THE MOJAVE DESERT
WILDERNESS GIRL CAMP
NOVEMBER 4TH
8:00 A.M.
“Let me get this straight,” Allie said, rubbing her full belly. “You guys want a makeover?”
“Not all of us,” Mountain surveyed the crowd of WGs before turning back to face Allie, all the while tugging anxiously on her pigtails. “We just want a few examples. Once you do a couple of us, we can show the others. We’re fast learners.”
Tiger and Ember nodded in agreement, eyeing the three Alphas nervously. All of a sudden, Allie realized, the hiking boot was on the other foot. Now the Alphas held the cards, and the WGs were the frightened ones. Just thinking about it, Allie instantly relaxed. Because if there was anything she was the undeniable expert on in this crowd, it was beautification.
“There must be more at stake here than a fashion statement,” Charlie’s curious brown eyes darted over the three head WGs, searching for clues. “Why would you need make-overs out here in the desert?”
“It’s obvious-leh a boy,” Skye piped up, grinning knowingly while stretching her arms in wide circles now that Mountain had untied them.
When Tiger blushed, Allie knew Skye had guessed her secret.
“Okay, fine. It’s a boy,” Tiger boomed, her commanding presence still impressive to Allie. Even while awkwardly revealing embarrassing personal details, Tiger’s confident, all-natural demeanor was impressive.
“May as well explain,” Ember chided, placing her freckled hand on Tiger’s back to prompt her to elaborate.
Tiger sigh-groaned, her eyes flitting over the Jackie O’s as if trying to gauge whether or not she could trust them. “Okay,” she said at last. “My best friend—besides the WGs, of course—is this guy named Wyatt Yellowstone. He’s the head of the strongest pack of Eagle Scouts in the Southwest. He’s so… capable.”
“And gorgeous!” Ember interjected.
Tiger shrugged her off, continuing. “And I can match him in any outdoor activity, so he’s always been impressed with me. But lately, it seems like stir-frying beetles isn’t enough.”
Ew!
“Enough for what?” Allie interrupted, gagging a little at the image of fried beetles.
“Enough to keep his attention on me. Which is where I want it,” Tiger admitted, blushing a deep purple under her tan.
“You mentioned earlier that you turned your boyfriends into girls for the PAP race,” Mountain reminded them, flipping the pages of her clipboard to review her notes. “So we WGs must have a shot at looking more… girly.” Mountain smiled at Allie, her brown eyes twinkling with hope.
Allie side glanced at Skye. Good luck with that!
Skye side glanced back. And then some.
Charlie shot them both a look. They’re hairy but they’re not stupid. Stop being so obvious!
“We know it seems weird,” Ember conceded. “We believe a girl should be able to survive out in the wild, to build her own shelter and kill her own food. We’ve always believed that. But we’re starting to feel like our skills in the area of boys are… insufficient. Shouldn’t a girl be able to track a prairie dog, wrestle it, kill it, cook it, eat it, and have a boy want to hold her hand at the campfire? Can’t we have it all?”
“I get it,” Allie said, nodding furiously. “You want to start the fire and light a fire. I’m with ya.”
“Um, right.” Mountain nodded like she knew what Allie was implying, even though she probably didn’t. “So, will you help us?”
“Of course,” Skye answered, pulling a loose wavelet of her platinum hair back into her bun. “We’ll scratch your back, and then you scratch ours. Can you get us home by sundown? That’s our absolute deadline.”
Mountain, Tiger, and Ember leaned in for another whispered conference. Ember nodded, then pulled away from her fellow tribunal judges. “We’ll do everything we can to get you home in time. We have resources and manpower—er, womanpower. Once we find your friend AJ, we’ll do everything we can to get you home.”
“Good,” Charlie nodded. “Then we have a deal. There’s one semi-major problem with this scenario, though.”
Skye nodded. “We don’t have the right equipment.”
“Equipment? Like what? We have a Norwegian Wilderness Knife with over three hundred mini pop-out tools.” Ember gave Skye a blank look.
Allie giggled. These girls really were clueless about beauty. But luckily for them, they’d captured her, Allie A. Abbott; she may not know how to pitch a tent or find water in the center of a cactus, but she knew the elements of style and beauty like she was born in a salon.
This was her biggest beauty challenge to date, though. How would she take three girls who’d never used a blow-dryer, and all without even the most rudimentary tools of the trade? Too bad there wasn’t a TV crew to document the transformation. Something like this would pull big ratings.
“Tools are the least of it,” Skye informed the WGs. She began listing what they would need in order to make the Wilderness Girls into glamazons. “We need makeup. And hot wax. Deep conditioner. A sewing machine for your clothes, or better yet, new clothes. That’s just for starters.” As she listed out her requirements, Skye’s voice sounded more and more doubtful they could pull it off.
And as Skye talked, the three WGs postures went from erect to abject. They slumped onto their tree stumps in defeat, their enthusiasm for Project Wilderness Makeover growing fainter by the second.
Allie wracked her brain, flipping the pages of her internal grooming encyclopedia. Suddenly, she had it: a vision for each girl, and a plan to make it all happen.
Allie drew herself up to her full height, feeling confident in front of the intimidating WGs for the first time. “Hang on, Skye. I’ve got this.” Allie cleared her throat and raised her voice so the entire Wilderness Army could hear her. “I can make you all look your best, but only if you promise me you’ll always remember there’s more to life than looking hot.”
Allie’s navy blue eyes scanned the crowd, as each of the seated WGs nodded in agreement. Satisfied, she turned to Mountain and motioned to her to get her pen ready to write.
“Great. Mountain, for you, we’ll do a Natalie-Portman-meets-Lea-Michele look. Natural, fresh, but with an edge. Tiger, you’re a great fit for Angelina Jolie from her Lara Croft period. You’ve got her lips and her toughness. And Ember, you’re obvious-leh destined to look like pre-Botox Nicole Kidman, like maybe from Days of Thunder. But with the freshness of Lindsay Lohan from Mean Girls. You’re all going to look ah-mazing!” Allie clapped her hands together gleefully, channeling Tyra Banks during makeover week on ANTM.
“But, Al. All we have to work with is, like, our own spit and some dish soap,” Skye pointed out.
Allie shook her head, a wide grin spreading across her lips. “We’re going to make our own products. Here’s what we’ll need: eucalyptus leaves, bottled water, desert sand, cactus extract, the bone ribs from a small desert carcass, mud from under a boulder, preferably one infused with peat moss, and the saliva from a Western banded gecko.”
Mountain scribbled furiously, nodding as she wrote, like it wouldn’t be a problem to find any of it.
Charlie and Skye burst out laughing, amazed at what Allie had come up with.
“Where did all that come from?” Charlie asked between giggles.
“What?” Allie giggle-shrugged. “Am I the only one of us who reads Organic Style?”
“You’ve been holding out on us!” Skye chortled, wiping a laugh-tear from beneath her eye.
Allie laughed, too, reveling in the feeling of having her besties back. The only thing worse than going it alone in the desert was thinking her friends had given up on her. Now that the three O’s were reunited and on good terms, they’d hit this makeover out of the Mojave and show Shira they all deserved to be Alphas for life.