Your Life, but Better Read online

  “See?” Jessie cries. “Told ya so. Shawna’s already been spotted. We’re already off to a bad start!”

  Lena, always the levelheaded one, touches Jessie’s shoulder. “Calm down! We’re not out of this yet. But it might be a good idea to get a little insurance. As long as we’re wandering around the mall, why don’t we buy the birthday girl a present, just in case we find her but get the answer to her question wrong?”

  “Hmmm …,” you say, rubbing your chin with your thumb and index finger. “A little shameless bribery? Hey, couldn’t hurt!”

  Five stores later, you still haven’t seen any sign of Shawna, and Jessie has started losing her mind.

  “Which ones?” she is now asking Lena as you stand at the custom-jewelry kiosk next to Starbucks. “These or these?” Jessie holds up two practically identical sets of silver hoop earrings.

  “Um …,” Lena says, nervously biting her lip. “What’s the difference?”

  Jessie’s eyes widen in shock. “What’s the difference? What do you mean what’s the difference? These are a little bit thicker, but these are way bigger. See?” She lines up the two sets of earrings so that Lena can see the fraction-of-an-inch difference between them.

  “Ohhh,” Lena says, “now I see. Sure.” Lena shoots you a look like Get the straitjacket ready while I keep this nut job occupied. “In that case, I’d go with this pair.” She points to the ones on the left.

  “Okay,” Jessie says. “But are these earrings something a twelve-year-old or a thirteen-year-old would wear?”

  Lena just smacks her own forehead and sighs. Jessie has been asking you both the same question through several stores now. Would a thirteen-year-old buy this poster or that poster? Would a thirteen-year-old get the Chunky Monkey or the Phish Food ice cream? Would a thirteen-year-old buy the cherry blossom lip gloss or the ice berry dream lip gloss? She is now officially driving you both crazy!

  So far on the list of things that are preteen (and therefore donezo) are Hello Kitty stuff, red tights, David Archuleta CDs, and, apparently, slightly smaller silver hoop earrings. On the official teen-approved list are black leggings, all things Twilight and Robert Pattinson, Death Cab for Cutie downloads, and the Sonic Death Monkey body wash from Lush.

  The list goes on, but you’re too tired to think about it. Poor Lena is still being grilled and is looking to you for help.

  “Don’t ask me,” you declare before Jessie has a chance to turn her attention to you. “I won’t be thirteen for months, so I have no idea what a thirteen-year-old would like.”

  You smile good-naturedly at your friends and drift over to the kiosk with all the crazy hats. Does anyone ever actually buy these giant Dr. Seuss hats? you wonder. You wouldn’t be caught dead in one. Not only would it give you the most heinous case of hat hair, but it would hide half your face! You’d have to get a Seeing Eye dog to lead you around. But those newsboy hats—now, those are kind of cute. You halfheartedly try on the plaid one and are checking yourself out in the mirror when suddenly you feel a tap on your shoulder. Jessie and Lena are still three kiosks down, arguing about whether a thirteen-year-old would wear a charm bracelet, so you know the shoulder-tapper isn’t one of them. It has got to be the wireless-cell-phone guy again. Doesn’t he ever give up? You’re a pretty patient girl, but really, enough is enough. It’s time to sing soprano right into this guy’s face. You whip around, fully prepared to let him have it. “I said noooo—” you start bellowing, but quickly cut yourself off when you realize that the person tapping your shoulder is so not the cell-phone guy. Oops.

  Instead, you’re faced by a woman who looks almost as annoyed as you felt a second ago. Her jet-black hair, which perfectly matches her black T-shirt and supertight black pants, is pulled back in the world’s tightest ponytail. She’s got on one of those headsets with the little speaker part pointing at her mouth. You think that either this lady is from New York or she’s a ninja. Either way she could probably kick your butt. Quick—do some damage control. “Oh! Uh… sorry, um, I, uh, thought you were … cause this guy with the phones … and I already have … but you’re not … um …” Smooth. Real smooth.

  She rolls her eyes and kind of waves your words away with her hands like they’re pesky flies. “Enough,” she says quickly. “Just listen.”

  You’re not about to say no to that after the way you screamed in this innocent bystander’s face. Besides, in your mind you’re running through the other types of people who might like to wear all black: CIA operative? Police detective? Mime? Nun? All the possibilities are equally frightening.

  “I’m a model scout,” the lady says, as if she has just read your mind. (And you didn’t even put “psychic” on the list!) “Have you ever done any modeling?”

  “Who, me?” you squeak. “Yeah, right.” Sure, you’re a big-time model. That’s why you spent almost every minute of the last week of your summer vacation at the very glamorous downtown mall, checking out assorted headbands and stuffing your face with Johnny Rockets sundaes.

  “Well, would you like to do some modeling today? Bebe LaRue is coming out with a young-adult line of clothing and we really need a girl around your age for the photo shoot.” She’s smiling, but something about it seems fake, like she has to struggle to be nice and smiling kind of hurts her face.

  “Are you serious?” you ask skeptically.

  She abruptly drops the smile and sighs. “Look, I don’t normally troll the mall looking for untrained models. But Alexa’s agent called at the last minute to tell me she’d been double-booked, which means I’m in a bind.” She looks you up and down quickly like she’s checking out a new refrigerator or something. She does a final once-over and you apparently pass the test. “You’ll do in a pinch. So? In or out? Time is money.”

  “In!” Jessie suddenly screams from beside you. Huh? Where did she come from?

  “Yeah, she’s definitely in,” Lena says on the other side of you. Wha … ? Was she there a second ago?

  “Thanks, girls,” the headset lady says. “But I need to hear it from her.” She looks right at you, but you’re still speechless and unsure, which seems to annoy her. “Not that I should need to convince you—really, a million girls would kill for this offer—but if you do it, I’ll pay you Alexa’s usual rate for the day. And since her agent couldn’t be bothered to inform me ahead of time that she would not make it today, I see no reason why I should save a spot for either one of them at the Bebe LaRue wrap party at the new Graphic Art Museum, which opens next week. Therefore, if you do well today, the two passes are yours. So do you want to be a model or not? I don’t have all day.”

  Most boring place on earth, my eye! So far it looks like the mall is the place to be. It’s not even noon yet and already you’ve found out that you’re a big part of your friend’s secret blog, you’ve got a shot at scoring tickets to the party of the year, there has been a confirmed Jimmy Morehouse sighting, and you could be in a Bebe LaRue photo shoot! Plus, if you do well, you get two passes to the new Graphic Art Museum—which would give you the perfect excuse to talk to Jimmy. How sick is that? But are you really willing to risk it all to be part of the fun? Or would you rather have a safety net installed before you jump off the cliff? Take the quiz and find out … if you dare.

  QUIZ TIME!

  Circle your answers and tally up the points at the end.

  1. You’re at an amusement park with your friends and they’re all dying to get on the most insane-looking roller coaster in the place. You:

  hightail it to the Skee-Ball lanes, where it’s safe. I mean, what are they, crazy?

  tell them you’d join them but somebody has to stay behind and hold everybody’s bags. Plus, no one will believe they even got on the ride unless you snap a few pictures as they go whizzing by.

  agree to get on the ride, but only if one of your friends will let you clutch her arm in a viselike grip the whole time. Hopefully she won’t mind all the shrieking you’ll be doing right in her ear.

  make sure
you’re the first in line so you can sit right up front. Danger is your middle name! It’ll be scary, but if you live, it’ll be worth the adrenaline rush.

  2. You’ve had long hair since you were a kid and are kind of itching for a change. So when you go to the salon and the cool stylist with the blue hair suggests you cut it all off and go short, you:

  freak out. What if you cut off all your long locks, and instead of looking like Victoria Beckham, you end up looking like Edward Scissorhands? No way. You leave without even letting her touch your precious tresses.

  tell her you would but picture day is coming up at school, and any beauty magazine worth its salt would say not to do anything extreme to your hair before an important event like that. You’ll stick to your usual—a little trim-thank you very much.

  meet her more than halfway and opt for an edgy bob that hangs just below your ears. At least your hair will still be long enough to pull back into a ponytail if it looks hideous.

  go for it. Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman, and Halle Berry have all rocked the short look at some point. Why not you?

  3. Your math teacher has presented the class with a doozy of a problem and is waiting for volunteers to work it out on the board. You:

  raise your hand … to go to the bathroom. You don’t have to go, but hopefully by the time you get back, your teacher will have tortured some other poor sucker into solving it.

  keep your butt firmly planted in your seat and pray that your teacher doesn’t appoint a “volunteer.” You don’t know for sure that your answer is right, so why risk being wrong and humiliating yourself in front of the whole class?

  volunteer, but only after comparing your answer with that of one of your classmates who is too scared to get up there in front of everyone. His answer is the same as yours, so you’re a little more willing to risk public embarrassment.

  raise your hand as high as it’ll go. You aren’t sure you’ve got the right answer, but if it means extra credit, you’ll give it a shot.

  4. You’re lucky enough to be selected for a game show on which you could win enough cash to buy a whole new wardrobe and a lifetime supply of music downloads. You’re in the bonus round and you can choose how much of your winnings you want to bet. You:

  walk away. You’ve already won enough to earn you bragging rights at school for a year and at least three new outfits. Why take a chance on going home with nothing?

  bet 10 percent of your winnings. If you lose, you won’t have to part with much of your jackpot. And if you win, you can use the extra cash to buy a nice headband or something.

  bet 90 percent of your winnings. If you win, you’ll win big, and if you lose … well, at least you’ll have enough left over to buy yourself plenty of paper bags to cover your head with for the rest of the school year.

  bet it all! Go big or go home, right? Sure, you might lose, but if you win, you’re in the money!

  5. The cute boy from school you want to invite to your party is standing in the hallway with a group of his friends. This might be your last chance to ask him. You:

  cruise by the group of boys… and keep on walking, making sure to avoid all eye contact. You’d rather not risk getting laughed at by his whole crew.

  have one of your friends walk with you past the group of boys while talking WAY TOO LOUDLY ABOUT WHAT A GREAT PARTY YOU’RE HAVING THIS WEEKEND, stressing that you’ll be serving what you happen to know is his favorite junk food. Then “accidentally” drop an invite on the floor near them. Hopefully he’ll get the hint.

  hand your crush an invite … and give one to everyone he’s with too. His friends are kind of obnoxious goons and you hope they don’t come, but it’s the only way to invite him without making it look like you singled him out.

  march right up to him and hand him an invitation. The worst he can do is say no.

  Give yourself 1 point for every time you answered A, 2 points for every B, 3 points for every C, and 4 points for every D.

  —If you scored between 5 and 12, go to chapter 2

  —If you scored between 13 and 20, go to chapter 3

  Congratulations! You have managed to successfully avoid any major risks in your life and as a result are still in one piece. You may not always choose the most exciting option, but you definitely make sure you protect yourself, which is kind of a relief to your friends and family, who rarely have to bail you out of a bad situation. Still, it might be fun to take a chance every now and then.

  Do you want to be a model? Well, duh! You didn’t TiVo the last three seasons of America’s Next Top Model for nothing. Who wouldn’t want to model? Free clothes, cool people, traveling all over the world … and did you mention the free clothes? But still, who says this lady is even a real model scout? For all you know, she could be a crazy ax murderer. In fact, the more you think about it, the more that seems like a real possibility. People don’t really get discovered in boring malls these days, do they? Isn’t that what reality shows are for now? Plus, why would Bebe LaRue, who could use any location in the world for her photo shoot, choose the downtown mall in your city of all places? Unless the theme of the shoot is cheesy mall glam, it just doesn’t make sense. And hello—a complete stranger is offering you a ton of money and free passes to an exclusive party. Are you the only one who saw that Lifetime movie Where Is My Daughter? Some girl gets lured out of a mall by a guy offering her a free puppy, and her poor mom spends the rest of the movie tracking her down. She finds her alive but all muddy and gross in the woods. So not for you.

  You try to signal to your friends with your eyes that maybe you should all make a break for it. But Jessie is bouncing up and down, smiling a big goofy smile, and Lena is busy tapping away at her BlackBerry, no doubt updating her blog to include this interesting turn of events. Usually you three seem to be able to read one another’s minds, but your powers of telepathy must be on the fritz. You’ll get no help from these two.

  The headset lady has already started to walk off, clearly expecting you to follow her, and Jessie and Lena are gently nudging you forward. But wait just a minute!

  “Whoa, whoa, whooooa …,” you say, and stop dead in your tracks. “I, um, need to ask my mom if it’s okay first.” Good thinking. And not altogether a lie either.

  Headset lady rolls her eyes again and sighs. “Well, of course I’ll need to speak with your mother. We do need her written consent, since you’re a minor, after all. But that’s what my assistant is for. He’ll take care of drawing up all the necessary paperwork.”

  “But what if my mom says no?”

  The scout just gives you a smug grin. “No one says no to me.” The look on your face must scream, You haven’t met my mom, lady, because she rolls her eyes yet again and mutters something about dealing with amateurs. “Fine. Go ask your mother first. But take this with you.” She pulls a business card from her back pocket and hands it to you. “There’s my contact info in case she has any questions. But you need to decide fast. Be at the Photo Hut on the second floor in twenty minutes sharp or we’ll find someone else.” With that, she stalks off, talking quickly into her headset to somebody named Steve.

  When you finally look at your friends, they are both staring at you with their jaws on the floor. “Are you crazy?” Jessie is the first to yell. “You just got discovered by a major talent scout and you’re saying no? We’re talking about a shot at modeling the Bebe LaRue line here. Do you seriously not know how big that is? Perez mentions her in his blog all the time!”

  You look to Lena to back you up, since she’s usually the voice of reason. But she’s shaking her head in disappointment too. “Sorry, but Jessie’s right. Even I would do it! I don’t know how much they were planning to pay Alexa, but I’m betting it would be enough to cover at least a year’s worth of books in college. Not to mention that modeling would be an amazing extracurricular to list on your résumé.”

  “Lena,” you deadpan, “I’m twelve. I don’t have a résumé yet.”

  “Yes, well, all the more reason to
do it. Besides, did you not hear where she said the wrap party would be? At the new Graphic Art Museum! It hasn’t even opened yet, and I bet a certain comic-book geek—”

  “Hey, can you guys stop calling him a geek?” you interrupt.

  “Of course, lovebird. Sorry. What I meant to say was, I bet a certain artist would love to get an early peek at that museum. If you were able to get into that party, no way could he say no if you invited him.”

  There Lena goes again, making all kinds of sense.

  “Sure, I know. It would be awesome!” you agree. “But I’m not walking away with some stranger. How do we know that scout is who she says she is? We’ve gotta check her out first, that’s all.”

  “Fair enough,” Lena says, swayed by your logic. “What do you suggest?”

  “Follow me,” you order, waving them forward. “We’re heading for the Internet café. After all, what is Google for if not a situation like this, right?”

  “Right!” Jessie agrees. “Well, this and getting a closer look at what everybody wore to the Kids’ Choice Awards. But let’s get a move on. You haven’t got much time. And you don’t want to keep all those glam models waiting!”