Back at home, Tugs left Ned in the living room with Granny and her mother and went to her room with the excuse that she had to change clothes. How could she be like the Marys with Ned hovering around?

She sat on her bed with her camera and scanned her room through the viewfinder, inspecting everything through the lens.

Click: a spider resting in her web in the sloped corner of the ceiling.

Click: tiny faded flowers on the curtain, rustling slightly in the barest midday breeze. The curtains were frayed at the bottom, and dirty.

There were several yellowed newspaper pictures cut from the Cedar Rapids Tribune.

She scanned the whole room but could not find one beautiful thing.

Until the Fourth of July, Tugs hadn’t known she wanted a ribbon or a Kodak. She hadn’t thought about possibility. Tugs had never aspired. Burton’s accusation rang again in her head. Tugs was a Button, and all at once she understood what that meant. Who else but a Button would wear dirty ribbons pinned to their dirty overalls? Her face burned with belated embarrassment.

“What on earth are you still doing in here?” said her mother, peering around the door. “Ned wants to entice Granny into a game of marbles, but she’s retreated out to the weed patch.”

“Tell him I don’t have time for him,” said Tugs. “I’m busy.”

Mother Button stepped all the way into Tugs’s room and shut the door behind her.

“Busy is doing something useful. Now, your cousin is here. I suggest you get out there and do something with him. You’ve got one foot in the doghouse already, leaving him with Ralph Stump for the three-legged race.”

“I can’t,” said Tugs.

“What do you mean, can’t?”

“I don’t have anything to wear.”

“Wear? Since when did you worry about what you are going to wear?”

“Girls wear dresses and skirts, Mother. I can’t go around wearing those dirty overalls anymore.”

Mother Button studied Tugs, then pulled open the middle dresser drawer and pulled out a dress.

“Here. You can press this. It probably still fits.”

“Oh!” said Tugs. “I forgot about that dress. Thanks.”

Tugs bounded out of bed and pulled on the dress in its wrinkled state and smoothed it with her hands. It was an old dress of her mother’s that had been made over for Tugs for last year’s school program. She’d stuffed it in the drawer afterward, never intending to wear something so uncomfortable again. It was a little small but she could still button it, and if she scrubbed the dirt off her knees, maybe no one would notice that it was a little too short. Why did she have to keep growing, for Pete’s sake?

“There,” she said, presenting herself to Mother Button and Ned in the living room. “All I need now is a bob. Can you cut my hair, Mama?”

Mother Button looked at Ned, who shrugged.

“It’s the Marys,” he said. “She wants to look like the Marys.”

“Hmmm,” mused Mother Button, running her fingers through Tugs’s mass of curly hair. “Is that how the girls are wearing it now? I guess we could see what we could do.” She rummaged through the junk drawer for a scissors and went to the linen closet for a sheet to put under the stool. “Just straight across all the way around, right?” she asked.

“Here,” said Ned, holding up Mother Button’s Good Housekeeping magazine. “Look at the pictures of the ladies in here.”

Tugs thanked Ned grudgingly. She was grateful for the haircut help but annoyed that Ned was hanging around in the first place. Didn’t he have friends his own age to bother? She paged quickly through the magazine.

“There,” she said, pointing to a woman in an ad. “Like that. To the bottom edge of my face.”

“Looks easy enough,” said Mother Button. “Go wet your hair in the sink and we’ll give it a try.”

Tugs stuck her head under the kitchen sink and got it soaking wet. Then she wrapped a towel around her head and hopped up on the stool. Mother Button worked a comb through the snarls as Tugs winced. Then she pulled a lock of hair down with the comb, stopping the comb at chin length, then snipping along the teeth of the comb. She grabbed the next lock and repeated the process. Trouble was, when she let go of the wet hair, the spring in the curls wound right back up, leaving Tugs’s new cut considerably shorter than anticipated. It was more of an ear-length bob than a chin-length bob. Ned’s eyes grew wide.

“Well?” said Tugs, anxious to see.

“It’s bobbed all right,” said Ned.

“Oh, dear,” said Mother Button. “I’m afraid this might not be exactly what you had in mind. But Ned is right. It is bobbed.” She went to her room and brought back her hand mirror and held it up for Tugs to see.

“Perfect!” said Tugs. “I’ll bet the Marys got theirs short, too. Wait until Aggie sees!” She shook her head back and forth. “I feel so light. Oh, my neck is all cool. You should try it, too, Mama. It’s fashionable and comfortable.”

“Well, one bob in the family might be enough for starters,” said Mother Button. “Get the broom, now, and sweep up all that hair.”

“But I need to go to Mary Louise’s.”

“Tomorrow,” said Mother Button firmly. “Your hair won’t grow overnight, and if you change out of your dress for the rest of today, it will still be clean tomorrow.”