“Hey, Gret? Turned out to be a beautiful day after all! No rainclouds anywhere and a nice breeze so we won’t sweat to death! Told you there was nothing to worry about!”
Robin literally bounced into the junior bathroom to share this good news with her best friend. She was wearing a rabbit costume, but bouncing seemed to come naturally to this girl. She couldn’t stand still more than a second, hopping from mirror to mirror and wiggling her pink-painted nose at her reflection.
From inside the stall, Gretta wondered for the millionth time how her best friend since fourth grade could always be so full of fun and energy.
“You alive in there, Gret?” Robin yelled and jumped over to kick at the closed stall door with one big fuzzy foot. “Everyone else has already gone outside to line up!”
“Just fixing my costume!” shouted Gretta. “I’ll just be a second. And you’re right, I shouldn’t have worried!”
“Yeah, you not worry? Ha! I’m going to wait just outside, so hurry up! We can’t be late!”
Robin kicked again at the stall door and then bounced back out into the hall while her friend struggled to get ready.
Gretta sighed. She was already wearing most of her costume – the suit and the matching shirt and tie. The only part left other than a few accessories was the mask. It waited in the brown paper bag at her feet. Unable to stall any longer, she pulled it out and started wiggling it onto her head. It was a little difficult to get on, but that was how she had wanted. Hard to put on, hard to fall off, she’d reasoned while she was working with her grandmother to put everything together in the weeks leading up to Duggan Academy’s homecoming parade.
While Gretta didn’t have her friend’s energy, she did have more than enough creativity for both of them. With help from her grandmother only on the hardest bits of sewing, she’d made the shiny purple three-piece suit almost entirely by hand . She’d sculpted the paper mache lion mask herself and, for the mane, she’d attached strips of brown velour and felt with thin wire that let them curl and bounce the way she wanted. She’d even Scotch-guarded it all in case it rained on the parade day. For the final touches, she’d borrowed a her grandfather’s cane and her older sister’s yellow stiletto heels. Her family had loved the final product.
And Gretta had thought her costume looked really great, too. At least, that’s how she’d felt last night and even earlier this morning. Then, during first period, everyone started showing off their professionally-made or expenisve store-bought costumes. By second period, she’d begun to feel queasy and had asked Robin to check her iPhone to see if the weather forecast had changed. In the next class, she prayed during the whole biology lecture that a big storm would roll in and cancel everything. It didn’t though, because after lunch, the principal’s voice came over the intercom and told everyone it was the time to get dressed and line up with his or her classes,.
So, Gretta had hauled her bags to the bathroom and shut herself in the first available stall. She’d then lingered until everyone else had dressed and gone to the back of the school.
Everyone but her best friend, it seemed.
Gretta sighed and fiddled with the mask a bit more. Outside, Robin apparently had decided Homecoming Day was special enough that the teachers wouldn’t mind her singing at the top of her lungs in the hallway. The words to “Little Bunny Foo Foo” started to drift into the bathroom. In spite of her nerves, Gretta giggled.
“I’m the goon,” she said out loud, her voice echoing inside the mask. “Especially if I make Rob miss the whole parade because I’m hiding in the bathroom.”
With a final twist, she set the mask straight, eyeholes and everything lined up just right so that she could see and breathe at the same time. She pushed open the stall and looked at herself in the long mirror over the sinks. The lion face she’d painted sneered arrogantly back at her with downturned pipecleaner whiskers studded with tiny rhinestones. The brown and gold mane curled just right down to her shoulders. She twisted slowly, and even under the fluorescent lights, the purple lame suit and yellow sequined vest shimmered. In sunlight, she hoped it would be dazzling. She smoothed her yellow tie and straightened the matching handkerchief. She tugged on a pair of shiny yellow nylon gloves and pushed and pulled at a few more places until she heard Robin yell her name from the hallway.
“Coming!” Gretta shouted back. Her voice echoed a bit in the mask and sounded a little spooky. With a half-smile and clenched teeth, she slipped on her sister’s shoes and picked up her grandfather’s cane. She walked out just as she’d practiced, careful to keep her head and back straight so that the top-heavy mask wouldn’t slip. The three-inch heels didn’t help, but she’d decided that she could sacrifice a little comfort and balance for the overall effect.
It worked, too, because her friend squealed excitedly when she saw her.
“I knew you’d look awesome, Gret, but wow! Just wait until those seniors see us! We are so gonna win!” Robin bounced over and offered a big fuzzy paw for a high five. Gretta carefully slapped it with her gloved hand and then laughed when Robin turned and shook her fluffy bunny tail at her.
“Ha, Rob! You make the cutest bunny ever!”
“Of course, I do! All the boy bunnies are crazy about me, you know!”
Robin stopped bouncing long enough to strike a pose like those wannabe glamour shots that she and Gretta made fun of on MySpace. She pursed her lips, tucked her chin down, and fluttered her lashes. Then, she wiggled her pink nose and glued-on whiskers until the two of them burst out laughing.
Suddenly, the principal’s voice boomed over the intercom, telling everyone left in the building that the parade would get underway with or without them in exactly five minutes. Robin’s mood was contagious, and Gretta found herself squealing in excitement along with her.
As they moved down the hall, Robin leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “You know, my mom spent a lot of time online buying this. Nearly starved, it took her so long – thank God that we don’t have dial-up! And, Gret, she clicked her poor mouse finger to the bone! To the bone! And then, why, she even had to type in the credit card number herself. Herself!”
“Oh! However did she survive?” Gretta gasped in mock horror and dramatically placed the back of her right hand against her lion’s forehead. The two girls laughed.
Their friend Cameron was waiting near the exitdoor at the end of their class’s hall. Robin leapt ahead cheering, “Go Juniors! We’re gonna win! We’re gonna win! Go Juniors!”
Cameron was wearing a chubby paper mache snowman suit covered in glittery snowflakes, so she couldn’t jump. She was wearing her ballet slippers though, so instead, she spun a happy little pirouette and chimed, “Go Sophomores!”
She spun again as Gretta walked up and said, “Typical Gret craftsmanship! You look spectacular! Everyone’s going to love it!”
“You, too! I love the carrot!” Gretta replied. Cameron’s mom had cut an oval shape from the snowman’s face and powdered her daughter’s face stark white except for glittery eye makeup and lipstick that gave her a jolly smile. A big plastic carrot nose was the final touch. “How’s it stay on?”
“I know! Duck tape!” Robin giggled before Cameron could answer. Gretta laughed as the bunny and the snowman both pirouetted at the same time.
“You both look so great! Let’s go meet the others before the parade starts!”
The three friends walked outside toward the soccer field at the rear of the school. Robin moved a lot faster in her professionally made bunny costume, so she bounced up ahead and then back, sometimes circling her two more cautious companions. Gretta was feeling a bit more confident, so she prissed a bit on her heels and occasionally spun her crystal-tipped cane. Cameron gracefully walked en pointe along side her, pirouetting occasionally, and waving a candy cane that she’s pulled from somewhere in her costume.
A resounding chorus of oohs and ahs from their classmates greeted their arrival, and Gretta blushed beneath her mask. Her queasiness had vanished, and so had her worries. It was Homecoming Day, and she was with her friends. It was time to have fun.
“Thanks, guys! Everyone looks so wonderful!” she shouted as she joined her class. “But not as wonderful as I look, of course,” she added jokingly, puffing out her chest so that the sunlight dazzled off her sequin vest.
All of the girls laughed at her words. Those whose faces were visible stuck out their tongues. Robin turned and shook her bunny tail in mock anger. The whole while Gretta leaned on her cane and acted as though she was oblivious to the rest of her class.
“Well done, ladies!” a lively voice said suddenly. Gretta turned to see Ms. Tilton, her literature teacher and the junior class sponsor, approaching from farther down the field. The gray-haired woman wore her formal academic robes but was laughing just like her excited students. On one arm, she had a big wicker basket full of differently colored silk sashes. In the other, she held a brown leather clipboard bearing the school emblem. Gretta waved one gloved hand in imitation of a queenly greeting while at her side Cameron danced and Robin bounced.
“Well done, all of you,” Ms. Tilton repeated before addressing Gretta directly. “But I have to say, Miss Bassett, that I overheard your comment to your classmates, and it was the most arrogant, ungrateful, perfectly sinful thing I’ve heard all day! Well done!” As the juniors around them cheered, she removed a thin white sash from her basket. “And your choice of costume is so wonderfully appropriate! You never fail to impress me.”
The teacher handed Gretta the sash, which bore the letters P-R-I-D-E embroidered in gold thread, and added, “Although, technically, you are short a few lions, but we’ll let that little inaccuracy slide in light of this being Homecoming Day and a special occasion.”
Gretta laughed happily and curtsied as she took the sash. She was afraid a bow might knock her head off. While Ms. Tilton passed out sashes to everyone else, Robin helped her pin hers across her jacket and vest, which both almost blindingly reflected the bright sunlight. Once everyone wore a sash, the two best friends and their fellow juniors cheered again, loud enough this time, that the juniors must have heard it. A chant – “Seniors Rule! Seniors Rule!” – rolled in around the school from the front lawn. Gretta thought she could hear the sophomores shouting something, too, from the softball field. A tiny rumble from the rear parking lot meant that even the freshmen were getting into the spirit of the day.
Everyone yelled and laughed until they heard the sound of bagpipes and drums coming from the other side of the school. The junior girls quieted in an instant and looked to Ms. Tilton.
“Come along, my Little Vices! Fall in! Prepare yourselves! The pipers approach! Onward and outward after the Seniors, and not a second earlier!”
The girls waited, giggling and fidgeting as much as their costumes allowed.
The Duggan Academy Marching Band rounded the building first. Then, behind it, proudly marching and singing the alma mater in Latin, came the senior class. Their banner proclaimed their theme for this year’s homecoming – The Seven Holy Virtues – and they wore sashes over their costumes, too.
The juniors fell into step and sang like the seniors. Gretta pranced proudly right behind the banner proclaiming her class’s theme. Robin bounced along at her side, flapping her bright pink sash reading L-U-S-T with every leap. On her other side danced the most graceful paper snowman as Cameron spun with her candy cane – her sash spelling out G-L-U-T-T-O-N-Y. The rest of the Seven Deadly Sins followed along, all singing at the top of their lungs.
By the time, Gretta passed the sophomores – the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – and the freshmen – the Seven Dwarves – her throat hurt from singing, her legs ached from prissing on those heels, and her face dripped inside the hot lion mask.
But she couldn’t have possibly cared less, she was having that much fun. She laughed and pranced with her friends, pride personified.
It turned out to be beautiful day, she thought to herself as the parade marched down the school driveway toward the waiting town.
And we are going to win!
Robin literally bounced into the junior bathroom to share this good news with her best friend. She was wearing a rabbit costume, but bouncing seemed to come naturally to this girl. She couldn’t stand still more than a second, hopping from mirror to mirror and wiggling her pink-painted nose at her reflection.
From inside the stall, Gretta wondered for the millionth time how her best friend since fourth grade could always be so full of fun and energy.
“You alive in there, Gret?” Robin yelled and jumped over to kick at the closed stall door with one big fuzzy foot. “Everyone else has already gone outside to line up!”
“Just fixing my costume!” shouted Gretta. “I’ll just be a second. And you’re right, I shouldn’t have worried!”
“Yeah, you not worry? Ha! I’m going to wait just outside, so hurry up! We can’t be late!”
Robin kicked again at the stall door and then bounced back out into the hall while her friend struggled to get ready.
Gretta sighed. She was already wearing most of her costume – the suit and the matching shirt and tie. The only part left other than a few accessories was the mask. It waited in the brown paper bag at her feet. Unable to stall any longer, she pulled it out and started wiggling it onto her head. It was a little difficult to get on, but that was how she had wanted. Hard to put on, hard to fall off, she’d reasoned while she was working with her grandmother to put everything together in the weeks leading up to Duggan Academy’s homecoming parade.
While Gretta didn’t have her friend’s energy, she did have more than enough creativity for both of them. With help from her grandmother only on the hardest bits of sewing, she’d made the shiny purple three-piece suit almost entirely by hand . She’d sculpted the paper mache lion mask herself and, for the mane, she’d attached strips of brown velour and felt with thin wire that let them curl and bounce the way she wanted. She’d even Scotch-guarded it all in case it rained on the parade day. For the final touches, she’d borrowed a her grandfather’s cane and her older sister’s yellow stiletto heels. Her family had loved the final product.
And Gretta had thought her costume looked really great, too. At least, that’s how she’d felt last night and even earlier this morning. Then, during first period, everyone started showing off their professionally-made or expenisve store-bought costumes. By second period, she’d begun to feel queasy and had asked Robin to check her iPhone to see if the weather forecast had changed. In the next class, she prayed during the whole biology lecture that a big storm would roll in and cancel everything. It didn’t though, because after lunch, the principal’s voice came over the intercom and told everyone it was the time to get dressed and line up with his or her classes,.
So, Gretta had hauled her bags to the bathroom and shut herself in the first available stall. She’d then lingered until everyone else had dressed and gone to the back of the school.
Everyone but her best friend, it seemed.
Gretta sighed and fiddled with the mask a bit more. Outside, Robin apparently had decided Homecoming Day was special enough that the teachers wouldn’t mind her singing at the top of her lungs in the hallway. The words to “Little Bunny Foo Foo” started to drift into the bathroom. In spite of her nerves, Gretta giggled.
“I’m the goon,” she said out loud, her voice echoing inside the mask. “Especially if I make Rob miss the whole parade because I’m hiding in the bathroom.”
With a final twist, she set the mask straight, eyeholes and everything lined up just right so that she could see and breathe at the same time. She pushed open the stall and looked at herself in the long mirror over the sinks. The lion face she’d painted sneered arrogantly back at her with downturned pipecleaner whiskers studded with tiny rhinestones. The brown and gold mane curled just right down to her shoulders. She twisted slowly, and even under the fluorescent lights, the purple lame suit and yellow sequined vest shimmered. In sunlight, she hoped it would be dazzling. She smoothed her yellow tie and straightened the matching handkerchief. She tugged on a pair of shiny yellow nylon gloves and pushed and pulled at a few more places until she heard Robin yell her name from the hallway.
“Coming!” Gretta shouted back. Her voice echoed a bit in the mask and sounded a little spooky. With a half-smile and clenched teeth, she slipped on her sister’s shoes and picked up her grandfather’s cane. She walked out just as she’d practiced, careful to keep her head and back straight so that the top-heavy mask wouldn’t slip. The three-inch heels didn’t help, but she’d decided that she could sacrifice a little comfort and balance for the overall effect.
It worked, too, because her friend squealed excitedly when she saw her.
“I knew you’d look awesome, Gret, but wow! Just wait until those seniors see us! We are so gonna win!” Robin bounced over and offered a big fuzzy paw for a high five. Gretta carefully slapped it with her gloved hand and then laughed when Robin turned and shook her fluffy bunny tail at her.
“Ha, Rob! You make the cutest bunny ever!”
“Of course, I do! All the boy bunnies are crazy about me, you know!”
Robin stopped bouncing long enough to strike a pose like those wannabe glamour shots that she and Gretta made fun of on MySpace. She pursed her lips, tucked her chin down, and fluttered her lashes. Then, she wiggled her pink nose and glued-on whiskers until the two of them burst out laughing.
Suddenly, the principal’s voice boomed over the intercom, telling everyone left in the building that the parade would get underway with or without them in exactly five minutes. Robin’s mood was contagious, and Gretta found herself squealing in excitement along with her.
As they moved down the hall, Robin leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “You know, my mom spent a lot of time online buying this. Nearly starved, it took her so long – thank God that we don’t have dial-up! And, Gret, she clicked her poor mouse finger to the bone! To the bone! And then, why, she even had to type in the credit card number herself. Herself!”
“Oh! However did she survive?” Gretta gasped in mock horror and dramatically placed the back of her right hand against her lion’s forehead. The two girls laughed.
Their friend Cameron was waiting near the exitdoor at the end of their class’s hall. Robin leapt ahead cheering, “Go Juniors! We’re gonna win! We’re gonna win! Go Juniors!”
Cameron was wearing a chubby paper mache snowman suit covered in glittery snowflakes, so she couldn’t jump. She was wearing her ballet slippers though, so instead, she spun a happy little pirouette and chimed, “Go Sophomores!”
She spun again as Gretta walked up and said, “Typical Gret craftsmanship! You look spectacular! Everyone’s going to love it!”
“You, too! I love the carrot!” Gretta replied. Cameron’s mom had cut an oval shape from the snowman’s face and powdered her daughter’s face stark white except for glittery eye makeup and lipstick that gave her a jolly smile. A big plastic carrot nose was the final touch. “How’s it stay on?”
“I know! Duck tape!” Robin giggled before Cameron could answer. Gretta laughed as the bunny and the snowman both pirouetted at the same time.
“You both look so great! Let’s go meet the others before the parade starts!”
The three friends walked outside toward the soccer field at the rear of the school. Robin moved a lot faster in her professionally made bunny costume, so she bounced up ahead and then back, sometimes circling her two more cautious companions. Gretta was feeling a bit more confident, so she prissed a bit on her heels and occasionally spun her crystal-tipped cane. Cameron gracefully walked en pointe along side her, pirouetting occasionally, and waving a candy cane that she’s pulled from somewhere in her costume.
A resounding chorus of oohs and ahs from their classmates greeted their arrival, and Gretta blushed beneath her mask. Her queasiness had vanished, and so had her worries. It was Homecoming Day, and she was with her friends. It was time to have fun.
“Thanks, guys! Everyone looks so wonderful!” she shouted as she joined her class. “But not as wonderful as I look, of course,” she added jokingly, puffing out her chest so that the sunlight dazzled off her sequin vest.
All of the girls laughed at her words. Those whose faces were visible stuck out their tongues. Robin turned and shook her bunny tail in mock anger. The whole while Gretta leaned on her cane and acted as though she was oblivious to the rest of her class.
“Well done, ladies!” a lively voice said suddenly. Gretta turned to see Ms. Tilton, her literature teacher and the junior class sponsor, approaching from farther down the field. The gray-haired woman wore her formal academic robes but was laughing just like her excited students. On one arm, she had a big wicker basket full of differently colored silk sashes. In the other, she held a brown leather clipboard bearing the school emblem. Gretta waved one gloved hand in imitation of a queenly greeting while at her side Cameron danced and Robin bounced.
“Well done, all of you,” Ms. Tilton repeated before addressing Gretta directly. “But I have to say, Miss Bassett, that I overheard your comment to your classmates, and it was the most arrogant, ungrateful, perfectly sinful thing I’ve heard all day! Well done!” As the juniors around them cheered, she removed a thin white sash from her basket. “And your choice of costume is so wonderfully appropriate! You never fail to impress me.”
The teacher handed Gretta the sash, which bore the letters P-R-I-D-E embroidered in gold thread, and added, “Although, technically, you are short a few lions, but we’ll let that little inaccuracy slide in light of this being Homecoming Day and a special occasion.”
Gretta laughed happily and curtsied as she took the sash. She was afraid a bow might knock her head off. While Ms. Tilton passed out sashes to everyone else, Robin helped her pin hers across her jacket and vest, which both almost blindingly reflected the bright sunlight. Once everyone wore a sash, the two best friends and their fellow juniors cheered again, loud enough this time, that the juniors must have heard it. A chant – “Seniors Rule! Seniors Rule!” – rolled in around the school from the front lawn. Gretta thought she could hear the sophomores shouting something, too, from the softball field. A tiny rumble from the rear parking lot meant that even the freshmen were getting into the spirit of the day.
Everyone yelled and laughed until they heard the sound of bagpipes and drums coming from the other side of the school. The junior girls quieted in an instant and looked to Ms. Tilton.
“Come along, my Little Vices! Fall in! Prepare yourselves! The pipers approach! Onward and outward after the Seniors, and not a second earlier!”
The girls waited, giggling and fidgeting as much as their costumes allowed.
The Duggan Academy Marching Band rounded the building first. Then, behind it, proudly marching and singing the alma mater in Latin, came the senior class. Their banner proclaimed their theme for this year’s homecoming – The Seven Holy Virtues – and they wore sashes over their costumes, too.
The juniors fell into step and sang like the seniors. Gretta pranced proudly right behind the banner proclaiming her class’s theme. Robin bounced along at her side, flapping her bright pink sash reading L-U-S-T with every leap. On her other side danced the most graceful paper snowman as Cameron spun with her candy cane – her sash spelling out G-L-U-T-T-O-N-Y. The rest of the Seven Deadly Sins followed along, all singing at the top of their lungs.
By the time, Gretta passed the sophomores – the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World – and the freshmen – the Seven Dwarves – her throat hurt from singing, her legs ached from prissing on those heels, and her face dripped inside the hot lion mask.
But she couldn’t have possibly cared less, she was having that much fun. She laughed and pranced with her friends, pride personified.
It turned out to be beautiful day, she thought to herself as the parade marched down the school driveway toward the waiting town.
And we are going to win!
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