“I thought you had basketball,” Crissa says, not looking too pleased that I’m back.
“I do,” I say. “But I wasn’t dressed right. I didn’t know you had to wear gym clothes to practice.”
Tia snickers. Her feet are on my pillow. Gross. I have no idea where her feet have been. She may have been walking around outside with bare feet as far as I know. Or maybe she took her feet right out of her disgusting, sweaty soccer sneakers and put them right on my pillow.
“Could you not put your feet on my pillow, please?” I say sweetly. “I have a thing about it.”
She sighs and moves her feet as if it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done. Jeez. What’s with her? Crissa must have gotten her on the “I hate Scarlett” bandwagon. No time to think about that now. I run over to my dresser and pull open the top drawer. Let’s see. What can I wear to basketball practice? The only workoutlike clothes I have are pajama pants. I have some shorts, but I don’t think any of them would be good for running around in—they’re not really athletic shorts.
I’m flinging things around my drawers, to no avail. Crap. Why didn’t I think I would need gym clothes here? Probably because gym at my old school was a total joke. We’d spend most of the period waiting in line to take a serve at a tennis ball or something. Finally I spot an old Juicy tracksuit in the back of my drawer. Perfect! I pull it on and throw my hair into a ponytail, shove my feet into my new Nikes, then sprint back to the gym. When I get there, Coach Crazy barks, “Northon! Glad you could join us!”
“Me too, sir,” I say, before I realize she’s a “ma’am.” No one seems to notice, which makes me think she gets called “sir” a lot more than one would think.
“You’re just in time for suicides,” she says.
Suicides? “Line up on the black line!” she barks.
The team lines up on the black line—well, the five girls who were here before line up on the line. “Where’s the rest of the team?” I ask.
“This is the team, Northon!” Coach Crazy says. Her hair is in a frizzy, gray cloud around her head, and she takes a swipe at her bangs, pushing them off of her forehead.
“This is the whole team?” There are only six, including me. How many people are on a basketball team, anyway? Does this mean I’m going to have to actually play?
“Yes,” Coach says. “This is Andrea, Danielle, Rory, Taylor, and Nikki.” I look at my teammates, who make no effort to tell me who is who. It doesn’t really matter, since they all look the same—tall, tan, and tough. I can’t tell any of them apart, and they don’t say anything—except for the one standing next to me, the tallest one, who says, “There’s only us; why do you think you even got on the team? We’re desperate.”
And then Coach blows the whistle, and the team runs up and touches the first line in the gym, then runs back to start. Then we run to the second line in the gym, then run back to start. We continue this for all six lines on the gym floor. Luckily, since I am the slowest one on the team, I don’t have to worry about not knowing what suicides are. I can just figure out from following everyone else before me. By the time the suicides are over, I want to die.
“Hustle, Northrop!” Coach Crazy calls from the sidelines. “You’re never going to make it moving like that!”
After suicides, we do a half-mile jog, push-ups, jumping jacks, and crunches, and then run shooting drills for an hour. The gym smells like a wet sock that’s been left in the trunk of a car on a hot day, and every so often, one of my teammates will run by me and accidentally-on-purpose elbow me in the side.
“Good practice,” the coach says when we’re done. My hair is soaked with sweat, and my Juicy outfit is completely drenched. My legs feel like two pieces of wet spaghetti, and I can tell I’m going to have blisters tomorrow from running around in brand-new sneakers.
When I get back to my room, it’s empty. Crissa must be at soccer practice. I fall back onto my bed, contemplating the hours of homework I have in front of me. Maybe I’ll just close my eyes for a second, I think. What could happen? My mom even said I needed to start getting more rest. Then my eyes travel to my nightstand, where there are two pieces of mail waiting for me. Crissa must have put them there.
One’s from the school, alerting us to the fall calendar—days off, school activities, etc. And the other one’s from my dad. He must have sent it before I even got here. I run my fingers over the return address, which is his apartment that he’s living in while he and my mom “figure things out.” It’s weird, seeing his familiar, black script with an address that isn’t mine.
I wonder what my dad would think about me being on the basketball team. He was always trying to get me into sports. Every year, he’d convince me to watch part of this big basketball tournament on TV with him. It’s called March Madness. We’d make sandwiches and eat chips, and I’d ask him crazy questions about basketball, and he’d laugh and pretend he couldn’t believe I didn’t know this stuff yet from watching it year after year. But I didn’t really pay attention to the basketball stuff. It was just fun being with my dad. Of course, last year we couldn’t do that, because there was tons of legal stuff going on, and my dad didn’t really have the time to sit around watching hours of sporting events. Plus, you know, I was really mad at him.
There’s a knock on my door, and I shove the letter into my bookbag to deal with later. Amber’s at the door, and behind her is Rachel.
“Hey.” Amber steps into the room. “We were waiting for you to get back from basketball.”
“You were?” They were? Waiting for me to get back from basketball? Yay for friends waiting for me!
“Yeah,” Amber says.
“Um, Crissa’s not here,” I tell Rachel.
“Yeah, I know,” she says. “We wanted to know if you would make me over.” She looks hopeful. Hmmm. Her hair has horrible split ends at the bottom. If she’d let me cut about an inch off, I could curl it and make sure it didn’t lose its natural wave. And then maybe a plum eye shadow, and definitely some foundation … I must be lost in thought, because Amber cuts in quickly. “Of course, if you have homework to do or whatever, we understand. We know you just got home from practice.”
I look over to my desk, where a pile of books are standing, about to fall over. I think about my assignment book, which is filled with things I have to do. I know I should do my homework, and especially study my math, but what if I tell them I don’t want to hang out, and then they just forget about me? What if they’re like, Oh, Scarlett is so stuck-up, she doesn’t want to hang out with us, so I guess we just won’t be friends with her and ever ask her to hang out with us again. And then what will become of me?
Plus, if I can get Rachel to warm up to me, maybe I can get on Crissa’s good side as well.
“No, I’m not busy,” I say. “I just need to take a shower, and then I’ll work on you, okay?”
“Okay!” Rachel says, beaming. I shower quickly and return to my room to find the girls sitting on my bed, braiding each other’s hair. At first I think it’s cute, but then I realize they actually think braids might be a good look for them.
“Maybe, you know, as something to do at a sleepover,” I say. “Or if you were going to do your whole head in a bunch of little braids, and put, like, beads or something on the bottom, like a Jamaican look, that would be cool. But other than that, no.”
They immediately stop braiding. “Now,” I say. “Rachel.” I reach under my bed and pull out my plastic tub full of cosmetics. “How do you feel about a little haircut?”
Her hands fly to her head, and she grabs her hair. “Oh, I don’t know, Scarlett,” she says. “It’s probably not a good idea.”
“Bad experience?” I say. Everyone’s had some sort of bad hair experience. When I was seven, I got a pixie cut so bad that random strangers used to think I was a boy.
“Well …” She glances at Amber nervously.
“I’m only going to take a little bit off, I swear,” I say. “I’ll make sure it’s only this much.” I
hold my fingers about half an inch apart.
“Okay.” Her face has turned pale.
I sit her down in my desk chair and look for something to wrap around her shoulders. Hmm. They use plastic capes in a hair salon, but where am I going to get one of those? I settle for a brown pashmina scarf I got last year at Calvin Klein.
“Have you ever cut hair before?” Amber wants to know. She’s kneeling on my bed, getting ready to watch the whole procedure.
“Loads of times,” I lie. In actuality, I’ve only ever cut Brianna’s hair once and that wasn’t even really a cut, since she just needed her bangs trimmed a little bit—they were getting in her eyes and driving her crazy. Oh, and one time when I was five I cut my cousin Ashley’s hair up to her ears when I wasn’t supposed to.
“Now,” I say, studying the back of Rachel’s head. “You must keep very still.” I try to think of what my stylist, Vincent, does when he cuts my hair, but I’m drawing a blank. Usually I’m reading a magazine and/or talking on my cell phone, so I’m not really paying attention.
I grab some scissors out of the cup on Crissa’s desk.
“Are those hair-cutting scissors?” Rachel asks doubtfully. She squirms under the pashmina.
“Well, no,” I admit. “But it doesn’t really matter. A good stylist is able to work with any kind of scissors.”
They both nod, like they think I know what the heck I’m talking about.
I start to cut. The scarf isn’t helping much, and big, fat chunks of Rachel’s hair fall on the ground around my feet. I cut about an inch off, then step back to admire my handiwork.
“Hmm,” Amber says. “Looks a little too short on that side.”
She’s right. I go back to cutting to even it out.
“Now it looks too short on that side,” Amber announces.
I cut a little more. “I just have to make sure I clean this all up,” I say, pushing some of the hair that’s falling onto the floor into a pile with my foot. “Crissa will flip out if I make a mess.”
“Yeah, she can be a neat freak,” Rachel says. “I remember last year, her roommate Marissa left a huge pile of clothes on the floor before one of the dances we had. Crissa flipped out when she came home and found it.”
“So she flipped out on Marissa, too,” I say. “Good to know. The way she talks about her, you’d think she could do no wrong.” By the time I’m done, the floor is a mess, and Rachel’s hair is a little below her shoulders, when it used to be halfway down her back.
“Can I see?” she asks. “I want to see what it looks like.”
“Er, no, not yet,” I say. I grab my curling iron, and spend the next half an hour putting her hair into deep waves. Then I grab my makeup—a purple eyeliner, a cool plum lipstick and gloss, and of course some foundation to even out her complexion. Then I let her borrow my new purple sweater and tan cords.
Amber sits on my bed, leafing through magazines. I brought a huge plastic tub of them with me, and she’s going through all my old issues, reading celeb gossip, and looking at the back-to-school fashions.
“Now,” I say when I’m done with Rachel. I push a stray strand of her hair back into place. “Don’t freak out when you look at it. Your hair, I mean. It’s a little bit shorter than what we talked about, but—”
She heads toward the full-length mirror on the back of my door. She studies her reflection, and her jaw drops. For a moment, I think she’s going to start yelling at me for cutting off all her hair. There’s a silence, and then her face explodes into a huge smile.
“Oh my God, I love it!”
“You look just like a model!” Amber says, abandoning her magazine and clapping her hands excitedly.
“You are such a genius, Scarlett!”
Yay! We’re all caught up in the moment, laughing and giggling, and I’m thinking, Oh my God, I have friends and things are going to be okay after all.
And then the door opens.
It’s Crissa. She’s wearing her soccer uniform, and, as an added bonus, a snooty expression. Mrs. Bacon is standing behind her. Her face looks like she just stepped in gum or something, all pinched up and disgusted.
“Oh,” Crissa says, looking around the room. “I didn’t know you had Amber over.”
“Yeah,” I say, “We were just, um …” I look around. There are magazines all over the floor, on both beds, and all over the desk. Makeup brushes are strewn about on my desk chair, and somehow a green eye shadow got stepped on and ground into the rug. On my comforter, a glittery bronzer has been spilled, creating sparkly brown streaks all over the fabric.
“We were just hanging out,” I finish lamely.
“Oh,” Crissa says, shrugging. “Cool.” She wrinkles her nose and plops down on her bed.
“This room is a disaster area,” Mrs. Bacon declares. She steps gingerly over a stack of magazines. “What is that on your comforter? Some sort of brown makeup?” She pulls her glasses out of her purse, slides them on, and moves in for a closer look. There’s an uncomfortable silence. Even Crissa looks awkward. “You are never going to get that stain out.”
No one says anything.
And then Crissa’s eyes zero in on Rachel. “Rach!” she gasps. “You look gorge! Where are you going?”
“Nowhere,” Rachel says, blushing through her plum blush. “Scarlett made me over.”
A look of annoyance passes over Crissa’s face. “What do you mean she made you over?”
“You know, she cut my hair and did my makeup.” Her hands wander to her newly shorn locks, and she touches them nervously. But she doesn’t sound as happy or excited as she did just a minute ago.
“Obviously.” Crissa sniffs.
“So that’s why you weren’t at soccer practice?” Mrs. Bacon asks. She sounds like it’s the most ridiculous reason she’s ever heard.
“Well, no,” Rachel says, looking uncomfortable. “I had a private tutoring session, and by the time I got out, there was only half an hour of practice left, so I figured it wouldn’t be worth it to go.”
“Mmm,” Crissa’s mom says. But it’s one of those Mmm, you just made a really big mistake kind of “mmm”s. “Well, I should be going. I just wanted to check on Crissa’s room, which has obviously fallen into disarray.” I swallow hard and look at the floor. “I’ll speak with you later, Crissa.” With that, Mrs. Bacon flounces out without saying good-bye to any of us.
Nobody moves for a second, and then Crissa heads over to her closet and starts getting out her shower stuff.
There’s an uncomfortable silence.
“Well,” Rachel says, standing up. “Thanks for everything, Scarlett. Crissa, I’ll, um, see you later in the library.” She rushes out the door.
“I should go too,” Amber says, looking at Crissa nervously. It’s like the joy has been sucked out of the room, with some sort of special Crissa deflator. On her way out, Amber squeezes my arm. “Do you want to have dinner together?” she asks. “We could meet in the dining hall in like half an hour?”
“Sure,” I say. Once she’s out of the room, I start cleaning up the mess. I don’t even care that I can feel Crissa’s eyes on me as I throw tissues into the garbage and return the makeup and brushes back to their case. I’m too excited about my new friends and the fact that I have someone to eat dinner with. My stomach rumbles, and I realize I’m starving. Must be all that running up and down the basketball court.
“So,” Crissa says as I’m sliding my bucket of magazines under the bed. “You’re friends with Rachel now?”
“Well, not really friends,” I say, trying to keep my voice light. “She just heard about Amber’s makeover, and she wanted one too, so …” I throw a dirty tissue into our trash bucket. Hmm. It’s getting pretty full. I didn’t know we’d be using so many tissues to blend. My stomach rumbles again.
“Well, just so you know, you should be careful about how you pick your friends around here.” Crissa lounges back on her bed, her hair falling in a pool around her pillow. She must notice that I’m givin
g her a death look, because she tries to backtrack. Well, halfway backtrack. “What I mean,” she says, “is that we’ve all known each other for a really long time. So you shouldn’t be disappointed if people don’t accept you right away. Especially since nobody knows why you’re here.”
“Rude much?” I say.
“Look, I’m not trying to start anything,” she says. Yeah, right. “But I just want to make sure that you don’t automatically ruin your social future here. I mean, there must be some reason you left your old school. And I just wouldn’t want to see you make that same mistake again.”
I swallow hard. What is she, the friend police? Besides, it’s not like she’s been going out of her way to be nice to me and include me in all her popular-person activities. And from what I can tell, all those entail are going to soccer, studying, and walking around with a mean expression on her face. No thanks. “I think I’ll be fine,” I tell her. Then I finish cleaning up my side of the room, grab my bookbag off my chair, and head down to the dining hall to have dinner with Amber, pushing Crissa and her rude comments out of my mind.
The next morning, in English, we get letters back from our stranger-writing pen pals. Already? Who said e-mail was faster than the post office? Jeez.
For some reason, I have two letters. The first one says this:
Dear Number Seventeen:
It’s nice to “meet” you. Well, kind of, anyway. My teacher, Mr. Lang, says this has something to do with “stranger writing.” I guess he saw some documentary over the summer. Figures teachers would be watching documentaries on vacation. Anyway, I don’t have that many secrets. Except for one time, when I borrowed my best friend, Tony’s, favorite T-shirt, and I accidentally forgot to give it back. Actually, I’m lying. That’s the secret part. I really left it at my camp over the summer, but I told him that I just forgot to bring it to school.