CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Fashion Advice

School lunch on Friday was Mystery Stew, which was bad enough. Becky and Hannah Lee made it worse by pointing at my ankles. Looking down, I saw that the gap between my jeans hem and my shoes had widened to show way more sock than was considered proper in North Harbor society.

These were the last clothes I had left from Kitty. I remembered how much I hated having to wear Kitty’s hand-me-downs when I was little. I wanted something new, something of my own, especially in colors that looked good on a pale blonde, not a rosy redhead. Then, after she died, her clothes were all I wanted to wear. They made me feel she was hugging me.

Hugging me pretty tightly, these days. I was taller now than she’d ever been, and the waistband was starting to pinch. I knew I’d been growing, but I hadn’t realized it had gotten so bad. Spring might be on its way, but it was still far too cold out to just turn my jeans into cutoffs.

It’s not that the snickering bothered me. But I worried what would happen if Becky and Hannah got Kitty riled up. She never liked it when people laughed at me, and I didn’t think she would react too well to having her jeans mocked, either.

I was scanning the chaotic cafeteria for an empty seat far away from the snickerers when I heard my name. Dolores Pereira waved me over to the table where she was sitting with her cousin Amanda.

“Ask her, Lola,” said Amanda, giggling.

“No, you ask her,” said Lola. “You’re the one who wants to know.”

“Ask me about what?”

“Go on, Amanda!” said Lola.

“You’ve been hanging out with Cole Farley, right?” said Amanda.

“Uh, yeah. I guess,” I said.

“What’s his family like? Is his brother as cute as he is?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t met his family,” I said.

“See? I told you,” said Lola to her cousin. “What do you think of Cole, though?” she asked me.

“He’s okay. When he’s not being obnoxious.”

“How’s he obnoxious?” asked Amanda.

“He’s always calling me names, for one thing.”

“I wish he would call me names,” said Amanda.

“I’m sure he’d be happy to. Want me to tell him?” I offered.

“What do you want him to call you? Amanda Panda? Amanda Banana?” Lola asked.

Amanda dissolved in giggles and buried her head in Lola’s shoulder. When she recovered, she said, “Hey, I like your hair thing. Where’d you get it?”

I felt my head. I was wearing a hair clip with tatted lace that Cousin Hepzibah had given me. I took it out and handed it to her. “My cousin. She made it for me.”

“Really? Who’s your cousin? Does she go to school here?” asked Amanda.

I laughed. “No, she’s, like, ninety years old!”

“That’s really cool. Can I see it?” said Lola, taking the clip.

“Could she make me one?” asked Amanda.

“I can ask,” I said. “Or I could ask her to show me how.”

“If she teaches you, would you teach me?” asked Lola.

“Sure.” I put the clip back in my hair.

“You know who I think is really cute? Garvin Graves,” said Amanda.

Lola and I made faces.

“You’re kidding!” I said.

Lola said, “Garvin Graves? He’s awful!”

“How’s he awful?”

“He’s mean,” said Lola.

“You can be mean and still be cute,” said Amanda. “Look at those arms!”

“Stay away from those arms,” said Lola. “Hey, Sukie, did you figure out Ms. Pitch’s extra-credit problem from yesterday?”

“No, I haven’t really worked on it yet. Did you?”

She shook her head.

“What is it? Maybe I can figure it out,” said Amanda.

The problem was about strategies for winning the student-council elections in various scenarios, with different percentages of the vote required for avoiding a runoff. Lola and I worked on it together for a while, even though Amanda thought there was no point.

“Who cares? Hannah Lee’s going to win no matter what,” she said.

The end-of-lunch warning bell rang, and we crumpled up our food wrappers. “Hey, can I ask you guys something? Are my pants too short?” I asked.

“Stand up,” said Lola. “Now turn around.” She shook her head regretfully. “Yeah, definitely too short.”

Amanda nodded. “Those are some serious high waters.”

“Thanks, I was afraid you’d say that.”

Too bad. I would have to spend what was left of my birthday money on new pants.

Still, it was nice to have someone who would tell me straight out, instead of just snickering behind my back. It felt almost like having friends.

• • •

We ran into Cole when we went to dump our trays in the trash. “Howdy, partners,” he said.

“Howdy to you too, Cole,” said Lola. “Hey, my cousin has a question for you.” She nudged Amanda.

Amanda giggled and fake-slapped her. “I do not!”

“Yes, she does. It’s about your brother.”

“Jake? What about him?” asked Cole.

“Nothing,” said Amanda.

Lola said, “Amanda wanted to know, is he—”

Amanda jumped in quickly, talking over Lola. “I wanted to know, is he . . . um, is he on a sports team?”

“Yeah, he plays hockey. He’s pretty good too. Why?”

“I don’t know, I just . . .” Amanda looked like she wished she could die.

To spare her from having to answer, I said, “Are you athletic too, Cole? What about the rest of your family?”

Cole said, “My dad and my grandfather both played football in high school. And some of my ancestors way back were pretty good at sports—at least, they won races and stuff at church picnics. I don’t think they had sports teams back then.”

“Wow—how do you know all that?” asked Amanda.

“My grandpa kept the ribbons they won. He loves that kind of thing, like history. He has a lot of old family letters. Most of them are just about boring stuff like who owes them money or what the pastor said at church. But some of the men were sailors, and their letters are pretty cool. They sailed all over the world, to China and India and places like that.”

Hannah and Becky came over with their sandwich wrappers. “Is this the new hot spot—the trash?” said Becky.

“That’s right,” said Cole. “It’s where everyone who’s anyone dumps their trays.”

Becky glanced at my ankles again, but she didn’t say anything out loud. Apparently there were some advantages to having Cole as a friend.