Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard Page A

journalism-related assignments. One day, he asked us to pair off and write reports about our partners. There’d been an odd number of students, and I’d ended up the leftover. Mr. Moulton suggested I write a report about myself. I still remembered how it began.
Grace Carpenter was born at eleven p.m. on what turned out to be a cold and blustery night. The nurses said she was the most complicated baby they had ever delivered. Her mother, Adrina Carpenter, said she howled bloody murder, like a puppy with porcupine quills stuck in its rear .
    I hadn’t realized that Mr. Moulton meant for us to read them in front of the class. He graciously allowed me to claim my seat early when a bout of fake coughing overtook me.
    Sixth-Grade Graduation
June was sweepstakes month for Femme Fatale Cosmetics, Inc., when all purchases allowed the buyer to compete for a year’s supply of Femme Fatale products. Though it brought in good money, sweepstakes had made Momma so busy she forgot to finish my graduation dress. The morning of the ceremony, I’d found it draped over the sewing machine. I didn’t have any other dresses that fit; at twelve, I was already a jeans type of girl.
“Momma!” I’d wailed. “Graduation’s at ten!”
She had sewed as if her life depended on it, but the result was still a catastrophe: lopsided in the front, so short in the back it barely covered my underwear. My limbs poked out like winter branches. Crossing the cafeteria to get my diploma in front of all the other students and parents, I had shriveled with shame.
Little Miss Washokey, Wyo .
My onstage strip show at age six.
Enough said.
    In front of the mirror, I tugged my jeans low on my hips, as I had done in private so many times. Instead of a T-shirt, I put on one of the camisoles I used as pajamas, tight and purple with skinny straps. I brushed my hair loose over my shoulders. I had enough sense not to attempt anything as complicated as eyeliner or mascara, but I liked the sparkle when I touched a dab of Femme Fatale Misty Frost lip gloss to my eyelids.
    Deliberately avoiding eye contact with myself, I practiced my saunter in the remaining minutes before I swooped up Taffeta and left for school.
    “Why are you dressed like that?” she demanded.
    “Dressed like what?”
    “In your pajamas.”
    “It’s not pajamas. It’s just a shirt. Isn’t a person allowed a change once in a while?”
    Taffeta mulled it over, her shoes scuffling madly in her effort to keep up with me. “I guess so,” she said. “Your hair looks pretty. But not your belly stuck out like that. Momma would say that was obscene.”
    “Bellies aren’t obscene.”
    “Then what is?” she wondered.
    “It depends on who you’re asking.”

    Momma claimed that first impressions were the most critical part of every pageant: “Act like that first step you take onstage is the most important step of your life.”
    So after Taffeta scampered away, I didn’t pause at the edge of the lawn, mustering up my nerve to cross it. Instead, I tucked my hands into the pockets of my jeans and sauntered forward, my chin tipped up, my line of sight just above the featureless smear of faces on either side of me.
    I faltered just once: when I saw the agate stone I’d dropped on the steps Friday morning. It glittered like Cinderella’s slipper, but nobody had taken it.
    To everybody else, it was just a rock.
    I scooped it up and dumped it into my tote before pushing through the double doors.
    In homeroom, I tried to sit like Mandarin: leaning back in my seat with my legs stretched out in front of me. But then my shirt rode up a few inches. I felt the air hit my bare stomach.
    Am I overdoing it?
    That moment of doubt was all it took. As if someone had flipped a volume switch, I became acutely aware of the gaping stares, the not-so-hushed whispers, the laughter. Did they notice how nervous I was? I stole a quick glance at Davey Miller. He was engrossed in his English text, blinking harder than usual.