The Ultra Violets Read online

  “Well, you said you didn’t want it,” she said, tearing off the wrapper with her teeth.

  “No worries.” Iris pointed to her messenger bag on the grass. “There’s more where that came from.” As Iris propped herself up on the edge of the wall, Cheri shuffled closer, and Scarlet made the short dash from the tree, gripping the Plexiglas instead. They huddled into a small circle. Then Iris looked straight at Opal with her pale blue eyes. “What’s your favorite color?” she asked.

  Opal squirmed where she stood. Once again Iris was baiting her with some trick question and she didn’t know why! Sticking a lollipop in her face like a microphone! And once again she stammered out an answer she immediately regretted. “Purple!” she said. Just like your hair.

  “Perfect!” Iris said. “Purple it is. Pinkies crossed!”

  But before she could attempt her first public color change, the first bell rang. All the children in the schoolyard started to file toward the oval entrance to Chronic Prep, ready to face a new week of classes. Iris and Cheri each slid down from the wall, Iris slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder and Cheri tucking Jaws into the tote bag The four girls walked in silence under the fluffula tree. But if they had kept talking, they would have agreed: Strange stuff was happening. Weirdness indeed.

  And it was only Monday.

  MC Cheri

  FOR THOSE KEEPING TRACK: THERE’S MATH. AND THEN there’s aftermath. And THEN there’s Math Episode II: Attack of the Common Denominators.

  Yes, this chapter does involve an algorithm.

  (And no, algorithm is not some mash-up word that describes alligators playing bongos, though that would be awesome.)

  But yes! This chapter also involves a flash of brilliance. A hint of romance. A dash of jealousy. And a lavender dog.

  • • •

  Due to the cruelties of alphabetical seating, Opaline Trudeau sat several desks behind her crush, Albert Feinstein. For he was an F and she was a T and rarely those twain letters did meet in the dictionary. Instead, Opal could only admire Albert—the back of his head, specifically—from afar. She had Iris Tyler as a neighbor in the back of the classroom. While Albert sat right beside Cheri Henderson, up front.

  And Cheri got the full frontal nerdity of Albert.

  From her vantage point, Cheri surveyed the raw materials of her makeover project. There was hope for Albert Feinstein, she decided. Beneath his thick glasses, he had decent cheekbones. The cleft in his chin could be considered distinguished. And his sandy-colored crew cut had potential to be boy-band-esque in sweep, if only he could stay strong through the growing-out stage.

  Yes, Cheri thought with a dreamy smile, resting her own chin on her hand and smiling across the aisle at Albert, he definitely has future BF potential for Opal.

  Albert was immersed in some mathy mumbo jumbo on his tablet, his nose pressed up against the screen and his mouth-breathing fogging up his glasses. He was completely clueless that one of the prettiest girls in school was staring at him.

  Until she barked.

  Of course she didn’t! It was Jaws, his nose poking out of the mesh tote bag on top of Cheri’s textbooks in the rack beneath her seat. But Albert didn’t know that. He peeked over the top of his tablet at Cheri, blinking as the sunlight bounced off her gold sequined headband and evaporated the mist on his glasses.

  “Why hello!” Cheri said, blinking right back at him. “Have we met? I’m—”

  “Rrruff!” As Cheri extended her hand to shake, Jaws let loose another little bark.

  “You’re r-rough?” Albert stammered, shoving his tablet into his lap so he could return the handshake.

  “My hands are rough?” Cheri said, surprised. Moisturizing was an essential step in every manicure. And also: How rude! She made a mental note to include lessons about manners in her makeover.

  “N-no,” Albert stuttered. “Your name. You said your name was—”

  “Cheri, darling,” Cher said, the lightbulb going off over her head and making the gold sequins shine even more fiercely. “My name’s Cheri. I’ve just got a bit of a sore throat, that’s all.”

  “Allergies?” Albert asked with a sniffle, offering her a tissue. “Me too.” He wasn’t used to talking to girls and had no idea what to say next. “I’m Albert, darling. I mean Feinstein!” he said at last.

  “I know,” Cheri said, doing her best starstruck. “Everybody knows the captain of the mathletes!”

  “They do?” Albert spluttered, his glasses fogging up again.

  “You even have groupies—wink!” Cheri said, subtly tilting her head toward the back of the classroom, toward Opal. Maybe too subtly, because Albert kept on staring at her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, wondering if Cheri had some sort of nervous tic on top of her sore throat.

  She stopped with the head-tilting, figuring she’d better just move on to the next phase in her plan. But before she could get any further, their math teacher, Mr. Grates, shambled into the room carrying a messy stack of textbooks and notepads along with his own computer. His shirttail stuck out from the back of his pants, and his tweedy V-neck had a pseudo suede patch on just one elbow. While Cheri appreciated that no animals were harmed in the making of his sweater, Mr. Grates wasn’t exactly cutting edge. The single patch, she was sure, wasn’t so much a fashion statement as a hole-fixer.

  “Sorry I’m late,” Mr. Grates said, dropping the stack of books on his desk and folding his arms in what he probably thought was a hip-hop pose. “Yo yo yo, now let’s get ready to fractionate!”

  In his quest to make math cool, Mr. Grates always peppered his lectures with little snippets of rapping.

  “Holla,” Scarlet said drily from a few seats behind Cheri.

  “Please take out your assignment from the weekend,” Mr. Grates said, leafing through his own folders in search of it, “and switch with the student next to you.”

  From her seat in the back of the classroom, Opal watched Albert trade tablets with Cheri, wishing she could trade places with her.

  Cheri had just placed Albert’s homework on her desk when a single sheet broke free from the notebook Mr. Grates was fanning through. It flew out into the air, then wafted down the aisle to land on the floor between Cheri’s and Albert’s desks.

  She leaned over to pick it up just as he did, and they bumped heads.

  “Owie,” Cheri muttered, rubbing the sore spot with one hand. Then she realized she was holding the paper with the other. They both were. Albert tugged it toward his desktop and scanned the page. The flow chart of rectangles reflected in his glasses. “That’s some hardcore math,” he said to Cheri, because he thought the captain of the mathletes should probably make such a statement under the circumstances. “Even I couldn’t do it.”

  “Affirmative,” Mr. Grates said from the front of the class, where he was still rummaging around for the fractions homework. “That page is from the course I teach at night. Unless you’re computating at a community college level, it just might sprain your brain. Yo!”

  “My brain is hurting. Um, yo,” Cheri admitted, tugging the page back toward her side of the aisle. “But I think that’s because it knocked into Albert’s.”

  She looked at the page. This time it involved a’s and b’s, not x’s and y’s. The chart ran from top to bottom, each step in its own rectangle, sometimes with an arrow doubling back to the top. It reminded her a bit of the monorail map for Sync City. But then the lightbulb flashed again.

  “Oh, I get it,” Cheri said. “You keep subtracting in two loops until b equals zero. And that’s how you figure out a.”

  Mr. Grates stopped thumbing through his papers. “Respect, respect,” he said slowly, “that is correct, correct, Miss Henderson. It’s called the Euclidean algorithm, named after the Greek mathematic
ian who came up with it. And it’s used to determine the greatest common factor: the largest number that divides both a and b without leaving a remainder.”

  “I thought yo, I mean so,” Cheri said with a smile, handing the page back to the teacher.

  “Class, this is an excellent teachable moment!” Mr. Grates exclaimed, all excited, and forgetting all about the fractions homework. He pulled up a chart on his tablet that matched the algorithm on the page, then posted it onto the screen in front of the room. “Miss Henderson, please join me to explain to your fellow students.”

  Cheri hated to leave Jaws alone at her desk, but she couldn’t exactly say no to the teacher. From her smart phone she clicked the wheels back down on her platform skates and rolled to the front of the classroom. As Mr. Grates rapped about algorithms, she pointed out the steps in the flow chart with her pinkie finger.

  From his desk, Albert Feinstein gazed at Cheri adoringly, as if she were some Greek goddess of polynomials and nail polish. He stopped only to wipe off his steamed-up glasses on his khakis. But he was breathing so heavy, the glasses just fogged up again.

  From her desk, Scarlet stared at her friend, the insta-math queen. So I guess that’s the weirdness that happened to Cheri over the weekend, she thought.

  And from her desk, Opal gazed at Albert. Even from the back of his head, she could practically see the steam pouring out of his ears. It wasn’t enough that Iris forced her to confess her crush on Albert at the sleepover: Now Cheri had to steal him from right under her nose? When all Cheri had to do was bat the lashes of her emerald eyes and toss her auburn hair and she could have any boy she wanted?

  It was downright cruel, Opal thought, her stomach in knots. As cruel as the alphabet that conspired to keep her and Albert apart. She sunk down in her seat and tore a page from her notebook into tiny. little. pieces. If only she could find a way to reduce Cheri to zero! To divide and conquer.

  “Psst, Opaline!” Iris hissed from behind her. “You said purple, right?”

  “Huh?” Opal hissed back, then remembered their convo from the schoolyard. Her so-called favorite color. “Oh, right. Purple.”

  “Keep your eye on the bulldog,” Iris whispered. At the front of the classroom, Mr. Grates was hippening up his algorithm rap with a few robot moves. To keep from challenging him to a break-dance-off, Scarlet had wrapped her ankles around her chair legs.

  While Opal watched, Iris set her sights on Jaws, dozing in his tote bag. She closed her eyes for only a second or three, quivered a little . . .

  . . . and Jaws’s white fur turned a shade that could best be described as lavender.

  “Grape googly moogly,” Scarlet muttered, spotting the pastel bulldog.

  “Iris, did you just color in Cheri’s rent-a-puppy?” Opal murmured.

  Iris felt dizzy, even a little sick, like some invisible wave had knocked the breath out of her. But she was beginning to get the hang of this color-changing thing. “Yes,” she whispered back, “though I was trying for deep purple!”

  The Freaks Come Out at Night

  (And Some of Them Stay Home)

  OPAL HAD MADE IT THROUGH THE SCHOOL WEEK. IT hadn’t been easy. This time last Friday, she was at Scarlet’s sleepover, buttoned up in her pajamas and admitting her now certainly lost-cause crush on Albert Feinstein to the merciless lollipop of Confess or Risk. But this time this Friday, she was safe in her apartment, cozy on the couch as the rain thrummed against the windows. Her mom had wigged out once more over the groceries when she discovered the broccoli glowed in the dark. If it had three eyes, too, Opal *shudder* didn’t want to know. She had enough problems at school and couldn’t deal with monster vegetables.

  They’d ordered Chinese takeout, to be on the safe side. But that was cool. Opal liked Chinese takeout. She liked to practice her chopsticks technique.

  Opal put her chopsticks down in the empty takeout container and picked up the remote instead. While her mom washed their few dishes in the kitchen, she stayed in the living room and channel-surfed.

  Nothing good was on.

  Over the past few days, Opal had watched, helpless, as Cheri blew everyone else out of the water with her sudden prowess in math class. Including Albert, who was now following her around in the hallways like one of her stray puppies.

  Because Cheri needs another dog, Opal thought in dismay, like a fish needs a bicycle.

  Scarlet, in the meantime, was still trying to hide her balletomanic outbursts. But rumors were rampant. Opal overheard some seventh-graders who swore they’d seen a punky little ponytailed girl riverdancing in the library. And Rhett Smith dared to post a photo on his Smashface page that showed Scarlet mid-Charleston, dangerously close to the edge of Chronic Prep’s indoor infinity pool, about to swing-dance herself into the water. Drama-club kids stage-whispered that she could dance off with a lead in the school play if only she’d audition. It all made Scarlet so mad that she doubled up on her school fights. And double-stepped her way into detention. When she found out about Rhett’s Smashface post, she smashed his face with a very graceful left hook to the nose.

  Some boys never learn, Opal thought, her mind wandering from reckless Rhett to brilliant, and yet equally clueless, Albert.

  The TV flickered with images of twisters. A couple in a pickup truck was driving toward the storm. “Wrong way, geniuses,” Opal said, pressing the MUTE button and putting the remote down. Silently the tornados spun on screen, while the rain drubbed against the windows.

  The peonies in a vase on the coffee table caught her eye, and she ran her fingers over the blossoms. White, with just a hint of red around the edges. Her mom had brought them home days ago, and the blooms were past their peak now, so open they reminded Opal of the frilly tissue paper flowers they used to make in kindergarten.

  That was when Iris had normal hair. Opal recalled the four of them in their class picture, grinning at the camera. Back then, whenever she was afraid, Opal would hold Iris’s hand. Iris always seemed so confident. So positive. So chill. “A natural-born leader,” her mom used to say. Even before her hair turned purple, Opal thought. And before she could turn things different colors.

  On TV, a tornado ripped a tree from its roots, sucking it up into its vortex.

  Slowly—she didn’t know why—Opal began to pluck off the pale petals. She dropped them, one after another, in a soft pile on the table. As she did so, a current of white-hot electricity coursed around her, sparking in the darkness of the living room. The charge gently raised her hair off her shoulders, and it floated in midair, as if some invisible twister was lifting it, too. Opal’s eyes, normally so warm and brown, clouded over, like milk in a coffee that was spiced with cinnamon powder.

  But Opal was as clueless to these changes as she figured Albert Feinstein was to her. She didn’t feel any different. After she’d pulled off a few petals, she took pity on the fading flowers. They still looked beautiful even as they wilted, she decided, and she let them be. She swept the loose petals into the empty takeout container and reached for her fortune cookie instead.

  Although Opal knew it was just a silly superstition, she snapped it open for the fortune.

  You have more power than you can imagine, it read.

  Oh, and: Lucky Numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.

  “Yeah, right,” Opal said aloud. But she didn’t throw out the fortune with the plucked flower petals. She rolled it up into a little scroll and hid it in her dresser drawer later that night.

  • • •

  While Opal may have been bumming out about her lack of a freaky talent that Friday night, the other three girls were learning how to deal with theirs.

  After a school week of spontaneous solos, Scarlet had to admit defeat. She was now an awesome dancer, whether she liked it or not. She had no idea why. She just was. In the p
rivacy of the family basement, with her older brothers out and her parents absorbed in some storm documentary on TV upstairs, she decided to test her limits.

  She stood at one end of the room, balancing on the balls of her bare feet. She gave a last glance to the staircase to make sure her mom wasn’t there watching like she had been for the Swan Lake matinee. (She wasn’t.) And then she concentrated her energy, pliéed, and leaped.

  Straight into the basement ceiling.

  “Owie,” she grumbled, getting up from her face-plant into the carpet.

  “Scarlet, what was that noise?” her mother called from upstairs, over the bombastic soundtrack of the TV tsunami.

  “Nothing, Mom!” Scarlet shouted back. “Just my head!”

  Scarlet waited a few minutes to make sure her mom wasn’t coming to investigate further. She listened for footsteps while she dug an old bike helmet out of the toy chest. After she tightened the strap underneath her chin, Scarlet went back to her starting position, crouched down, concentrated, and jumped again.

  Smack into the opposite wall.

  “Owie!” she moaned, stumbling to regain her balance after her body-slam. “That’s gonna leave a mark. Or ten.” She looked up just in time to see her dad’s favorite painting, of dogs playing poker, crash to the floor. There was a big hole in the Saint Bernard where her elbow had hit it.

  “Sorry, dog,” she said to the sad-faced hound. For sure her mother was going to bark down again. But all she could hear was the howl of tornados on TV.

  That must be some scary storm, she thought as she limped back to the toy chest. She rummaged for the elbow guards she’d worn years ago, when she was training on her skateboard. Safety first, she thought, even though by now safety probably ranked about third in the order of priorities. Might as well buckle on some kneepads while I’m at it.