The Ultra Violets Read online

“Nooooooo!” It was Candace’s turn to scream as she reached out to catch it—but clutched onto her chemistry textbook instead. Babysitter, put on your glasses!

  The four girls held their breaths. Outside, the thunder grumbled. Inside, the beaker teetered. And then that troublesome strand of hair slipped out from behind Cheri’s ear and tickled her nose again. And she couldn’t push it away because her hands were full of skunk.

  “Ah-ah-ahchoooopsie!”

  It was the daintiest of sneezes, really. Exactly the kind of sneeze you’d expect from Cheri. If sneezes could qualify as cute (yuck, no, but if), this would win the gold medal: a high-pitched little squeak that wouldn’t scare a skunk.

  But that was all it took. The teeny-tiny squeak-sneeze caused just enough of a change in the air currents to blast that beaker not just over the edge of the table, but clear across the room.

  Compelled by the laws of gravity, it rotated in slow motion—that’s when, Candace would tell them later, things look like they take a lot longer than they actually do. Then the glass hit the wall. At the precise moment of impact, the entire FLab shook with an enormous thunderclap, the lights went out, the beaker shattered to pieces . . .

  . . . and blue-red goo splattered all over the ninja-princess-samurai-schoolgirls. Plus one baby skunk.

  “Gesundheit,” Scarlet muttered.

  “Thank you,” Cheri answered. Just because she was covered in chemicals was no reason not to be polite.

  It felt like they stood there, shocked and slimed in the dark, for fifteen minutes. It was really only five seconds, though. Then the lights flickered back on.

  Opaline winced. She wondered if this was worse than a whole symphony of toilet flushes and decided it was.

  Iris’s ringlets hung flat and limp all the way to her waist under the weight of the gunk.

  Cheri looked down at her recently sequined nails, now coated with sticky stuff and skunk fur. “Purple,” she said to a dripping Darth Odor. “Why is it purple?”

  “That’s what you get when you mix red with blue.” Iris’s voice was muffled underneath all her hair. “Purple. Or maybe it’s more of a violet?”

  “Whatever color it is, it’s all over my sneakers,” Scarlet said “And my T-shirt. And everything.”

  “And. It’s. Ewww!” Cheri concluded.

  Candace snapped out of her shock and into panic mode. “That wasn’t the beaker, was it? Please tell me it was just the free miso that came with the takeout. And not,” she added under her breath, “Heliotropium, the liquefied post-atomic hybrid particle capable of genetically altering any bio-organism on earth.”

  If the girls had been befuddled before by Candace’s definition of drag, they now stood completely gape-mouthed and gob-smacked at this confusing stream of syllables.

  “Helio-huh?” Scarlet said with a shake of her dripping hands.

  Glasses and goggles back in place (finally!), Candace slid down from her stool, careful not to step in any puddles of her assignment. She surveyed her goo-covered charges. “Your mothers can’t know about this. If they find out, they’ll . . .” Candace seemed to be searching for the right words. “They’ll . . . never let you have another sleepover again.” Even through the double layer of lenses, the girls could see her left eye twitching a little.

  “Sorry about drop-kicking your homework to infinity and beyond, Candace,” Iris said, twirling a gummy, plummy strand of hair apologetically around her finger.

  “What homework?” Candace said to all four girls, with a wink so exaggerated they knew it wasn’t just a third-degree twitch. “Forget there ever WAS homework. If only my Neuralyzer were past the beta testing stage, I’d wipe all your memories right now!”

  The girls, grabbing each other’s hands, took a step backward as one.

  “We’ve still got a couple of hours till the party ends and your moms come to pick you up. When you will be fresh and clean and fast asleep in your jammies!” Candace ranted, too distracted to sense their fear. From the back pockets of her jeans, she whipped out two flourescent orange flags and directed the girls with the expertise of a flight attendant. “Decontamination showers! Now! Down the corridor, second door on the right. Go power-wash those chemicals down the drain while I clean up this mess. And remember”—she leaned in close—“This never happened.” Tossing the neon flags over her shoulders and into her udon, she grabbed a pair of latex gloves out of a box. She snapped them on like a doctor. “Cheri,” she said, “hand over that skunk.”

  “No!” Cheri said, holding him close. “I love him!”

  Darth chittered back his love for Cheri.

  “I just need to rinse him off,” Candace said calmly, bending over to look Cheri in her bright green eyes. “He’s too tiny for those showers. I’ll wash him here in the sink, okay?”

  After planting one last kiss on his nose, Cheri reluctantly passed the skunk baby back to the babysitter. Then she trudged after Scarlet and Iris toward the showers. Only Opal remained in the FLab.

  “So . . .” she asked, “no talent show?” If only she didn’t have to face the showers, she would have been relieved.

  “Sorry, sweetie.” Candace shook her head. She was already mopping goo from Darth’s white stripes. “Maybe next time.” As Opal obediently shuffled off, too, the babysitter said to the empty room, “I don’t think your moms are ready for radioactive ninja princesses tonight.”

  Iris, Cheri, and Scarlet were already in the hallway, but Opaline trailed behind. She’d stopped cold in her Crocs, a chill running through her soaked hoodie, when she realized that the citrine-eyed skeleton was missing from his corner.

  • • •

  Eventually the girls forgot all about the shattered beaker and the shower of goo. Or almost. They forgot to stay besties, too. They didn’t mean to, but it happens. It happens to the besties of us, unfortunately. The Tylers moved away when Iris’s mom got a job at NASA (an abbrev for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, not the Nocturnal Affiliation of Strange Accents, the Noisy Association of Silent Artists, or the just plain Nice Alliance of Sassy Assassins, though those are all perfectly respectable organizations, if your mom works at any of them). Dr. Trudeau transferred Opaline to an all-girls’ academy where the bathrooms were private. Cheri and Scarlet still saw each other in school, but between karate lessons (Scar) and kraft kircle (Cher), lil’ mechanics club (Scar) and volunteering at the vet’s (Cher), they lost touch. Before long, Cher was hanging out with the most fashionable girls in primary school. And Scar became the sidekick of some of the toughest boys.

  For little did the foursome know then, on that snowy Friday in July four foreboding years ago, that their lives had been changed—cue frenzied xylophone solo—four-ever!

  The Not Quite New Girl

  {Four Years Later}

  SHE WONDERED IF ANYONE WOULD NOTICE. Of course they will, she thought, shaking out her damp curls after she tugged on her T-shirt. How could they not? She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, as she had so many times since “the change.” She was still surprised by her own reflection, so the kids at school definitely would be. Would anyone recognize her? Would anyone even remember her? It had been four years.

  She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and imagined for a moment the best possible day. A day when everyone welcomed her back and she found all her classes and nobody made fun of her. That was her vision.

  She was an artist, after all. And an artist had to have vision.

  When she’d left her three best friends behind and moved to a new city, she forced herself to look at it as an adventure.

  When she was left alone while her mom was lost in space, she tried to see it as an opportunity to be independent.

  And when her mom came down to earth and told her they were moving back, she decided to approach it as a chance to start over.

 
It was a vision thing.

  All that stuff had been hard. This, she told herself as she opened her eyes again, was just her first day at Chronic Prep, the middle school named after the middle word in SynchroniCity.

  If beauty is truth, she mused as she laced up her boots, the truth is: This is who I am now. I’ve got to own it.

  She grabbed an apple from the kitchen, slung her messenger bag over her shoulder, and checked her reflection one last time before she headed out the door. Her hair was almost dry now, and the thick strands spiraled down her back. Ultra vibrant. Ultra vivid. And ultra weird.

  “Oh, well,” she said to herself with a small smile. “Here goes.”

  The gawking began in the elevator. On the monorail to school, the other passengers whispered. In morning assembly, the students murmured. They muttered in class. And on the playground, they straight up ogled.

  She just smiled, sucked on her lollipop, said hello to the occasional familiar face. In the cafeteria, she took a seat at a table all by herself.

  She was taller now, but she still trembled with energy: Her periwinkle eyes were just as true blue. Only the cascading ringlets, once blond, were now . . . different.

  “Iris?”

  Balancing a tray of mac-and-cheese and a carton of chocolate milk with one manicured hand, hiding a dachshund in a tote bag with the other, Cheri slowly approached the table. “O-M-Jeepers. It really is you.” She paused, trying not to stare and uncertain of what to say next. “Can I—”

  “Sit down, yes, please!” Iris finished the question for her. After a lonely morning, her positive vision was kicking in. Yay!

  Cheri slid into the opposite chair, placing her tray on the table and tucking her hot dog under her seat. She gave a little wave to her usual group of friends, the trendster girls over on the other side of the cafeteria, who all looked at her questioningly, wondering who on earth Cheri was hanging with. Though she wasn’t sure why, she felt a bit embarrassed. It wasn’t Iris’s wild new style: Cheri considered fashion the ultimate in self-expression and always applauded daring choices. But maybe too much time had gone by, and her memories of their childish ice-cream birthday parties and spectacular Saturday afternoon talent shows belonged in the past. Maybe, Cheri wondered, Iris was thinking the same thing.

  She poked at her macaroni with a fork while Iris set aside her iCan, the digital canvas she’d been doodling in. Cheri stole a glance at the drawing. It was a rainbow all in blues.

  Then Iris said, “I really like your lip gloss.”

  “Ooh, merci boocoop!” Cheri said, and flashed a bright smile. “My mom says I’m not allowed to wear it. But it’s just a sheer rose. With a hint of shimmer. Very natural-looking. Me, only shinier!” Cheri could host a daylong symposium on the sticky goodness that was lip gloss. But she realized she was beginning to babble, so she just blurted, “I wipe it off before I get home. Don’t tell your mom.”

  “Of course not!” Iris said, placing her hand on her heart. “Friend’s honor!”

  So they were still friends! *smiley face!* Encouraged, Cheri decided to address the pink elephant in the cafeteria. (There wasn’t actually an elephant in the cafeteria—thankfully, because that would have terrified the dachshund. And it wasn’t pink, either. But since this metaphor may be confusing, let’s let Cheri get to the point.) She looked Iris straight in the eye and began, “I heard some boys in assembly this morning saying that there was a new girl whose hair was—”

  “Get. OUT!” The command came from over Cheri’s shoulder, cutting her off mid-sentence.

  Cheri stiffened in her seat, refusing to dignify the rudeness by turning around. “I absolutely will not get out,” she stated, miffed to be interrupted. “I just sat down. And I was here first. Or second, after Iris. But definitely before you!” With a defiant toss of her auburn waves, she turned to face the boy who’d been so obnoxious—and instead found herself nose-to-freckled-nose with Scarlet. The tiny girl with the big voice dropped into the chair beside her, banging a Batman lunch box onto the tabletop.

  “No, I didn’t mean ‘get out’ get out,” Scar Lo explained, popping open the lunch box and picking up her tuna fish on rye. “I meant, ‘get out,’ oh swell no! As in, believe the hype. As in, Iris, you’re back, and your hair really is—”

  Then Scarlet lost her nerve, turning from Iris to Cheri to her sandwich. It dawned on her that she was sitting at a lunch table with not one but two past-tense besties. One who’d moved away years ago, and another she barely said hey to in the hallways anymore.

  “Hey, Cher,” she started over, swallowing hard.

  “Scarlet,” Cheri acknowledged.

  “Long time no see,” Scarlet tried.

  “We’re in all the same classes,” Cheri replied.

  “Are you aware there’s a small dog under your chair?” Scarlet asked.

  “His name is Salami,” Cheri said without missing a beat. “Are you aware you’ve got a Batman lunch box?”

  “Batman’s cool!” Scarlet said.

  “If you like your heroes gloomy,” Cheri countered, sipping her chocolate milk through a straw. “He should freshen up his look. A tangerine-orange cape would really pop against all that goth.”

  Scarlet gawked at her, briefly speechless, before saying, “Whatever, it’s my brother’s, all right? Not everyone is obsessed with My Little Pony.”

  “But Friendship Is Magic!” Iris tried to break the tension with a joke and get her happy vision back on track. Her mom always said she had a sensitive personality. And right now she sensed that this snippy chitchat was just a way for Scarlet and Cheri not to deal with the awkwardness that was her return.

  “Excuse me, um, hi?”

  The three girls looked up in surprise. Opaline stood at the end of the table. Clutching her brown paper bag like a security blanket, she cleared her throat and tried again. “Remember me?”

  “Remember you?” Iris echoed, leaping to her feet just like she used to do in their talent-show days. “I’ve totally missed you!” She gave Opal’s shoulders an affectionate squeeze, then grinned at Cheri and Scar. “I’ve totally missed all of you!”

  Opal hesitated for another second, until Scarlet slid down in her seat to nudge out the last empty chair with her foot. Then Opal shook off her shyness and took her place at the table.

  “Welcome back, Opal!” Cheri said breathlessly. “To stay, I hope? You’re not just here on the foreign lunch exchange program, are you? Because if you are, heads-up: It’s Wonderful World of Cabbage week.”

  Opaline blushed at the attention. After four years at the all-girls’ academy, she was still adjusting to life on the outside. But here they all were again, reunited, and it felt so good. It was weird, kind of. Coincidental, some might call it. The way things worked out.

  “I guess my mom took your mom’s old job at the FLab?” Iris said, stirring her spoon in her cup-of-soup. “I think that’s what she said.”

  “Oh, did she?” Opal said, unwrapping her cucumber sandwich. “Because—”

  “But what about NASA?” Scarlet cut her off, swallowing down a mouthful of tuna. “What about outer space?”

  “Ends up my mom was claustrophobic,” Iris said, shaking her head. “That’s when small spaces stress you out.”

  “But isn’t outer space as big as you can get?” Cheri asked, confused.

  “It is,” Iris agreed, “but her spaceship was not. My mother spent so much time away, training for her mission to Venus, and after the blastoff . . .” Iris paused, a faraway look in her eyes. Then she seemed to remember where she was again. “Those were my astronaut offspring boarding school years!” she declared. “Kind of like an all-girls’ academy.” She gave Opal a wink. “Twenty-four hours a day.”

  “Wow, really?” Scarlet said. She lived in a rambunctious bluestone townhouse with three older brothers and a basement and a
big backyard. To her, boarding school sounded like prison. “What was that like? Was it hardcore?”

  “It was . . .” Iris paused again, as if she was trying to find the right words. “It was, um, ‘character-building.’ It was okay.”

  Somehow, the way she said it didn’t sound very okay.

  “Did they allow pets at astronaut offspring boarding school?” Cheri asked, reaching under her chair to pat Salami on his head. “Did you have a mascot like Darth Odor?” It had been four years since Cheri had met the baby skunk, when their first night together was cut short by goo. But not a day went by that she didn’t think of his darling little black-and-white face.

  “Nope, definitely no pets,” Iris said between sips of her soup. “It was more like military school. You know, push-ups at six in the morning. Kitchen Patrol. Lights out by seven. That kind of school.”

  “Yikes,” Scarlet muttered. She couldn’t even do one push-up at two in the afternoon.

  “Anyway,” Iris went on, “after nine-and-a-half weeks up in her rocket ship, the Deep Space Nine-and-a-Half, my mom started to go stir-crazy. When her mission splashed down, she was ready to come back to Sync City.”

  “That’s funny,” Opal said hesitantly. She waited in case anyone spoke over her again, but they all just looked at her, waiting for her to continue. Opal could feel herself blushing all the way up to her barrettes. “Because my mom was so ready to leave. She got a job across the river, at this bio-cosmetic company called BeauTek.”

  “So she took you out of the all-girls’ academy?” Cheri asked.

  “Yes.” Opal nodded, her chestnut brown bob swinging just above her shoulders. “Chronic Prep is closer to her new job.”

  “And bonus,” Cheri said with a twinkle in her green eyes, “there are lots and lots of boys here!”

  Scarlet wrinkled her nose as Opal blushed all the way down to her shirt buttons.

  “Well, I’m psyched that you’re here,” Iris said warmly, grinning at Opal. “We can be old newbies, or new oldbies, or whatever we are, together. Right?”