to do?” Hannah demanded. “Roll around in the dirt with What’s His Name?”
Abbie tapped a fist on her head.
“Argh,” she groaned. “What is J-boy’s name? It’s too late to ask now!”
“Somebody will say it at the party,” Hannah said. “You just have to keep your ears open.”
“Or you could just skip right to ‘honey,’ ” I posed. “That wouldn’t freak him out at all!”
“I would never,” Abbie gasped. “Now, ‘Pooh Bear’ on the other hand is completely acceptable.”
“Totally,” Hannah said. “You know what’s even better? ‘Sweet Cheeks.’ ”
“Love Muffin!” I yelled.
“Come here, Love Muffin,” Abbie cried, grabbing a pillow and kissing it passionately.
“Ew, I sleep on that,” Hannah said. She snatched the pillow away from Abbie and tossed it back onto the bed. Then she spotted my pedicure and gasped.
“Oh, no!” she said. She grabbed the bottle of polish remover from the dresser and plopped down in front of me. “So wrong.”
“What?” I said. “I love this color.”
“Me too,” Hannah said, “but not on your feet. You’re too pale. You need contrast.”
She held up two bottles of polish—one shimmery hot pink, the other a bright turquoise.
“All right,” I grumbled, pointing at the blue-green bottle. “But you do it. I hate painting my toes.”
While Hannah polished, Abbie got busy on my hair.
“You can’t keep yanking it back like you do,” she said, fluffing up my hair. “You’re gonna get a bald spot.”
“What!” I cried, clutching at my scalp. “Is that even possible with this much hair?”
Abbie didn’t answer as she rifled through her cosmetics bag. She came up with a wide elastic headband with a cute blue and green flower pattern on it. She snapped it around my head and arranged my curls behind it, with a couple tendrils popping out at the temples.
“Really?” I said skeptically. “There’s just so much of it.”
“Wear a tank top,” Abbie said decisively. “Then your hair isn’t competing with your sleeves.”
Hannah finished my toes, and I leaned over to fan them dry with one of Hannah’s National Geographics.
“How come I’m getting all the makeover attention?” I said. “You’re the ones trying to bag the love muffins.”
Abbie and Hannah glanced at each other.
“What?” I demanded.
“We’re just trying to help you, Chels,” Hannah said.
“Why?” I demanded. “What’s wrong with me?”
“Nothing, except you’re a little . . . stuck,” Hannah said carefully. “Uncomfortable in your skin. You need to be more confident and own who you are.”
“ ‘Own who I am’?” I said mockingly. “Who are you, Oprah?”
“Okay, smart-mouth,” Abbie said. “Let’s put it this way. You are standing in the way of your own hotness with this shy, bookwormy I-hate-my-hair routine. You need to lose the ponytail and stop hunching over just because you have boobs.”
I could almost feel my eyebrows meet my hairline. I was literally speechless. We were always blunt with each other, but this was new terrain.
When I got over my shock, I scowled.
“I’m not shy,” I said. “Just because I don’t want to be the center of attention like some people I could name”—I looked pointedly at Abbie—“doesn’t mean I’m an introverted freak.”
“Look,” Hannah said. “You’re lucky. You’ve got two sisters who’ve just been through all this. We’re trying to help you.”
I frowned at my turquoise toenails. I hated to admit it—and I sure wasn’t going to admit it to them—but deep down I knew Abbie and Hannah were right. Not about the hot part. Even if I did have boobs, I still couldn’t fathom a version of hot that included bright red hair and freckly skin.
But it was true that I didn’t exactly exude confidence. And I knew you didn’t have to be gorgeous or super-popular to have it. Look at Emma. Sure, she had that graceful ballerina bod, but she also had oily skin and a hawkish nose. But it didn’t matter, because Emma knew she was talented—special—and she carried herself that way. Sure enough, Ethan had fallen so hard for her that he was practically asphyxiating himself with all the kissing.
But how do you just suddenly decide you’re special? Emma got on that track when she took her first baby ballet class at age four. Hannah had studied her way to brilliance, and Abbie had just been born with all that personality.
Me? I had nothin’. Reading about extraordinary people in books didn’t make you extraordinary.
Of course, if I chose to believe my sisters (and that was a big if), I wasn’t a total untouchable.
Own who you are, Hannah had said.
It would have sounded great on a greeting card, but in