Bad News Nails (6 page)

“We'll talk to our mom about it.” Aly just wanted to keep Suzy happy until all their appointments for today were taken care of.

“And about the soccer party this weekend . . . ,” Suzy started.

“Yeah, we have to get decorations,” Brooke said. “I was thinking sparkly streamers with paper soccer balls hanging off of them.”

“Where are you going to get paper soccer balls?” Suzy asked, filing a third grader's nails.

“I'll draw them,” Brooke told her. She turned on the warm water to fill a pedicure basin for her next appointment, a sixth grader named Uma.

“Brooke's a really good artist,” Charlotte said.

“Well, it won't look professional,” Suzy said, “no matter how good an artist she is. I'm just saying.”

Aly tucked her hair behind her ears. She didn't like to admit it, but Suzy Davis was right about a lot of things. As far as Aly was concerned, though, since Brooke
was
a good artist, who really cared if her soccer balls looked professional or not?

Hannah Goodman, a fourth grader from Auden, walked in. Aly sat down at the second manicure station to do her nails.

“Is there a Color of the Week?” Hannah asked.

“It's Orange You Happy,” Brooke said.

“That's another thing,” Suzy said. “What's the point of the Color of the Week? Does anyone actually care?”

Charlotte opened her mouth, but she ended up throwing her arms in the air and shaking her head.

Aly didn't know how Suzy did it, but now she was making customers feel bad about liking the Color of the Week.

Suzy was just about done with her first manicure when Anjuli, the goalie for the soccer team, walked in and took Power to the Sparkle off the display wall. Charlotte pointed her toward Suzy.

“I just need a touch-up,” she said. “My index finger is chipped, and I want to make sure I have as much sparkle power as possible for the state championship tomorrow.”

Suzy checked Anjuli's nails. “I can just redo them all,” she said. “So it's fresh.”

“Okay,” Anjuli said. “I have time.”

While Suzy removed Anjuli's old polish, Anjuli said, “I'm really excited about the spa party on Sunday. Have you come up with a cool surprise yet?”

“We did,” Aly said.

“But we're keeping it a secret,” Brooke added.

“Even from me?” Charlotte asked as she looked over the schedule.

“We'll tell you later, Char,” Aly said. “We don't want to give away the surprise.”

“What about me?” Suzy asked. “I work here too now, you know.”

Aly hesitated. She didn't want to tell Suzy anything she didn't have to. And what if she made fun of their idea?

“You're only here one more day,” Brooke reminded her.

For once, Suzy didn't have a reply. But that only lasted a moment. “Anjuli, don't
you
think it should
be a pool party?” She took the last bit of polish off Anjuli's pinkie.

Anjuli shrugged. “Pool parties are fun.”

“No, they're not,” Brooke huffed.

Did Suzy just smile?
Aly asked herself. She wasn't sure why, but it made her a little nervous.

“Yes, they are,” Suzy said. Then she screeched, “
Oops!
I got polish on my leg.”

“You can get it off with some remover,” Aly said. “It's a good thing it was your leg and not your shorts.”

“Actually,” Suzy said, “I think I can turn it into a flower.”

Anjuli watched as Suzy made petals and a stem with nail polish on her leg.

“That's pretty cool,” Anjuli said. “Can you make me one too? Maybe on my arm?”

“Sure,” Suzy said. “It's easy.”

“Wait,” Aly said. “I'm not sure if that's allowed. I should ask my mom first.”

“Isn't this
your
salon?” Suzy asked.

Aly looked at Brooke. Brooke looked at Aly.

“Fine,” Brooke said. “It's our salon. And we say it's okay to paint on people with nail polish.”

After Anjuli, Suzy polished a Red Between the Lines heart on Parker Reed's wrist, two Lemon Aid stars on Laurel Forte's left ankle, and an All That Glitters moon on Heidi Yeh's knee. She was just about to paint a butterfly on Karina Montoya's upper arm when Mrs. Tanner came through the door.

“Hi, girls,” she said. But then she stopped in her tracks when she saw Suzy holding Karina's arm. “Aly and Brooke, may I see you in True Colors, please?”

The girls quickly followed their mother out the door.

“What's going on in there?” she asked quietly.
“Nail polish is
not
meant to be painted on skin. And more than that, it's a waste of money to use nail polish for that purpose. If you want to add body art to your salon, let's talk about the products that are made for that reason.”

Aly was staring at the wood grains on the floor. “I'm sorry,” she said.

“Aly?” Mom said, lifting her daughter's chin up with her finger.

“We won't do it again,” Aly said, a little louder.

“It wasn't even our
fault
!” Brooke complained, pushing her glasses up her nose. “And Aly
wanted
to ask you, she even said—”

Aly gave Brooke a Secret Sister Eye Message:
Shhh.

In the end, she and Brooke were in charge of the salon and had to take responsibility for everything that happened there.

“Hmm?” Mom prompted. “She said what?”

“It's nothing, Mom. You're right,” Aly said. “We should have known better. When we're home later, we can talk about body art.”

“Okay,” Mom said, smoothing Brooke's hair back. “Make sure those girls take the polish off their skin before they leave. I don't want them walking out of here like that.”

Once Mom left, Brooke turned to Aly and whispered, “Now Suzy even got
us
in trouble!”

As they walked back into the Sparkle Spa, Aly felt pretty sure that they'd gotten themselves in trouble. Suzy Davis had just helped.

Once the afternoon rush was over, Brooke started putting the polish bottles back on the display and Lily counted the donations before she left for the day.

“So, for my internship,” Suzy said while she puffed
up the floor pillows, “I'm curious: What do you ask each customer who wants their nails done—what information do you get?”

Aly was surprised at Suzy's interest, but maybe she was trying to make up for the way she'd been acting all week. Charlotte looked surprised too. “Well,” she answered, “we get their name, what services they want, what time they want to come, and their phone number—in case we have to cancel or change their appointment.”

“And where do you store the old schedules once they're done?”

“In that drawer,” Charlotte told her, pointing to one at the bottom of the desk. “We like to see how many new people we get each week. One day, when it's not so busy, I'm going to make a list of all of our clients.”

“That's a good plan,” Suzy said.

Aly started to grow suspicious. This was the first time since Suzy began her internship that she'd said something positive about the salon.

An alarm beeped on Charlotte's watch. “I have to go,” she said. “My mom will be outside soon. We have to pick up Caleb at karate and can't be late.” Charlotte hugged Aly good-bye.

“I'll call you later, about the soccer surprise,” Aly whispered in her ear.

Sparkly whined in his corner.

“I think he needs to go out,” Brooke said, petting his head.

“Want to come with us to walk him?” Aly asked Suzy, secretly hoping that she'd just go home.

“My babysitter's coming to pick me up in five minutes, so I should probably stay. But I'll see you on Sunday.”

“Okay,” Aly said. “See you on Sunday.”

Brooke clipped Sparkly's leash on his collar, and they led him outside.

“Was Suzy being extra weird just now?” Brooke asked.

“I know. She has to be up to something, but what could it be? I don't know what to think about her,” Aly answered.

“At least her internship is up after the weekend. Then she'll be gone for good,” Brooke said.

Sparkly raced ahead, and Aly and Brooke had to run to keep up with him.

“She'll never be gone for good,” Aly said. “She goes to Auden. She'll be with us forever.”

W
hen Aly and Brooke returned from walking Sparkly, Suzy Davis was gone. But before she'd left, Suzy had made some changes to the Sparkle Spa. She'd rearranged the furniture so that the jewelry-making area was now about two feet farther to the left, which created more space between the manicure stations. In that space, she'd moved the desk chair and put ten different nail polish colors on it.

“What is
that
?” Brooke asked. “And what happened to our waiting area?”

“This has Suzy Davis written all over it,” Aly replied as she started gathering their things together to leave for the evening.

Brooke marched over and put everything back where it belonged. “I can't believe her!”

“You know,” Aly said, “I bet Suzy would actually be good at being in charge somewhere. She's just not very good at
not
being in charge.”

“We've got more important things to worry about,” Brooke answered. “Getting everything ready for the soccer party and getting a camera for our photo shoots.”

Finding a Polaroid camera wasn't as easy as Aly had thought it would be. The local camera store didn't carry them, and it was way too late to order one online. Plus, Polaroid cameras—and their film—were expensive. More than the thirty-seven dollars
and fifty-nine cents Lily had counted in the strawberry donation jar that afternoon.

Brooke hadn't come up with one of her creative solutions to this problem yet, so at dinner that night, she barely touched her meal.

“What's wrong, Brooke?” Dad asked. “Chicken and rice is one of your favorites.”

Aly answered for her. “We need a camera for Sunday's Sparkle Spa soccer party. Not only haven't we found one, but even if we did, we wouldn't have enough money to buy it,” Aly told their parents. “And that was going to be our big surprise—a Polaroid photo shoot. Now we have to come up with a whole new idea all over again.”

“When we're finished eating,” Dad said, “let's check the attic. I have a feeling there might be something up there you can use.”

“The attic?” Aly groaned. “We'll never find a camera up there that works.”

Taking one last bite of chicken, Brooke added, “Aly's right, Dad. The attic is just filled with old junk.”

The attic in the Tanner house had become the place where everything the family didn't use anymore had found a home. It was filled with old stacked boxes labeled everything from
BABY CLOTHES: 6–9 MONTHS
and
MARK'S BUSINESS SCHOOL BOOKS
and
GRANDMA BETTY'S CHINA
to
ALY'S SCHOOLWORK: 1ST–3RD GRADE
and
BROOKE'S KINDERGARTEN ARTWORK
.