Free Meanicures by Catherine Clark Page B

“Kind of. Then again, look at me. This costume was my little cousin’s last year, but since I’m so short I can wear it. There are some advantages to not growing tall.” She twirled around in her Snow White costume, waving her arms in a delicate, graceful, Snow-Whitish way. She wore a black wig that made her hair look like a plastic shell, and a white headband.
    I’d improvised at the last minute, turning myself intoa wicked witch with a black cape, a pointed witch’s hat, lots of green face makeup, and a carefully positioned fake wart on my nose. I was wearing a wig from my mother’s testing days—I think it had been tested on about a thousand times, because the long black hair was as matted as a shaggy dog’s.
    “Has anyone figured out why Cassidy reinvited us?” Taylor leaned over to fix her shoe, nearly losing her headband and her wig. “I still say they’re setting us up for something.”
    “And I still say you’re paranoid,” I said. “She seemed genuine when she asked me. And we’ve always gone to her party. Why would we stop now?”
    “Duh. Because she told us flat out last week that she didn’t have space for us,” said Taylor.
    “She must have recalculated. So. Is everyone ready?” I asked.
    We picked up our treat bags for collecting candy after the party, and stepped outside into the cool October night. “I can’t believe it’s nice out,” said Olivia. “This is so unexpected.”
    I gazed up at the clear sky, and the nearly full rising moon.
    “Remember last year? It rained and we were completely drenched by the time we got to the party,” Taylor said. “Which was not a good look for a girl band.”
    “Especially not when everyone tried to get us to sing,” I said. “Nightmare.” I remembered how Cassidyhad started a chant, demanding that we sing. We weren’t planning on singing. We’d only dressed like we were.
    Once we’d escaped that threat, we’d been challenged to play the Rock Band video game, and with Olivia on drums, we didn’t stand a chance of winning. So why exactly were we so eager to go back?
    “This time there’s nothing they can do to embarrass us,” Olivia declared. “No more group costumes.”
    Taylor laughed. “That just means we’ll get singled out on our own!”
    “I don’t know. I don’t think that’s going to happen,” I said.
    “Why not?” asked Taylor.
    “I just have a feeling. I can’t explain it,” I said. “Of course,
I’m
not dressed like a miniature Snow White.”
    We all started laughing so hard that we couldn’t stop. We half walked and half skipped over to Cassidy’s house, which was only about four blocks away. This seemed so normal, going to Cassidy’s for Halloween, like I had every year since I was eight. But a week ago, if someone had told me we’d end up there this Halloween, I’d have said they were crazy.
    So who’s crazy now?
I wondered.
Me for going after I was disinvited, or Cassidy, for re-inviting me?
    As we neared her house, I could see plastic skeleton heads poking onto the ends of Cassidy’s front-yard fence posts, and cobwebs draped on bushes and trees. A steady line of guests was filing in, while Cassidy’smother, Amber, was standing outside and handing candy to smaller kids who were trick-or-treating.
    “Whoa. Popular much?” asked Taylor.
    “Hey, Madison!” Cassidy’s mom greeted me. “Taylor, Olivia—it’s so nice to see you guys here. Thanks for coming!”
    “We wouldn’t miss it,” I said with a smile, thinking,
We almost missed it, but your daughter did a 180-degree turn
.
    We had just walked into the house when Cassidy came to greet us at the door saying, “Welcome, I’m so glad you could come!”
    It was like looking into a mirror—a cracked mirror, actually.
    Cassidy was standing there dressed in the exact same costume as mine: black cape, green face, black wig, pointed black hat, carefully placed nose wart. “Should one of us have been Glinda, the good witch?” I