Here's Lily (7 page)

“Like anybody who hurts people's feelings,” Lily said. “Right now I think it should be just the four of us.”

“Why us?” Zooey asked.

Lily gave her a long look and then nodded at the basketball hoop. Zooey blinked at her.

“I get it,” Reni said. “We're the ones Shad and those guys pick on.”

“Right,” Lily said.

“What are we gonna do, fight them?” Zooey said. Her eyes bulged fearfully.

“I don't think I'm allowed to do that,” Suzy said.

“That's not what you're thinking, is it?” Reni said to Lily.

Lily shook her head. “Nope. What I'm thinking is that I've been learning about ways to look better—” She stopped. She'd almost let the secret out. For once she was glad Zooey burst in with—

“You
do
look better!” She gaped openmouthed into Lily's face. “I mean, better than you used to. I mean, not that you were ugly.”

Lily shrugged. “That's okay. I didn't used to make the most of what I had, but now I do.”

“Just like that one lady told us,” Suzy said.

Lily gave Reni a quick look, but Reni didn't say a word.

“So,” Lily said, “we could form a group, and I could teach you what I've been learning, and then Shad Shifferdecker wouldn't be able to make us lose it when he teases us.”

“You think he'd ever
stop
teasing us?” Zooey asked. “That's what
I
want.”

Lily thought again of the modeling show, and she smiled. “That could happen,” she said. “So, who wants to join?”

Zooey's chubby arm shot right up. Reni raised her hand too. Suzy glanced at both of them and then stuck her arm up and looked at her lap.

“Perfect,” Lily said.

“So how do we make a group?” Zooey said.

“We need a name first,” Reni said, and then she looked at Lily. “Don't we?”

“We should elect a president first. Then I—she—could run the meeting and pick a name.”

“You be the president, Lily,” Zooey said. “Since it was your idea.”

Lily looked around at the little group, just to be polite, and they all nodded.

“Okay,” Lily said, trying not to smile too big. “So who has a suggestion for a name?”

Suzy shook her head and continued to study her knees, and Zooey wrinkled up her forehead and looked stumped.

“Girls Only Group,” said Reni. “Just like you said.”

“That's a little boring,” Lily responded. “I mean, no offense.”

Reni pulled in her chin that way she had and said, “Huh!”

“Okay, I guess that's good,” Lily said. “Only maybe we could spell
girls
with a
z
.”

“Zirls?” Zooey said. The furrows in her forehead got deeper.

“No. G-i-r-l-z,” Lily said patiently.

“That'll look good on our T-shirts,” Reni said.

Zooey's eyes lit up. “We get T-shirts?”

“Well, not right away—”

“Maybe not ever,” Lily said. “This
is
a secret group.”

“Isn't secret bad?” Suzy said.

“We just don't want Shad and them finding out about it,” Lily said. “They'd think it was lame and make fun of it.”

Reni nodded. “I get it. But he's gonna know something's up. Look at him right now.”

All their heads turned toward Shad, who was standing, ball poised on his hip, staring right at them and saying something to Leo and Daniel out of the side of his mouth.

Suzy giggled her nervous giggle. “Maybe we should just split up before he comes over here.”

“I think we should find another place to meet,” Reni said.

“I guess so,” Lily said. “But we can't hide around here. He'd turn it into his mission in life to find us.”

“Wow.” Zooey blinked at her. “You always talk so smart. How do you do that?”

“So who says we have to meet at school?” Reni said. “We could meet
after
school, like at Lily's.”

Lily shook her head. “Not with my brothers hanging around. They're worse than Shad and Leo and Daniel all in one.”

They gave a group shudder and were silent. Lily saw Shad and his two sidekicks moving closer.

“Wait . . . I got it!” Reni said. “Lily, you know that playhouse in my backyard where we used to play dolls and stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“My mom's about to turn it into a gardening shed or something. But if I told her I still wanted to use it, we could have it for our clubhouse.”

“Cool!” Zooey almost shouted.

It
was
a cool idea, especially with Shad and Leo and Daniel moving in for the kill.

“Okay. Today after school. Reni's backyard,” Lily whispered. “We'll pick up there where we left off. Now, everybody—scatter!”

Suzy was the first one to bolt. Reni grabbed Lily's hand, and they scampered off toward the volleyball court. Zooey went right past Shad, but fortunately Shad seemed too disappointed to remember to hurl any insults at her. Lily glanced over her shoulder to see him standing, arms crossed over his chest, looking at her and Reni.

“I think we have him going already,” Lily whispered. So the first official meeting of the Girlz Only Group took place that very afternoon in Reni's old playhouse. They decided to set aside all other business until they could get rid of the dolls-having-a-tea-party décor. They spent that whole afternoon packing up the doll furniture and running to their own houses to bring back posters and cushions their moms didn't want anymore and anything else un-little-girlish they could find.

Suzy brought a bunch of long strings of beads, which they hung in the doorway to provide even more privacy than just the thin front door.

Zooey donated an ancient CD player that only played CDs but didn't fast-forward between tracks anymore. Lily thought that was okay—it still played their faves and was louder than her iPod so everybody could hear.

Reni found a bright pink rug her mother had bought for their bathroom on sale and ended up hating but couldn't return to the store.

“It sure is
pink
,” Suzy said, giggling.

“It makes a statement though,” Lily said. “We're Girlz. We need a strong pink that says that.”

Zooey gazed at her in admiration. “Wow,” she said.

When they all stood back to gaze at the finished product, Lily was amazed at how, well,
sophisticated
it looked. If Shad Shifferdecker were to see it, he couldn't say it was lame. Except, of course, that Shad had absolutely no taste whatsoever.

They didn't get to their real purpose—taking away all reasons for Shad to tease them—until two meetings later.

They had to elect the other officers first. Reni was vice president, Suzy was secretary, and since there was no money to keep track of and so no reason for a treasurer, Zooey was given the title of “lookout.” It was her job to make sure no boys were spying on them at any time.

Then they had to establish rules. Lily thought they were called “bylaws,” but since nobody was really sure, they called them rules. Suzy wrote them down carefully in a special notebook as they were decided.

1. The Girls Only Group is totally secret. Nobody else gets to know about it unless everybody says yes.

2. We meet every day after school except when somebody has a piano lesson or gymnastics or something.

3. We can bring a snack but no big meals.

4. Nobody's allowed to say anything to hurt somebody else's feelings because We get enough of that from boys.

5. Everybody agrees never to let Shad Shifferdecker or any other boy see that he's getting to us.

Number two was for Suzy's benefit. She was the only one who had any lessons right after school.

Number three was because of Zooey. Nobody said so, of course, but she always seemed to be carrying the contents of a refrigerator around with her.

Number five—the one about not letting any boy see that he was getting to them—was the hardest one to keep.

They were all at their computers in the classroom the next day, where the space was too small and crowded to begin with, when Zooey accidentally ran into Shad trying to get between some chairs. Shad hurled himself into the next row and said, “Dude! I bounced off!”

Zooey turned scarlet and balled up her fists and opened her mouth, and she probably would have hollered something if Reni and Lily hadn't pushed her into a seat and whispered, “Remember the rule.”

Then later, at lunch, Leo peered at Suzy's lunch tray in the cafeteria and asked, “Your mommy still packs you animal crackers?”

Suzy scrunched her shoulders up and hung her face down, almost into her sandwich bag, and Lily and Reni exchanged looks. Suzy was going to be a hard one to change.

But even the two of
them
found it tough to keep their cool when Shad and his buddies turned their attention their way.

“Quick, dude, get me some sunglasses!” Shad shouted when they were outside that afternoon. “Dude, Lily. Yer skin's so white, I can't see with the sun shining on it. Go inside—you're blinding me!”

Then he looked at Reni. “Hey,” he said, “how do you ever know if you're sunburned? You look well-done all the time!”

Lily and Reni had to hold
each other
back by then.

Lily knew it was time to get to work at that day's meeting.

First, she taught them all how to stand and how to walk, which was hard inside the tiny playhouse. She also taught them how to come into a room and introduce themselves. Reni picked it all up right away. But Zooey couldn't seem to keep her mouth from hanging open and saying, “Wow,” and Suzy couldn't quite bring herself to look anybody in the eye. After three sessions, they weren't showing a lot of improvement, but Lily moved on to hair and lip gloss so they wouldn't lose interest.

Suzy's thick, straight dark hair didn't want to do anything except fall silkily against her cheeks the way it always did, but when Lily put some almost-pink gloss on her lips and Suzy saw herself in the mirror, she smiled.

“Suzy, that looks good on you, girl!” Reni said.

Lily studied Suzy's face critically. She didn't think the little bit of shine on Suzy's lips made that much difference, but she did look prettier somehow.

“Hey,” Zooey said. “She smiled!”

“So?” Reni shrugged. She sometimes had trouble following rule number four when it came to Zooey.

“She hardly ever smiles,” Zooey said. “You look good smiling, Suzy!”

Suzy, of course, looked down at her shoes.

When it was Zooey's turn, it wasn't as easy to find her best features and highlight them the way Lily was learning to do. Lily sure wished Kathleen could help. But since the modeling school was still a secret to everyone except Reni, Lily had to do the best she could on her own.

Zooey's hair was thin and the color of wheat bread, and Lily was sure somebody had given her a haircut with a lawn mower. They all wished for a curling iron, but nobody had one her mom would let her take out of the house. Zooey was almost in tears until Lily remembered something Kathleen had said in class to a girl who had a round face and baby cheeks. She'd said to pull her hair up to make it look . . . Well, Lily couldn't remember that part, but a hair tie was found, and Lily pulled some of Zooey's hair up into it on top of her head, and Reni brushed the rest of it until it was shiny. Suzy, who was the only one with bangs, took some gel and created some bangs over Zooey's forehead. Lily wasn't sure it was an improvement, but Zooey was glowing before she even looked in the mirror.

“You guys are nice to me,” she said.

“We gotta be,” Reni said. “The rules say so. Now be still or this lip gloss'll go up your nose for sure.”

Zooey had full lips like Lily's, only her mouth was small like a little bow. They looked cute with some shine on them. She looked like a cherub. Who'd have thought?

“Definitely blush,” Reni said as she surveyed the finished Zooey. “Ya'll white girls got the palest skin.”

“I'm sorry,” Zooey almost whispered.

“What for? You're supposed to be white. Now hold
still
!”

Lily was about to remind Reni about rule number four again, but Zooey's feelings obviously weren't hurt.

She was beaming so brightly, she really didn't need any blush. And when Zooey looked in the mirror, Lily was sure she was going to split right open in delight.

“Look at me!” she said.

“You look good,” Suzy said shyly.

“You look great!” Lily looked around at them. “We all do. Let's walk like we know we look good!”

Lily was sure if Shad Shifferdecker had seen them, he probably would have folded in half laughing. But the four girls were grinning all the way into their eyes, even Suzy. Lily tossed her hair in the breeze and imagined a filmy skirt blowing out behind her. Next session, maybe they'd talk about clothes.

The next day at school, when the collages all went up around the room and each person had to tell the class about his or hers, Lily hoped they could all get those smiles back. She decided it was kind of like a test.

Ms. Gooch called on Reni first. When she went up to the bulletin board, Lily squeezed her hand and Zooey whispered, “Good luck.” Even Suzy took her eyes off her desktop to show her support. Getting up in front of the class was something everybody hated—except Shad, who didn't care what he had to do as long as it got him some attention.

“I did my vision on what I want to do when I'm all done with school and everything,” Reni said, jabbing her finger at her collage. “Only I can't decide what I want to do, so I put a whole bunch of stuff on there.”

Shad sighed loudly. Ms. Gooch looked hard at him, but she didn't say anything.

“I put, like, horse trainer,” Reni went on as she continued to point to the collage. “Veterarian—”