Fairest of Them All Read online

  Sophie reads the text and looks me straight in the eye.

  “You do realize that they’re going to find out anyway once the first episode airs?”

  She’s right, of course. And that’s why I have to find the cure to this crazy spell before that happens.

  Chapter Nine

  “ARIA! HOW COME YOU NEVER told me you were on Teen Couture?” Katie Clark practically shouts down the hall before school the next morning.

  Everyone, and I mean everyone in the entire hallway, turns to look.

  I freeze. How does she know?

  Whichever friend of mine spilled the beans is not going to be my friend for a whole lot longer.

  “Aria’s on Teen Couture?” I hear Jenna Peasley ask.

  “Yeah, I saw her in a promo on Fashion Network,” Katie tells her.

  I take it all back, friends that I falsely accused in my head. I’m such an idiot. Why didn’t I realize they would be running promos for Teen Couture?

  Probably because I’ve been so busy looking up rare-book websites to see if I can find any spell-making books. With zero success, I might add.

  “ ’Twas a secret,” I say, having to come up with a lie. “We hadst to keepeth quiet until the promos.”

  Lie Number 21 or something.

  “That’s so cool,” Katie gushes. “Why are you lisping, though? Did you go to the dentist?”

  I nod my head. Lie Number 22 done and dusted, and I didn’t even have to think it up myself.

  “What are the other contestants like?” Katie’s friend Nicole asks.

  “Int’resting,” I say.

  “That’s it? Interesting?” Katie complains. “Come on, Aria, give us some insider gossip!”

  “Alas, I cannot. Needs must hugger-muggery.”

  Lie Number 21. My hypothetical Pinocchio nose must be stretching around the block by now.

  “Hugger—what?” Katie is looking at me like I’m a total weirdo, but I don’t care because I’ve just realized that if these promos are running, then there’s a chance Mom or Dad or my grandparents might see one.

  I. AM. DOOMED.

  “Fare thee well. I must depart,” I mumble to Katie, and take off down the hallway as fast as I can.

  I can barely concentrate the entire morning in class, and I don’t want to speak because it will reveal the curse. It’s bad enough that Katie and Nicole heard me and are probably spreading the word that I’m a weirdo at this very minute.

  The no-talking strategy causes major problems when Mr. Falcone, my social studies teacher, asks me what effect the Seven Years’ War had on the relationship between Britain and its American colonies. I’m forced to just shrug and pretend I don’t know.

  A few people start tittering. Mr. Falcone gives me a puzzled look. I’m usually one of his go-to students.

  “Did you forget to read the material, Ms. Thornbrier?” he asks, sounding concerned.

  There’s no way I can explain this without giving the curse away, so I lower my head to avoid his gaze and say, “Aye.” Lie Number 23.

  “Don’t let TV stardom go to your head,” Mr. Falcone warns. “You still need an education.”

  “Burn,” Quinn Fairchild says, to the amusement of the entire class. Except for me, that is.

  If Mr. Falcone knows about my “star” turn on Teen Couture, my parents definitely aren’t far behind. I’ve got to come up with a plan to divert the helicopter parents to a different airport before I see them next. To do that, I’m going to need all the help I can get.

  When I meet my friends for lunch, I get Sophie to tell them about the latest crisis in my quest to achieve my designer dreams.

  “Sheesh, Aria, your life is turning into a living example of Murphy’s Law—everything that can go wrong will go wrong and at the worst possible time,” Matt says.

  I grab a piece of paper and scribble out the words I want to say. Tell me something I don’t know. Or better yet, help me come up with something to tell Mom and Dad.

  “I stand by my advice—just talk to them,” Sophie says.

  I’m going to have to talk to them now, I write. The question is: What do I say?

  “Here’s a radical idea—how about the truth?” Sophie says.

  I’ve told so many lies, I’m not even sure I know what the truth is anymore.

  “And yet—”

  “I think Sophie’s right,” Dakota interrupts me. “Maybe they know something about the enchantment.”

  Sophie explained my Shakespeak problem to the others in order to save me the effort.

  “But what if her parents won’t let her continue on Teen Couture?” Matt says. “The opportunity of a lifetime—gone!”

  “What if Aria has to speak like she’s in the sixteenth century for the rest of her life?” Nina points out. “And they might pull her off the show if they see the promos anyway. At least this way she’s been honest.”

  I just sit quietly, listening as they discuss the pros and cons, but Nina’s pronouncement makes me realize that I should have been listening to Sophie all along.

  “Thou art right. I shall bid mine own parents tonight.”

  Everyone looks relieved except for Matt, who looks worried. He’s probably the one who understands the most how much Teen Couture means to me, because he would have done anything to be on it himself.

  I just hope this decision ends up being as right as it feels at this very moment.

  We have leftovers from a fancy luncheon that Enchanted Soirées catered at the Belgian Consulate. Carbonnades flamandes with frites and speculoos biscuits with ice cream for dessert. Although both my parents have asked about my day, they’ve been distracted by business and a big gala that’s coming up in a few weeks.

  Some kids have a sibling they resent for taking away their parents’ attention. I have Enchanted Soirées.

  I wait until just before dessert and then decide it’s now or never.

  “Mother, Father—prithee lend me your ears. I hast a confession to maketh.”

  “You’ve been cast as Mark Antony in Julius Caesar?” Dad guesses.

  I look at him blankly.

  “ ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,’ ” Dad declaims. “Mark Antony’s famous speech from Julius Caesar.”

  “Nay. Nay, ’tis not that. ’Tis that . . . I’ve not been totally honest with thee.”

  Note to self: Great way to get parents’ full attention.

  “Really? How is that, Aria?” Mom asks in a low, even voice that tells me she’s trying hard not to freak out on me. Yet.

  I brought a paper and pen with me so I could write stuff down for clarity.

  I’ve been lying about going to Chess Club.

  “That explains a lot,” Dad says. “If you played that badly and you were going to Chess Club—”

  “Bernhard, focus!” Mom snaps. “So where have you been going?”

  My hand starts to shake as I write the next part.

  Ms. Amara, the new teacher at school this year, started Couture Club. I really wanted to join, but I knew you wouldn’t let me, so I lied.

  I look up, but my parents are just staring at me in silence. Cold, nerve-racking silence. So I feel compelled to keep writing.

  I made this really cool skirt in Couture Club, and one day I was wearing it to Starcups and a talent spotter for a reality show called Teen Couture approached me to audition for the show. So I did, and I got on. The first taping was last Saturday and that episode airs a week from today.

  My mother’s face pales as my father’s takes on an angry, reddish tint.

  “They allowed you on a television show without parental consent?” Dad fumes. “I’m going to sue them.”

  “Well . . . nay. I did get Mother to signeth the consent f’rm, at which hour the lady wast on the phoneth with Mrs. White Charming.”

  “You what?” Mom exclaims.

  “Rose! How many times do I have to tell you not to sign things without reading them!” Dad shouts.

  “Do you know
how many forms that school sends home to sign?” Mom yells back. “It’s a bureaucratic nightmare!”

  Then she turns her anger on me. “And besides—I trusted my daughter not to put one over on her own mother. Obviously a big mistake.”

  Ouch. I knew this honesty thing wasn’t going to be easy, but it’s even worse than I expected. It makes me afraid to tell them the rest, but now that I’ve started down this road, I have to keep going.

  “Alas, the tale gets darker and more fill’d with woe,” I tell them.

  “You’re telling us it gets worse than you lying and forging?” Dad says, clapping his hand to his forehead. “Where did we go wrong?”

  “What is the worst part?” Mom asks, bracing herself.

  Telling them this is physically painful. I can hear the “we told you sos” before I even get the words out. I switch to writing again.

  I was almost out of time on the challenge and I couldn’t find my needle. And then I found one on my table—

  “No!” Mom gasps before I can finish the sentence. “How many times have we told you?”

  “What happened?” Dad asks, his face grim.

  I pricked my finger. And then I fainted, I write.

  “But you didn’t stay asleep . . . ,” Mom says, stating the obvious. I mean, duh.

  “Nay, but th’re is a problem.”

  “Which is?” Dad asks.

  “This. I speaketh liketh this.”

  My parents exchange a glance that I can’t interpret.

  “You mean this ridiculous speaking-in-Shakespearean-English business isn’t anything to do with a play at school?” Mom says, her eyes narrowing.

  I shake my head to confirm that it isn’t.

  “You aren’t faking it?” Dad asks, double-checking. “You’re speaking this way because you can’t help it?”

  I nod.

  “Aye. Verily ’tis so.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Mom says, shaking her head slowly. “Since the day you were born, we’ve done everything we can to protect you from harm, yet you go behind our backs and lie to us?”

  Is she for real? Like, hello, Mom, have you ever read a certain tale about a girl whose father got rid of every spindle in the ENTIRE KINGDOM? What about all the women who relied on spinning to earn money so they could help feed and clothe their families? Did Grandpa and Grandma give a minute of thought about all the poor kids who ended up going cold and hungry because they ordered every single spindle destroyed to protect their royal baby daughter?

  And as for my mother . . .

  I pick up the pen and scribble furiously.

  What, you mean like how Grandpa and Grandma did everything since the day you were born to protect you, and you went behind their backs and ended up putting yourself and the entire kingdom to sleep for, what, like a hundred freaking years?

  I’m so angry I throw the pen down on the table when I’m finished.

  “Aria! How dare you speak that way to your mother!” Dad snaps. “Apologize to her this very minute.”

  “I didst not speak!” I point out. “I took quill to parchment!”

  “That’s not the point!” Dad yells.

  But Mom, who sits silent and stunned, raises a trembling hand.

  “It’s not, Bernhard. But Aria already made a good one,” she says softly. There’s an uncomfortable silence and I hear the kitchen clock ticking again: ticktock, ticktock. Four seconds that feel like eternity before Mom says, “It appears our little apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree.”

  I feel a teensy glimmer of hope.

  “Mother and Father. I’m s’rry I didst lie. Verily, I am. I did want to tryeth doing that which I very much loveth. I have achieved well. . . . The judges seemed to liketh what I hath conceived with mine needle and thread. I hath survived the first round—even though mine own model poopest on the runway.”

  Dad’s eyes bug out of his head.

  “Your model . . . POOPED ON THE RUNWAY?!”

  I realize he’s had a major, and I mean major, misunderstanding.

  “Zounds! ’Twas not a woman, Father, ’twas a hound!”

  Mom, who has been looking like she’s about to cry, suddenly bursts out laughing. Not just a little giggle, either. Serious losing-it-till-she-can-barely-breathe laughter.

  It sets Dad and me off too. Because even though Flash pooping right in front of the judges didn’t seem that funny at the time, it really is when you look back on it.

  “I wish I could have seen the judges’ faces,” Mom gasps.

  “Forget the judges,” Dad says. “I’d have liked to have seen Aria’s face.”

  “Thou hast thy chance next Monday,” I tell him.

  And then I’m not laughing anymore. I’m 100 percent serious. I pick up the pen.

  That’s why I need your help. The next episode tapes on Saturday, and how can I possibly compete if I’m still cursed with Shakespeak? And I really want to win, because if I do, I get to have lunch with Seiyariyashi Tomaki and ask him any question I want about the fashion industry. Do you know what an amazing opportunity that is?

  Dad looks from me to Mom, and amazingly what I see in his eyes isn’t anger anymore. It almost looks like . . . pride?

  “Brier Rose, she really is your daughter, isn’t she?”

  “And yours, Bernhard. She fights for what she wants.”

  “Willst thou help me?” I ask, hope beating like the soft wings of a butterfly in my heart.

  “I can’t say we’re happy about you lying to us,” Dad says. “That’s not behavior I want to encourage.”

  “But I think being enchanted has taught Aria a good enough lesson about that,” Mom says.

  I nod furiously, not trusting my alternative translating ability enough to speak because I want my parents on my side so badly.

  “True. And no one messes with our daughter,” Dad declares. “I might just have to dust off my nonceremonial sword and polish my armor.”

  Mom lays her hand on his arm. “Don’t go overboard, Bern.”

  She turns to me. “I’m no wisewoman, Aria. But I will do everything in my power to find one to help reverse this spell.”

  Mom opens her arms and I fall into her embrace. Dad puts his arms around both of us, and it’s one great big Thornbrier-y hug.

  I might not end up being the winner of Teen Couture. But in a way, I’ve already won, because I’ve got Mom and Dad on my side.

  Chapter Ten

  NOW THAT MY PARENTS KNOW everything, I can revel in my about-to-be TV stardom a little—but as silently as possible to avoid having to explain everything in Shakespeak.

  “That’s so cool about you being on Teen Couture,” Rosie White Charming tells me while we’re changing for Coach W’s yoga class on Tuesday. “My mom was talking about it with your mom last night.”

  My mother called Mrs. White Charming to see if she had the 411 on any local wisewomen who might be able to cure my spell. Even though Mrs. W. C. is seriously well connected because she owns CharmingLifestyles.com, she came up blank on the wisewoman front. This is very depressing for yours truly. The thought of having to utter Shakespeak for the rest of my life might well turn me into a mute. My teachers have already commented on the noticeable decrease in my class participation in the last two days. I was tempted to go the Pinocchio route and claim laryngitis, but part of the deal with my parents is that I stop being a lying liar and go back to being honest Aria again.

  “I think the guy with the Chihuahua is totally hot,” Ginny Krulinsky says. “I want him to win.”

  Wow. Thanks for nothing.

  “I mean, no offense, Aria. I want you to get to the semifinal, but I want to look at that guy right up to the end.”

  I remember the look he gave me backstage.

  “Aye, but . . .”

  “But what?” Ginny asks.

  “ ’Tis naught,” I mumble.

  Ginny walks toward the gym. “Whatever,” she says. “I hope he wins. And when are you going to stop speaking like that? It
’s so annoying.”

  “Don’t mind her,” Rosie says. “She’s just jealous.”

  If she only knew . . . , I think.

  When I see Sophie at lunch, she’s lit up like a firecracker.

  “Aria! Mom texted me. She thinks she’s got something!”

  “Doth she have a cure?”

  “I don’t know! She won’t say. But she wants to meet us and your parents at your apartment as soon as possible after work.”

  “Tut!” I exclaim. “I shalt expire of suspense!”

  I text Mom and Dad and tell them the potentially good news. Mom has a meeting with a new client, but she tells me she’s getting her assistant to rearrange it. Dad can’t get out of his appearance at the mayor’s press conference without causing a political incident, but he makes us promise to fill him in when he gets home.

  Sophie comes home with me after school. Mrs. Solano meets us there, but she refuses to answer any of our questions until Mom gets home. I make her a cup of White Willow Bark tea from CharmingLifestyles.com. A cup a day keeps the aches and pains away! By the time it’s brewed, Mom’s arrived.

  We sit around the kitchen table in eager anticipation, waiting for Mrs. Solano to reveal her discovery.

  “When Aria told us what happened, the first thing I wondered was: How would she have come in contact with an enchanted needle?” she tells us. “I figured if we had some clue about how that needle arrived on the set of Teen Couture, it might point us in the direction of the cure.”

  “ ’Twas on the table,” I say. “My needle wast lost and I did search f’r it on the flo’r. Pez toldeth me ’twas th’re.”

  “We don’t know how it got there,” Mrs. Solano says. “It could be that there’s more than one sharp object on that set that’s under enchantment. Aria, you might still be in danger.”

  “In which case, maybe she should withdraw from the competition,” Mom says.

  “Mother! Thou didst promise you’d supp’rt me!”

  “Not if it means I’ll lose you, Aria,” Mom says.

  “Rose, I know how worried you are, but it might be better if she stays on the show and looks for clues,” Mrs. Solano tells her.