Twenty minutes later she bounded down the steps to the kitchen with her hair-naturally red unlike that fake orange tint of Molly Brigham's-in a ponytail and with a subtle amount of makeup. She spun around in her sweater and skirt for Mom to see. "You look very nice, sweetheart," Mom said. She motioned to a plate on the table. "I made you some scrambled eggs and toast. Hurry up before the bus gets here."
"Sorry Mom, but I have to go. Samantha's dad is giving us a ride into school."
"You have to eat something, Prudence-"
"I'll get something at school." She heard a car horn sound. "Bye Mom. Love you." She kissed her mother on the cheek before skipping out to Mr. Young's beat-up old car.
Samantha sat in the backseat, taking up almost half of it. She couldn't even get the seatbelt around her gut. Samantha looked up from a book, squinting through thick glasses at Lizzie's outfit. "You look nice," she said, her voice a whisper. Then she reached into her backpack for a candy bar to stuff into her mouth. Lizzie thought about mentioning how bad chocolate was for skin-not that Samantha could do much worse damage to her dark skin at this point-but she didn't want to hurt Samantha's feelings. They had been friends since first grade when they were both chubby little girls. Prudence had grown out of her chubbiness while Samantha had just grown and grown. Before long she wouldn't even fit into the car.
Along the way to school, Lizzie did most of the talking as usual. "I'm so excited and nervous too. Do you think everyone's going to be there? Even Joseph Pryde? What if I fall and he sees me? I would die, I tell you, right there on the spot from embarrassment. I don't think I could ever live that down if I lived to be a hundred."
"You'll do fine," Samantha said. Then she reached into her backpack for a bag of cookies. She shoveled a handful into her mouth, spilling crumbs on the front of her mint green T-shirt, and then offered the bag to Lizzie, who refused.
"I couldn't eat a thing right now. It would come right back up. My stomach is already doing cartwheels," she said. "I'm going to be on the top of the pyramid. The first time they ever let someone start at the top, but Coach Schulman said I'm the right size and after Annie broke her leg there wasn't anyone else who could do it. It's a lot of responsibility being up at the top of the pyramid and it's dangerous too. This one girl in Texas broke her neck when she fell off the top-"