The New Kid

Makeover

The rest of the day wasn’t very exciting. Liza had combed over all the faces in all of her classes but didn’t find Tony again. Apparently the fates had transpired against her yet again. She wasn’t very pretty, no boys paid attention to her, and Tony was nowhere to be seen. How horrible could her life be? Sixth hour was the longest class. At least in her other periods she had anticipated checking the next one for Tony, but now all she had to look forward to was getting home. Great, all alone with her thoughts on a bad day. Not a great combination.

Sighing, she tried to pay attention, but found it impossible. Instead she pulled out her doodling notebook where she kept all her drawings. Most of them were of her crushes; they could usually cheer her up. No one knew about the notebook, not even Ryan or Jen. Especially not them. Liza closed her eyes and flipped to a random page. To her surprise, it was a drawing of Ryan. She had forgotten that she had drawn him! She had been really bored in class and had no one to draw, so she just decided to draw him, just for fun. She stared at it for a minute, idly thinking he was kind of cute. Then realizing what she’d just said to herself, Liza shook her head violently. They were just friends. Really good friends. Who knew each other by heart.

Shaking her head again, Liza flipped to a new page, admiring her drawing of a boy named Matthew. He was her favorite; cute, funny, and witty. But he didn’t really talk to her either. Suddenly, the bell rang for the end of school. She gave one last longing glance at the notebook and then shoved it quickly back into her backpack, dreading the long walk home.

Walking quickly out the door, making her way toward the gates, she almost ran into Jen. “Sorry, I didn’t see you!” Liza apologized.

“Wow, I can’t believe you!” She looked away, acting hurt. “Just kidding. I’m over it. Hey, want to come over to my house today? We don’t have any homework today, so I figured I could give you some beauty tips!” Seeing Liza’s pained expression, she hastily continued. “Come on, it really can’t do any harm. And don’t you want to experiment with your hair? There’s so much you can do with it! Please?” She made a pouty face and batted her ridiculously long eyelashes.

Liza laughed. “Okay, okay, fine. But just this once. And if I don’t like it, it comes off immediately. Deal?”

Jen squealed in delight. “Deal! Oh, we’re going to have so much fun!! You’re going to look so pretty!! Boys won’t be able to resist you!”

Liza thought about that. It would be nice for people to actually notice her for once. And she wouldn’t mind a certain boy noticing her… As they walked to Jen’s house, she found herself anticipating the makeover the tiniest bit.