The Ultra Violets Read online

  Opal nodded again. Scarlet burped, Cheri rolled her eyes at the etiquette fail, and Opal had run out of places to blush, so she clasped her hands over her mouth instead. (Although she’d mostly outgrown her toilet phobia, bodily functions still equaled gross.) Iris just smiled at her old friends.

  So much has changed, she thought. In the four years she’d spent out of Sync, she’d learned a lot. With her mom in the space program, she’d learned about astronomy: planets and galaxies, black holes and comets, satellites and supernovas. More important, between moving away and then having to fly solo herself while her mom was in orbit, she’d learned to be independent. When it came to climbing a rope, pitching a tent, building a fire, spotting poison ivy, or making the bed, the girl had mad skillz.

  Iris knew things were different now, but she was ready. She didn’t know for what. For anything, for really.

  Because, she thought, so much also stays the same. After all, here she was, chilling at the lunch table with her three best friends from second grade.

  Of all the things she’d learned about space, her favorite subject was the stars. So far away, but close enough you could almost touch them if you stood on your tippy-toes and reached high. Whenever she made a painting of the sun, Iris was reminded that it was a star, too. It made her happy to know that, day or night, starlight was always shining on her. And on her friends!

  Friends, she pondered, are like sparkly stars. Sometimes, when skies are cloudy, you can’t see them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t still there. Sometimes, they could be millions of miles apart, but somehow they’d still be connected in a constellation.

  As Iris considered this, she reached one hand across the table, linking pinkie fingers with Cheri. Then, with her other hand, she did the same with Opal, at her side. Scarlet hastily brushed her hands on her jeans and hooked pinkie fingers with Cheri and Opal. Together, they formed a diamond shape.

  Her mom would say it was just her sensitive personality acting up again, but Iris was sure she could feel a kind of energy coursing through them, electrifying the diamond. She wondered if the other three felt it, too.

  The brrrraaang! of the bell snapped her back to reality.

  They all got up to go to their next class, but before splitting—not for four years, just for the rest of the afternoon—Scarlet wanted to seal the deal. She gave Cheri a playful punch on the arm, then stuck out her palm to shake.

  “Friends again?” she asked, her voice cracking, much to her annoyance.

  Cheri eyed Scarlet’s open hand but didn’t take it. “Scar,” she said, pursing her lightly glossed lips and planting her hands on her hips. “I think we can answer that question with three little letters. Gimme a B . . .”

  “Gimme an F . . .” Opal chimed in softly, grinning as she petted the dachshund in Cheri’s bag.

  “Okay, fine,” Scarlet said, “gimme another F.”

  “For F-r-i-e-n-d-s Forever!” Iris shouted, doing a cartwheel in the cafeteria for old times’ sake.

  They came together in a BFF hug.

  As they hugged it out, it occurred to Iris that they’d spent the entire lunch period gossiping and catching up, but after those first few awkward moments no one had even mentioned—

  “Hold on!” Scar exclaimed. “Rewind.” They’d unhugged themselves at last and had started walking toward the stairwell, but now the other three girls pressed PAUSE.

  “Ooh, yeah,” Cheri agreed, catching Scarlet’s eye and remembering the pink elephant she’d started to ask about before.

  “Iris,” Scarlet said. “Awesome that you’re back. But what is up with the purple hair?”

  The Mall of No Returns

  WE’LL GET BACK TO IRIS’S PURPLE HAIR, PROMISE. For now, just picture it in all its lavender loveliness, glossified and gleaming and as sparkly as grape soda. Picture the pretty. Pretty please? Because things are about to get ugly.

  In the fours years that had passed since her extra-gooey babysitting gig at the FLab, Candace had zoomed through high school. Her parents wanted her to have all the classic experiences—homecoming, student council, varsity football, prom—so Candace had stayed in her grade. Officially, though, she’d earned her diploma as a sophomore. Now she sat in on a couple of college science classes for credit, but she had a pretty free schedule. Which is why she decided to apply for an internship at this new bio-cosmetic company, BeauTek, located in the vacant mall just across the Joan River. An internship would really score points on her college applications.

  Candace had an interview that morning with the company’s president, Develon Louder.

  As the ferryboat sailed the short distance, Candace stood out on the deck. It was a clear if chilly day, and she wanted to enjoy the ride. But as she gazed into the waves, something under the water caught her eye. Peering closer (she’d cured her astigmatism, though she still wore glasses), she realized she was witnessing some unusual sea-life: strange creatures, in colors she’d never seen before—stingrays crisscrossed plaid; otters with coats that flowed lush and long and slightly highlighted on the ends, in that fashionable pattern known as “ombré”; fish flashing electric red and blue, blinking through the currents while they swam.

  “That’s fishy,” Candace said, as the ferryboat bobbed into the dock.

  Candace teetered down the plank. To look more mature and professional, she was wearing a pencil skirt and black patent pumps, but they were hard to walk in. As she made her way to the bank, she wiggled and wobbled this way and that, nearly falling into the water. A cold wind was blowing off the river, but Candace kept the straight bangs of her dirty blond bob so short that they hardly budged on her forehead.

  When she reached dry land, she tucked her chin into her black turtleneck sweater and peered through her square-framed glasses. After the strange sightings on the ferry boat, her scientific mind wanted to document any new peculiar plants and animals. She clicked the button on her MP5 player to record her initial scientific observations.

  “Cattails at riverside appear to have a, um, mutation that has resulted in feathery wings,” she noted, looking closely at the vegetation that bordered the dock. Other ferry passengers jostled past her as she talked. “More atypically,” she added, “the heads of these reeds seem to have lips. With red lipstick on them.”

  Swaying in the wind as if they could hear her, the cattails turned toward Candace and bobbed above her head with their shiny, smiling mouths. Unnerved, she wiggle-wobbled backward, her heels sinking in the mud.

  “Eek equals m-e scared,” Candace muttered, hurrying away from the cattails and stepping up to the top of the dock, where a large willow tree stood. As its fronds blew in the breeze, Candace was astonished to see that the tree was sobbing.

  “A literally weeping willow? Now that’s scientifically improbable,” she said. Her first instinct was to offer the tree a tissue. Her second instinct was to catch one of its strands. Candace switched her eyeglass setting to MAGNIFY and stared so close that her nose touched the leaf. Passersby gave her funny looks. Candace was too absorbed to notice. “No, they’re not tears after all,” she said, “but some sort of resinous byproduct. Another mutation?” Underneath the willow’s canopy, the drops set into stiff amber stalagmites as they fell to the ground.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Candace mumbled, snapping off the leaf and dropping it into a clear zip-top pouch for later analysis. She left the riverbank and approached the entrance of BeauTek.

  “The Mall of No Returns,” Candace read. The sign arched above the main entrance in three-foot-tall neon letters. The second L in MALL flickered on and off like a mosquito-zapper, and the final S had come loose, hanging upside down from

  just one hook. It swayed back and forth precariously in the breeze, and the whole sign shone dully in the bright morning sun. But Candace knew the words glowed to life every ev
ening. She had seen them often enough from Sync City, a sulfurous yellow beacon on the other side of the river.

  Shaky in her shoes, Candace buzzed at the entrance and spoke her name into the intercom. “I have an eleven o’clock appointment with Develon Louder?” she said, phrasing it like a question even though it was a fact. Between the flashing fish and laughing cattails and crying trees, Candace was feeling a tad out of her element. But once the doors slid open, she was met in the lobby by a familiar face.

  “Dr. Trudeau?” Candace said with surprise, recognizing the mother of her former babysittee Opaline. “But I thought you worked at—”

  “I quit the FLab, Candace,” Opal’s mom said with a tight smile, leading the teenius down the mall corridors. “You could say I hit the crystal ceiling.”

  “I see,” Candace responded seriously, the way she thought a scientist would. “Had you been conducting antigravity experiments?”

  Dr. Trudeau just gave her a quizzical look and continued. “I’ve got a great position here at BeauTek. It’s like a hybrid job: media director slash lead researcher.”

  Now it was Candace’s turn to look at Opal’s mom questioningly.

  “I oversee all the publicity and other communications for BeauTek,” Dr. Trudeau explained. “And I also run a big research lab here. We call it the Vi-Shush.” She gave a short, sharp laugh. “That’s a little BeauTek joke,” she said, like she was letting Candace in on a secret. “Because it’s in the old Victoria’s Shush store.”

  “Cool, can’t wait to see it!” Candace enthused, her voice filling the hallway. Too late, she realized that sounding excited was not the mature thing to do.

  “Oh no,” Dr. Trudeau said sternly, shaking her head. “No no no no no. Absosmurfly not. Access to the Vi-Shush is for authorized personnel only.” She seemed nervous. “I should know,” she yammered. “I drafted the confidentiality clause!”

  Candace wasn’t sure what to say next, so she just concentrated on not tripping in her heels as she took in her surroundings. Each of the mall’s former storefronts now housed its own specialized lab.

  “The team in Forever Twenty-Fun tests antiaging serums and wrinkle-reversing creams,” Dr. Trudeau stated, resuming the tour. “In the Build-a-Girl Workshop, we’re developing synthetic growth hormones targeted to individual body parts.” Candace’s eyes passed over its window, filled with naked doll parts. They gave her the creeps. “And in what used to be the Cinnaubonpain,” Dr. Trudeau continued in an overly cheerful voice, “lab technicians are whipping up aromatherapy to cure everything from backne to ingrown toenails with little more than a sniff! You don’t have backne, do you, Candace?” Dr. Trudeau asked.

  “Uh, no,” Candace said, taken so abackne that she veered to one side in her runaway heels. She grabbed onto a water fountain to regain her balance.

  Dr. Trudeau waited, standing beside a windowless silver door. “I wouldn’t drink the water,” she hissed from across the hall to Candace, shaking her head insistently. Candace straightened her skirt, slightly embarrassed, and took tiny steps until she was beside Dr. Trudeau again.

  “Well, your new job sounds brilliant,” Candace said, though it actually sounded confusing.

  “What? Oh, hmm,” Dr. Trudeau answered, distracted. “Though the hours are murder . . .” Something about the way she lingered on the word gave Candace the creeps all over again.

  Dr. Trudeau rapped on the door, then dropped her voice to a whisper. “If she curses you out,” she said, “don’t take it personally.”

  “Excuse me?” Candace said, confused again, but Dr. Trudeau had already begun to back away.

  “Oh, and I meant to ask,” Candace called after her. “How’s Opaline? I always thought she was the sweetest, most polite little girl.”

  But then the silver door opened, just as Opal’s mom disappeared around a bend.

  “SWEET?” a voice bellowed. “POLITE? THAT WON’T GET YOU FAR IN BUSINESS!”

  This time Candace’s baby bangs did blow back, the woman shouted so forcefully. Closing the door, she directed Candace to a patent-leather couch as shiny as Candace’s shoes. And just as uncomfortable. Even though the cushions were stiff as boards, Candace was just glad not to have to walk anymore.

  Using her fingers, she combed her bangs back into place.

  As Candace sat in silence, the woman paced back and forth in front of her. With her wasp-waist pantsuit, impeccable silver chignon, and dramatically lined eyelids, she looked elegant if severe, like one of those hairless cats. In a boa-tight grip, she grasped a snakeskin purse in front of her chest. Solid black, except for a thin transparent panel around the top, it was a custom-made designer Burkant bag, the ultimate accessory.

  A rattling sound caught Candace’s attention. Turning toward the corner of the office, she thought she saw a scaly tail, as acid yellow as the mall’s sign, slip into the drawer of a file cabinet. The woman bumped it shut with a crisp swish of her hips, not even bothering to look, and continued pacing.

  Candace swallowed. She wondered if she was supposed to say something first. But just as she was about to open her mouth, the woman spun on her six-inch stilettos, raised the black Burkant to cover her face, and peered down at Candace through the transparent strip.

  “DEVELON LOUDER!” she shouted, by means of introduction.

  Candace’s short bangs stood on end again. She might have been a teenius, but no amount of IQ points could have prepared her for this odd behavior. She looked up at the woman’s beady eyes through the bag’s clear panel, then extended her hand to shake. But Develon shook her head no. Candace could see her silver chignon twisting above the bag like a Christmas tree ball.

  “Candace Coddington?” Candace said, as if she wasn’t even sure of her own name anymore.

  Develon circled around to her desk and sat down, propping her elbows on the tabletop. She never once lowered the bag.

  Candace was at a loss. First Opal’s mom, so stressed out, and now this strange shouty woman, using her luxury handbag like a helmet. Not to mention the possibility of a neon rattlesnake in the file cabinet. Candace finger-combed her bangs down once more. Then she tried to make conversation.

  “I already have my high school diploma,” Candace began, “and I’m taking Intro to Physics at Sync U. An internship here at BeauTek would—”

  “Shush!” Develon Louder said from behind her black bag.

  Candace fell silent. She felt like she was back in grade school! Then it occurred to her: Maybe this was a test. And maybe that was a hint. “Oh!” she began again, relaxing a little. “The Vi-Shush! Yes, that sounds like an interesting laboratory, I—”

  “Shush!” Develon Louder said, more loudly this time, still peering out from behind her black bag. “Never speak of that lab!”

  “But—”

  “Shush!”

  “I just thought—”

  “SHUSH!”

  “Don’t you want to know why—”

  “SH*$%#SH!”

  Candace was completely taken aback again. Had this woman just cursed her out from behind a designer handbag?

  Develon Louder lowered her Burkant at last. She shuffled some papers on her desk. Then, as if the whole crazy shout-down had never happened, she started chatting to Candace about BeauTek and its bio-cosmetic research and all the coffee runs she’d be expected to make as an intern at the company.

  Candace nodded along politely. But Develon had lost her somewhere around the second “Shush!”

  As soon as I get out of this strange place, she thought, I’m calling the FLab.

  With any luck, the FLab would have an opening for an intern, too. Because Candace knew—the way you know before you even get to school that there will be a pop quiz that day—there was something seriously creepsville going on at BeauTek.

  The BFF Ritual

  PICTURE, IF YOU WI
LL, CUTE PAJAMA PANTS PRINTED with jelly beans and ice-cream cones. Four sleeping bags arranged in a circle. Three movies ready to be downloaded at the press of a button. Two playlists of tunes—SLEEPLESS and SNOOZIN’—chosen especially for this most auspicious occasion. And one ginorm bowl of popcorn.

  Let us party.

  The sleepover was Scarlet’s idea. Every other week, it seemed, she was called to Principal Dingelmon’s office for “going into hyperdrive” during dodgeball and bonking some other kid smack on the nose by accident. Or “throwing down” with an eighth-grader, instigating an arm wrestling match that ended in a sprained wrist. For her opponent. Then there was that kid she forced to “eat her sand” for copying off her vocabulary quiz. Not to mention a near-constant string of pantsings. Her victims were almost always boys—mean boys! Boys

  • • •

  Scarlet swore were bullies. Dingelmon wasn’t so sure. To see Scarlet Jones sitting in a corner of the principal’s office, still too short for her feet to reach the ground, her ponytail bobbing in agreement as she accepted her latest punishment, she could have been the picture of innocence. But then the principal would turn his back and Scarlet would stick out her tongue and wrinkle her nose and the freckles would dance across her face in a ballet of bad intentions.

  Blame it on growing up with three older brothers. All that roughhousing! Laser paintball in the backyard! The Saturday morning fight club! But secretly Scarlet was excited Iris was back. Already she could feel the calming influence Iris had on her—on the three of them, really. If Scarlet was a tough cookie, then Iris was a cool glass of milk.

  Of course, that didn’t stop Scarlet from detonating a spectacular glitter bomb-a-thon when Iris bounced down into the basement that Friday night.