“Well, you always want to be the center of attention,” she accused.

“You know, those capris look good on you, Joni,” Donna mentioned as we left the restaurant after avoiding ordering cheesecake for dessert.

“Hmm,” I muttered, waiting for the zing.

But Mom interrupted before Donna got a charge up for a personal lightning bolt. “They really do, honey,” Mom agreed. “And I can’t believe how we missed seeing your shape for months, I guess,” she shook her head.

“Well, I…I grew some -uh- back there too, you know, last night.” I cringed to say it, but it seemed to be true. “It’s like sitting on a cushion now.”

Donna made a noise.

Mom looked at my ass. How embarrassing could this get? “Not that much, I don’t think.”

“And gruesome isn’t the right word,” said Donna. She grinned, and I glared at her for the wordplay, but she continued. “No, really, Joni, you can stun them with your frontage and then turn around and finish them off.”

“Mo-om,” I protested, but she just rolled her eyes.

“Shake it but don’t break it,” Donna said.

“What does that mean?” I grumbled. “I don’t want people looking at my backside, especially not boys.”

“Not even cute boys like those?” She gestured by nodding her head toward three older boys near the sporting goods store.

Like a goof, I looked in that direction, and all three boys’ faces lit up with smiles. I think I smiled back, but I don’t know why!

“Mo-om!” Donna whined. “Joni is flirting with all the cutest boys!” She was faking the whine, but it sounded authentic.

“Joni! Donna!” said Mom. “Donna! Joni!” Mom glared at both of us.

Normally, getting Mom confused about which of us needed scolding would cause Donna and I to mark one up for teamwork, but I was in no mood for that. And those boys were still staring at me. I tried squinting at them to signal disinterest. If Donna’s idea that widening your eyes was flirting, then the reverse should work.

But that only made them grin instead of smile at me!

“Jeez! Joni, stop making cute faces at those guys, or one of them is likely to come over and ask you out. Do you want a date for Saturday night?” Donna delivered another zing.

“No dating as singles until you’re sixteen, Joni,” Mom warned. “Same rule as for Donna.”

“Mo-om!” I squeaked, in fear, I think. “I don’t want to date guys!”

“Then stop flirting with them!” Mom snapped at me.

“She can’t help it,” Donna offered in my defense, the rat. “She’s just a natural flirt.”

“I am not!”

“Then stop working at it!” Donna glared as if she meant it now. “You’ll give the Edwards sisters a name as sluts.”

“We’re not sisters!” I tried to point out but moving my hands up suddenly in emphasis had unforeseen consequences.

“Oh yeah?” she retorted. “About half my friends can’t tell us apart, even when you dress as a boy!” She looked at my still-jiggling chest. “I guess they won’t have as much trouble now! Maybe they’ll think you’re me and I’m you if I wore jeans and one of your stupid polos!”

I stood up straight and pushed my chest out at her. “Nope!” I said.

“We are so buying you a dress and getting you to wear it to school on Monday,” she said with an evil look.

“Girls!” Mom interrupted. “No fighting in public!”

Donna and I both looked at her as innocently as we could manage.

Mom suppressed a smile. She was onto our act this time but still gave us an eye roll and a glare. “And Donna, we are not going to buy Joni a dress unless she wants one to wear one.”

“She can borrow one of mine,” Donna said quickly. Then to me, “You’d look super-cute in my halter-style A-line, and you wouldn’t have to show off your cleavage.”

“Fat chance!” I snapped back.

“It’s almost too short for me now,” she added. “But it ought to be just about right on you.”

“Is that the one with the blue floral print and the ombré background?” Mom asked. “But you loved that when you wore it at Thanksgiving services!”

“Mom, it hits me above mid-thigh now!”

I remembered the dress they were talking about now, and I know I turned bright red. “You’re not getting me to wear it, and you know that,” I warned her.

“She’s right, though. You would look cute, and being a bit shorter, you wouldn’t have as much problem with the hemline.”

“Mo-om! I’m not going to wear a dress to school!”

“Well, I don’t think Donna can wear it to church anymore,” Mom mused. “So I think it belongs to you now. And you will need something to wear tomorrow.”

Tomorrow? Church? In a dress? I think I turned white this time. Wait! What happened here? I’m being judoed into agreeing to wear a dress to church?

Mom looked stern. “Honey, Joni, you aren’t going to try to dress like a boy at church. It just wouldn’t work.” She glanced at the evidence of why it would be a certain fail. “If you go as Joni, no one is likely to recognize you.”

“We can say you’re a visiting relative,“ Donna suggested. “If anyone asks.”

“I’ll just stay home,” I stalled.

“But that’s against house rules, no staying home from church unless you’re really sick!” Donna pointed out.

“I’m sure I’m going to be sick tomorrow,” I said firmly. But I remembered another house rule, that the girls in the family wore dresses to church unless there was like a barbecue afterward. Which there wasn’t going to be. And if I wasn’t going as a boy….

Maybe I could hold my breath and turn blue to complete a patriotic triple.

“We aren’t finished shopping,” Mom decided. “Joni, we need another pair of slacks or capris for you, at least, maybe some shoes if you’re going to church, and a backup dress if the blue ombré won’t work.”

“Uh—,” I blinked, not sure if maybe I were going to cry. Would that help? Probably not, but my emotions were like the kids in Linda’s daycare, all over the room and screaming at me. The idea of not buying me a dress unless I wanted one was gone!

“We should get your hair done, too,” Donna added to the mix. “And definitely some shoes. With a bit of a heel so you won’t look like a shrimp carrying two balloons.”

I so wanted to smack her for that one.

“I duwanna get my hair done,” I said when we stopped in front of the beauty salon. I knew I was now trying to make a fighting retreat, but I had to try!

“Oh, you big baby!” countered Donna. “Getting your hair cut doesn’t hurt!”

I glared at her. We had dealt with this when we took Linda to get her first haircut a few years before. Linda was worried about us cutting off part of her head.

“I don’t need a haircut,” I continued protesting. “I had one two months ago.” Mom and Donna looked at me with critical eyes.

“Here’s the thing,” Mom said. “You’ve got Jonny’s haircut, which is kind of androgynous.”

“Yeah,” Donna agreed.

“Anthropenous? Like an ape?” I glared at Donna on general principles.

“Androgynous,” Mom explained. “Not really a boy’s cut or a girl’s cut.”

I must have been pouting because Donna pooched out her lips and crossed her eyes. “I like my hair like this,” I insisted, but I knew I was losing the battle.

“But you don’t want anyone to think you’re Jonny, right?”

I shrugged…. I’ve got to remember to stop doing that.

“Put your glasses on,” Mom said. “The stylist will want to see your face with your glasses as well as without.”

“Huh?” I said, confused because my glasses are usually in my shirt pocket if I’m not wearing them, but I didn’t have a shirt pocket anymore.

But Mom was holding them out to me. She had had them in her purse. I put them on; I can navigate and function fine without them, but if I have to do much reading, they keep me from squinting.

Somehow, we were in the shop, and Mom asked if they could fit me in. It didn’t sound good. Donna handed me a magazine about hairstyles.

Mom came back to tell us to sit down, it would just be twenty minutes, and they could deal with my hair. I sat with the magazine and tried not to pout.

Turned out, it wasn’t a magazine but instead a sort of catalog of styles. Donna sat beside me and kept bumping my elbow to get me to turn the page. “It’s all longer styles in front, turn to the middle, and we’ll go from there.”

“I duwanna,” I said, but I did anyway. It was easier than trying to deal with Donna’s aggression.

We looked at several pages, and Donna suddenly reached out and stabbed one image. “Like that,” she said. “That would look super cute on you!”

I protested. “She’s a brunette! Black hair! I’m a blonde!”

“Not the color, you dummy, the style. It’s a kind of a pixie cut.”

“Oh. I’m short enough without making people think of pixies. And that is really short hair. Uh—it looks more like a boy’s haircut.”

Donna giggled right in my ear. “Ow! Jeez!”

“Are you worried about that? Seriously?”

“I’m worried you’re going to damage my hearing!” I rubbed the abused ear. “I already have hair down over my ears, but I should have earplugs!”

“Sorry about that,” she lied. “But you don’t want your hair any shorter?”

“Think about it,” I said. “If we should solve my problem, then I can get a real short cut later. If we went with this pixie stuff, I’d have to shave my head.”

“Hmm,” she said. “You’d probably look cute with a shaved head.”

“I would not!”

“Like one of those adorable cancer kids. Turn the page.”

I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times, unsure of a comeback to the cancer kid remark. Finally, I just turned the page, and she stabbed another picture. “How about this? Add some curliness and body?”

I stared at the pic she was indicating. “Kinda poofy? Sort of like yours? Wouldn’t we look even more like twins then?”

She made a face. “If that gets too annoying, I’ll get the pixie cut.”

We both giggled. Well, it was funny, the way she said it.

“We could get it colored?” she suggested.

“Yours?” I asked.

“No, yours! Red like Mom had hers when Linda was born. Or strawberry blonde like Aunt Heidi.”

“Wouldn’t that break up the set? Whole family of blondes and one redhead?”

“Well, you always want to be the center of attention,” she accused.

“Me!” I was really startled. “No, no, no! Maybe we can dye my hair brown?”

Mom put the kibosh on that. “No brown, red if you want. Being a redhead is fun. But when I dyed my hair brown once, people kept asking if I were ill.” She made an even worse face than Donna had.

More giggles. I sound like Linda when I giggle. I have to watch that.