Standing Up to Life

Chapter 21:

THE NEXT DAY I woke up because I heard Dad getting ready for work. I tried to go back to sleep but no matter what I tried I was still awake. At 8:30, after thirty minutes of trying I finally got out of bed and went to the kitchen for something to eat. As I walked into the kitchen, I heard Mom talking on the phone to someone.

"Are you sure you think that is an okay idea?" I heard her ask someone. "No. I think this is probably more than just a phase..." She must be talking about me. "Okay, that sounds fine. We'll meet you there at Ten... See you in a bit."

"Who was that Mommy?" She smiled at me. "You haven't called me Mommy since you were little. Why the change?"

I shrugged, "Amy still calls her Mommy that – in fact I think most of my girl friends do."

"I could get used to this." She said still smiling. "That was Ms. Fitzgerald. I called to talk to her about you. She and Mrs. Manning want to meet with Tiffany at ten o'clock to discuss what's going on."

"Really!?"

"Now, I don't think that we're going to have you go as Tiffany full time necessarily Tiff. But they do want to see you and talk about it."

"How long do I have to get ready?" I asked.

"About an hour or so. Why don't we go pick something out for you to wear then take a shower and I'll do your hair?"

"Okay!" I said. I skipped to my room – Mom just walked (slow poke!). I already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to wear today. I had a pink jumper/white t-shirt set that we had bought yesterday that I loved. It might have been a little on the juvenile side... but Amy had one almost identical to it that she had worn to school at least two times in the past couple months.

The one thing that I had noticed that I had to be careful about more than anything else, when we were shopping, was that I was still only a size eight. Most of the time anything available in larger sizes was also available in my size. But, a lot of the other stuff that was available in my size made me look like I was in kindergarten...

Anyway... I liked this outfit and couldn't wait to put it back on. I showed Mom what I wanted to wear and she nodded. I took my shower – being sure that I really got my hair nice and clean – and then put on the outfit. As soon as I had it on I had to twirl around like I had yesterday. It didn't poof out much, but it still flared out a little. I stopped when I became slightly dizzy. I quickly brushed my teeth and sat in a chair in the kitchen.

Mom came up behind me and used a curling iron to curl the bottom of my hair and my bangs. She worked on my hair for a while before I was able to get up and see. I immediately ran to the bathroom to look at myself – I squealed! I was happy. Mom had used some clippy things that we had gotten from Claire's in a couple spots on each side. I really liked it.

"Thank you, Mommy." I told Mom when I saw her behind me.

"My pleasure sweetheart. We'll have to work on teaching you how to do this yourself this summer."

"Okay." I replied.

"We also need to go get some curling irons of your own too. We'll look at that when we get back from the trip though, okay?"

I nodded, "Okay. How long do we have before we have to leave?"

"We've got about twenty minutes, do you want something for breakfast?"

"Scrambled eggs?" I kind of batted my eyes at her.

"Stop batting your eyes at me young lady..." She said laughing. "Alright."

She walked away to go make me some eggs and I stared at myself in the mirror. Apparently I must have been staring for a while, because Mom hollered, "They're ready." I realized that I had been staring for an awfully long time at that point! I walked to the kitchen and enjoyed my eggs.