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to be training Tanya on our next target, Carla.
    It’s okay
, I thought.
We’ll have all of lunchtime. Or maybe even half of lunch and the rest we could spend talking about our fantasy-book collections.

Chapter 12
    At lunchtime I gave Tanya all my tips on Carla. How she wanted to be a hairdresser and liked spending breaks doing braids and other nice things to people’s hair. I explained that Carla was very sweet and easy to talk to. She didn’t really like sports so there was no way Tanya would have to go through the basketball disaster again.
    I’d slipped into my sister’s room that morning and taken one of her hair magazines. She had a pile because she was trying to decide how to do her hair for her senior prom. She was way older than me and had lots of amazing magazines. I stole things from her room a lot, and she screamed at me when she found out.
    The plan was to walk past Carla at lunchtime, with Tanya holding the hair magazine. She had to make sure Carla noticed.
    Carla was standing on a bench behind a girl named Ayshe, playing around with Ayshe’s hair. Tanya walked past them. I peeked around a corner within hearing distance.
    Bingo. I was just
too
good.
    Carla shrieked. “Wow! Tanya, is that the latest
Hair Catwalk Expo
magazine?! I’ve been saving all my allowance for that!”
    Tanya looked at me and I waved my arms around, trying to get her to stop looking at me and focus on Carla.
    “Um … yeah, it is …”
    I tried to send mental messages to Tanya.
Be confident! Be confident!
    “Can I
please
take a look? It’s, like, the best magazine in the world. Where did you get it?”
    Tanya answered, just as we’d practiced.
    “It’s my friend’s sister’s magazine. She’s a trainee hairdresser. She has them lying all around the house. She gave it to me because she knows I love hairstyles.”
    It was a teeny-weeny white lie. My sister was not a trainee hairdresser. She was still in high school. And like I said, I stole the magazine from her room. But sometimes you had to bend the truth if it meant beating Emily—I mean, finding Tanya a true friend.
    But Tanya sounded like she was reading a script. She needed to loosen up, the way she was with me. Why couldn’t she talk like that now?
    Carla jumped off the bench, leaving Ayshe with wild hair all over the place. Tanya handed Carla the magazine. Carla grabbed Tanya’s hand, sat her down beside her, and started flipping through the magazine, pointing out hairstyles.
    “Look at this one! It’s gorgeous! Ooh! Look at that one! Can you see how they’ve cut the back but left the front long? It’s so different!”
    “Yeah!” Tanya said, trying to sound excited. “The hairstyles are really nice.”
    Carla pressed the magazine to her chest and looked up at the sky. “One day I’ll have hairstyles in a magazine too!”
    “Um … yeah … imagine how cool that would be …”
    “What’s your dream?”
    Tanya was prepared. “To, um, do hair for all the movie stars.”
    “Me too!” Carla laughed. “Wow! So do you think we should do an updo for Ayshe or leave it down? The updo shows off her eyes. But the down is more casual for school. What do you think?”
    This was definitely
big
progress. Carla was asking Tanya for her advice. She was acting like they were a hairdressing team.
    “Um … we could try both and see what looks better …”
    “
Great
thinking!” Carla cried.
    She leaped up onto the bench and started back on Ayshe’s hair.
    “Come on up,” she told Tanya. “You can try it too.”
    A couple of moments later Emily and Bethany walked past. I couldn’t help but point out Tanya and Carla, who were standing side by side on the bench, both working on Ayshe’shair. I flashed Emily a triumphant grin. She walked up to me.
    “Since when does Tanya like hairdressing? I may be new but even I can guess it hasn’t been her hobby for long.”
    “Well, some people pick up hobbies quickly.”
    Emily raised an eyebrow. “So you’re changing