All That Glitters (5 page)

Aly felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. No salon? But that was her favorite place in the world. It was where she belonged. Plus, she
hated
swim class. Mean Suzy Davis was there.

Before Aly could say anything, Brooke took matters into her own hands: She started crying. Wailing, really.

Mom tried to put her arms around Brooke, but Brooke turned to face the wall.

“Why are you being so
me-ean
?” Brooke hiccuped, still not looking at Mom. “First no k-kid salon, a-and now no Tr-rue Colors?”

“Brooke,” Mom said. “Enough.”

“It's
n-not
enough,” Brooke sobbed.

“Really, Mom,” Aly said. “We don't want go to the Y today. Especially not to go swimming. Please let us come.
Please?
”

Mom looked at her watch. Then she looked at Aly
and Brooke. Finally, she shook her head. “Fine,” she said. “But now we're running late. Let's get a move on.”

It took only three seconds for Brooke to stop crying. Aly was impressed—she could never stop crying that quickly. Once she got started, tears kept coming.

Three green lights and two stop signs later, the Tanners pulled up in front of True Colors.

Aly and Brooke ran to the front door, but Mom got out of the car and stopped. In the middle of the sidewalk. Staring at a glittery banner on the empty store across the street—the one that used to be a candy shop:
COMING SOON! PRINCESS POLISH! A NAIL SALON FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY!
When did that sign show up? It wasn't there yesterday!

Mom stared at it for three minutes, according to Aly's watch. Then her mouth made a really straight line, and she marched into True Colors without
looking at the girls. Clearly, Mom was not having a very good morning.

“Why is another salon coming across the street?” Brooke asked Aly.

Aly shrugged. “I don't know. I guess they want to polish people's nails too.”

“But,” Brooke said, her lower lip wobbling, “but what if people like that salon better than ours? What if Mrs. Franklin stops coming? And Miss Lulu? And all the other regulars?”

Aly figured that's just what Mom was worried about—why she had stood so long on the sidewalk.

“I think we just have to make sure they don't,” Aly said. “Here's the plan. We're going to do our jobs today the very best we can. If something might possibly go wrong, we're going to stop it before it does. We've got to make sure everyone knows True Colors is the best salon ever.”

L
ater that afternoon, when the salon rush had slowed down a bit, Brooke, Aly, and Joan were having their traditional Sunday Pizza Picnic in the back room. The door to the main salon was open, and it was finally quiet enough to hear the background music over the hum of nail dryers and conversation. Aly couldn't help bopping her head a little while she chewed. When it was quiet like this, True Colors really felt like home.

“Want to trade your pepperoni for my mushrooms?” Brooke asked Joan.

“Sure thing,” Joan answered, peeling three pieces of pepperoni off her pizza slice and handing them over.

Brooke popped them in her mouth and started laughing.

“What's so funny?” Joan asked. She looked over at Aly, but Aly shrugged. She had no idea why her nut-ball sister was having a fit about pepperoni.

“No pepperoni for Joanie!” Brooke laughed. “It rhymes!”

Joan smiled. “You mean like . . . no cookie for Brookie?”

Brooke stopped laughing immediately. “But . . . I get a cookie, right?”

Joan finished swallowing Brooke's mushrooms. “Of course you get a cookie. I'm testing out a new recipe. The rest of the manicurists are waiting for your verdict before they give it a go.”

Aly loved Sunday Pizza Picnics. She loved that Joan brought them cookies to try. She even loved the way everyone else in the salon waited until Aly and Brooke gave a cookie two thumbs up before they ate it. Basically, Aly loved everything about True Colors.

“This is the best place in the world, isn't it?” Aly asked as Joan handed her a raspberry–peanut butter macaron.

“Absolutely!” Brooke said, snuggling next to Joan and taking a cookie from the tin.

Aly let her head rest against Joan's other shoulder.

“So what do you think?” Joan asked as the girls bit into the cookies.

“It tastes like you turned a peanut butter and jelly sandwich into a cookie.” Brooke said, looking up at Joan. “How did you do that?”

“A baker never tells her secrets.” Joan winked. “What do you think, Aly?”

Aly let the taste of the cookie settle on her tongue. “This is what I like about it,” she said. “One, it's salty and sweet at the same time. Two, the peanut butter part is really creamy. Three, there's a little bit of crunch to the outside of the cookie. And four, it's big enough that you need four bites to finish it.”

“Thank you for that wonderful list,” Joan said. “I'll tell the rest of the ladies that these cookies have the Aly-and-Brooke Seal of Approval.”

“Hey, Aly?” someone said from the doorway.

Aly looked up. It was Jenica! And Bethany and Mia. There were three more girls from the soccer team behind them.

“Any chance you can polish some more toes when you're done eating?” Jenica asked.

Aly stood up and swallowed her last bite of cookie. “We're all booked today,” she said. She really wasn't sure if they were totally booked, but she didn't want
to have to ask Mom to break her rules again . . . not yet, anyway.

Jenica put her hands on her hips. “You know, you and your mom always say that, but then you take people in here and give them pedicures. Can we just skip to that part?”

“Um . . .” Aly didn't have a choice—she looked into the main salon for her mom.

“How about if I go see if Karen is back?” Joan said, squeezing Aly's shoulder. “And if not, I'll come back here and we'll figure this out.” Aly nodded, grateful, as always, for Joan.

“Mia and Bethany and I played awesome yesterday after you gave us the sparkle pedicures,” Jenica said. “We have another game after school tomorrow. And we really need to win. So our starting forwards need pedicures too.”

Jenica introduced the girls who had followed her
in: Giovanna, Maxie, and Joelle. They looked a little familiar to Aly from school, but she'd never spoken to any of them before.

Aly found it kind of amazing that the girls thought her sparkle pedicure made them play soccer better. She wondered if she'd be a soccer star if she painted her own toenails.

“Aly's not allowed to,” Brooke said as she cleaned up the Pizza Picnic. “Really. Unless our mom says it's okay, and she's not here right now.”

“There she is!” Mia said from behind Jenica.

Mom came walking toward the back room, carrying a bag from the grocery store. “Can I help you girls?” she asked as she slid the bag into the mini-fridge.

“Our friends need three rainbow sparkle pedicures,” Jenica said. “Otherwise, we won't win our soccer game. But Aly said you're booked. Like she always does.”

Bethany leaned in and whispered to Mia, “Maybe we should just go to another salon today.” Even though she whispered, Aly could tell that Mom heard; her eyes darted toward the front window and the
COMING SOON! PRINCESS POLISH!
sign across the street.

“Aly,” Mom said, “can I talk to you, please?”

Aly followed her mother into the corner near the two spare manicure stations stored in the back room.

“I'm
not
agreeing to your salon,” Mom said. “But would you do three more pedicures? Or see if Brooke can do one? I want to make sure everyone is happy with our salon today.”

Aly grinned. It wasn't a guarantee, but it seemed like the first step in making their own kid salon a reality. “Okay, Mom,” she said.

After leading Maxie and Joelle to the pedicure chairs and turning on the water, Aly pulled Brooke over near the mini-fridge for a chat.

“I've never done a real customer before,” Brooke said, tugging on her braid. “I don't even do both of your hands! Just one! Are you sure I'm ready for this?”

Lisa, another manicurist, walked into the back room to grab a bottle of water and heard the girls' conversation.

“You're going to be great,” Lisa said. “Just take your time and go slow. Aly can do two of the girls. You only have to do one.”

Brooke nodded, but she didn't seem convinced.

“Okay,” Aly said, walking back to the pedicure chairs, “so, um, after you're done splashing, I'm going to do Maxie's toes, and Brooke will do Joelle's. Then I'll do Giovanna's. Sound good?”

Brooke smiled, but she wrapped her hand around the bottom of her braid so she could tug it if she had to.

“You're sure your sister can do it?” Jenica asked,
folding her arms across her chest. “She's just a little kid.”

“We're all kids,” Brooke told Jenica. “And I bet I can polish a million times better than you.”

Aly swallowed hard. She couldn't believe Brooke. One of the main rules in a salon is never to be mean to the customers! Brooke was going to ruin this!

But instead of getting mad, Jenica laughed. So did Joelle. “I like her,” she said.

“Why, thank you,” Brooke answered, and even curtsied. Then she ducked outside to get the sparkle polishes. Jenica, Bethany, and Mia followed her out the door.

All three pedicures proceeded pretty much problem-free. Brooke was concentrating so hard on her work that she didn't say a word, but she still had to redo the Orange You Pretty on Joelle's pointer toe twice because it kept dripping. Once all the girls' toes were dry,
though, they left with huge smiles on their faces.

Right before they walked out the door, Giovanna said, “If we win tomorrow, we're coming back every week. And we're bringing the rest of the team too.”

“Sounds good,” Aly said, smiling her biggest smile. But a list of worries started in her brain: How would True Colors handle the whole sixth-grade soccer team every week for pedicures? Would there be enough open spots? Maybe customers would actually want to go to Princess Polish across the street. Aly and Brooke couldn't let that happen.

Aly reached into her back pocket and pulled out the list she'd made on the frog paper that morning. She folded it in half and wrote
For Mom and Dad
on the front. Then she opened the closet in the back room where Mom kept her purse and taped the note to Mom's house key. That way, she wouldn't miss it.

Later that night Aly and Brooke were sitting on the floor of their bedroom in their pj's, rubbing cotton balls dipped in polish remover across their Go for the Gold nails.

“It's a shame we have to take it off,” Aly said. “Mine's barely chipped.”

“I know,” Brooke said, fluttering her fingers. “Look how it sparkles. I think our family has too many rules. Other kids are allowed to wear nail polish to school. And our mom has a nail salon! I mean, if
anyone
should get to wear polish, it's us, right?”