Cassie Comes Through (13 page)

The Bot-Bot waiter came over to take their dessert order.

Tessa ordered first, as usual. “I'll have an ozziefruit parfait and a mug of hot—” she began. Just then, their Star-Zaps chimed, all twelve at the same time. It made a pleasant, musical sound to Cassie's ears.

Adora read the holo-text first. “Starmendous!” she said. She looked up. “Hey, everybody, listen to this! We're invited to a party!”

The table started to buzz. A party! How fun!
It's just what we all need,
thought Cassie.
A chance to relax and just enjoy ourselves for a couple of hours
. All the girls flipped open their Star-Zaps as the Bot-Bot waiter hovered nearby, forgotten. Gemma read the invitation out loud. “‘You are invited to a Star Mani/Pedi Party tonight after dinner in the Lightning Lounge's party room. Hydrongs of polish colors to choose from, state-of-the-art starbeautychambers, music, dancing, a floating dessert bar…'” She paused. “What's a floating dessert bar? We don't have those in Solar Springs.”

Libby, who lived in a mansion and had been to too many fancy parties to count, supplied the answer. “Oh, you'll love it! It's a levitating cloudcandy table covered with every light-as-air dessert you've ever heard of,” she said. “You know—Aeropuffs, Floating Wisps, Featherwhispers. They're so startastically delicious they just melt in your mouth. There are cocomoon starpillows and…”

“Say no more. I'm in,” said Tessa. She canceled her dessert order and stood up. The rest of the girls followed suit.

On her way out the door, Cassie spotted Ophelia sitting alone at a table, idly twirling a noddlenoodle on her fork and staring into space.

“I hope it's not too crowded,” said Vega worriedly as they approached the Lightning Lounge. But when they pushed open the doors to the party room, they discovered they were the first to arrive.

“Oh, my stars!” said Sage, taking in the shifting, shimmering multicolored stars that were projected on the walls, floor, and ceiling; the multileveled dance floor; the colorful starbeautychambers, round and shiny; and the floating dessert bar, which was even better than it sounded, with edible fluffy pastel pink, blue, and yellow clouds of spun sugar candy suspended in the air. Nestled in the candyfloss were sweet little confections in all the colors of the rainbow. Tessa made a glitterbeeline for the sweets and loaded up a sparkling crystal plate with some carefully selected treats. The rest of the girls did the same. After eating three jujufruit gossamerwisps, which, she was pleased to discover, were as light and airy as they were delicious, Cassie's mind returned to Ophelia, who'd been sitting all by herself in the cafeteria. She flipped open her Star-Zap and started typing.

Cassie smiled as she shut her Star-Zap. Her good deed for the day was done. Now she was ready for some beauty time.

“I don't know why the rest of the students aren't here,” said Adora as she reached up to grab a hunk of pale blue spun sugar candy, as fluffy as a cloud. “But that just means more dessert for us!”

Cassie walked across the room and hesitated in front of a silvery chamber, unsure what to do next. Libby appeared at her side. “Let me help you,” she said. “My mom has one,” she explained. “Starbeautychambers can give you manicures, pedicures, haircuts and styles, facials, body scrubs, face sparklings, you name it.” She pressed a round button on the side and the chamber opened like a flower, revealing a holo-screen, a fluffy white seat, and four covered pods. “That's where you put your hands and feet,” she explained. Cassie took off her silver slippers and lowered herself onto the cozy-looking seat. She gasped at how luxuriously soft it was.

Libby nodded. “Amazing, right?”

The holo-screen slid into place at lap level. The shape of a hand appeared on the screen, and Cassie hovered her palm over it, looking to Libby for confirmation. Libby nodded. “Put your hand right on it,” she said encouragingly. Cassie obliged and a list of nail polish colors in her signature shade appeared on the right-hand side of the screen. When she touched the name of the polish with her free hand, an image of the color was projected on her nails so she could make a well-informed decision. Cassie considered them all. Silver Streak was pretty-ish; Icicle a bit too frosty; Sassy Sparkles not quite as tasteful as she'd like; Time of Shadows White too austere; and Storm Queen a little too gray. She thought she'd love Pink Snowflake but was just lukewarm about it. Finally, Magic and Moonbeams came up. She gasped with delight. It was pure perfection. Sparkly, iridescent, and silvery white, it glowed with the promise of stardust and enchantment. She chose it for both her fingers and toes and slipped her hands and feet inside the pods. They were immediately enveloped in warm lotion that smelled just like glimmerdrop cookies. Cassie closed her eyes and a scene came flooding back: a day she had come home from school to find her mom, her cheeks flushed and her silvery hair escaping from her bun and framing her face. She had been baking all day and presented Cassie with a plate of warm cookies, which Cassie munched as she told her mom all about her day. It brought a sweet smile to her face and Cassie pressed the memory function on her Star-Zap to record it so she'd be able to watch it on-screen whenever she liked. A Bot-Bot masseuse zoomed up and began to knead her shoulders, which were slightly achy from the vigorous game of Star-Away she had played earlier. Ah, that was heavenly. Her chamber began to softly play “Brighter Than a Comet,” one of her favorite songs, and she hummed along. Once her hands and feet were sufficiently moisturized, they were massaged. Then the nails were trimmed and shaped, and finally the polish was applied.

Vega, who had gone back to the floating dessert bar for seconds, was on her way to get her own mani/pedi. She scanned the room and leaned over Cassie's chamber to talk to her privately. “If the whole school was invited, why are there only twelve chambers?” she asked. “That's not even close to enough.”

That's a good question,
Cassie thought, but then the pods released her hands and feet and she saw her fingers and toes, polished to a silvery perfection. “Oh,” she breathed. “I picked the most perfect color ever.”

Vega shrugged and headed to a shiny blue starbeautychamber.

“Cassie, let me see,” called Adora from a sky-blue starbeautychamber nearby.

Cassie stood and walked to her. She considered putting her shoes back on but didn't want to cover up her sparkling toes. Adora leaned over to take a look. “Pretty,” she said. A Bot-Bot masseuse was giving her a neck massage as she picked her polish color. “I can't decide between Cerulean Circus for my fingers,” she said, clicking on it, “or Starbeam Dream.” She looked up to Cassie for help. “Oh…um,” said Cassie. They looked exactly the same to her. “Definitely Starbeam Dream,” she finally said.

“You're right,” said Adora. “It's much prettier.” She didn't seem to need any help choosing Indigo Spell for her toes.

When everyone's nails were done, the girls reclined on overstuffed couches and admired each other's fingers and toes as they sipped tall sparkling drinks brought to them by hovering Bot-Bot waiters. Then the lights dimmed. The starlight show began to flash faster and the music got louder. Cassie was pleased to note that Leona was the first to jump up and begin to dance—barefoot, of course. Her fingers and toes sparkled in the dim light; she had chosen a polish that made her nails look as if they had been dipped in liquid gold, which Cassie took as another sign that she was improving. Leona crooked her finger, beckoning to Cassie, who began to shake her head, her usual self-conscious response. But the idea of everyone's eyes on her as she moved to the beat, which usually unnerved her, suddenly seemed like an appealing one. She jumped up and bopped over to Leona, who grinned and grabbed her hands. The two began to spin around and around, then broke apart and twirled in the empty space. Cassie closed her eyes and moved to the music, freely and joyously. She didn't worry that she looked silly, and she didn't care what anyone was thinking of her. All she knew was that she felt beautiful, and fluid, and natural—and like she never wanted to stop moving to the music. After a few minutes, the rest of the girls joined in. They were a jumping, twirling, grinning mass. They danced until they couldn't dance anymore, then flopped onto the couches in happy exhaustion.

Cassie closed her eyes, breathing hard. She opened her eyes to see Sage leaning over her. She was still laughing.

“Cassie, get up, it's time for bed,” she said.

“All right, all right.” Cassie swung her feet to the floor and reluctantly slipped on her shoes. With a sigh, she stood up. She admired her fingernails again under the flashing lights. “Wow,” Cassie said. “I really picked the best color.”

Adora grabbed her arm.
“I thought you liked Starbeam Dream,”
she said almost inaudibly.

“The music's too loud,” said Cassie. “What did you say?”

“I said, I thought you liked Starbeam Dream.”

Cassie shrugged. “Glad you like it, too,” she said. She looked at Vega. “Are you coming with us?” she asked.

“You should go, you shouldn't wait,” Vega said, pointing to Piper, who was sipping a sea-green beverage through a straw. “I will wait for my roommate.”

Cassie was sleepy. “Okay, I'll see you all in the…”

“Morning,” finished Piper.

Clover stood and threw her arms around Cassie.

“See you at breakfast, Clover,” Cassie said.

“Wait for me,” said Leona. But then she never got up, so Cassie and Sage shrugged and headed back to their room. They chatted and giggled all the way back to the dorm. Cassie tumbled into bed, fully intending to get up in a starsec to use her toothlight and sparkle her face, but she found she was so tired she couldn't move. She couldn't even muster the energy to ask Sage to please quiet down. The girl was still giggling.

Weird,
she thought.
Ophelia never showed up at the party. Something better must have come up. Maybe she's not as lonely as Leona thinks she is.

Sage rolled over, trying, and failing, to muffle a laugh.

I am so much better at falling asleep than Sage,
Cassie thought. And she was right. She drifted off to sleep.