Picture-Perfect Read online

  I think you’ll say it sounds great, but I wanted to double-check just to be sure.

  You would say yes, right?

  By the way, I miss you bunches.

  Madison punched SEND. After the Dad mail was sent, Madison saw that she had new e-mails.

  FROM SUBJECT

  BeAllYouCanBe99 Never Feel Fat Again!

  FHASC Clinic Update: Super-Collies

  Wetwinz Concert

  BalletGrl Fw: Re: Concert

  Madison scanned the list. There was only one name she didn’t recognize: BeAllYouCanBe99. It turned out to be an ad for special weight-loss powder. Madison wondered why she was getting something like that.

  DELETE.

  She also picked up e-mail from the Far Hills Animal Shelter and Clinic (FHASC). The clinic had begun to send weekly updates on activities and pets. Madison had been volunteering there on and off in seventh grade. The newsletters told “success stories” of sad animals that had been happily adopted. Today, Madison read about the miraculous animal rescue of two collies that had been trapped in a fire. Madison knew those collies: Mutt and Jeff. She had pulled their photos from the newsletter and saved them as screen savers.

  “Yikes!” Madison said as her eyes caught the digital clock in the corner of her laptop screen. It was after six o’clock, and she still had two e-mails from her BFFs left to read. Each was marked with a giant exclamation point for “high priority.”

  From: Wetwinz

  To: MadFinn; BalletGrl

  Subject: Concert

  Date: Thurs 16 May 6:04 PM

  Hello? I tried calling your house, Maddie, but it just rang and rang. Is ur call-waiting working? Aimee, ur brother Dean told me he’d give u the message but u haven’t called yet. WHERE R U GUYS????

  My dad isn’t home yet from this big mtg 2day so I still dunno if we can go 2 the concert or not. My mother sez she wants to talk 2 Daddy first & then she wants to call ur moms. What did they say when U asked about the concert? I am so afraid this won’t happen now. WBS!!!

  Aimee had sent an e-mail reply back to both friends.

  From: BalletGrl

  To: Wetwinz; MadFinn

  Subject: Fw: Re: Concert

  Date: Thurs 16 May 6:21 PM

  Dean never said n e thing about you calling?! I NEVER got a message, Fiona. NEVER.

  No, I haven’t talked to Mom either. She’s in a really crabby mood tonight so I’m sorta avoiding her. Today Blossom my dog got into some white paint and made a huge mess on the floor and on her fur. Mom is soooo mad. I know if I asked her tonight about the concert she’d say NO way. She gets like that sometimes—super strict. p.s. I just got an e-mail from my dance teacher and I was chosen to do a small solo piece in the spring revue. Isn’t that amazing? p.p.s. Maddie, what did ur mom say about the concert?

  Madison sighed.

  Aimee hadn’t spoken to her mom. Madison hadn’t spoken to her mom. And Fiona’s mom was being weird about the whole thing.

  The trio was inches away from losing their four free tickets. What could Madison do to help their situation?

  What would Bigwheels do?

  Bigwheels was Madison’s keypal, good at dishing out online advice in difficult situations just like this one. Madison moved into the chat rooms on TweenBlurt.com to see if maybe Bigwheels was online. She could help right now if she were there.

  Luckily, Madison found Bigwheels right away. She was hiding out inside a Math Homework chat room called “GEOMETRY.”

  : Bigwheels? Can u talk?

  : RN!

  : r u @ school?

  : Did I tell u I was in math club?

  The most interesting part about having a keypal who lived all the way across the country was the surprises. Madison was learning new things about her online friend every time they spoke.

  : if ur busy I don’t wanna bug u

  : im in the lab after school but I can talk

  : do u like Nikki

  : #1 fan

  : well we won tix to her concert

  : get out!

  : imserious

  : YTTT?

  : there’s a catch—our moms wont let us go

  : NO WAY bummer, my mom would

  : really?

  : yours will too just get a good chaperone

  Madison almost fell off her desk chair.

  A chaperone?

  Of course!

  : that’s a great idea

  : u can’t go otherwise LOL

  : I know that ’-)

  : have u ever checked out the Nikki pages on the Web? They have a bulletin board on BFB, to look for the links there or do a search

  : <:>))

  : GTG talk later bye

  : *poof*

  Madison swam around TweenBlurt.com for a few minutes looking for other Nikki fans like the ones Bigwheels had mentioned. She didn’t have to look for long before she found a fish tank (chat room) appropriately called NIKKI with 2,965 members. And more than 600 of them were online right now.

  Most of the fans had written into the bulletin board pages with information about Nikki concert tour dates and locations, new Nikki photos posted on the Web, Nikki lyric sites, and other Nikki gossip. Many of the screen names revealed who were the bigger fans.

  NIKKl4evah

  Iluvniki

  sofineNikki

  NikkiFan211

  One of the postings was from someone near Far Hills who was desperate to get tickets to the upcoming local concert. Madison felt special knowing that they had tickets of their own.

  And now, with the perfect chaperone, they’d be able to go—no problems from parents at all. But who would take them?

  “Maddie?” Mom’s voice jolted Madison out of her reverie so suddenly that she nearly knocked her mouse off the desk.

  “Mom?” Madison said, logging off the Web and turning around at the same time. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “I don’t feel much like cooking tonight,” Mom said nonchalantly. “Do you mind if I order a pizza?”

  When she was busy or distracted, Mom ordered out. Madison told her it was fine, as long as there were no weird vegetables on her slices. Mom had a tendency lately to order pizza with broccoli and spinach and other green stuff. She was a vegetarian, after all.

  “You want root beer with that, right?” Mom asked, walking away.

  Madison nodded absolutely. Root beer was her favorite drink. As it just so happened, it was Nikki’s favorite drink, too.

  She followed Mom downstairs to help clear off and set the table.

  Brrrrring.

  Madison reached for the phone, half expecting it to be Aimee or Fiona and half expecting it to be Dad.

  But it wasn’t.

  Mrs. Waters was on the line. And she wanted to speak to Mom.

  “Who is it?” Mom asked as Madison reluctantly handed her the telephone.

  Madison shrugged. “Fiona’s mom,” she said softly.

  Mom grabbed the receiver and gave Mrs. Waters a giant “Hello.” Madison sat down on a chair nearby and watched every facial expression on Mom’s face. She was sure that her concert hopes could be dashed to pieces in the next few minutes.

  And Madison didn’t know what to do.

  Chapter 3

  “WE HAVE TO FIND the right chaperone, that’s all,” Madison told her friends at lunch the next day.

  They were sitting together at their usual orange table in the back of the lunchroom, ignoring their guy friends Egg Diaz, Drew Maxwell, and Fiona’s brother Chet, who were seated at the opposite end from them.

  “My mom won’t go for that,” Fiona said. “Not even a chaper—”

  “No!” Madison interrupted. “My mom said that your mom will go for it if we come up with a smart plan about how w
e can go and who can take us. So let’s think. Who? WHO?”

  Aimee picked at a leaf of lettuce on her tray and sipped from a bottle of water. “I’m so bummed out.”

  “We should be celebrating!” Madison said. “We’ll be able to go. We have to think positive.”

  “Okay, okay,” Fiona said. “My dad could drive us.”

  Aimee looked up and made a face. “I’m sorry, Fiona. No offense, but I’d be kind of embarrassed to go with your dad.”

  “Me, too,” Madison admitted.

  “Fine, then you guys name someone else,” Fiona said.

  “What about your dad, Maddie?” Aimee asked. “He’s cool, right? Or his girlfriend Stephanie? She’s pretty cool, too.”

  “Why is Maddie’s dad cool and my dad isn’t?” Fiona asked.

  “My dad is cool in his own mind,” Madison said, chuckling. She was remembering the many times he’d mortified her in public restaurants, at the bowling alley, and everywhere else they ever seemed to go lately.

  Fiona giggled. “What about your dad, Aimee?”

  “Are you JOKING?” Aimee laughed out loud.

  “What about your mom?” Fiona asked.

  Aimee paused. “Mom wouldn’t go to a concert unless it was a folk singer or something. She’s into all that music like Bob Dylan and the Beatles.”

  “Who’s Bob Dylan?” Fiona asked.

  Madison pounded her fist lightly on the table. “Come on, you guys! We have to think. We only have lunch period together today. That gives us twenty more minutes to come up with a perfect chaperone.”

  From the other end of the table, Chet leaned over to ask if he could eat his sister’s dessert. She’d left half a brownie on her plate. As soon as he nudged over, Egg and Drew squeezed closer, too. Fiona blushed a little when Egg moved nearby. Her crush on him seemed to get worse every day.

  “What’s the deal—I hear you guys won tickets to some concert?” Egg asked the girls.

  Aimee looked at him and smiled. “Yes, we did. Are you jealous?”

  “Of tickets to a girly concert?” he said. “No, I don’t think so.”

  Drew snorted. He did that when he laughed. “Nikki’s cute,” he said, half under his breath.

  Chet put his hands up into the air and declared, “No, Nikki is superhot. There’s a difference.”

  The girls looked at each other and giggled

  “So when is this concert?” Egg asked.

  “In a week,” Fiona said.

  “And Mom is never letting you go, so give it up,” Chet said.

  Madison spoke up. “She will so let us go to the concert. We have it all planned.”

  “Yeah? What?” Chet asked. “You’re bluffing.”

  “We are not. We’re just not telling you guys,” Madison said, practically shooing the boys away like bugs.

  “Don’t look now,” Aimee whispered. “Her highness is coming over to this table, too.”

  Headed straight for the orange table was Ivy Daly, otherwise known in the Madison-Aimee-Fiona circle as “Poison Ivy.” Ivy represented everything about seventh grade that Madison detested. She was a big show-off, and she tried to wield her Class President power around like some kind of weapon. Even worse, she liked the same exact boy that Madison did: Hart Jones. Fortunately, Hart was nowhere in sight right now.

  “Hel-lo,” Ivy whined as she stopped next to the table. Right behind her were her drones, two girls who followed Ivy’s every move. Rose and Joan had also gotten their own bad nicknames over the years, too. Rose was Rose Thorn and Joan was Phony Joanie. The names fit them perfectly.

  “Hello, Ivy,” Fiona said. She spoke for the table. Madison and Aimee remained silent.

  Madison noticed that Ivy was wearing a baby-T with the words “Sugar-Sweet” on it. She recognized that shirt as part of the newest Nikki fan-club package. Madison had wanted one of her very own, but the club had sold out of them by the time she requested hers. Madison’s shirt was back-ordered for two months.

  “What are you three doing this weekend?” Ivy asked.

  “Who wants to know?” Aimee snapped back.

  “I was just wondering,” Ivy said. “Don’t have a cow.”

  “Ivy has tickets to the hottest concert in town,” Rose Thorn said.

  Fiona looked confused. “Huh? This weekend?”

  “No,” Ivy said, smoothing out her T-shirt. “But this weekend I’m going shopping for the ultimate concert outfit.”

  “What concert are you talking about?” Aimee asked.

  Poison Ivy and her drones laughed.

  “Nikki,” Phony Joanie blurted. “Duh. Who else?”

  Fiona almost jumped in to say that they had concert tickets, too, but Madison quickly cut her off. She didn’t want Ivy to know that they’d be there, too.

  “Ivy, who’s taking you to the concert?” Madison asked. She knew if Ivy had to admit in public that it was her mom or dad, she might get to see Ivy squirm a little. There was something so uncool about parental chaperones, as the girls knew. And Ivy wouldn’t risk looking uncool around anyone—especially not at school.

  “Actually, my sister Janet is taking me to the Nikki concert,” Ivy explained. “You need to have someone who qualifies as an adult. I think they have to be sixteen or seventeen.”

  “Wow.” Aimee had to admit it. “That’s pretty sweet.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Ivy said.

  “Are you two going to the concert, too?” Fiona asked Rose and Joan.

  They just shook their heads.

  “No, just me,” Ivy boasted. “Tickets have been sold out since a half-hour after they went on sale. I’m one of the lucky ones. My dad knew some important people.”

  “Mmmmmm,” Madison said. She glanced at Aimee and Fiona, who were doing their best not to laugh. “So where are you sitting at the concert?”

  “In the fifth row,” Ivy said. “I can practically reach up and touch Nikki right there on stage.”

  “Wow,” Aimee said, faking a serious voice. “I’m soooo jealous.”

  Poison Ivy grinned. She thought Aimee meant it.

  “Even better, I get to go backstage and meet Nikki after the concert,” Ivy said. “My dad has a friend who—”

  “How nice for you,” Aimee said, cutting her off. She stood up with her tray still full of uneaten food and turned back toward the kitchen.

  Madison and Fiona stood up, too, with their trays.

  The bell for the end of the lunch period was about to ring.

  “See you later,” Fiona said as they walked away.

  Ivy shrugged. “Yeah, later.” She didn’t like it much when people walked away while she was in the middle of speaking.

  And Madison and her friends were good at that.

  They hurried over to the dish area where they dumped their trays and leftover food.

  “That was unbelievable!” Aimee said, trying hard to contain herself. “In the dictionary next to the word fake is a picture of Poison Ivy Daly—in that stupid T-shirt.”

  Madison chuckled. “Yeah.”

  “I thought us snagging tickets was special,” Fiona said. “But I guess not.”

  “You guys!” Madison reminded them. “We still WON our tickets. We’re in the FRONT row, not the fifth row. We are special. More than special.”

  “But we haven’t decided on a chaperone yet,” Fiona said. “Ivy has Janet. She’s all set. What are we going to do?”

  “If Ivy’s bringing her sister Janet,” Madison said, “it doesn’t have to be a parent who goes with us.”

  “How about your brothers, Aim?” Fiona suggested. “They can drive.”

  “My brothers?” Aimee shook her head. “Are you kidding? They wouldn’t be caught dead at a concert with me. All they do is pick on me for the music I listen to. Plus, they bother me.”

  “What about Roger?” Madison asked. “He won’t pick on you.”

  Roger was Aimee’s oldest and sweetest brother. He helped Mr. Gillespie run the front counter at Book Web, the fa
mily bookstore. He volunteered to feed senior citizens in the Far Hills neighborhoods with Meals on Wheels. Roger always did the right thing, said the right thing, and acted the right way, at least as far as Madison was concerned. He wouldn’t be as embarrassing as a dad. He was twenty-three, the ideal chaperone age. And he was cute, too.

  “Roger is too busy,” Aimee said. “He’s got a girlfriend now, and he’s always with her when he’s not at the store. He’s a drag. You don’t want him.”

  “He can’t take us for one night?” Madison asked. “One dumb concert? Pleeeeeease.”

  “Yeah, Aim,” Fiona joined in. “Pretty pleeeeeeease?”

  “Well …” Aimee hedged. “I just don’t—”

  “You have to ask him,” Fiona insisted. “Otherwise we can’t go.”

  “Yeah,” Madison said. “You wanna go, don’t you?”

  Aimee finally gave in. She said she would ask him that night. And she’d tell her mother about the concert, too. But she wasn’t making any guarantees. In fact, she was certain he’d say no instantly.

  Heee-ooooo! Heeee-oooo!

  The girls jumped. Out of nowhere, a siren had started ringing. That meant fire drill.

  “Okay, boys and girls,” some teacher yelled from the faculty lunch table. “Order in the room! Fire drill!”

  “Where’s our Cafeteria Marshall?” another teacher asked aloud.

  Madison, Aimee, and Fiona ducked out a side door and joined with the throng of kids parading down the main staircase into the school lobby. They had to file out in order and then meet up with their homeroom groups outside, across the street.

  “See you guys later,” Madison said, as she waved good-bye to Aimee and Fiona. They were in different homerooms. Madison looked for hers, for a sign that said A-F.

  “Maddie!” a voice yelled out from the sidewalk. “Over here!”

  Egg was standing with her homeroom group. Even though Madison often found him to be a pain in the neck, he was still one of her best friends ever. And he was definitely her best guy friend. Madison, Aimee, and Egg had all been pals throughout elementary school. Some old habits—and old friends—were hard to leave.

  Madison clustered together with the rest of the kids from her homeroom, most of whom she usually never noticed. At today’s fire drill she ended up standing next to a quiet girl she recognized from her science class.