The Ultra Violets Read online

  Scarlet juts out her lower lip and blows her bangs from her eyes. “Howdy, losers,” she drawls, rocking back and forth on her heels. She sizes up the two outlaws: Duncan’s got a couple o’ horn buds sproutin’ out from the top of his head. Bobby’s thick tongue stretches back to lick the wax from his ears.

  Them’s middle-school mutants! she reckons. Darn tootin’ mutants!

  Sheriff Scarlet is disgusted, but undeterred. (Deputy Cheri is just disgusted.)

  “I already know you’re dumb,” she says. “Y’all must be deaf, too, if you haven’t heard. This here is my playground. And on my playground, big dumb mutants don’t steal from helpless little kids.”

  “Your playground, huh?” Duncan guffaws, chawing his cud of chewing gum. “Think again, sister. This playground ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

  “There’s actually three of you,” Deputy Cheri adds, holding up the calculator app on her smartphone screen to prove it.

  “And I ain’t your sister,” Sheriff Scarlet scoffs.

  In the background, the seven-year-old lifts his head up and releases a haunting cry, like the howl of a lone coyote calling over the desert. Yup, just like that. Or like a sound effect out of a classic Western. “Wah-ah-Wah-ah-Aah!” he wails. It ricochets back off the school building: “Wah-WAH-wah.”

  “Last chance, varmints,” Sheriff Scarlet says. “Or should I say, varmutants? Hand over the Game-Boi, walk away, no one gets hurt.”

  Murdoch and McKay laugh like a couple of hyenas in hoodies. “What are you gonna do, Half-Pint?” Bobby taunts. A fly buzzes overhead. His tongue snaps out to trap it, like some enormous, mutant bully-frog. “Pinch our ankles?”

  “Them’s fighting words,” Sheriff Scarlet states, plain as vanilla ice cream. “But go ahead. Make my day.”

  And faster than a chicken can square dance, Scarlet do-si-dos up the side of Duncan Murdoch, rapid-fire tap-dances on his horned coconut noggin till he drops, skips over to Bobby McKay’s cracker barrelhead, and does the same.

  She stands on top of the two downed thugs like they’re a pair of cows she’s wrastled at a rodeo. The feller with the horns purty much is!

  “Belt,” she commands to the gathering crowd, sticking out one hand.

  Many belts are offered, but only one is chosen. A nifty canvas strap, just right for knottin’.

  Sheriff Scarlet hog-ties the boys together. Pries the Game-Boi out of Duncan’s cold, clammy hands. “Hey, kid,” she calls. “Catch.” And she tosses it over to the wide-eyed child.

  “You take care now, y’hear?” she tells the boy, then leaps six feet into the air to land on the raised end of the seesaw. Balancing there, she gives a tip of the head to the onlookers.

  “Yippee ki-yay, momma’s boys,” she says to the belt-bound bullies before strolling off to fifth-period English.

  “Wah-ah-Wah-ah-Aah!” the ghost coyote wails behind her. Yup, just like that.

  Color Me Iris

  A Saturday morning.

  On the Sync City monorail.

  Ever since Dr. Tyler learned from Dr. Jones about Scarlet Louise’s ballet dancing, she was determined her Iris should take lessons, too. So she signed her up for an intro course at the Cooliard School of the Arts. And Iris took the monorail to the studio.

  The first Saturday, all the other dance students oohed and ahhed over Iris’s purple hair. But purple hair does not a dancer make. After a couple of disastrous classes, Iris was more convinced than ever: She was an artist. Not a scientist. And NOT a ballerina. She’d leave fifth position and grand pliés to Scarlet, thank you smelly much.

  But rather than tell her mom she wanted to bail, Iris struck a bargain with the dance teacher: Instead of dancing, she’d “design” the dancers’ costumes (wink wink) and “paint” the scenery for their next performance (winkity wink). The teacher never did see Iris do it. She’d be instructing a student on her pas de chat jumps, and when she looked around again, the rest of the class would be in dramatically patterned leotards, standing before a backdrop of whatever she’d wished for. And Iris would be standing off to the side, a paintbrush tucked behind her ear, twisting one of her very violet ringlets and sucking on a lollipop. It was almost like magic. But the teacher was so happy with the outcome, she decided she’d believe in magic.

  Meanwhile Iris didn’t care much about all that. It was fun enough to help out the Cooliard kids, but what Iris really liked about her Saturday morning undance class was everything but. Everything but the twirl. Because after Iris had “touched up” the costumes or whatnot (wink-a-doodle-doo), she could exit the dance floor and explore Sync City a bit. She loved to go into the museums, practice her sketching, and look at modern art. Some artists painted soup cans, and that was art. Some artists covered skulls in gemstones, and that was art. Some artists even made sculptures out of toilet seats, and that was art!

  The only thing that wasn’t very arty was the creaky old monorail Iris rode to and from Cooliard. It was probably futuristic fifty years ago or whenever it was first built. But now the molded transparent plastic just looked cloudy and dull.

  Iris was zooming back home and zoning out that Saturday when a boy got on the monorail and sat down across from her. He was tall and skinny, with a long face and a round mouth. He carried a big messenger bag like hers, slung across his chest. His hair was cool, Iris thought. Shiny black as an oil slick, shaggy on top but shaved on the sides. By the way he smiled at her, she guessed he thought her hair was cool, too.

  They were the only two riders in the monorail car.

  As the train glid (that’s the spelling!) along, the boy glanced up and down the car, then rummaged in his messenger bag.

  He pulled out a can of spray paint and gave it a couple of shakes.

  Color me intrigued, Iris thought.

  Without a word, the boy got up and sprayed a sunny circle on the wall of the car, just to the side of Iris. Then he stashed the yellow can back in his bag, took out a white one, and sprayed a ring of petals around the yellow center.

  A daisy! Iris was amazed at how fast the boy could paint, and how vibrant the painting was. Suddenly, with the sun shining through his graffiti daisy, the scratched plastic wall of the monorail car looked like a glorious stained-glass window.

  Iris couldn’t resist. She stood up, too, and tugging on her hair, she focused on the wall behind the boy. While he kept spray-painting swirls and sunflowers, she imagined the outline of a funny wolfman monster with furry outstretched paws. And a top hat. She scribbled it with her mind right on the sliding door. The next time passengers boarded the train, it would look like the monster was coming in behind them!

  The boy turned around to see Iris’s monster just as the doors opened and closed at the next stop. His eyebrows shot up, and he pretended to stagger back from the pretend beast.

  Iris giggled. For the rest of the ride, she decorated one side of the train car with cartoon creatures while the boy painted the other. Then they switched places, so that wolfmen walked amongst the daisies.

  As the monorail began to slow down, the boy pointed to the upcoming platform. He lifted a pretend top hat of his own to Iris (at least she pictured it as a top hat!), and he dashed out the doors of one end of their car as a police officer boarded at the other.

  “What the—?!” the police officer exclaimed, staring at the Technicolor walls of the train car. Daylight streamed through the riot of daisies and werewolves.

  “Young lady, did you do this? All by yourself?” the officer asked, eyeing Iris’s vivid violet hair with suspicion.

  “No, officer!” Iris said, shaking her curls. She held open her messenger bag to show him that it only held lollipops, a sparkly stylus, a digital sketchpad, and a pair of barely used ballet slippers. But not spray paint.
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br />   “Because you know it’s against the law to deface public property!”

  “Yes, officer!” Iris said, nodding vigorously.

  He grumbled as he walked up and down the empty car, searching for other suspects. Iris sat down again and waited for her stop. She was already looking forward to next Saturday, and she wondered if she’d ever see the silent graffiti boy again. No matter what, she had a feeling the Sync City monorail wasn’t going to be so monotonously monochromatic no mo’!

  As the train pulled in to her station, Iris was still envisioning a future chance encounter with the mysterious shock-headed spray painter. She got to her feet and waited for the door to slide open, smiling at the dark silhouette of her top-hatted wolfman, so dapper against all the daisies that surrounded him.

  But her smile disappeared as the door slid open. On the other side was a creature way more hideous than her cartoon werewolf. The scowling bald businessman had a furry gray unibrow running above his eyes. It wriggled and twitched, Iris was sure, like a real live caterpillar. As she stared at it, horrified, the man arched the bristly maxibrow in irritation at the purple-haired girl blocking his way.

  “Excuse me,” Iris whispered at last, slipping past him and off the train. He sssaid sssomething nasssty in return, but all she could hear was the hisssing of a ssssnake.

  She raced down the platform, clutching her messenger bag and checking over her shoulder that the man wasn’t following her. But as the train zoomed out of the station again, she could see the angry charcoal line of his creepy caterpillar brow through the flower-painted windows.

  “Ugh!” Iris couldn’t help but exclaim, scratching first her hair, then her arms, intensely. It was as if the man’s hissed threat had crawled down the back of her shirt. When she finally felt less skeeved-out and itchy, Iris sat down on a seat in the train station and took her iCan from her bag.

  An artist has to be brave, she reminded herself as she put stylus to screen.

  Iris wanted to sketch Caterpillar Brow Man while the memory—*shudder!*—was still clear in her mind.

  Girls Gone Gaga

  THE FOUR GIRLS WERE SEATED IN THE FRONT ROW of the balcony at Thinkin’ Center. They wore their best clothes—Opal in a cream-colored knee-length dress with pearls bordering the collar and cuffs; Cheri in a sleek cap-sleeved sheath of emerald green satin; Iris in a billowing maxi dress with gauzy butterfly sleeves and three tiers to the skirt. Even Scarlet had made an effort: She still didn’t do skirts, but she could deal with her silky black jumpsuit. It reminded her a little of what a ninja warrior might wear. She’d also borrowed a few of her brothers’ silver bike chains as necklaces. For sure Cheri would mock her for this, she thought, but instead she complimented Scarlet on her “industrial chic”!

  The girls didn’t really get why Candace had insisted on taking them to see Cinderella. They were just psyched to be out on a school night. And although Scarlet would rather drop and do ten push-ups than admit it, she was secretly kind of excited to see the pretty ballerinas perform.

  Ever since Candace saw Iris’s purple hair at the sleepover, she’d known she’d have to get the girls out on their own to tell them the truth. Tell them that with great power comes not just fun hair and smooth moves, but great responsibility. So Candace had come up with a ruse. With a wily plan.

  Scarlet was dancing on her own, and Iris was taking a Saturday morning class.

  What better outing than the ballet?

  The lights dimmed, the starburst chandeliers drew up into the ceiling, and the red velvet curtains parted, their golden fringe fluttering like a thousand vanilla wafers. A hush fell over the crowd, and the girls leaned forward in their seats to watch.

  On stage, one forlorn ballerina stood in a threadbare tutu by a fireplace while two other ones in hideous gowns fought over a scarf.

  “I thought the ballerinas were supposed to be fancy!” Scarlet whispered to Iris beside her as the orchestra played.

  Iris whispered back, “You’re right! That girl is in rags!”

  “I think that’s supposed to be Cinderella!” Cheri explained, stretching across Iris to tell Scarlet.

  The stout old lady in the row behind them went “Shhhh!” and Scarlet slunk down in her seat while Iris turned and blurted out, “SORRY!”

  “Silence, you purple-tressed terror!” the old lady sniped in a high-pitched voice. Shifting on her plentiful bottom, she peered at Iris in disapproval through her ornate opera glasses.

  Iris slunk down in her seat, too. She elbowed Scarlet in the ribs.

  “Owie,” Scarlet whispered. “What?”

  “That old lady,” Iris said, breathing so close to Scarlet’s ear that it tickled. “Did you notice her hair?”

  Scarlet twisted around and peeked over the back of her chair. The gilded opera glasses made the woman look like a plump robot. She frowned so deeply when she spotted Scarlet spying on her that her chins doubled.

  Scarlet slid down in her seat again.

  “IT’S BLUE!” Scarlet whispered much too loudly. So loudly it wasn’t a whisper at all.

  Iris held a finger up to Scarlet’s lips as she said, “But I don’t think it’s blue like my hair is violet. I think it’s supposed to be gray! She’s not a mutant, just a crabby old lady.”

  “The blue-haired battle-ax!” Scarlet said.

  The girls tried to stifle their snickers, and the old lady rapped the back of their chairs sharply. She must have been wearing lots of chunky rings, because the girls could hear them scraping against the seats like chalk on a blackboard. Iris and Scarlet both clapped their hands over their ears, but somehow it all only made them giggle more. Iris was trying so hard to hold in her laughter, her eyes started to tear, and Scarlet jiggled in her chair like a Mexican jumping bean.

  From the other side of the row, next to Opal, Candace looked at them sternly. “Girls, behave!” she hissed.

  The sight of Candace sitting in the theater in her typical white lab coat definitely didn’t make things any less funny.

  Opal concentrated on the ballet. She felt sorry for poor Cinderella in her tattered tutu, bossed around by those horrible stepsisters. She narrowed her eyes at Scarlet, who was squirming in her aisle seat.

  “Candace?” Opal said softly, staring straight ahead again at the stage. “Do you think this is just a fairy tale, or are there fairy godmothers in real life?”

  The question caught Candace off guard, and she looked at Opal with a mix of sympathy and surprise. Opal had always been the shyest of the four girls, and honestly, Candace wasn’t quite sure what went on inside her head. Not that she knew what went on in any of their crazy tween brains! But Opaline Trudeau was definitely the most . . . inscrutable . . . of the bunch. Was she experiencing any strange side effects? Candace didn’t notice anything different, and since Opal’s mom didn’t work at the FLab, Candace had no clue. The last time she’d seen Dr. Trudeau was at that bizarre interview with the BeauTek pocketbook lady.

  And she still hadn’t answered Opal’s question.

  “I think . . .” Candace stammered. What could she say? She was a future scientist. Scientists didn’t believe in fairy tales! “I’m not aware,” she began again, “of any evidence that supports the existence of fairy godmothers.” On stage a pumpkin sat, waiting to be changed into a carriage. “But maybe it just hasn’t been documented yet.”

  It sounded lame. Candace knew it. She could never lie to the girls, but from the look on Opal’s face she could tell her reply had been disappointing.

  “We’ll talk more later,” Candace leaned in to say, giving Opal’s shoulder a squeeze. “For now let’s just enjoy the show.”

  Opal nodded politely, her eyes never leaving the stage.

  Even though Iris was quivering with the giggles in the seat next to her, Cheri was
trying to watch the ballet, too. But something was bothering her. She sensed a disturbance in the balcony.

  Help me, girl in the green dress, a voice pleaded. You’re my only hope!

  Much more delicately than ants-in-her-pants Scarlet, Cheri peeked over her shoulder. The snooty blue-haired lady had her hands folded up under her ample bosom. Cheri peered down past the woman’s knees. In the darkness of the theater, she could barely see. The voice came again.

  Let me out! it said. It’s hotter in here than a car seat in summer! And grandma’s a real crab!

  Cheri realized a teacup poodle was in the lady’s handbag, under her seat!

  Then came chaos.

  It seemed like it happened all at once, but here’s how it went down:

  Iris, who felt sorry for poor Cinderella just like Opal did, decided to make her ratty rag dress into a stunning, if still shredded, gown of gold. Sprinkled with a print of candy cupcakes like the ones at Scarlet’s sleepover. A cupcake dress would definitely capture the eye, and hopefully the heart, of the prince.

  But for good measure, with another few blinks, Iris also changed the nasty stepsisters’ dresses to the most revolting prints she could think up.

  One got a skirt covered with grease stains, like she’d showered with a slice of pizza instead of soap. The other one Iris made over with the design of a dented minivan. Because Iris knew the prince would only ever drive one of those sports cars with flames painted on the sides.

  Then Iris scattered the scarf that the stepsisters had been fighting over with a pattern of crawling spiders. When they saw the creepy-crawlies, the stepsister ballerinas screamed like opera sopranos, blowing out the lightbulbs all the way up in the starburst chandeliers, and flung the scarf into the orchestra pit. It landed on the conductor’s baton. As he waved his arm out to lead the musicians, they saw all the spiders swinging from the stick and they started to scream, too. In harmony. Cymbals clanged and sousaphones squawked; oboes moaned “Oh no!” and French horns swore “Sacré bleu!” One courageous cellist leaped to his feet to sword-fight the spider-baton using his bow.