Purple Nails and Puppy Tails by Jill Santopolo Page B

funny how they kind of looked alike. They both had fluffy hair that was mostly white, and Sadie’s red collar matched the red sweater Mrs. Franklin had draped over her shoulders.
    â€œHey, that’s the shelter I volunteer at,” Jenica said, still rifling through her duffel bag for shorts. “Ididn’t realize Sadie was the dog that was going to be on the Adoption Day posters.”
    â€œMrs. Franklin? Are dog toenails like people toenails?” Brooke asked. She dropped the wet towels she was holding into the basin and walked over to inspect Sadie. Aly followed her. She’d never really looked closely at a dog’s toenails before either.
    Mrs. Franklin held up Sadie’s paw. “Here they are,” she said. “Different from ours.”
    Brooke took Sadie’s paw in her hand. And then she looked at Aly. She was wearing a face that said: I have an idea!
    â€œDo you think . . . ,” Brooke began. “Do you think we could give Sadie a pedicure tomorrow?” Then she started laughing. “Not a pedicure . . . a pet-icure! Get it?”
    Aly got it, and she giggled for a second too. Butthen she stopped. She wasn’t sure this was the best idea Brooke had ever had. Brooke had lots of ideas all the time. Some were really good, like the name Sparkle Spa. But a puppy pedicure? That sounded like trouble.

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Purple Paws
    A ly bit her lip. She looked at the mess around her. “I, um, I think we have to talk this over, Brooke,” she said. “We’ve never even done a pet-icure.”
    From her perch on the pedicure chair, Sophie said, “I’ll help!”
    â€œMe too!” said Charlotte.
    â€œAnd me,” said Lily, who was behind a closet door, changing into Jenica’s shorts.
    â€œI wish I could,” Jenica said. “But we have a soccer game.”
    Aly knew they would have to check with Mom first, but she figured that five of them would hopefully be enough to handle Sadie.
    Mrs. Franklin smiled. “Thank you, girls. I’m—or rather, Sadie is—willing to give it a try. Why don’t you ask your mother and let me know. Here’s my phone number,” said Mrs. Franklin, handing them a business card with Sadie’s picture on it. “Now say good-bye, Sadie.”
    Sadie wagged her tail and yipped twice.
    Mrs. Franklin, Sadie, and Jamie returned to True Colors. “Would you still like your manicure?” Jamie asked as they walked out the door.
    Mrs. Franklin looked down at her nails and sighed. “I think I’ll reschedule for early next week and come without Sadie.”
    Aly thought that was a very good idea. Maybe there should be a rule about no pets in the salon. Infact, Aly was surprised her mother hadn’t come up with that rule already, since Mom was kind of the queen of rules—there was even a No Dogs Allowed rule in their house. Would she make a rule about pet-icures?

    Aly woke up Saturday morning with a knot in her stomach. She couldn’t believe Mom had actually said yes to Sadie’s pet-icure, that “one little dog, one time, would be fine.”
    Brooke, still asleep, rolled over in her bed across the room. She squeezed her stuffed monkey, George.
    Aly loved Brooke—more than anyone else on the planet, really—but lately it seemed like Brooke was coming up with one crazy plan after another, and then it was Aly’s job to make sure that they didn’t turn into total disasters.
    There was Heather Davis’s birthday party, whichBrooke agreed to before the Sparkle Spa was even open for business. And then there was last week’s fiasco, when Brooke added Red-Hot Pepper polish to the hand lotion so it would turn pink. The problem was that it also turned people’s hands pink. And their arms. And feet, too. It took a lot of polish remover to get their skin back to normal.
    The best way Aly knew to try to avoid disasters was to prepare herself as