Jungle Princess ✔

Chapter 34: Ghouls and Dolls

"What did you do to me?" Amarissa exclaimed, touching her face, which appeared to be as smooth and pale as porcelain in the mirror, but in reality it was -

"The power of makeup is incredible, isn't it?" Tamsin gloated, hovering beside Amarissa's face in the reflection, cheek to cheek.

"Indeed," Amarissa grinned, her lips painted red like a doll. Tamsin had given her the cracked porcelain doll look, with exaggerated large eyes and eyelash extensions that fanned out and swept her cheekbones every time she blinked. Amarissa's dark curls were straightened and hung around her face like a curtain, and on her crown she had a floppy pink bow tie. Her pink and black polka-dotted dress frayed out below the hips with a skirt underlined with chiffon, ending at barely mid-thigh. Beneath that she wore the typical multi-coloured striped stockings dolls would wear, with the typical t-bar buckled shoes. She even had cracks drawn in on her pale powdered forehead and cheek to increase her broken porcelain doll guise. Amarissa couldn't help feeling like this costume was made for her. She truly was a broken porcelain doll; easily damaged and hard to fix.

Tamsin was dressed as an evil sorceress with a high-peaked collar and décolletage neckline, her long black gown demonstrating her curvy frame. She had smouldering black smoky eye makeup and devil-red lips, her bronzer accentuating the hollows of her cheekbones. Atop her slicked back hair was a spiky black crown, and to match she had dangled spiky black earrings from her lobes and a spiky black necklace resting on her collarbone. She looked wicked lovely.

"We have got to take a selfie right now!" Tamsin squealed, taking out her iPhone 5, before remembering. "Wait a minute, why don't we use your new iPhone 6? It's got a much better camera than mine."

Amarissa pulled out her shiny new golden iPhone 6. While she had been out with Deandre, her parents had gone to the liberty of registering it for her and giving her a brand new phone number, which they used to call her. Multiple times. Until she finally returned home at 1pm to face the music of her parents' lecture. Best birthday ever.

Ricardo caught them pouting their lips and poking their tongues at the camera, and for a moment he stood in the doorway of Amarissa's bedroom, watching them until Amarissa noticed him.

"Go away, creep!" she tossed a pillow at him, and with rapid reflexes he caught it, saying, "Mama wants to talk to you."

Amarissa rolled her eyes, lowering her phone and handing it to Tamsin, who happily began scrolling through filters for their selfies. "Tell her I'll be there in a second."

"She wants you now," Ricardo said, putting emphasis on the last word. When Bonita said now, she meant yesterday. Amarissa reluctantly left her friend alone with her phone, which probably wasn't a good idea, but if she ignored her mother, that wouldn't be a good idea either. She really wanted to go to this Halloween/birthday party for her, and disobeying her mother at the last minute might ruin her chances of ever leaving the house again.

Bonita's hand flew to her mouth in surprise when she took in Amarissa's costume. Julio, who was sitting on the couch beside her, did a double take.

"Is that Amarissa?" he asked rhetorically, squinting at her. He grabbed his glasses and his hazel eyes widened. "It is her!"

"You look amazing," Bonita complimented, pressing her fingers to her jaw as her eyes shimmered. Amarissa twined her fingers together, staring at her shoes. Sure enough, they were pointed inwards. Old habits never died. Not even when she was seventeen.

"I know," Amarissa said smugly, flipped her straight hair over one shoulder, batting her long eyelashes like butterfly wings.

"Isn't that dress a little short?" Julio criticized.