Beauty Queen Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Come Back, Memories, Come Back!

  Chapter Two: Swoosh

  Chapter Three: Attack of the Roses

  Chapter Four: Not So Nice to Meet You

  Chapter Five: Here’s the Story

  Chapter Six: Let’s Make a Deal

  Chapter Seven: It’s a Beauty-ful Day in the Neighborhood

  Chapter Eight: Change of Plans

  Chapter Nine: Kink in the Plan

  Chapter Ten: Mirror, Mirror

  Chapter Eleven: Let’s Eat

  Chapter Twelve: Tell Me a Story

  Chapter Thirteen: The Curse

  Chapter Fourteen: The Change

  Chapter Fifteen: Jax Strikes Back

  Chapter Sixteen: Do Not Look in the Mirror

  Chapter Seventeen: Three Fingers Are Not Enough Fingers

  Chapter Eighteen: Time Is Tickin’

  Chapter Nineteen: Flying Fur

  Chapter Twenty: Is There Another Way?

  Chapter Twenty-One: Home, Sweet Home

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Read all the Whatever After books!

  Copyright

  Put on your sneakers.”

  My brother, Jonah, hides under his covers. “Not again, Abby. It’s already midnight!”

  “Yes, again,” I say. “And it’s not midnight yet. We still have three minutes.”

  “But I don’t want to sneak into the basement again! I want to go back to sleep!”

  “Do you remember anything about our magic mirror yet?” I ask, looming over his bed.

  “No,” he says, his voice muffled. “Nothing.”

  “Then you can’t go back to sleep. Let’s go, let’s go!”

  Here’s the thing.

  We have a magic mirror in our basement.

  And, at midnight, when we knock on it three times, the magic mirror sucks us inside and takes us into a fairy tale. Really. Well, first it turns purple, then it starts to hiss and swirl, and then it sucks us into a fairy tale.

  The issue right now is that my brother doesn’t believe that the mirror in the basement is magical. Which makes no sense because he has been through the magic mirror with me SIX times already. But the last time we went through, the fairy who lives inside the mirror — her name is Maryrose — hypnotized Jonah by accident.

  He remembers everything else about his life — his name, my name, the fact that we live in Smithville — but he doesn’t remember any of our trips.

  At all.

  Not even a little bit.

  How sad is that?

  We’ve had all these adventures and he has no clue about any of them. We hiked with Snow White! We baked brownies with Cinderella! He turned into a human Popsicle in the story of The Snow Queen! And he remembers nothing. NOTHING!

  It makes me feel kind of lonely.

  “Come on!” I whisper-yell. I can’t be too loud. My parents are sleeping. “Let’s go!”

  I’m really hoping his memories come back once he sees the mirror in action.

  Nothing else I’ve tried has worked. I made him wear his soccer cleats around the house. I was hoping he’d remember how wearing them had totally messed up Rapunzel’s hair and left me no choice but to give her an extreme haircut.

  I fed him apples, hoping he’d remember meeting Snow White.

  I even showed him the jewelry box in my room. The paintings on the box show what happens to all the fairy tale characters after we visit their stories. Like Rapunzel with her shorter hairdo.

  But nothing has worked. He still has no memories of our adventures.

  “When did you get so annoying?” my brother mutters as he climbs out of bed and smushes his feet into his sneakers.

  Prince, our dog, nuzzles his nose against Jonah’s heel.

  I ignore the question. “Are you wearing your watch?” I ask. A watch from home is the only way to keep track of the time when we’re in fairy tales.

  “Yes,” he grumbles.

  “Good. Follow me.” I head down the stairs to our basement. “Quietly.”

  I don’t want my parents to wake up. They don’t know about the magic mirror. Maryrose hypnotized their memories away on purpose. Plus, we promised them that we wouldn’t go into the basement at night, and I hate breaking promises. But what else can I do? I need Jonah to remember everything that happened and this is the only way. Also, going through the mirror is fun.

  Prince follows right behind me. I can hear Jonah grumbling to himself behind Prince.

  “Close the basement door,” I tell Jonah as we climb down the final flight of stairs.

  He does. I motion for him to come closer and face the mirror.

  The mirror is about twice the size of me. The frame is made of stone and decorated with carvings of small fairies with wings and wands. The glass part is clear and smooth, and inside we can see our reflections. My shoulder-length curly dark hair. My small, scrawny brother and his messy brown hair. Prince’s furry little body.

  I knock on the mirror. Once. Twice. Three times.

  I hold my breath.

  Nothing happens.

  No spinning. No purple. No hissing.

  “Crumbs,” I mutter.

  I’ve dragged Jonah down to the basement every night for the past week to knock on the mirror.

  And Maryrose is still not letting us in.

  Why not? I have no idea. Sometimes she’s picky like that. Sometimes she waits for us to wear certain outfits before letting us into the mirror, like pajamas that look like a kingdom’s flags. But she doesn’t tell us what she wants us to wear, and it’s hard to guess.

  A few days ago, I wore ballet slippers in case she was hoping to bring us inside the story of The Twelve Dancing Princesses. Today I have bread crumbs in my hoodie pocket in case she is thinking of taking us into Hansel and Gretel.

  Between the bread crumbs and the ballet slippers and the apples, I have been working with a lot of different fairy tale props lately.

  “Let me try one more time,” I tell my brother.

  “No,” he says and scrunches up his face. “Enough. We don’t have a magic mirror!”

  “Yes, we do! What time is it?”

  “Twelve-oh-five,” Jonah says, glancing at his watch.

  Double crumbs. “I guess it’s not happening tonight. It’s too late now.” I exhale a super-loud, super-annoyed sigh. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

  Prince paws the mirror. He gets it. He wants Jonah to remember, too, I can tell.

  “Can’t we take a few nights off?” Jonah asks. “It’s Mom’s birthday on Wednesday. I don’t have a present for her yet.”

  “You can share mine,” I say. I made a painting for my mother in art class. It’s of a vase of roses. Mom loves roses. I’m feeling guilty for sneaking around the house at night, and I hope that giving Mom something she really likes will make me feel better.

  I’m pretty sure she’ll like the painting. It’s great. At least I think it’s great. I’ll know tomorrow when it’s dry.

  “Let me try knocking one more time,” I say. “Just in case.”

  “No, no, no,” Jonah says. “I don’t want to talk to mirrors anymore.”

  “Just one more —”

  “No!” he snaps. “You’re starting to freak me out, Abby! We don’t have a magic mirror! If you don’t stop bugging me about it, I’m going to tell Mom and Dad you’ve gone crazy!”

  “Wait, Jonah. Don’t go.” He has to remember! I need him to remember! “Let me get you a snack. Do you want another apple? A brownie? Or maybe a Popsicle?”

  Prince wags his tail. Jonah blocks his ears and rushes up the stairs.

  I guess he’s not hungry.

 
The next day in art class, I discover I was wrong about my painting.

  It did not come out great. It did not come out great at all.

  I pick up my painting from the drying rack and slump down at the long table.

  My roses do not look like roses. They look like red blobs. Red blobs that were dropped on the floor and then jumped on with Jonah’s soccer cleats.

  “Good try, Abby,” Mrs. Becker tells me, standing over my shoulder.

  Good try? GOOD TRY?

  Everyone knows good try means you have no talent.

  The truth is, she’s right. I am not good at painting. Or drawing. Or anything involving clay, either.

  Frankie, Robin, and Penny all sit down beside me.

  Frankie and Robin are my best friends.

  Penny is Robin’s other best friend. She hogs Robin as often as she can. And I’m pretty sure she’s forcing Robin to wear a super-high ponytail to school every day so the two of them can match. The other day at recess, she referred to them as “twinsies.” Which, even with the ponytails, is impossible because Penny’s hair is blond and Robin’s is strawberry-blond, almost red. So there.

  I prefer to wear a headband to school, thank you very much. And Frankie is wearing her dark hair back in two French braids. Frankie and I don’t need to wear matching hairdos to prove we’re best friends.

  “Wow, Penny,” Mrs. Becker says, interrupting my thoughts. “The detail in your painting is exquisite.”

  Exquisite? Really?

  I look down at Penny’s painting.

  I gasp.

  It is exquisite. Seriously. Her roses are red and bright and beautiful. Her painting looks like an ad for Mother’s Day, if Mother’s Day needed an ad.

  “That’s amazing,” Robin coos to her.

  “It really is,” says Frankie. “Where did you learn to be such a great artist?”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. Sure, Penny’s good at art, but it’s not like she’s a superstar at everything.

  “I’ve always loved to paint and draw,” Penny says, dipping her paintbrush into her glass of water to clean it and wagging her ponytail from side to side. “It comes very naturally to me.”

  I roll my eyes. I can’t help it.

  Robin and Frankie spend the rest of class fawning over Penny the Great. Penny the artiste. Penny the Picasso.

  Who cares if she’s good at art and I’m not anyway? It’s not like I want to be a painter when I grow up. I’m going to be a judge. And you definitely don’t need to know how to paint roses to be a judge. You need to be smart and … judgy.

  I spend the rest of class trying to salvage the blobby mess in front of me.

  “I just have to sign it and I’m done,” Penny says after a while. She dips her brush in the black paint and writes her name with an annoying flourish.

  “That painting could be worth a million dollars one day,” Robin says seriously.

  I resist the urge to vomit. Although maybe if I threw up all over Penny’s precious painting, I wouldn’t have to look at it anymore?

  Frankie and Robin pick up their paintings to put on the drying rack, but Penny leaves hers to set a minute longer. Then she goes to wash her hands at the sink near Mrs. Becker’s desk. I stay where I am and stare at my painting next to Penny’s.

  I hate mine.

  I love hers.

  No. I hate hers.

  Penny’s glass of water is really close to her painting.

  Really close.

  Too close.

  And that’s when it happens. I knock the glass of water with my elbow.

  On purpose.

  Whoosh! Swoosh! The water gushes across Penny’s painting.

  My heart stops. What did I do?

  The colors mix. The paint runs. The petals melt into the leaves, which melt into the vase.

  Oh no oh no oh no OH NOOOOOOOOOOOO!

  Maybe nobody will notice?

  I hear a loud shriek.

  “MY PAINTING!”

  Crumbs. She noticed.

  Penny runs over to our table. “Help!” she cries. “There’s water all over my paper! I need paper towels! Help! My painting is drowning!”

  Robin and Frankie rush to get napkins and we all quickly blot the painting. But it’s hopeless. When we remove the paper towels, all that’s left is a blob of colors. A blob that looks worse than my blobs. Much worse.

  “My painting,” Penny whimpers.

  “Poor Penny,” Robin says, giving her a big hug.

  “It was so beautiful,” Frankie says, also giving her a hug.

  “I’m so sorry,” Mrs. Becker says mournfully. “Maybe we can fix it. Let me find more paper towels.”

  “I can’t believe it,” says Penny. She turns to me. “Abby, did you see what happened?”

  My cheeks heat up. “I … um … It’s my fault. It was an accident. I knocked over your water. I’m sorry.”

  “By accident?” Penny asks skeptically.

  “Of course by accident,” I lie. “Why would I pour water on your painting on purpose?”

  She looks at me with suspicion.

  So do Robin and Frankie.

  It wasn’t my fault! Okay, it was my fault, but not really, because Penny drove me to it with her twinsies and her perfect painting and her hogging my friend!

  I feel sick.

  What kind of person ruins someone else’s art project?

  A horrible person.

  Am I a horrible person?

  I swallow the huge lump in my throat.

  My verdict: Guilty as charged.

  A giant rose is hitting me over the head.

  “You’re a monster!” the rose is yelling, its petals twisting into lips. “A green-eyed monster!”

  “Abby! You’re screaming!” another rose yells in my ear.

  “No, I’m not!” I scream back.

  But now I realize I’m actually sitting up in my bed. Jonah is standing next to me. It’s the middle of the night.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “You were screaming in your sleep,” my brother says.

  My heart races. “I was?”

  “Yeah. A lot. I could hear you through the wall. Something about a green-eyed monster.”

  Prince jumps onto my bed and nuzzles my stomach.

  I was having a nightmare. Penny’s roses were attacking me.

  My cheeks flush. They were calling me a green-eyed monster. That’s an expression my nana uses. Green-eyed monster means jealousy. The rose was right. I guess I deserve my nightmare after what I did to Penny’s painting.

  I am a monster. A jealous, green-eyed monster.

  “Are we going?” Jonah asks me.

  “Where?” I ask with a heavy heart.

  “Downstairs,” he says. “It’s eleven fifty-eight.”

  I sit up straight. “I thought you were done with the mirror?”

  He shrugs. “I’m awake anyway. If it doesn’t work, can we play flying crocodile?”

  “Now?” Flying crocodile is a game my brother made up. It’s about crocodiles that fly.

  “Yeah. I didn’t get to play anything today. Mom and Dad made me practice my reading all night.” He sounds grumpy.

  Jonah’s teacher recently told my parents that he’s a bit behind the rest of his class with his reading, so they’re trying to help him. He’d rather they help him with something else instead. Like playing flying crocodile.

  “Okay, let’s go,” I say, jumping out of bed. I pretend I don’t see the painting for my mom on my desk, wrapped in tissue paper. I wish I didn’t have to give it to her. Not only is it terrible, but it reminds me of what I did to Penny’s painting.

  I look at my closet. Should I change? Nah. I’ll leave on my flannel pajamas in case Maryrose wants to take us into The Princess and the Pea. If we do end up there, I could take a nap on one of those twenty mattresses. I yawn. That nightmare did not leave me feeling well rested.

  Jonah’s wearing his flannel pajamas, too.

  “You stay here, Pri
nce,” I say, and try to close my door with him inside my room.

  He barks.

  “Shh!” I say. “Come on, Prince, you caused us a lot of problems last time we went through the mirror!”

  Going into fairy tales is really fun, but can also be dangerous. And there’s no reason for Prince to come along and wreak havoc.

  He barks again. Loudly.

  “He’s going to wake up Mom and Dad,” Jonah says.

  Uch. He is. I open the door. “Okay, fine,” I say. “Let’s go. Jonah, do you even remember where Prince came from?” I ask.

  Jonah’s forehead wrinkles in concentration. “Did we get him from the shelter?”

  “Not even close. A fairy in Sleeping Beauty waved her wand, and Prince appeared.”

  “Sure he did,” Jonah says. Even in the dark, I can see him rolling his eyes as we head down the steps.

  “Ready?” I ask after I’ve closed the basement door and positioned myself in front of the mirror.

  “Yup,” Jonah says. “Just tell me when we’re done and can play flying crocodile.”

  I sigh. He really doesn’t believe me.

  I knock once.

  Hissssssss.

  Oh! Oh oh OH!

  The mirror is hissing, the mirror is hissing!

  “Jonah!” I yell. “It’s working! Do you hear?”

  His eyes are wide open.

  “It’s hissing!” I knock a second time. A warm light radiates from the mirror. A warm, purple light. “See, Jonah?” I turn back to him, and now his jaw is hanging open. He looks like a cartoon of a frog with eyes bulging out of its head. “See?”

  “I see!” he says, his voice high-pitched and excited. “It’s purple! And hissing! Just like you said!”

  Prince barks twice.

  “I know!” I exclaim. “Get ready!” I knock a third time and the inside of the mirror starts to spin, faster and faster. Our reflections look as if we got trapped in a washing machine.

  “It’s spinning!” Jonah squeals.

  “Told you so!” I say in a singsong voice. I know I’m gloating, but I’ve earned it. “Hold my hand and we’ll go inside.”

  “Inside the mirror?” he asks incredulously.

  “Yes! We’re going into a fairy tale!” I grab his hand. “Ready, Prince?” I ask.

  Prince barks again and leaps straight through. Jonah and I follow close behind.