“Thanks.” Spencer floated over a wave. Naturally the only boy who paid attention to her would be a prepubescent dork. She could only imagine the laughs she’d get from Aria, Emily, and Hanna when she told them.
The boy lifted something translucent and gelatinous from the water. “Want to pet my jellyfish?”
Spencer yelped and swam a few strokes away.
The boy laughed. “It’s fake! See?” He paddled closer, and before Spencer could stop him, he was thrusting the rubbery thing under her nose.
Years ago, a jellyfish that looked just like this had stung Melissa on the leg. She’d screamed and screamed, and their father had told her that the best remedy was to pee on the wound. That just made Melissa scream louder. She’d sulked on the couch for the rest of the day. Spencer had kept her company, making WANTED posters of the evil jellyfish and tacking them up all over Nana’s house.
“Uh, do you mind if I borrow this for a sec?” she asked Snorkel Boy, who was still treading water next to her.
His face lit up. “Only if you give me a kiss.”
Spencer groaned. But desperate times called for desperate measures. “Fine,” she said, pressing her lips to his cheek. At the last minute, the boy turned his head and touched his lips to hers. Spencer pulled away and wiped her mouth, fighting the urge to gag.
“I’ll be back,” Spencer grumbled, grabbing the faux jellyfish and riding a wave into shore. Melissa and Colin were still standing in the shallow water, inspecting a small tide pool. There was such a big crowd in the water that her sister didn’t notice Spencer’s approach. Slowly, stealthily, she floated the jellyfish in Melissa’s direction and then dove into an oncoming wave.
By the time she surfaced, Melissa was peering at her calf, where the fake creature had attached itself. Then she started to shake her leg vigorously, screaming. “Get it off, get it off!” Melissa wailed. The jellyfish remained stuck to her skin, and she screeched louder and louder. Colin’s brow furrowed, and for a split second, he looked annoyed.
Spencer waded toward them, ready to pluck the jellyfish from Melissa’s leg and tell her that it was just a toy when Colin knelt down, peeled the thing off, and chucked it into the waves. He scooped up Melissa, who was now a blubbering mess, and carried her out of the water and up the dunes. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll take care of you. Don’t you worry.” Melissa lay her head on Colin’s shoulder.
Something bobbed at Spencer’s feet, and she looked down and saw that the fake jellyfish had found its way back to her. She picked it up by its tentacle and returned it to Snorkel Boy, who was watching her from a few feet away. “I play tricks like that on my sister, too,” he said gleefully.
Great, Spencer thought as she slogged out of the water and stomped to her towel. Her get-him-back strategies were on par with a middle-school boy’s.
Chapter 12
Something Blue . . .
It was drizzling the following morning when Spencer made her way onto the patio with a cup of coffee, a bowl of Kashi GoLean, and a fresh Florida grapefruit. Her mother was sitting at the table surrounded by a bunch of paints and brushes, a cup of cloudy water, and a terrs-cotta ceramic mug Spencer knew she’d bought at the pottery store in town. She had a tradition of painting a piece of pottery every time she visited Longboat Key. She always stashed the finished artwork in Nana’s cabinet, but Spencer doubted that Nana actually used them.
“Hey, Spence.” Mrs. Hastings painted a blue stripe around the lip of the mug. “Want to paint one of these? I bought a few extra bowls.”
“Uh, sure. Just a sec.” Spencer’s ears suddenly pricked up as she heard her sister moving around upstairs. Melissa had a very anal morning routine: When she was ready for her shower, she carried in a wire caddy from her bedroom full of her face and hair products—she probably thought Spencer might steal a dollop here and there if she left the stuff unattended. Spencer had hatched a new sabotage plan, and she needed to get her hands on Melissa’s caddy in a very narrow window of time.
She set down her coffee and cereal and crept back up the stairs. The shower was running in the hall bathroom, but Melissa had stepped back into her bedroom to gather up her clothes as she did every morning. Spencer slipped into the bathroom, spied Melissa’s caddy, and grabbed the bottle of Pureology shampoo. Unscrewing the cap, she poured in several heaping drops of blue hair dye she’d found in Nana’s cabinet. It wasn’t old-lady blue, though, but deep, Manic Panic, Katy Perry blue, the kind Aria had once used to color a thick lock of her own hair as a statement in seventh grade. Who knew why Nana owned such a garish color. Spencer probably didn’t want to know.
She had just twisted the cap back on the shampoo bottle and edged out of the bathroom when Melissa’s bedroom door flung open and Melissa appeared in the hall. She glared at Spencer suspiciously. “What are you doing up here?”
Spencer sniffed. “My room’s up here, too.”
She was about to turn away when Melissa gave Spencer a saccharine smile. “Look, Spence, I know you’re annoyed about Colin. But he and I are much more suited to each other. We’re at the same place in life. There’s no reason for you to get nasty. That little Ian stunt you pulled yesterday? Totally not cool.”
It took everything in Spencer’s power not to smother her with one of Nana’s monogrammed bed pillows. Totally not cool? Did Melissa understand that it was totally not cool to steal the guy Spencer was after, too? And didn’t she know it was totally not cool to pretend to be on Spencer’s side before stabbing her in the back?
Before Spencer could say another word, Melissa stepped into the steamy bathroom and slammed the door shut. Seconds later, the shower curtain rattled closed. Whirling around, Spencer sauntered back downstairs to the patio. Her mother had paused from mug-decorating and was looking at a photo on her iPad. It was a picture of Mrs. DiLaurentis and Ali. They were standing in the Hastingses’ backyard at a family barbecue. Spencer’s dad was in the corner of the frame, handing Ali’s mom a grilled hamburger.
“Why are you looking at that?” Spencer asked.
Her mother jumped and minimized the screen. “I, uh, was just scrolling through old photos on our Kodak account. There are so many we need to delete.”
“Mom . . .” Spencer fiddled with a spare liner brush on the table. “Is something bothering you about the DiLaurentises?”