Dawn's Big Date

  “Are you all right?” asked Claud, brushing snow off Norman’s hat as he came in the door. His head was down and his eyes were brimming with tears. He didn’t say anything, just walked straight up to the kitchen.

  “Hey, remember you’re on a diet!” Sarah called, when she heard a cabinet door open.

  “Take it easy,” Claud told her. “He’s just had a pretty crummy experience.”

  Sarah looked up at her. “It’s for his own good. My mother says so. I know he’s eating something bad now.”

  Sure enough, Norman had opened a package of Oreos. Sarah snatched the bag from him. “Mom told me to take these away from you.”

  Norman’s face grew red with anger. He didn’t say a word, though. He just stormed off to his bedroom.

  At that moment, the doorbell rang. Sarah ran to answer it. It was Elizabeth, from next door. “Can I go outside for awhile?” Sarah called to Claud. “I’ll stay in our yard.”

  “Sure,” Claud answered.

  After Sarah left, Claud knocked on Norman’s door. “Norman, can I come in?” she asked.

  She heard movement inside, but got no answer. “Norman,” she tried again. “Are you okay?”

  Still no answer.

  Claud decided she should probably leave him alone for awhile. She went back to the living room and started to browse through some art magazines. (Mrs. Hill is an agent for illustrators. She has tons of art books and magazines in the house, so Claud was in heaven.) In about a half hour, she heard Norman’s door creak open.

  Pretending she was still reading, Claud waited to see what he would do. She wasn’t surprised that he tiptoed into the kitchen. Like a hungry mouse, Norman was rustling around in the kitchen once again.

  Claud got up and tiptoed to the kitchen doorway. Norman was so intent on wolfing down his cookies that he didn’t notice her. “Norman,” Claud said after a moment.

  Norman nearly jumped off his chair. He began stuffing the cookies back into the bag.

  “Relax. It’s okay,” said Claud, sitting down beside him. “I won’t turn you in. I’m Claudia, by the way.”

  “Hi,” he mumbled through a mouthful of cookies. “Where’s Dawn?”

  Claud explained to him how the BSC worked. He didn’t look too pleased. Some kids like the variety of sitters. Others would rather have the same one all the time.

  Norman continued eating cookies until Claud felt that she had to say something. “They aren’t going to help your diet much.”

  “It’s not my diet,” Norman replied.

  “What do you mean?” Claud asked, puzzled.

  “It’s my parents’ diet. They talked to the doctor. They decided I should go on it. So it’s their diet.”

  “But they’re doing it for you,” Claud pointed out.

  “No, they’re not,” Norman disagreed, as he took another cookie. “They’re doing it for them. They don’t want to have a fat son.”

  “Do you want to be heavy?” Claud pressed gently.

  Norman shrugged. “I don’t like being fat, but I like to eat. If I feel sad, eating makes me feel happy.”

  “Do you feel sad a lot?” asked Claud.

  “Sometimes,” Norman admitted. “I don’t feel sad when I’m eating, though.”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t feel sad if you lost some weight,” Claud suggested. “You might feel happier if the kids didn’t pick on you and call you names.”

  “I don’t care about them. I have other friends,” Norman insisted. “I have a friend in school named Teddy. And I have a girlfriend.”

  “You do?” said Claud, trying hard not to sound surprised.

  Norman took a big gulp of milk, then he nodded. “Yeah. Brittany. She’s my pen pal. I think I’ll write to her now.” Stuffing five more cookies into his pockets, Norman headed out of the kitchen to his room.

  With a sigh, Claud returned to the living room and her magazines. Only this time, she couldn’t concentrate on them. She had to find some way to get through to Norman. Somebody had to. Otherwise he was just going to keep getting fatter and more miserable.

  In about another half hour, the phone rang. “Hi, this is Teddy,” said a young voice on the other end. “Is Norman there?”

  “I’ll get him,” said Claud, glad there really was a Teddy. “Norman,” she called, as she leaned down the hall to his room. “Phone for you. It’s Teddy.”

  Norman’s door opened. He came out, holding a green spiral notebook. “Okay, thanks,” he said, passing her in the hallway. “I told you I had a friend.”

  As he headed for the kitchen phone, a piece of paper fluttered from his notebook. Claud picked it up. It appeared to be a draft of a letter to his pen pal. Well, what do you know, thought Claud. There really is a Teddy and there really is a pen pal.

  Maybe Claud shouldn’t have read Norman’s letter, but she did. She was hoping it might help her understand Norman better. “Dear Brittany,” it said. “Today was another awesome day for me. I managed to clobber some school bullies, but good. They were picking on this kid at school. He’s a totally amazing kid, just slightly heavy. That’s why they pick on him. About ten bullies surrounded him. They were the gooniest kids in the whole school — and the ugliest. And they were big and mean. Everyone else is afraid of them. I’m not. I grabbed one of them and karate-chopped him. His friend tried to get me, but I hit him with my flying judo kick. Everyone was cheering. Kids in school were yelling, ‘Norman! Norman! Go! Go! Go!’ Two guys came at me at once. I clunked their heads together. That made the rest of them run away.

  “That was my day. How was yours? Thanks for the picture you sent. You are very pretty. I don’t have any pictures of myself. But I’ll send you one as soon as my mother’s camera is fixed. I keep reminding her to fix it, but she keeps forgetting.”

  Claud put the letter back in Norman’s room. She dropped it on his floor so he wouldn’t know she’d read it. On his desk was a sheet of recent wallet-sized pictures of Norman. They looked like his school pictures.

  Somehow Claud was pretty sure that Brittany was never going to see one of them, or any other picture of her pen pal.

  Time was running out. Less than a week remained before Lewis arrived. I’d sent him the picture Mary Anne took of “the new Dawn.” Mary Anne also took a second picture in a slightly different pose. I kept that one.

  Funny about the second picture. I couldn’t stop looking at it. I stuck it in my wallet and looked at it a lot. Something about the photo fascinated me. It was as if it were of me — but not me.

  The reason hit me during physical science class on Monday afternoon. I’d stuck the photo into my textbook and was gazing down at it. (I’d already finished the section we were supposed to be reading. I read pretty fast.) I suddenly realized that this was a picture of the person I was going to become. Like a glimpse into the future.

  And it wasn’t all about looks, either. Sure, that was a big part of it. But it was also about attitude. There was something about not smiling for the camera that made everything clear to me. The old Dawn was always so eager to make people happy. Always pleasant and polite. The Dawn in the picture didn’t care. The new Dawn was cool.

  At that moment, I had a chance to try out my new attitude. Ms. Harris, my science teacher, told us to stop reading. “Okay, quick quiz,” she said. She does this pretty regularly. You get two points on your next test mark if you answer her questions correctly. You lose two points if you don’t. She calls on people at random.

  “Dawn,” she said. “Name two common forms of igneous rock.”

  Physical science is not my favorite subject. But I could answer that one. Granite and basalt. It was right in the text.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but something stopped me. I didn’t feel like being Perky Dawn, Good Student. Cool kids didn’t sit up straight and answer all the teacher’s questions. They slouched and stared into space as if everything were a bore.

  “Heavy metal and pop,” I answered, tossing my hair over my shoulder.

  My
teacher looked confused, then shocked.

  She couldn’t have been more shocked than I was. I couldn’t believe I had actually said that!

  A ripple of low laughter swept through the class. A cute boy named Bill Torrance looked over at me and smiled. He’d never done that before. It was working!

  “Very amusing, Dawn,” said Ms. Harris. “But I wasn’t talking about rock and roll. I was talking about igneous rock.”

  “Is that a new group?” I asked boldly.

  The class laughed again. It was great. They were seeing me in a new light.

  So was Ms. Harris. She didn’t look happy, though. “I take it you don’t know the answer,” she said calmly.

  “No, I don’t,” I lied.

  Ms. Harris made a mark in her grade book and then called on someone else. She was still asking questions when I noticed a note being passed my way.

  Inside the note was a drawing of a rock band. The members had rocks for heads. On top was written “Igneous Rock! Good one, Dawn!” It was from Sue Archer, a very cool girl in my class. She’d never sent me a note before. Being cool was easier than I’d thought.

  From that moment on, there was no stopping me. It was Project New Dawn all the way!

  The new me needed time the next morning to put on makeup, fix my hair, and pick out my clothes. I needed so much extra time that I missed the bus. (Was Mom ever mad when she had to drive me to school. She would have been even angrier if she saw that I’d purposely ripped my new jeans. But I wore a long coat, so she never knew.)

  Clothing was the biggest problem. My clothes were all wrong. I couldn’t find anything to wear. I had to spend Tuesday evening fixing them.

  “Have you gone nuts?” Mary Anne gasped, when she saw what I was doing to my wardrobe. A bunch of clothes were laid out on my bed. I was completely revamping everything with the help of Mom’s sewing kit and a pair of sharp scissors.

  All my jeans needed to be taken in. (I ripped one more pair above the knee and left one pair unripped.) I made several off-the-shoulder tops. I even created a miniskirt out of a pair of gray sweat pants. I cut off the legs, opened the inside seams, and then patched up the gaps with some flowered material. (It was left over from a flowered T-shirt I’d cut up.)

  “That’s pretty cute,” said Mary Anne, holding up the sweat skirt. “You should get Claudia to help you.”

  “Nah,” I disagreed. “Claud has her unique style. I want to create my own style.”

  “Wow,” Mary Anne murmured. “I know we experimented with a new look, but you’re going all out. How come? Is it because of Lewis?”

  “Not really,” I replied. “It’s just time for a change, that’s all.” I was going to tell her why I felt I needed a new image. That it wasn’t just because of Lewis. It was because I was a dud with boys altogether. But I’d noticed that cool kids don’t talk a lot. They don’t explain everything they’re thinking and feeling. Cool kids just go ahead and do what they want to do.

  “Maybe it is time,” Mary Anne agreed.

  Mary Anne was really surprising me. Was she just being supportive? Or had she been thinking something was wrong with me all along? I had expected a little argument from her. A little “Dawn, you’re fine the way you are.” I didn’t know if I was glad or annoyed that she didn’t say that.

  I take that back. I did know. I felt that I should be glad. But deep down I was annoyed.

  My friends had different reactions to my new appearance.

  “You look strange,” Kristy said. (I more or less expected that from her.)

  “You don’t need so much blush,” Stacey advised me.

  Claudia’s reaction took me by surprise. “The look is all wrong for you,” she said. “It’s not who you are.” Can you imagine Claud — of all people — saying that? I just shrugged. (Cool kids shrug a lot.) But inside I was steaming. I guess Claudia thought it was okay for her and Stacey to be stylish and cute, but not me. No. I was just plain, wholesome Dawn, and I was supposed to stay that way.

  I decided she might even be jealous. She might not want anyone looking more “unique” than she herself did.

  So, by the time of our Wednesday afternoon BSC meeting, I was pretty angry at Claudia. I slumped on her bed, chewing hard on a wad of pink bubble gum. (It was sugarless.)

  “I’ve never seen you chew gum before,” Stacey observed.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I replied.

  “Can you blow a bubble?” asked Mal from her spot on the floor.

  I shook my head. Believe it or not, this was the first piece of bubble gum I’d ever chewed.

  “Do you have another piece?” she asked me.

  I took one from my back pocket and gave it to her. She quickly chewed it, then blew a giant bubble. “You flatten it down, then stick your tongue into it and blow,” she instructed me.

  I tried and got a small bubble going.

  Kristy started the meeting. She talked about organizing a pizza party next Monday afternoon. Everyone would meet at a pizza parlor with their baby-sitting charges. It was a good idea, but there were millions of little problems. Jessi would be sitting for a kid who was allergic to tomato sauce. Mary Anne wasn’t sure she could keep all three Barrett kids under control in the pizzeria. Claud was sitting for a family with an infant who might fuss. Stacey would be sitting for the Hills that day. From what she’d heard, she didn’t think the Hills would want Norman eating pizza.

  Right off the bat, I could tell the plan wasn’t going to work. Plus, I didn’t much care, since I wasn’t sitting that afternoon. I was more interested in perfecting my bubble-blowing technique. Crack! a small one popped.

  Kristy had been talking. She shot me a Look. I wasn’t in the mood for Kristy’s big-boss attitude. I blew another bubble. This one grew really big. Crack! It popped even more loudly than the one before.

  “Do you mind?” Kristy snapped.

  “Cool down,” I replied. “It’s just a bubble. It’s not as though I set off a firecracker or something.”

  “Can I ask you a question?” said Kristy angrily. “What is it with you the last few days? You’re acting totally strange.”

  “I am not,” I protested.

  “Yes, you are,” Claudia jumped in. “You seem like someone else.”

  “You do,” agreed Stacey.

  This was just great! My friends were ganging up on me. “What law says I always have to be the same?” I asked them. “When Mary Anne changed her hair and clothes, nobody jumped all over her.”

  Everyone looked at Mary Anne.

  “It’s not the same,” said Kristy.

  “Why not?” I challenged.

  “Because Mary Anne didn’t start acting differently,” Claudia remarked.

  “You guys are crazy,” I insisted. “I’m not acting differently. You just think so because I look a little different. Excuse me for blowing bubbles, all right? I won’t blow another one as long as I live.”

  “Are you doing this because of Lewis?” Stacey asked.

  “In a way yes, and in a way no,” I said truthfully.

  “That really answers the question,” Kristy scoffed.

  Stacey let Kristy’s remark pass. “Because if you are, maybe you shouldn’t. Just be yourself.”

  “Look,” I said, sitting forward. “It’s easy for you to talk. Guys like you. They don’t like me when I’m myself. I have to change. That’s how I feel. So please don’t bug me about it anymore.”

  “I know what Dawn means,” Mary Anne said loyally. “Everyone should be allowed to change. I mean, we’re only thirteen. None of us will stay exactly the way we are for the rest of our lives.”

  “I suppose,” Stacey grumbled.

  “I liked you better the way you were,” Claud insisted, looking at me critically.

  “Let’s get back to the meeting,” said Kristy irritably. “So, okay, my great pizza party idea looks like it’s a washout …”

  Just then the phone rang. It was Dr. Johanssen. Stacey took the job of
sitting for eight-year-old Charlotte. Everyone began talking about what a great kid Charlotte is, but I really wasn’t listening. I was mad at all of them except Mary Anne. I was only annoyed and confused by Mary Anne. (I wasn’t angry with Jessi or Mal, either, since they hadn’t said anything.) I wanted to get out of there and back to my room.

  Finally the meeting ended. “Are you angry?” Mary Anne asked, as we walked across our lawn.

  “No,” I lied.

  “You seem angry,” she pressed.

  “Well, maybe a little,” I admitted, opening the front door. “Why can’t they leave me alone?”

  “Because they care about you.”

  “That’s not why,” I argued, as I pulled off my jacket. “They just want me to stay the same. At least you understand.”

  “I think I do,” Mary Anne replied. “Don’t be mad at them. They’ll get used to the new you.”

  Mary Anne disappeared into the kitchen, and I ran upstairs. I wanted to send Lewis one last piece of mail before he arrived.

  It was a postcard I’d bought recently. It showed the back of a big chair. All you saw were a woman’s curvy legs hanging over the side. She wore red high heels.

  “Dear Lewis,” I wrote. “Dying to see you Friday night. Mary Anne said you have an extremely hunky voice. Can’t wait to hear it whisper in my ear. Until then, Dawn.”

  Did I dare send it? The old Dawn wouldn’t even have written it. The new Dawn stamped it and ran downstairs, out to the mailbox.

  There’s one thing about New York City I can’t get used to. It’s how bright it is at night. The bridges, the buildings, the highways — they’re so lit up you can hardly see the stars.

  We weren’t actually in the city. But we were right outside it. Mary Anne, Logan, and I sat in the backseat of the Brunos’ big car as Mr. Bruno drove toward LaGuardia Airport. Lewis had tried to get a flight into our local airport but those flights were booked. It’s easier to get a flight into LaGuardia because more planes land there.

  Logan and Mary Anne held hands during the entire trip. It made me feel a little weird to be sitting back there with them.