzy said, and she sat down. She didn't say one mean word or make fun of the Sparkle Spa or anything. Aly was almost worried about her.

“Are you okay, Suzy?” Aly asked.

“What do
you
think?” Suzy asked. She looked down at her yogurt instead of at Aly.

“You're upset about not being chosen for the carnival?” Aly asked it like a question, just in case she was wrong.

“You must be a genius for figuring that out,” Suzy said. But there wasn't as much energy in her insult as usual.

“I'm sorry your booth wasn't picked,” Aly said. “It was a good idea.”

“Then maybe you're not a genius after all,” Suzy said, “because Principal Rogers didn't think it was.”

“If it makes you feel any better, she made us take the photo booth off our Sparkle Spa Celebration booth.”

Suzy shrugged. “Aubrey's is a better photo booth anyway.”

Aly took a sip of water. “I know. But I'm still bummed about it.”

Suzy nodded.

Aly didn't say anything to her after that, and Suzy didn't say anything to Aly. But Aly somehow felt more connected to Suzy than she ever had before.

*  *  *

After school that day, the Sparkle Spa team met at Charlotte's house, making plans and lists for their booth. They talked about which polish colors to bring from the salon, how many glittery elastics they'd need to buy for braids, and booth theme decorations.

“Can we afford more balloons?” Brooke asked. “We only have seven left over in the closet, and I don't think that's enough.”

Lily pulled Charlotte's mom's laptop closer to her and checked on the prices for balloons. “Balloons are
really cheap,” she said. “I think we can get those, no problem.”

Brooke wasn't finished. “We need big brown paper, too. I already have markers, so we won't need any of those.”

Gurgle. Gurgle.

Brooke started giggling. “What was
that
?” she asked.

“My stomach,” Charlotte laughed. “Does anyone want grapes? I'm starving.”

“We heard,” Lily said.

Charlotte headed into the kitchen. But a minute later she came running back out without any grapes.

“Guys!” she said. “The boys are in the kitchen. They just said they're doing something
extra
-special for their booth that's going to make them win for sure, because every single person is going to want one. But they won't tell me what it is!”

Aly could feel the girls' trip to Water World slipping away. And the cookies.

“How could the boys possibly make tattoos more special?” Lily wondered. “I know what we have to do,” she said. “Charlotte, you need to be a spy.”

“A spy?” Sophie asked. “Like, sneak up on the boys and listen to what they're saying?”

“Exactly,” said Lily. “Listen with your ear to the door. And since it's your house, you can go anywhere you want.”

Charlotte smiled. “Well, it's a little sneaky, but I like this plan. Aly, do you want to spy with me? Four ears are better than two.”

Aly thought eavesdropping on people was probably not the nicest thing to do, but she was desperate to find out the boys' secret plan, and she knew Charlotte was too. “Okay,” she said. “I'll do it.”

The girls decided they needed an alibi, in case the
boys saw them. They went to the kitchen and grabbed a bunch of grapes. Then they tiptoed past the closed door of Caleb's room.

“I'm going to drop a grape,” Charlotte whispered. “Then we'll both bend down to pick it up, and listen at the crack in the bottom of the door. If anyone comes by, like my mom, or if one of the boys opens Caleb's door, we'll have an excuse.”

“Maybe you should drop two grapes,” Aly suggested. “So we each have one to pick up.”

“Good plan,” Charlotte agreed. She dropped the grapes on the floor, and she and Aly crouched down quietly. Aly stared at the Deep Blue Sea carpeting and listened as hard as she could. Once she strained her ears, she could hear Caleb's, Garrett's, and Cameron's voices. They had Caleb and Charlotte's dad's iPad and were choosing tattoos to order from an online store.

“Let's get some sports ones,” Cameron said.

“Okay,” Caleb said. “How about five baseball, five soccer, five basketball, and five football?”

“We should order some extra soccer balls, in case the Angels want some,” Garrett said. “And some stars and hearts and other things that girls seem to like.”

Aly smiled. It was nice that Garrett was making sure there were soccer balls for the Angels—and she knew some girls who came to the Sparkle Spa who would love star and heart tattoos. But they still hadn't heard anything that sounded top secret.

“We can get
special
star ones,” Caleb said.

Aly looked at Charlotte.
Aha
—this might be it. Aly held her breath.

“Oh yeah?” Cameron said. “They have glow-in-the-dark stars? That's great, then. We should order double the amount.”

Aly opened her eyes wide. Glow-in-the-dark tattoos. That must be the secret. She grabbed the grape
closest to her off the floor, Charlotte grabbed the other one, and they raced back to tell the rest of the girls.

But even though they'd figured out the secret, Aly thought, they couldn't do anything about it.