Bad News Nails (7 page)

Of course, that's also where the girls had found a lot of the furnishings for the Sparkle Spa—including the teal strawberry jar, which their mother had made when she was in art school, and the pictures they'd hung on the walls.

“You really think there's a camera up here?” Aly asked after she and Brooke had climbed up the rickety ladder behind Dad.

“Help me look for the box marked ‘old apartment,' will you?” Dad asked. “I think it's over there.”

“Old apartment?” asked Brooke, peeking underneath a dusty quilt. “What's that?”

Dad leaned against a dresser and smiled. “It's everything left over from the first apartment your mom and I lived in together right after we got married. She wanted to throw out anything we didn't need. But I'm a saver. I packed most of my things away and stored the boxes up here. If I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure there's a Polaroid camera in that box.”

Aly had wandered to the other side of the attic and found a pile of boxes behind a wobbly bookshelf. “Here it is! The box from the old apartment!”

Dad used a key from his key ring to slit open the sealed box. Aly and Brooke peered over his shoulder. He took out a broken flashlight, a rolled-up welcome mat, and a smaller box filled with letters.
Underneath all that there was another square box.

“The Polaroid!” he said. Then he rummaged around a bit more. “And film. I knew it!”

He opened a package of film and loaded it into the camera. “I doubt the film will still work. But it was sealed up this whole time, so let's try. Smile!” he said to the girls.

He clicked a button, a flash went off, and a few seconds later a grayish piece of paper came out of the camera.

“The picture is going to develop. Watch,” Dad told them.

Slowly, the shiny gray paper started looking not so gray anymore. Aly and Brooke saw ghosts of themselves start taking shape on the paper, and then there they were! The detail wasn't great, and neither was the color, but it was definitely them.

“Whoa!” Brooke was grinning. “Awesome. Just like at Katie Heller's party! It smells funny, doesn't it?”

“It's certainly different from the kind of digital pictures we take now. We just need to find newer film. I can drive out to the mall tomorrow and check a few stores,” Dad said. “So do you think this will work for the soccer party, Aly?”

“I think so,” she said, smiling.

The three Tanners climbed down from the attic, Dad carrying the camera and the three boxes of film he'd found.

Brooke was chattering away a mile a minute. “This is going to be so, so cool,” she was saying. “The camera's like magic. Maybe we should tell everyone it's magical. That would be so funny. But I don't know if anyone would believe us.”

Aly couldn't help but laugh. When Brooke was excited about something, she couldn't stop her mouth from going and going and going.

On Saturday, Sophie was still sick. But later that afternoon Charlotte and Lily came over to help with the party decorations. Brooke and Aly had bought a big roll of brown paper that was taller than Brooke. The girls decided on three different backgrounds for the photo booth: an ocean, a mountain, and a starry sky.

Brooke had already finished outlining the scenes, and the other three girls were coloring them in as Brooke had instructed them.

“This is going to be so neat,” Charlotte said. “Maybe, for practice, we should take our pictures in front of the backgrounds with your dad's camera. You know, to see how they come out.”

Brooke shook her head. “We can't waste the film. My dad found some more in a small camera shop in Waltham this morning, but we still have to save it. Maybe once the party is over we can take a few pictures of ourselves.”

“Or maybe we can take
one
practice shot tomorrow before the party,” Aly suggested. “How does that sound, Brooke?”

Brooke thought about it. “We'll see.”

“So, Charlotte,” Aly said, “let's go over the rest of the plans for the party.”

Charlotte stopped coloring. “Okay, well, we'll have four stations running at the same time. Aly, you'll do pedicures, Brooke will take care of the manicures, I'll do braids, and Lily can take the pictures. The players can be in charge of beading bracelets themselves. And we'll set up the pizza and the cookies on the table at the start of the party so everyone can eat whenever they want.”

It all sounded good to Aly, but then she remembered: Suzy Davis. “What about a job for Suzy?” Aly asked. “She's still our intern for one more day, and we need to give her a party assignment.”

Charlotte groaned. “How about if she's in charge of the jewelry station, then? Or helping pick out polish colors?”

Aly had a feeling Suzy wasn't going to like either one of those jobs. “Maybe she can do pedicures with me. They take a little longer than manicures, so it might be good to have two people.”

“If you want the help, sure,” Charlotte said.

By the end of the day, the girls were as ready as they could be for tomorrow. Part of Aly didn't care if Suzy went along with all the arrangements or not. The party wasn't about Suzy. And Aly planned to keep it that way.

I
sn't Suzy supposed to be here by now?” Lily grunted.

It was ten thirty on Sunday, a half hour before the Auden Angels' soccer spa party was set to begin. Lily was standing on one of the pedicure chairs, taping a streamer to the wall.

“Are you really complaining because she's not?” Charlotte asked her.

“It would just be easier with more of us here to help,” Lily answered. “With Sophie still not feeling well, we really need Suzy today.”

Aly had been stacking containers of Unicorn Treats on the table, but now she walked over to help Lily. She climbed onto the second pedicure chair and took the other side of the streamer. “How's this?” she asked, holding her end up against the wall. “Are we even?”

Brooke was unrolling the photograph backgrounds on the floor and looked up. “A smidge higher, Aly,” she said.

“Now?” she asked.

“Perfect,” Brooke said.

The little paper soccer balls Brooke had made were dangling from the streamers, floating back and forth in the breeze from the air vents.

“Should we hang the backgrounds up now?” Brooke asked, holding up the first one. “I was thinking we could do it behind the jewelry station.” That seemed to be the only place in the spa with any open wall space.

“Sounds good,” Charlotte told her, and she headed over with a roll of masking tape to help.

Ten minutes later the Sparkle Spa was transformed. “It looks beautiful in here,” Brooke said. “I think it's okay if we take just one sample picture in front of one the backgrounds so everyone knows what to do.”

Lily picked up the camera. “The three of you stand together, and I'll take the photo.”

“Say ‘sparkle'!” Lily said.

“Sparkle!” Aly, Brooke, and Charlotte repeated. And just like magic, the picture developed in front of their eyes.

“Girls,” Mrs. Tanner said, walking into the spa, “you've done a wonderful job. It looks great in here. Nice photo booth too.”

“We could make one for True Colors,” Brooke offered.

Mom laughed. “Thanks, Brookie, I'll let you know. What time is your party starting?”

Aly looked at her watch: 11:03. “Um,” she said, “three minutes ago? I wonder where everyone is.”

“There might be traffic,” Mom said reassuringly. “But where's Carolyn's daughter? Isn't today her last day with you girls?”

“We're not sure,” Aly told her mom. “We were just going to call her.”

“Well, have a super party. I'll send the pizza back when it arrives.” Mom smiled and left.

“It's kind of weird that no one's here yet, right?” Lily wondered.

Brooke said, “Jenica's always early. Maybe Mom's right about a traffic jam.”

Aly paced back and forth. “There's a problem about calling Suzy. I don't know her number.”

“I bet she's in our records. Don't forget, she
and Heather have been customers here,” Charlotte reminded them. She walked over to the desk.

But when she opened the bottom drawer, she gasped. “Our records are gone!”

Brooke ran over. “What?” she squealed. “It's empty! The whole drawer's empty! Who would take our records?”

All at once, everyone knew exactly who would take their records.

Suzy Davis.

Aly picked up the portable phone from True Colors that her mother let the girls keep in the spa and closed her eyes. “Jenica got a cell phone for her birthday this year. I'm trying to remember her number. . . .”

She wasn't sure if she was dialing correctly, but after a couple of rings Jenica picked up.

“Hey, Aly!” she said. Aly could hear chattering and laughter in the background. “Where are you
guys? Suzy said you were coming, but you're late. And guess what? We won yesterday.”

Aly felt the blood drain out of her face. “Uh . . . um . . . Congratulations, Jenica! That's awesome. But, wait, you're
where
?” she asked.

“At Suzy's,” Jenica answered. “She called everyone last night and explained that the party was being moved to her house—that the big surprise was that it was going to be a combination pool party and spa party. So we're all here!”

Aly swallowed hard. She couldn't let Jenica or any other customer know that there was a problem at the Sparkle Spa. A pretty big one. “Sorry,” she said. “We, um, got a little lost. Can you tell me the address again?”

Jenica gave her the information, and Aly hung up the phone, fighting back tears. Suzy had not only stolen their customer files, but she'd hijacked their soccer spa party!

Aly took a deep breath. “So . . . ,” she told everyone, “they're all at Suzy Davis's house.”

“What?!”
Brooke screamed. “Are you kidding?”

“She is the absolute worst,” Lily added, plopping down onto a pillow. “What are we going to do? We have a whole party set up here and no one's coming to it.”