by Carol Gorman
Cripes, I thought. Everyone’s going to be looking at me and laughing. Why would Ms. Landers have me wear a swimsuit? Didn’t she notice what my body looks like?
Then I realized it. It was a mistake! It had to be. I’d just point it out to her, and she’d assign the swimsuit to Lisa or some other girl who had a big shelf in front.
I relaxed and felt better.
“Ms. Landers?” said one of the oldest girls.
“Yes, Candy?”
“Who will choose the Supermodel?”
“There will be three judges,” Ms. Landers said. “They’ll be announced later.” She smiled. “Okay, let’s move over to the stage area.”
I looked around. There wasn’t a stage.
Ms. Landers stood and pointed to the other side of the room, where tapes stretched across the floor. “I’ve outlined the dimensions of the mall stage. This is where we’ll rehearse. It won’t be hard to transfer to the stage upstairs on the day of the show.”
My stomach tightened. On the day of the show, would I be so scared, I’d throw up? Or get a bad case of the hiccups?
Of course, I didn’t really plan to stay in this fashion show, anyway, so what was I worried about?
“As you can see,” Ms. Landers said, “the stage is in a T shape. You’ll enter at one edge of the top of the T, walk to the corner, pause, and go to the bottom of the T. Then you’ll pose a few seconds and wait for the other girls to get there. We’ll have poses or movement together, then you’ll return the way you came in.
“I’m going to play each of the four songs for you,” she continued. “Sit on the floor and close your eyes. Imagine how you’re going to move. Each song sets a different mood and requires a different kind of movement.”
We sat on the floor and leaned against the wall. She played all four songs, which I’d heard on the radio. She was right; they were all different. I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to walk to their rhythms.
“Would someone like to demonstrate how she’d like to move to the first song?” Ms. Landers asked.
Lisa’s hand shot up. “Lisa, go ahead.” Ms. Landers looked at her notebook. “You’ll start at stage right.” She pointed. “Stage directions are as you face the audience.”
“I knew that,” Lisa said, smiling smugly.
Ms. Landers turned on the music, and Lisa began an amazing dance. She jumped, she whirled, and she danced, smiling and throwing her hair from side to side. Ms. Landers said, “Uh, Lisa—” and faded the volume down to nothing. Lisa jumped once more for good measure, then slid into a split and threw her arms up as if she had just finished leading a cheer.
“Lisa, that’s very … interesting,” Ms. Landers said. “But I should remind you that we’re not dancing here, we’re moving to music. We’re not here to show ourselves off. The focus will be on the clothes and how we present the fashions.”
Ms. Landers looked around. “Does anyone have an idea about what I mean?”
Lisa got up, red-faced, and returned to her spot next to the wall.
“I think I do.” It was the Living Barbie Doll that I’d seen in Ms. Landers’ office before my interview.
“Karen, give it a try. You’ll be entering from stage left.”
Karen was great. She walked onstage, looking happy, and smiled with those blindingly white teeth. She paused at the corner, looked around—still smiling—and continued to the bottom of the T. She turned around with a flourish to the music, then returned.
“Very good,” Ms. Landers said. “I’d suggest a little less swing of the arms, though.” She looked around at all of us. “Let’s all try it together.”
So we did, as if we were in a parade. “I’m going to see the Cubbies, I’m going to see the Cubbies,” I whispered to myself over and over. That is, I’d see the Cubbies if I decided to be in the fashion show. And I probably wouldn’t.
Mary Ann was right, though. Thinking about seeing a Cubs game helped me block out most of my feelings of embarrassment at doing something this silly.
We practiced moving to all four songs while Ms. Landers watched and made notes. Afterward, she said, “Okay, let’s go back to the chairs, and I’ll give you my critique.”
When we were all seated, she talked to each of us in the circle.
“Mary, smile more. You look worried.”
“Lisa, I like your enthusiasm. But remember, we want the focus on the fashions. No one girl should stand out from the others.”
“Karen, your arm swing is just about perfect now.”
“Lizard, nice job, but loosen up a little more. And you’ll need to get a bra tomorrow or the next day at the latest.”
She moved on, talking to each girl, but I didn’t hear a word of it.
She’d said I needed a bra—in front of everybody!
I stared at the floor, my face burning fiercely. My vision blurred and my head buzzed. She might as well have announced it to the whole mall over the public address system:
“Lizard Flanagan, please come to the mall office and get yourself a bra as soon as possible!”
When she stopped talking, I hurried out as fast as I could. I didn’t want to see anyone. I didn’t even think of asking Ms. Landers about the mistake with the swimsuit.
I just wanted to get out of there.
This was the dumbest thing I’d ever done in my life. How did I let myself get sucked into this horrible fashion show?
It’s not too late, I told myself. I can still get out of it.
But how?
CHAPTER EIGHT
“HOW’D IT GO?” Mary Ann stood on the front porch, peering through the screen. We’d just finished supper.
“Horrible.” I went out on the porch and gave her a nudge. “Let’s go in the backyard. I don’t want anybody to hear this.”
We walked around back and through the gate. My dog, Bob, was barking at a squirrel or something, but he bounded over to us. I dragged Mary Ann to the maple tree, away from the open windows.
“So what happened?” Mary Ann asked, scratching Bob’s neck while he slobbered on her.
“At the end of the practice, Ms. Landers gave us comments. She said—in front of everybody—that I should get a bra!”
Mary Ann looked horrified. “Lisa heard?”
“Everybody heard! I can’t go back. It’s too embarrassing.”
“Especially with Lisa there,” Mary Ann said.
A stick fell on my head, and I brushed it off.
“I’m not going back.”
“But don’t you want to go to Chicago?” Mary Ann said. “You’ve come so far.”
“Besides, I’ll probably start hiccuping during the show, anyway.”
“You won’t hiccup.”
“Right,” I said. “Just like in fourth grade.”
“I’ll go to the mall with you after school tomorrow,” Mary Ann said. “We’ll get you a bra.”
I thought about that. “Well, I suppose I should get one.”
“It’s time.”
“It is?”
“Yes. You should start wearing a bra.”
A high, screechy voice came from overhead. “Yeah, Lizard, you should start wearing a bra!”
Horrified, I looked up into the tree. Sam was sitting up in the branches, laughing!
“You jerk!” I yelled. “You creep, you eavesdropper! Come down here; I’ll knock your head off!”
“Come on, Lizard.” Mary Ann grabbed my arm, but I shook her off furiously.
“Come down here, Sam!”
“Go get your bra, Lizard!” he screeched. “It’s time!”
“I’m going to kill him,” I said. I grabbed hold of a lower branch and started to pull myself into the tree. Mary Ann hauled me back down.
“Come on, Lizard,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“I don’t want to walk. I want to seriously injure my brother.”
“Lizard!” Mary Ann kept a firm grip on me. I knew she wouldn’t give up and let me climb into the tree.
“Let�
��s get out of here,” I said, and I stalked out the gate.
“Go get that bra, Lizard!” the rat called after me, loud enough so the whole neighborhood could hear.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Let’s go to the mall tomorrow,” Mary Ann repeated. “We’ll get you a bra.”
“I’ll have to wait for just the right moment, when he isn’t expecting it.”
“The clerk who waited on me last summer was very nice.”
“Maybe I can set up a booby trap in his room.”
“Lizard?”
“What?”
“Let’s go to the mall tomorrow and get you a bra.”
“You really think I need one?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. But I’m not going back to those rehearsals. And the next time I get Sam alone—”
“Tomorrow after school,” she said.
“Whatever.”
I saw Ginger at our locker the next morning. Five seconds, I thought, and she’ll say it. Four, three—Ginger turned and saw me—two, one …
“I heard what Ms. Landers said to you in front of the whole world!” Ginger said.
Right on cue. But I was ready for her. Mary Ann and I had talked about how I’d handle it.
I shrugged. “Yeah,” I said, as casual as you please. I pulled out my language arts notebook.
“You’re so calm!” Ginger said. “I really admire you. I would’ve been humiliated.” She lowered her voice. “So are you going to get a … you know?”
“A bra?” I looked at Ginger squarely in the eyes. “Yes, I am.” I closed the locker. “See you, Ginger. Gotta go to my first class.”
“Okay.” Her voice came out soft. I think she was disappointed that we weren’t going to have a big talk about the bra thing.
I walked away, and that was that.
Nothing disastrous happened that morning, but I figured the “Lizard needs a bra” story had been broadcast to all the girls by Lisa and my bigmouth locker partner. I was glad I’d worn a big, floppy shirt that day. If anybody looked, they wouldn’t see anything.
I had the feeling that the guys hadn’t heard it. At least my rotten brother had the decency to keep his mouth shut.
At lunch Ed Mechtensteimer told us how he’d seen Matthew Dunn writing on the concrete wall outside the school building.
“Boy, you should’ve seen Wildwoman go after him!” Mechtensteimer said. “I bet Dunn gets a hundred detentions for that.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Stinky scoffed. “A hundred!”
“I’d expel him,” I said. “Matthew Dunn is such a lowlife. Remember when he threw that firecracker onto the field during our metro game last year, Zach?”
“Hunh?”
“He’s daydreaming,” Stinky said. “I bet he’s thinking about biting Cassandra March’s neck.”
“I would be,” Ed said. “Hey, when are you doing your scene?”
Zach swallowed. “In two weeks.”
“Yeah, after school,” Stinky said. “And anyone can come. We’ll be there, Walters, right in the front row, watching every move!”
“Are ya having fun practicing?” Ed asked, his eyes bugging out at the thought of taking a bite out of Cassandra March.
Zach shrugged. “It’s okay.”
Stinky, sitting next to him, gave him a shove. “I bet it’s more than okay, Walters!” he said. Zach shoved him back.
Stinky grinned at Ed. “Have you noticed that Cassandra’s been wearing lots of perfume lately?”
“You must be getting pretty close yourself, Stinky, to notice that,” I said.
“I don’t have to,” he said. “She walks into a room, and you can smell it all over. But yesterday I wanted to check it out, so when she was sharpening her pencil, I leaned over and sniffed. And you know what?”
“What?” Ed was all ears.
“That’s right where she puts the perfume,” Stinky said, his voice ringing with authority. “On her neck.”
“She’s doing it for Zach,” Ed said. “She wants to smell good when he bites her neck every day.”
“She is not,” Zach said. But he didn’t say it very strongly. Maybe he thought she was wearing perfume for him too.
Was she? I didn’t know Cassandra very well. She was in the black group, but I’d seen her in the halls plenty of times. She’s hard to miss, because she’s very pretty. And I hated to admit it, but she seemed nice. At least, that’s what everyone said.
I’d reconsider how I felt about her, though, if she was dousing herself with perfume for Zach.
Was Zach spaced out because of Cassandra? He had been acting kind of strange lately. I tried to remember when he had started getting weird and distracted. It was about the time he started practicing the Dracula scene.
I watched Zach for the rest of lunch, my heart aching. I hoped he wasn’t in love with Cassandra. Aside from being my boyfriend, he was one of the best friends I’d ever had, and I didn’t want to lose him.
“There she is,” Mary Ann whispered. She nodded to the clerk behind the lingerie counter at Bregmann’s Department Store. “She helped me and my mom find my size last summer.”
“Let’s just find your size and try it and get the heck out of here,” I said.
“Okay, it was on the rack over there, thirty-two B. Come on.”
Mary Ann walked over to the display, and I tiptoed behind her, hoping we wouldn’t attract the clerk’s attention. This was embarrassing enough without having to talk to a stranger about it.
Mary Ann pulled a bra off the rack and held it up. “Here’s one.”
“Mary Ann, quit waving it around, okay?” I murmured out the side of my mouth.
A movement at my right startled me.
“Hi, Lizard,” said Lisa, who had mysteriously materialized next to me. Had she followed us from school? She must’ve known where we’d be going.
Mary Ann looked horrified and whipped the bra she was holding behind her back.
Lisa was the last person on earth I wanted to see. I stared at her and said pointedly, “Hi, Lisa. What are you doing here?”
Lisa smiled smugly. “The same thing you’re doing.” She looked around. “I must be in the wrong section. I was looking for the thirty-four C sizes. These are much too small.”
For the second time in two days, my face fired up. I had to restrain myself from smacking that smile off her face. She turned and oozed away, swinging her hips from side to side.
“Wouldn’t it be great if she fell flat on her face in the fashion show?” I suggested. “Maybe I could trip her.”
“Come on,” Mary Ann said. “Let’s go back so you can try this on. I’ll wait outside.”
I walked back to the dressing room. Inside the swinging doors, I pulled off my shirt and took the bra off the hanger.
“How do you get this thing on?” I asked Mary Ann in a low voice.
“The way you put on the top of a two-piece swimsuit.”
“When have you ever seen me in a two-piecer?” I said.
“Oh, yeah. Hook it in the front and slide it to the back.”
That worked pretty well. “Come on in,” I said.
Mary Ann slipped into the dressing room. She frowned, looking at me critically. “I think it’s too big. It puckers out a little. That’ll get smashed under a T-shirt, and you’ll be able to see it. It should look smooth. I’ll get you a thirty-two A.”
“Thirty-two A?”
“The number is the measurement around your rib cage. The letter is the cup size. You need a smaller cup.”
Good grief. A thirty-two A. What was Lisa’s? Thirty-four C?
“Would you get it, Mary Ann?” I asked. “But if you see Lisa anywhere in the store, don’t pick it up.”
“Gotcha.”
Mary Ann left. I looked at myself in the mirror. It was weird seeing myself in a bra. It felt weird, too, with all the straps, sort of like those straitjackets they put on crazy people in the movies.
Mary Ann came back. “Lisa
must’ve left.” She poked the bra in between the doors.
“Good.” I took off the first bra and put on the smaller one. It was tight on the shoulders, so Mary Ann showed me how to lengthen the straps. It felt better, and the cups were smooth. Mary Ann agreed that it was a better fit.
“Let’s get two for now,” she said.
“Okay.” Mom had given me the money when I told her why I needed it. “Will you get the other one? But look out for Lisa.”
“Okay.”
I met Mary Ann at the cash register.
“I’ll go find the clerk,” Mary Ann said. She disappeared behind a rack of nightgowns.
Suddenly Lisa appeared out of nowhere again. I clutched the bras close so she couldn’t see their size.
I scowled at her. “What are you doing, following me?”
“Why would I do that?” she said, in an innocent voice.
“I sure wouldn’t know.”
I stood there, trying to think of a plan. How could I buy these bras without Lisa’s getting a look at them? Just then, Mary Ann and the clerk came weaving around the racks of lingerie.
I caught Mary Ann’s eye and nodded slightly at Lisa. Mary Ann’s mouth opened, then closed.
She walked directly over to Lisa and tapped her on the shoulder. “Lisa, did you enjoy the first practice for the fashion show?”
Good old Mary Ann. She was trying to distract Lisa.
I planted myself between Lisa and the bras.
“It was okay,” Lisa said.
The clerk picked up the bras and scanned the tags. “Was the thirty-two A a good fit?” she asked, her voice booming through the store as if she’d yelled into a microphone.
Lisa snorted.
Mary Ann’s face went white, and I came close to lunging over the counter to strangle that clerk. I wished I could vaporize into the floor, but I came to my senses and mumbled, “It’s very snug, but it’ll have to do. We took the straps out as far as they’d go.”
I slapped the money on the counter, and the woman finished ringing up the sale.
I stalked past Lisa. She waved and called out, “I’ll see you at practice tonight, Lizard.”
When Mary Ann and I were outside the mall, I said, “This isn’t worth it.”
“It’s not worth sitting at Wrigley Field and seeing the great Mark Grace and Sammy Sosa in person?”