Bling It On! Read online

  “Suzy Davis Alert!” Charlotte blurted, and jumped down. “She’s on her way over.”

  About thirty seconds later, Suzy Davis showed up. Lately, it seemed that Aly and her friends couldn’t escape Suzy. She always showed up at recess when they were together: They couldn’t be at the monkey bars or the tire swing or the hopscotch court without Suzy butting in.

  Aly and Suzy Davis used to not like each other at all. But a few weeks ago, for School Picture Day, Suzy had started her own business, which she called Suzy’s Spectacular Makeup. She put fairy dust and shimmer lip gloss on anyone who was willing to pay a dollar. The business had almost been a disaster until Aly, Lily, and Charlotte helped her out. After that, Suzy wasn’t as mean to Aly as she used to be, and Aly liked Suzy a little bit more, but they still were definitely not friends.

  “So are you going to have a Sparkle Spa booth for the carnival?” Suzy asked.

  “That’s our plan,” Aly said. “But we still have to write our proposal.”

  “I finished my proposal already,” Suzy said, leaning against the metal pole that held up the monkey bars. “It’s going to be Suzy’s Spectacular Makeup, just like on Picture Day, but even better because now I also have perfume. Everyone will get fairy dust and shimmer lip gloss and a spritz of perfume. It’ll be the best booth at the whole carnival. The girls’ side will win because of me.”

  “That sounds great,” Aly said. “Are you going to ask younger kids to work the booth with you?”

  “Good question,” Lily said as she climbed back up onto the first monkey bar. “Because last time we had to help you, remember? You couldn’t do it fast enough all by yourself.”

  “Whatever,” Suzy said, pushing herself off the pole. “I bet Principal Rogers isn’t going to pick your booth anyway, even if you have a million people working there. No one wants to sit for a manicure in the middle of a carnival.”

  She started walking away, and Charlotte yelled after her. “We’re doing hair braiding, too!”

  Lily finally pulled herself up and got her chin up over the bar. “I did it!” she said, and then jumped off the bar.

  “Nice!” Charlotte said.

  Aly gave Lily a hug. She’d been trying to do a chin-up on the monkey bars for at least a month now. But even while she was hugging Lily, Aly was worrying about what Suzy Davis had said. Even with the braiding, would people want to come to their booth?

  * * *

  That afternoon, Aly, Brooke, Charlotte, and Sophie—Lily had basketball practice—headed to the Sparkle Spa to work on the carnival application.

  As the girls walked over, Aly read the questions out loud.

  “Name of Booth,” she said.

  “That one’s easy peasy,” Brooke answered. “The Sparkle Spa Booth.”

  “Hmm,” Charlotte said. “Should it be something catchier than that? The Sparkle Spa Booth doesn’t sound all that . . . exciting.”

  Aly agreed with Charlotte, but she also thought Brooke’s name made a lot of sense. They wanted people to know what they were getting, and it seemed like everyone at school knew about the Sparkle Spa.

  “I think it sounds exciting,” said Brooke. “Right, Sophie?” She turned to look at Sophie.

  “Well,” said Sophie. “I’m not sure. . . .”

  Sophie was always honest and never ever wanted to be mean, so if she wasn’t agreeing with Brooke, Aly knew the name needed some help. But she also knew that the words “Sparkle Spa” should stay. She made a quick list inside her head. She imagined it looking like this:

  Other Words to Use Instead of Booth

  Spot

  Space

  Surprises

  Celebration

  “Celebration!” Aly said out loud. “What about calling the booth A Sparkle Spa Celebration? And we could decorate it like it was a party.”

  “Love it, Aly!” Brooke said.

  “I like it too,” said Sophie as she pushed open the door to True Colors.

  “Me three,” said Charlotte, following Sophie inside. “Definitely exciting. And now we have a decoration theme.”

  Aly walked in after Charlotte, and Brooke came in last. Everyone in the salon—all the manicurists and customers—turned to say hello, and Aly and Brooke’s mom said, “Hi, girls. Snacks in the back, as usual.”

  “And some extra cookies,” Joan added. Even though she was COO of the salon, Joan still gave manicures, so she was sitting at manicure station number seven, polishing Mrs. Franklin’s nails. Besides being an awesome manicurist, Joan was an amazing baker. She brought the girls cookies all the time. That’s why the cookie bet—which Aly didn’t want to think about just then—had happened.

  “Thanks, Joan,” Aly said, feeling guilty about the mention of cookies—just as Brooke said, “Mom! Guess what! Aly came up with the best theme for our booth at the carnival. It’s going to be a celebration party theme.”

  “That sounds great,” Mom said. She was putting a coat of clear polish on Mrs. Howard’s nails, which were painted White Bright, a new color that shimmered like opals. It was Aly’s favorite of that week’s polish shipment. “I can’t wait to hear about it later.”

  The girls went to the Sparkle Spa and sprawled across the floor, eating cheese and crackers and cookies and finishing their homework before Aly pulled out the application form. She started filling it in with the decisions the girls had made on the walk over:

  Name of Booth: A Sparkle Spa Celebration

  Description of Booth: At our booth, people will be able to get their nails polished with sparkly colors and will also be able to get their hair braided in many different styles.

  What You Will Charge:

  “Guys?” she asked. “How much should we charge for manicures and braids?”

  “I wish Lily were here!” said Charlotte. Lily was technically the Sparkle Spa’s CFO, which stood for chief financial officer. She was in charge of counting the money, making sure they had enough to pay Mom for their supplies and seeing how much was left over for donations.

  “Last time we ran an event where we were raising money, we charged five dollars for a manicure,” Sophie said. “Maybe we could do that again.”

  Brooke said, “How about one dollar for a braid? Or maybe two dollars?”

  “Let’s do two dollars,” Aly said. “So that we make more money.”

  Brooke nodded. Aly wrote that down.

  The next question was about what supplies they’d need and the budget, or how much the supplies would cost. Aly wrote: “free.” The girls decided the Sparkle Spa would donate nail polish and glittery hair elastics, plus they had a bag of extra balloons and party streamers from a spa party they’d had for the Auden Angels.

  Brooke looked over Aly’s shoulder and read the application. “Should we include the party theme somewhere?” she asked.

  Aly shrugged. She wasn’t sure if it would make a difference, but she wrote it in the description section, adding the words “party-themed” in between “our” and “booth.”

  Charlotte inspected the application. So did Sophie.

  “I think this looks great,” Charlotte said.

  Sophie agreed.

  “Okay, just one last thing, then,” Aly said, taking out her pen. She wrote her name, Charlotte’s, and Lily’s at the bottom of the form. Then she put Brooke’s and Sophie’s names as helpers. “All done!” she said.

  And then Lily burst into the Sparkle Spa. Her hair was sweaty from basketball and plastered to the side of her face.

  “This is an emergency!” she said. “We have to do something more with the Sparkle Spa booth or we’ll never be chosen. Charlotte, your brother was talking with Garrett at basketball and they’re getting cool tattoos for people at their booth. Temporary tattoos! Everybody is going to want one of those. Boys and girls. And that means more dollars for them! Plus, it only takes like twenty seconds to put on a temporary tattoo!”

  “What do you mean more money because of boys and girls?” Brooke asked.

  But A
ly understood already. “She means,” Aly told her sister, “that if there are one hundred kids at the carnival, and fifty are boys and fifty are girls, we could maybe get all the girls and a small number of boys to come to our booth. But the boys’ booth could attract all the girls and all the boys, because everyone can get a tattoo. But not everyone has hair long enough for braids or likes sparkly nail polish. Mostly just girls do.”

  “Oh,” said Brooke. Then, “Oh,” again.

  “Like I said, we need to think of something else,” Lily said, plopping down onto one of the floor pillows in the nail-drying area.

  Aly’s thoughts raced. They could sell beaded bracelets or necklaces. But those took a lot of work to make, plus bracelet making wasn’t all that exciting for a carnival booth.

  “What if we bring Sparkly, and people can pay to pet him?” Brooke suggested.

  Aly looked at Sparkly, the girls’ tiny dog, who was asleep in his corner. Would Sparkly really like being part of a booth? And Aly doubted Principal Rogers would even allow dogs at the carnival.

  “What about a photo booth, like the one for the soccer party?” Sophie asked.

  Brooke nodded, changing idea directions. “I could do really cool backgrounds. Ones that boys would like, no problem.”

  Aly tapped her pen against the floor. “We do have the Polaroid camera,” she said. “We’d just have to buy film.”

  “Film is a little expensive,” Lily said, sitting down next to Aly. She looked over at the application. “Look,” she said. “There’s a space for a budget from the school. We won’t have to take too much out of our donation jar. If we want to take a hundred pictures, the budget would be a hundred dollars for film. That doesn’t seem like too much, does it?”

  Aly liked this idea. Hopefully, the school would be willing to pay, or at least chip in some money.

  “Do we need more pictures, though?” Charlotte asked. “Our school has four hundred and six kids in it.”

  “And don’t forget about little brothers and sisters,” said Sophie.

  “Well,” said Aly, “not everyone’s going to want a picture. And more than one person can be in a picture at a time. So let’s say two hundred pictures. That’s two hundred dollars. I hope that’s okay for the school. And we can charge two dollars per photo.”

  Aly looked around. Everyone was nodding. “Brooke?” she asked. Since Brooke was the co-CEO, she had to agree with every Sparkle Spa decision one hundred percent.

  “Let’s do it!” Brooke said.

  Aly added the information to the application. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll hand it in first thing tomorrow.”

  “Let’s keep our shoelaces crossed all day,” Brooke said. “For luck.”

  Sophie looked down at her feet. “My shoelaces are always crossed.”

  “That must be why you’re so lucky,” Brooke laughed.

  Aly smiled at her sister. But she thought about extra-crossing her shoelaces tomorrow just in case.

  four

  Red It Be

  Aly and Brooke raced to get ready for school the next morning to make sure they made the application deadline. Aly stared at her polka-dot watch while Mom was stopped at a red light.

  “We only have seven minutes, Mom!” Aly said.

  “We’re only two minutes away from school,” Mom answered. “You’ll have more than enough time.”

  Aly put her backpack on while she was still in the car, and Brooke did the same. They leaned forward like turtles with their hands on their seat belts, ready to unhook them as soon as they reached the car pool drop-off area.

  “Love you, Mom! See you later!” Aly said when Mom stopped the car.

  Once the sisters were out of the car, they ran, in their crisscross-laced sneakers, inside the front door and straight to a table outside the main office. They dropped the form into a box marked AUDEN CARNIVAL APPLICATIONS. Principal Rogers was standing next to the box.

  “Good luck, girls,” she said.

  Aly smiled at her. Brooke said, “I really, really hope you pick our booth. It’s fun and everyone will love it a lot. We’ll make so much money for the Community Chest and then the girls will win a free water park day.”

  Principal Rogers grinned.

  As Aly and Brooke headed to their classes, they had to wade through groups of students hurrying down the hall to drop off their applications.

  That whole day, Aly had a hard time concentrating. All she could think about was the announcement that afternoon, and the booths everyone was talking about. She even made lists.

  Booth Ideas I Don’t Like

  1. Theo Anderson’s Lick a Lizard idea. He wants people to pay $1 to lick his pet lizard. No way would Principal Rogers agree to that.

  2. Maddy Leder’s Counting Bubbles. How could anyone actually count them once they sailed away?

  3. Bob Stillman’s Shake a Stick. It sounds super boring.

  Booth Ideas I Like

  1. Oliver Shin’s Figure It Out! You stick your hand into a box and touch something and guess what it is, and if you get all the identifications right, you win a prize. Cool.

  2. The Auden Angels' Soccer Score. Angels stuff is always cool.

  3. Suzy’s Spectacular Makeup. Have to admit, people will go.

  4. Peter’s Penny Guess. How many pennies will be in that giant jar?

  5. Ivy and Paige’s Fortune-Teller. I wonder if their fortunes will come true?

  But then Aly heard that a sixth grader named Aubrey—whose nails Aly had painted Red It Be the week before—was going to run a photo booth with her friends Maisie and Jade. They called it Be a Super-Model and planned to have different-color backgrounds, along with costume pieces and props like hats and boas and masks and magic wands. Instead of a Polaroid camera, they were going to borrow Aubrey’s dad’s digital camera and printer, so they could make as many copies of each picture as they’d like.

  Aly’s stomach flip-flopped when she heard that. That sounded like a better photo booth than theirs. And if Principal Rogers picked Be a Super-Model, did it mean she wouldn’t pick the Sparkle Spa booth? Aly looked down at her crossed shoelaces and hoped they’d do their magic.

  Right before the end of the day, Aly was sitting at her desk finishing up Sustained Silent Reading. Her SSR book was Here’s to You, Rachel Robinson, by an author named Judy Blume. Aly really liked this book and usually had no problem paying attention to the story, but today she could barely focus on Rachel.

  She jumped when the PA system beeped. She stopped reading and looked up at the speaker on the wall.

  “Hello, students,” Principal Rogers said.

  “Helloooo, Auden Elementary!” AP Amari added.

  Aly smiled as her whole class answered, “Helloooo, AP Amari!” even though he couldn’t hear them. AP Amari could make any announcement sound fun, even if it was one that made her worried.

  “We’ve chosen the carnival booths,” Principal Rogers began. “This was a very tough decision, and you all came up with wonderful ideas. AP Amari is going to list the ten boys’ booths first, and then I’m going to list the ten girls’ booths. Auden Elementary is filled with smart, talented, creative students, and I’m honored to be your principal. Now, AP Amari, take it away!”

  “Okay, boys’ team, here we go!” AP Amari bellowed. “At the carnival we’re going to have: Oliver Shin’s Figure It Out!, the sixth-grade boys’ basketball team’s Can You Dribble It?, Daniel Martinez and Bennett Johnson’s Win a Fish!—I always love a good fish booth, don’t you?”

  “Yes!” a few kids in Aly’s class responded, including Daniel and Bennett, who had huge smiles on their faces. Aly would’ve laughed if she hadn’t been so nervous.

  AP Amari continued. “Then we have Caleb Cane, Garrett Brower, and Cameron Castelli’s Tattoo You booth.”

  A huge cheer erupted from where Caleb, Garrett, and Cameron sat. Cameron looked over at Charlotte and rubbed his stomach, pretending he had just eaten a cookie. Charlotte ignored him.

  And then Suzy
Davis shushed the boys. “I want to hear!” she said.

  “For our fifth booth, we have Lucas Grant and Lee Goldenberg’s Name That Tune,” AP Amari said, “then Sebastian Gray’s Wheel of Chance, the boys of the checkers club’s King Me, Simon Lebret’s Find the Rock Under the Cups, Ian Sachs and Chris Gomez’s Sports Trivia, and last, but certainly not least, Ryan Fishman’s Roll a Hole in One. Congratulations, boys.”

  “Oh, man!” Theo Anderson said when AP Amari stopped talking. “I can’t believe my Lick a Lizard booth didn’t get chosen.”

  In the meantime, Caleb, Garrett, and Cameron were high-fiving again, and so were Daniel and Bennett. The rest of the boys who had won were in different classes. Most of them were sixth graders, Aly noticed. She hoped that didn’t mean sixth graders got priority.

  “Now,” Principal Rogers said, “I’m happy to announce that we have ten wonderful booths from the girls this year.”

  Aly held her breath.

  “First we have the Auden Angels’ Soccer Score, then Daisy Quinn and Uma Prasad’s Paint Your Face, Talia Lieber’s Create a Cookie, Maria Sanchez and Sara Robinson’s Marry Me, Samara Amin’s Wheel of Fortune, the Carson triplets’ Famous Facts, Carina Chang and Daniella Snow’s Soda Straw Spin Art, Kerry McCarthy’s Balloon Darts, and Aubrey Adair, Maisie Wallis, and Jade Marino’s Be a Super-Model.”

  Aly was counting. That was nine. She let out her breath. Why had Principal Rogers stopped talking? What was number ten?

  “For our final booth,” Principal Rogers said, “we’re doing something unusual. We’re asking the students to make a small tweak to their proposal. When this announcement is over, will Aly Tanner, Charlotte Cane, and Lily Myers please come to the main office? Our final booth is going to be A Sparkle Spa Celebration. Congratulations, girls!”

  The end-of-the-day bell rang, and everyone in Aly’s class got up to grab their backpacks off the hooks in the back of the room. Instead of grabbing her backpack, Aly ran to Charlotte’s desk. Lily was there too.