Meanicures

Don’t look
at me like that.

No, really, please don’t, because I’m having a bad hair day. And, speaking as the daughter of Maine’s number one all-natural, organic, chemical-free hair product queen, I would know. In fact, I know more about bad hair days than the average twelve-year-old should
ever
know.

Still, don’t look at me and act all judgmental. So what if it was my idea to try to get the mean girls out of our lives? Can you blame me? Much?

The thing about Cassidy, Alexis, and Kayley was this: in fifth grade we were friends. Even when we moved to middle school in sixth grade, we still did lots together and stayed close.

But then this year?

Ever since the start of seventh grade, Cassidy, Alexis, and Kayley hadn’t talked to us very much, and when they did, they usually made fun of us.

They acted like we’d never all been in Girl Scouts together, or gone on that horrid overnight camping trip where we nearly got devoured by blackflies.

Like we’d never all signed up for a 10K charity walk because they were handing out giant chocolate chip cookies to anyone who enrolled the day of the event, and then suffered our way through it with major blisters because we didn’t have the right shoes.

Like we’d never sung Christmas carols outside in a hailstorm, because our music teacher thought it would help us build character.

We felt these things had bonded us—or at least me, Taylor, and Olivia—for life. I guess the others didn’t feel that way.

The mean girls weren’t just
done
with us, though. It wasn’t just that they acted like all those things had never happened. They acted as if they were better than us, and it was their job to keep reminding us of that fact.

Well, we couldn’t just sit there and
take
it. Could we?

I should
have been suspicious from the start. I don’t do well on Mondays. None of us do.

Olivia dreaded Mondays so much she had started wearing her days of the week underwear in the wrong order, to try to skip over the day completely.

Too much information? Sorry.

Honestly, though, she was so spacey that I’d be surprised if she
ever
wore the correct day. (That’s why I sometimes called her “Oblivia.”)

Taylor and I had just arrived at school, and just like we did every day, we locked our bikes to the rack outside the west entrance.

But unlike every day, I dropped my key ring into the mud. When I bent to pick it up, the knees of my jeans and my sneakers got muddy.

You could say that it was not a good omen. We have a lot of mud here in Payneston, because it rains way too often, but I’m usually fairly coordinated. I even used to take ballet, and in sixth grade and for a couple of weeks of seventh I was on the school cheerleading and dance team.

I took off my helmet, shook out my long hair, and glanced at the crowd assembled on the sidewalk in front of school. It was about eight forty-five, and classes didn’t start until nine.

“Here comes Cassidy,” Taylor warned me.

I glanced up from cleaning my keys on the wet grass to see my former BFF, Cassidy, and my other former friends, Alexis and Kayley, headed toward us. They were dressed like clones, in low-cut jeans faded to the same exact shade, matching hoodies in different colors, and Converse sneakers. Cassidy’s long blond hair was swinging from side to side as she walked. She looked so happy and perfect, like she was on the front of a catalog or something.

I looked down at my own outfit, feeling self-conscious about my skinny-leg jeans, corduroy jacket, T-shirt, and chunky black shoes. Why was I trying to be different? “Of course. It’s Monday, and I’m muddy,” I said. “They’re coming over to make fun of me. What else can go wrong?”

“I’m not afraid of her,” said Taylor. It’s fine for her to say that. Anyone brave enough to hurtle over a vault, or leap while on a balance beam, has to be strong, even if she is the size of a fourth grader. Before school, I’d swung by Taylor’s house, the way I did every morning until winter came and it was too cold to ride. Taylor rode her bike like she did the uneven bars. Very, very riskily. I usually struggled to keep up with her.

She and Kayley trained and competed on the same
club team at the Mainely Gymnastics Center. They used to be such good friends, and they were both so talented, that people referred to them as Team Tay-Kay. You know, one of those cute nicknames that follow athletes all the way to the Olympic Games?

We had this minivan caravan that went to gymnastics meets, with
TEAM TAY-KAY
written in white shoe polish on the windows. Only, Team Tay-Kay didn’t exist anymore. Now, as soon as a meet was over, they took off in opposite directions. Now there was Team Taylor. And Team Kayley.

We didn’t only travel to gymnastics meets. There were trips to Portland for dance team and cheer camp—me, Cassidy, and Alexis. Silly overnights in hotels, staying up late to watch movies and trying to sneak around the hallways (our moms always caught us because we laughed too loudly).

Olivia mostly only took trips to the Humane Society to adopt new pets, but that wasn’t a sport. We’d go along, mostly to look at the cute kittens. I desperately wanted one.

I’d dropped out of cheer earlier this fall. I just wasn’t all that interested in it anymore. Dance didn’t start again until winter and I wasn’t sure whether I’d try out for that, either.

So much had changed in such a short time.

“Madison?” Taylor said as the other girls walked up. “Your hair—”

“Looks very interesting this morning,” Cassidy said.

“I know, I know. I have helmet hair.” I ruffled my hair with my fingers, trying to make it less flat. Why did Taylor never have this problem?

“Well, don’t sweat it, that happens to everyone,” said Alexis, giving me a strange look. She was half Japanese and half African American, and she had gorgeous light brown skin and curly hair. She seemed to be able to wear any color and look good in it.

Me? I was the opposite. I had strawberry-blond hair and pale, freckled skin. Alexis and I were the same height, though—five foot five—which worked really well when we made pyramids.

“I mean, it’s just great you still ride your bike to school,” Alexis said in an “aren’t you cute” tone.

“It’s good for the environment,” I said. Living with an organic fanatic, I’d had enough drilled into me about the environment to last a lifetime. A couple of lifetimes.

“Um, Madison, you want my hat?” offered Taylor. “I think I have a hat in here.…” She was rummaging through her backpack.

“Okay, okay, enough about helmet hair, Madison. I’ve got good news for you,” said Cassidy.
“Great
news, actually.”

“You have good news,” I repeated. “For me. Seriously?” Maybe Cassidy, Alexis, and Kayley had decided to transfer to St. Ignatius Academy, on the other side of town. Maybe their parents had all gotten new jobs in, say, Singapore. Was that far enough away?

“Well,
yeah,”
Cassidy said with a laugh, like wasn’t I
being ridiculous. “You’re
not
going to believe this. We were just talking with Hunter Matthews.”

“Right …” I said slowly.

“You know how you used to have a crush on him, right?” asked Cassidy.

I hated that “we used to tell each other everything” stuff. “What? I did not,” I said.

“You did, too!” said Taylor.

I glared at her. How was she helping?

“Hunter totally wants to ask you something,” said Cassidy.

“Yeah, right.” I glanced over at Hunter, who was sitting on the brick wall, fiddling with his cell phone. Hunter wasn’t exactly a friend. In fact, he was an eighth grader who rarely said hello to me. I sat in front of him in algebra, a class that was mostly for eighth graders and a few seventh graders like me. Hunter usually did obnoxious things like breathe extra-hotly on my neck because I’d once asked him not to, so now he knew it annoyed me. He once told me that I looked like a hedgehog when I dressed in a brown fuzzy sweater (which
was
rather hideous, now that I think about it).