Hi! It’s me again, Josh. You remember I told you last year about my sister getting hit by a car and me making a foolish promise without thinking first. Things have been pretty good since then for me and my buddies, Mike and Chas. We were all starters on the ninth grade football team and now I’m playing basketball. I have a girlfriend too, so I keep pretty busy. Deanna is pretty but more importantly she is really nice. Before I started dating her Chas told me that Brittany Jones liked me and I should ask her out on a date. That was cool because everyone knows that Brittany is the prettiest ninth grader in our school but she’s really mean too. She only talks to certain people and says bad things about everyone else, sometimes even when they can hear her.

Deanna isn’t like that at all. She’s friendly to everyone, even the kids most people won’t talk to. Like Candy, the girl who’s in choir with us. All of her other classes are in the special-ed wing. She doesn’t look like the kids with downs syndrome but she seems a lot like them otherwise. Deanna stands next to her and helps her learn the songs. She even helps her after school. Of course that means that I talk to her too. She has the right name because she’s really sweet. Whenever she sees Deanna or me she runs right up to us and gives us a big hug. Brittany is still mad because I wouldn’t date her so when she saw Candy hug me she told everyone I was dating a retard. Deanna just told them she was jealous because I was her boyfriend and she got better grades than Brittany.

My sister Debbie has to come to the special-ed wing here in the high school three afternoons a week for therapy from her accident last year. I get out of study hall a few minutes early to meet her and make sure she makes makes it through the crowds of hurrying teens and onto the bus before I go to basketball practice ever since she got knocked down the second time she was here.

That’s why I was going into the special-ed area two days ago. Three guys had Candy pushed against the wall and one of them was putting his hand in her top. The only one I knew was from football practice where he was an offensive lineman on the varsity. I think his two buddies tried out but they got cut early. Candy was crying and looked really scared. So that’s when I acted without thinking again. I didn’t go get a teacher. I just yelled and ran right at them. Luckily one of the special education teachers heard my yell and called for help on the intercom.

I didn’t get into trouble except with coach Tracewski for missing practice but I did have to listen to him and the cops and everyone from the vice principal to the school nurse tell me I should have gotten an adult. I got to practice yesterday when Candy and Deanna stopped hugging me long enough. I’ve got some bruised ribs and my hand hurts but the worst thing is that I have a black eye that just kept looking worse all day and a huge bruise on my other cheek. And tonight is the big Christmas concert for the Choir. I’d be up there in front of everyone looking terrible. I was complaining about that at lunch yesterday when Deanna said she could fix it up with make-up so I’d look O.K. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be up there wearing make-up either.

“Hey, It won’t be the first time you’ve worn make-up” Mike said. Then he went into the cloud on his phone and called up the picture mom took the night before Halloween last year. There I was in a long gown with a padded bra. My hair was in a girly hairstyle and I was clearly wearing make-up. At least that started a conversation about something other than my “fight”. After Mike had shown everyone the picture I ended up telling everyone the whole story. Deanna made him send her the picture because she said I looked cute as a girl. I don’t know when I agreed to it but she said that she’d get her mother to pick me up after basketball practice so we could go to the mall and get make-up that matched my skin better than my mother’s did and have the woman at the cosmetics counter in Kohls show her the best way to cover up my injuries.

Practice was boring because I couldn’t scrimmage but I did the running and some of the drills one handed. After showering I went out to find Deanna, her mom and my mom talking about Halloween last year. I’d forgotten to call mom and tell her I wouldn’t need a ride. It seems that in addition to keeping the pictures she’d kept the dress too. I’d grown a bit taller without gaining a lot of weight so she thought I could still wear it if the hem was let out a bit. I’m not sure how that came up but I arrived in the middle of the conversation. I apologized for not calling and mom went home while Deanna and her mom took me to the mall.

The chair at the make-up counter is right out in the middle of the store so everyone would be able to see the woman putting make-up on me but it seemed too late to back out after Mrs. Larsson had driven us all that way. First she used a cleanser on my face and neck even though I had just showered. She showed me the sponge she wiped it away with and my quick shower had left a lot of dirt in my pores. Then she put a moisturizer on my skin. She kept explaining what she was doing but I didn’t pay a lot of attention since Deanna was going to do my face tomorrow and I didn’t really think we would need that stuff anyway. I had to sit a while until the moisturizer was absorbed. The lady kept talking about how I should do this stuff every morning and before I went to bed. I don’t think I would do that even if it didn’t smell so girly.

I started paying more attention when she got ready to cover up my bruises. Just regular make-up wouldn’t work to cover them so she said we needed some to red to cover them first. She took some blusher and brushed it over my cheek and then used a smaller brush to do under my eye and on my eyelid with another reddish powder. Then she said the rest was going to be almost like a normal make-up. She took a stick of something she called concealer, which was what I thought was all we needed, and put some on my bruised cheek and a bit on the scrape on my forehead even though that wasn’t very bad. When she took a brush and spread that out I thought we were done but Deanna said it wouldn’t look right and I should let her finish. After that she took some foundation like mom had used last year on a sponge and put it on my whole face and neck so my complexion was even with no sign of where the bruises had been covered up. Again I thought that was enough but apparently I needed powder over that to set it and then she took the blush again and put some color in my cheeks which were now too pale.

Looking in the mirror I could see that I did look a lot better than when I came in except for my eye. The woman took the concealer again and put some dots under my eye over the red powder and spread them them with a small brush. She told Deanna she would have to be very gentle on this part because of how bad my eye was but she didn’t hurt me at all. She was telling us how she did this at a shelter for women who had been beaten up so she had had lots of practice. Now just the top of my eye was red over the bruise. She took another little sponge on a stick and very gently put powder on them and then used an even smaller one like a pencil to do darker powder above that before using a brush to mix them before making the both eyes match. Looking in the magnifier mirror on one side I could see I had make-up on but in the regular mirror I looked pretty normal.

Deanna thanked the lady and I did too of course. Then she said we’d buy all of the stuff the woman had used on me. The eye shadow came in a little box with some other colors and so did the blush. She even got the cleanser and moisturizer. The lady said I had to be sure to use them that night and tonight after wearing makeup as well as before putting on make-up to keep from getting blemishes. I guess she meant zits, and who wants zits? It cost almost a hundred dollars! I said I was just going to have to let my bruises show but Deanna put it on her credit card along with a couple of other things. She said she wanted it anyway and she had plenty of money left in this months allowance. Her dad is the president of the bank but she doesn’t act like she’s rich so sometimes I forget.

I thought we would wash the make-up off then but Deanna said I might as well leave it on since it looked so much better. We went to the bookstore and Deanna went into a shoe store where she looked at some sandal things with little heels while I looked at some Air Jordans knockoffs. They looked good but they were really pretty crappy. Deanna said I should get my foot measured and at least try them on but after walking in them a bit I knew I could never play in them. So she bought the sandals and we went to the food court for a snack while she called her mom to get us.

At first I could feel the make-up on my face and kept wanting to touch it so Deanna said it was a good thing we left it on so I could get used to it. Then she decided that it would be a good idea to do it right after school today. That way I would be comfortable with it by the time of the concert. She’d do a touch-up when the girls were doing theirs if I needed it.

Deanna stayed at our house for supper and we both worked on some homework before dad and I took her home. She gave me the cleanser and moisturizer along with a bag of the little sponges and reminded me to take my make-up off and moisturize before I went to bed. It was funny but I really had forgotten I was wearing it.

Today was the last day of school before vacation and we didn’t have basketball practice so they could shut down the school for two weeks. The choir and band concerts tonight at seven will be at the township hall. Deanna rode the bus with me but said we would have to hurry so she could go home and get ready too. I took a shower right away while she helped mom get us a snack. They told me to use the cleanser on my face and neck after I shaved and use the moisturizer. That way Deanna could do my make-up right after we ate. So that’s what we did. I looked almost like when the woman at the store did it except Dee used more blush and it showed more but wasn’t too bad. We didn’t have time to do it over, anyway. I just had to be careful when I changed into my choir clothes.

I still looked O.K. when I got backstage so Deanna just dusted my face with powder again to make sure the make-up wouldn’t run because of the stage lights. I got kidded some about wearing make-up of course but it was just fun and ended fast when Mrs. Gibbon, the band director, said that maybe all of the boys should have their faces powdered so they didn’t shine so much when the lights got hot. I think she would have done it if there had been time enough. I think she’s planning on it for the spring concert.

The band played and then we sang some songs with Mr. Carol (great name for a choir director, huh) at the piano before we sang two more songs with the band .After the concert Deanna came home with us while her parents went to some Christmas party for a charity the bank was sponsoring.

I changed my clothes and removed all of the make-up with the facial cleanser and used the moisturizer afterwards so I wouldn’t get zits. When I got back downstairs mom was showing Deanna all of the pictures from last Halloween. Mike just had the one with both me and Debbie but there were several more. Suddenly I was getting puppy dog eyes from Deanna because she never got to see me looking pretty and besides we had the right make-up now instead of my mother’s colors. Deb and mom both joined in too. I thought dad might help but he just
said he was going to go get drunk. He didn’t of course; he just went into the family room and turned on the basketball game.

I protested that I had just taken the make-up off but they all said it needed to be redone for wearing with a fancy dress. I never had a chance since they had it all planned out. Mom had pressed the dress which didn’t need to be let out since I would be wearing the sandals Dee had bought yesterday in my size. There were bags of oatmeal for stuffing my bra in the refrigerator. In the end I sat at the sink while mom washed and conditioned my hair. Deanna used the cleanser and moisturizer on my face again. While my hair was in rollers I let Debbie do my nails and toenails. Deanna made her do them over. By then mom had brushed out my hair and put a comb in it to hold it in place. They helped me put the bra and slip on before sticking the bags of oatmeal in the bra. Wow! Never stick anything right out of the refrigerator in your bra (If you wear a bra).

Then Deanna started on re-doing my make-up. At first it was about the same as before except that she used more of the concealer stick, putting some under the eye that wasn’t bruised, too and some on my nose and forehead. She did something with two colors of blusher, too. The big changes started with the eye make-up. It seems that since it isn’t good to share eye make-up so she had bought me my own eyeliner and mascara. She used different eye shadow colors that were a lot more obvious because she said it brought out my pretty eyes. The little box of blusher turned out to be for lips too and soon my lips matched my nails. It seems I also have my own bottle of clear lip gloss and sealer to go over that.

I had to replace my socks with clear hose that I had also suddenly acquired before stepping into the dress and putting on my sandals. I got to look in moms full length mirror in her bedroom before she started taking pictures. I really did look like a girl all dressed up for a fancy dance. In fact some of the pictures are of me and Deanna slow dancing to some songs from her phone. After that dad came back into the dining room and we played a game of Risk that was almost over when Deanna’s parents arrived to pick her up. I learned how to touch up my lips after eating some Christmas cookies with milk but otherwise things were almost normal when I forgot what I was wearing. So I just finished using the facial cleanser and moisturizing one last time, I hope. There’s an awful lot of my make-up left though.