The Big Book of Girl Stuff

by Bart King

  Once she’s in position, put your glass of water on top of her fingers, balancing it there. Guess what? Now she’s trapped! It’s almost impossible to escape from this situation without spilling the water, unless someone helps. (And you’re not going to do that, right?)

  Fake Cereal

  A good way to get rid of the breakfast “blahs”!

  You Will Need: Crayons or other harmless small items, cereal boxes.

  Because people are often bleary and “out of it” in the morning, they fall easy prey to practical jokes. For this one, just save an empty bag that holds the cereal inside a cereal box. Fill the bag with crayons, kitty litter, or any other innocent item that doesn’t weigh too much. Then switch it with a cereal bag inside a box and put the box back on the shelf!

  At some point, an innocent person will pull the box out and pour herself a bowl of crayons and kitty litter. And it will be funny! (It will be even funnier if you forget what you did because you’re bleary in the morning, and you pour yourself a bowl of crayons and kitty litter. The joke will be on you!)

  Amazing Riddle!

  Q. What’s white, green, blue, purple, black, red, brown, and yellow?

  A. A box of crayons.

  Raccoon Eyes

  Turning friends into raccoons is fun!

  You Will Need: Shoeblack or marker, binoculars or telescope.

  Secret preparation: Run a black magic marker or some shoeblack along the edge of the eyepiece(s) of a telescope or binoculars. (If you use the magic marker, you’ll want to play the joke before the ink dries.)

  After secretly preparing the binoculars, you need some (any!) excuse to get your friend to look through them. The best way to do this is to look through them yourself, while exclaiming, “Look at the size of that bird!” or “That man’s not wearing any pants!” BE CAREFUL not to let the blackened eyepieces touch your face, or the joke will really be on you.

  Your friend will then want to look. Let her! And try not to laugh when she gets her raccoon eyes. See how long it takes for her to notice!

  Computer Jokes

  For the girl with wicked techno skills. (Or for a wicked girl.)

  You Will Need: A friend’s computer.

  There are a lot of easy jokes to play on a friend’s computer. For example, if you adjust the monitor control, you can fade the screen to black. Even though this is easy to do, for some reason people freak out when the screen doesn’t come on. “Oh no, it’s broken!” Ha!

  If you are in the computer lab at school, this is a GREAT trick to play on a person at a neighboring computer. Once her computer is on, either wait for your victim to get up or give her an excuse to do so. “Could you sharpen my pencil for me? I hurt my leg in P.E.” Once she gets up, quickly unplug the keyboard from her computer and plug your keyboard into it. When she returns and sits down, type something like, I’ve been waiting for you onto her screen. Look innocent as she freaks out, and keep writing silly messages until she figures out what’s going on!

  Quick Prank

  Next time you’re at the mall, bring a “TV-B-Gone” remote control (or any universal remote). These can switch off televisions in public places. Or, get a cell phone jammer, which can jam cell phone reception up to 45 feet away. Sit in the food court and watch the trouble begin!

  The Talking Appliance

  Take advantage of the nice people who invite you into their home!

  You Will Need: A neighbor who likes you, a pair of walkie-talkies.

  Although this trick can work in your house, the odds of it working are improved with a neighbor or friend. Smuggle one of your walkie-talkies into your neighbor’s house, maybe during one of the times they’ve foolishly invited you over. When it’s safe, turn the walkie-talkie on and set its volume on “high.”

  Where you put the walkie-talkie is up to you. It could be in the back of the refrigerator or inside the laundry hamper. After you leave, get the other walkie-talkie and speak into it. What you say depends on where you left the device.

  Refrigerator: Help me! I’m freezing in here! So cold . . . can’t feel my control knobs!

  Laundry hamper: I don’t mean to complain, but it smells like an outhouse in here.

  Oven: I’m burning up in here!

  *Be sure to use your common sense with this. Don’t put the walkie-talkie in the oven unless you’re sure you can get it back out before someone starts baking!

  Quick Prank

  Between classes, fill up one of your friend’s lockers or closets with lots of wadded-up pages from the newspaper, balloons, ping-pong balls, or stuffed animals.

  The Princess and the Pea

  How sensitive is your victim?

  You Will Need: A variety of balls, patience.

  In case you’ve never heard the story of the “Princess and the Pea,” a pea is put under the mattress of a girl to test whether she actually is a princess. Since she is a princess, the girl feels it, because everyone knows that princesses are very sensitive! (Even though peas play a role in it, the story has a happy ending.)

  For this joke, first, pick a victim who is a sibling. (It doesn’t have to be a girl.) Take a small ball (smaller than a tennis ball but bigger than a marble) and set it under the mattress, not necessarily right in the middle though. Drop the mattress back down and practice your innocent expression.

  Unless the ball is pretty big (or the mattress is thin), the odds are that the first ball won’t be noticed. For the second night, put a second ball under the mattress in a different spot. It can be the same size or slightly bigger than the first ball.

  Depending on how sensitive your victim is, this can go on for some time. But at SOME point, your victim will notice the bumps in the mattress and look underneath it. When that happens, remember what your line is:

  Victim: What the heck! Mom! Dad! There’s a bunch of balls under my bed!

  You: Hurray! You’re a princess! You’re a princess!

  Here’s an INSTANT prank

  You Will Need: A box or two of instant potatoes.

  In the evening, pour the flaked potatoes onto your friend’s lawn, spelling out a message. The dew will make the potatoes expand. In the morning, your friend will see a big, puffed-up, huge letters conveying your message. Jessica Loves Timmy!

  Girl Secrets

  No Boys Allowed!

  “I can keep secrets. It’s the girls I tell them to who can’t keep a secret at all.”

  —Brooke Vermillion

  Warning: This book has a gender sensor which will give a mild electric shock to any boy trying to read this section. So if you’re a boy, put the book down now. (Go to a chapter you can learn from, like “Boys” or “Dolls.”)

  Hiking in the Flowers

  This chapter is about hiking and flowers. Yes, there is nothing a girl likes more than hiking and picking flowers. So if you like flowers and the great outdoors, you’ve come to the right place. Because that’s all that this chapter is about! Okay, we’re pretty sure no boys would read this far, so it’s probably safe to admit that this chapter isn’t really about flowers. It’s really about topics that are good for a girl to know about.

  The Joys of Childhood

  Childhood is great, and one reason for that is because you don’t have to be self-conscious about your body. When you were in nursery school and your dad put you up on his shoulders, you didn’t worry about being too heavy for him. It was fun! And if there was a pool nearby, you and the other kids just put on your swimsuits and jumped in. There just aren’t many five-year-olds who worry about their thighs looking fat.

  So it seems like we start off in life with our eyes wide open to the world around us. It’s awesome! We take everything in and enjoy most of it. But as we get older, we go into a “tunnel of self-consciousness.” This is a place where we worry much more about ourselves and our appearances. This often happens when a girl’s clothes aren’t fitting the same way that they used to because her body is changing.

  As you hit puberty, you’re going to put on wei
ght. A girl can expect to add anywhere from 10 to 30 pounds to her overall weight as she matures. Your hips will widen and your butt will be bigger. That’s when it’s even more important to keep a healthy lifestyle by eating right and getting exercise.

  And of course, your breasts will change. If you don’t have breasts yet, don’t worry about it. If you are starting to get them (or already have them), don’t be embarrassed. You’re a girl, not a woman, so enjoy it! Some people make such a big deal about this, it is easy to forget that breasts exist to feed babies. That’s it!

  *In Chinese, the character for mother is drawn with two square breasts.

  Babies couldn’t safely drink animal milk from a bottle until the late 1800s. (That was when a process called pasteurization made drinking cow’s milk safe.) So back in the day, if a baby couldn’t breast-feed from her mother, she might have a “wet nurse.” A wet nurse was a woman who had also recently given birth. She was hired to breast-feed other people’s babies.

  As you know, cultures all have fads and fashions for beauty, which always change over time. Because of this, breasts have been thought of in many different ways. At certain times, a very flat chest or small breasts have been highly prized, while at other times, large breasts have been esteemed. As an example, Helen of Troy was one of history’s most beautiful women. Her breasts were used as a model for how large a wine cup should be. (And those old Greek wine cups weren’t that big.)

  Speaking of classical figures, the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., has a statue of a woman wearing a toga. She is called the Spirit of Justice and she was created in a classical style that leaves one of her breasts exposed. An official once spent over $8,000 covering this statue (and her male partner) with drapes because the nudity was “inappropriate.” (The drapes have since been removed.)

  *Look carefully at movies and advertisements and look at how women’s bodies are shown. The message seems to be You can sell anything you want with breasts. If you dislike this message, write to the companies that advertise this way and tell them how you feel.

  There are over 100,000 breast reduction surgeries in the United States each year. (Around 3,000 U.S. teenage boys also have this same surgery annually.) That’s because large breasts can cause neck and back pain, and they also can make it hard to exercise. Speaking of breast reduction, you’ve probably heard of the Amazons. This is the Greek name for a mythical tribe of warrior women who cut off their right breasts so that they could shoot arrows more accurately. (In Greek, A means “without” and mazos means “breast.”)

  Medical Breakthrough!

  About 200 years ago, a young lady in France visited her doctor because she thought she might have heart problems. The doctor wanted to help, but he was too shy to put his ear on the woman’s chest to listen to her heart. So tried putting a tube on her chest with his ear on the other end. Amazing! He could hear her heart better than he could have dreamed. Eventually, the tube became the stethoscope (Greek for “chestwatcher”) we have today.

  Bras

  “Friends are like bras: Close to your heart and there for your support!”

  —Emily Glitter

  The word bra comes from the old French word brassiere which means “upper arm.” This was a word originally used 400 years ago to describe arm armor (you know, like armor for the arms?). Armor exists to provide support and protection, which are also things that a good bra can provide. At some point, you’re going to think you’re ready for a bra. If your parents agree, then it’s time to go bra shopping.

  Bra sizes come with a NUMBER and LETTER value. The NUMBER is the number of inches it is around your chest under your breasts. The LETTER is your breast size. (Letters start at AAA, then go to AA, then A, and so forth.)

  To get an idea what size you are, take a soft measuring tape and measure around your chest just below your breasts. (By the way, you can do this with your shirt on!) If you measure your chest and get an even number of inches, add 4 to the number. If you get an odd number of inches, add 5. So if you measured 30 inches around your chest, your chest size is 34; if you measured 25 inches, then your chest size is 30. Write your number down. (This is called your band size.)

  *The word bra means “good” or “excellent” in Swedish.

  *The ancient Greeks invented the bra with the scariest name: the mastodeton. Eek!

  The next thing to figure out is cup size, which is labeled in letters. Measure again around your chest, but this time, have the tape go right across the center of your breasts. If the number you come up with is the SAME as the number you wrote down earlier, your cup size is probably what is called AA. If the measurement is one inch bigger, you’re an A cup. Two inches bigger is a B cup, three inches is a C cup, four is a D cup, five is a DD, and six is a DDD. (These are just educated guesses, though. To get the right bra, you really need to go in for a fitting.)

  Useless Fact: The average bra size of a full-grown woman is 34B.

  Bra Shopping Tips

  Shopping Tip 1 Always shop with your mom or a girlfriend so that they can help you with fitting and finding bras.

  Shopping Tip 2 Make sure the back strap is at or above the bottom of your breasts. If the strap in the back isn’t comfortable, or if the cups look wrinkled, you’re wearing the wrong size.

  Shopping Tip 3 Department stores often have “Bra Fitting Specialists” who can help find the right brand and size for you. There are a lot of factors to consider, so when you go shopping see if there is someone who can help you with a fitting.

  A French woman named Herminie Cadolle is usually given credit for being the true inventor of the bra in 1889. She was a busy woman who was tired of having to wear uncomfortable corsets. She came up with the idea of “sustaining the bosom and [supporting it] by the shoulders.” No more squeezing up!

  Even though they’re just pieces of clothing, bras have been controversial. In 1968, some women protesting the 1968 Miss America pageant threw bras, high heel shoes, cosmetics, and other symbols of what they considered sexism into a trash can. Especially in the 1960s, “bra burnings” were thought of as a symbolic way for women to protest sexist treatment and create their own nonsexist identities. But many feminists today embrace bras and other symbols of the female body, emphasizing that women do not have to be the same as men to be equal.

  A lot of girls like to wear tank tops and camisoles with built-in bras. Other girls like to collect fun bras. You can find anything from plain white to lace to polka dot to your favorite cartoon character patterns. Some girls wear special holiday bras, like ones with a jingle bell in the center for Christmas. Whether you have fun with them or they are just another piece of clothing like socks, bras are nothing to be stressed out about.

  See the “Sports” chapter for tips on buying a sports bra.

  A Scary Word

  Why does puberty have to be such an uncute word? It sounds so scary. How about just “becoming a teenager” or “growing up”?

  As a girl goes into puberty, a lot of things are happening in her body. Acne shows up, and, oh joy, body odor can be smelled! L You’ll want to start using soap on all parts of your parts every time that you shower. And you definitely need to shower every day. Once puberty hits, it’s all about deodorant, breath mints, and loofah, loofah, loofah! (Washcloths work too, but they don’t sound as cool.)

  Maturing like this is also one of the most important things in the world. For example, if women didn’t menstruate (a.k.a. “get their period”), they wouldn’t be able to have babies later in life, and the human race would become extinct! Different families treat the topic of menstruation in different ways. Sometimes it’s a big secret that only a girl and her mother know about. And in places as far apart as Japan, Africa, and Sri Lanka, a girl’s first period is a reason to throw a big party.

  Back in the old days, girls often didn’t menstruate until they were 17 years old. Now, with better nutrition, the average age has dropped down to 12 to 13 years old, although a girl can be younger or older than that when
she first gets her period. Anyway, if you are 10 or 11 years old, you should know something about this topic.

  Because we don’t know WHO is reading this book, we’re not going to go into more details here. If you are curious or are unclear about what menstruation is, we suggest talking to your mom, your older sister, or another trusted adult about it.

  You should also ask her if she will help you get a good book on it. (One that we like is Growing Up: It’s a Girl Thing by Mavis Jukes.) You will probably also learn about this in school, either in a health class or in a special workshop with other girls your age.

  If you want to, you can also talk with other women relatives and friends about this part of growing up. They will probably have their own wisdom to share with you. Sharing personal information like this can be a great way to strengthen a relationship with someone. It will also help you gain more understanding about what you are going through yourself.

  Girl Emergencies

  “Your seat cushions can be used for flotation, and in the event of an emergency water landing, please take them with our compliments.”

  —Label on the bottom of airline seat cushion

  Dangerous situations can occur ANYTIME, ANYWHERE. You may not realize it, but you might be in danger right now. Just being in your bedroom can create problems. That’s because every year in the United States, almost 500,000 people have to go to the hospital because of injuries from mattresses and pillows (We aren’t kidding!) Pillows are very dangerous you see, because they are so soft and . . . uh . . . cushy?