“Really?”
I shrugged inside my oversized Braves nightshirt. “Not like tomorrow or anything. I mean, it’s not desperate.”
Dinah swiped on one last blob of mud, and a little got in her hair. “Whoops,” she said.
“In fact I’m kind of hoping she’ll forget about it,” I said. “Because once you start wearing a bra, you can’t turn back. It’s like shaving your legs.”
“It is?”
“Well, with legs, the hair comes back pricklier once you start shaving, so you really shouldn’t start unless you’re ready to commit forever and ever. Same with bras.”
“Your boobs come back pricklier?” Dinah said.
I giggled. “Uh-huh. Like cactuses.”
She giggled, too. “What are you talking about?”
“Imagine if a boy tried to touch them. ‘Ooo, baby, I’m feeling so romantic—ouch!’”
“Stop making me laugh!” she said. “You’re making my face crack!”
“You look like the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Want to see?” I scrambled up and grabbed my hand mirror from my bureau. I very sneakily grabbed something else, too: a little souvenir from Benihana’s that I’d plucked from my plate and wrapped in a paper napkin to bring home. I hadn’t known what I’d do with it until now.
“Close your eyes,” I said, “and don’t open them till I say ‘three.’ Okay? One, two ... three!”
Dinah opened her eyes. She saw the shrimp dangling in front of her nose.
“Eeeee!” she screamed.
I wiggled it closer. “It’s coming to get you! It’s coming to get you!”
“Nooo!”
Sweetie-Pie meowed in alarm.
Sandra burst into the room. “God!” she complained. “For the fifty millionth time, do you have to be so—” She stopped, noticing our cakey faces. “Did you use my mud mask? Without asking?”
I widened my eyes. In my sweetest, nicest voice, I said, “Er ... care for a shrimp?”
Sandra took in the limp pink shrimp swaying between my fingers. Disgust layered itself over her outrage. “You are so immature,” she said.
“Au contraire, mon frère,” I protested. “In case you’ve forgotten, I am twelve years old. I’m on the brink of womanhood.”
“Could have fooled me,” she retorted. She snatched the container of mask, stormed out of the room, and slammed the door.
“Sandra, Sandra, Sandra,” I said, shaking my head. “Do you have to be so loud?”
Dinah collapsed in hysterics.
BOOKS BY LAUREN MYRACLE
The Winnie Years
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Thirteen Plus One
The Fashion Disaster that Changed My Life
Kissing Kate
Let It Snow
(with John Green and Maureen Johnson)
Peace, Love & Baby Ducks
Eleven Page 16
