"BSC050 - Dawn's Big Date - Martin, Ann M" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martin Ann M)

Somehow Claud was pretty sure that Brittany was never going to see one of them, or any other picture of her pen pal.
Chapter 7.
Time was running out. Less than a week remained before Lewis arrived. I'd sent him the picture Mary Anne took of "the new Dawn." Mary Anne also took a second picture in a slightly different pose. I kept that one.
Funny about the second picture. I couldn't stop looking at it. I stuck it in my wallet and looked at it a lot. Something about the photo fascinated me. It was as if it were of me Ч but not me.
The reason hit me during physical science class on Monday afternoon. I'd stuck the photo into my textbook and was gazing down at it. (I'd already finished the section we were supposed to be reading. I read pretty fast.) I suddenly realized that this was a picture of the person I was going to become. Like a glimpse into the future.
And it wasn't all about looks, either. Sure, that was a big part of it. But it was also about
attitude. There was something about not smiling for the camera that made everything clear to me. The old Dawn was always so eager to make people happy. Always pleasant and polite. The Dawn in the picture didn't care. The new Dawn was cool.
At that moment, I had a chance to try out my new attitude. Ms. Harris, my science teacher, told us to stop reading. "Okay, quick quiz," she said. She does this pretty regularly. You get two points on your next test mark if you answer her questions correctly. You lose two points if you don't. She calls on people at random.
"Dawn," she said. "Name two common forms of igneous rock."
Physical science is not rny favorite subject. But I could answer that one. Granite and basalt. It was right in the text.
I opened my mouth to speak, but something stopped me. I didn't feel like being Perky Dawn, Good Student. Cool kids didn't sit up straight and answer all the teacher's questions. They slouched and stared into space as if everything were a bore.
"Heavy metal and pop," I answered, tossing my hair over my shoulder.
My teacher looked confused, then shocked.
She couldn't have been more shocked than
I was. I couldn't believe I had actually said that!
A ripple of low laughter swept through the class. A cute boy named Bill Torrance looked over at me and smiled. He'd never done that before. It was working!
"Very amusing, Dawn/' said Ms. Harris. "But I wasn't talking about rock and roll. I was talking about igneous rock."
"Is that a new group?" I asked boldly.
The class laughed again. It was great. They were seeing me in a new light.
So was Ms. Harris. She didn't look happy, though. "I take it you don't know the answer," she said calmly.
"No, I don't," I lied.
Ms. Harris made a mark in her grade book and then called on someone else. She was still asking questions when I noticed a note being passed my way.
Inside the note was a drawing of a rock band. The members had rocks for heads. On top was written "Igneous Rock! Good one, Dawn!" It was from Sue Archer, a very cool girl in my class. She'd never/sent me a note before. Being cool was easier than I'd thought.
From that moment on, there was no stopping me. It was Project New Dawn all the way!
The new me needed time the next morning
to put on makeup, fix my hair, and pick out my clothes. I needed so much extra time that I missed the bus. (Was Mom ever mad when she had to drive me to school. She would have been even angrier if she saw that I'd purposely ripped my new jeans. But I wore a long coat, so she never knew.)
Clothing was the biggest problem. My clothes were all wrong. I couldn't find anything to wear. I had to spend Tuesday evening fixing them.
"Have you gone nuts?" Mary Anne gasped, when she saw what I was doing to my wardrobe. A bunch of clothes were laid out on my bed. I was completely revamping everything with the help of Mom's sewing kit and a pair of sharp scissors.
All my jeans needed to be taken in. (I ripped one more pair above the knee and left one pair unripped.) I made several off-the-shoulder tops. I even created a miniskirt out of a pair of gray sweat pants. I cut off the legs, opened the inside seams, and then patched up the gaps with some flowered material. (It was left over from a flowered T-shirt I'd cut up.)
"That's pretty cute," said Mary Anne, holding up the sweat skirt. "You should get Clau-dia to help you."
"Nah," I disagreed. "Claud has her unique style. I want to create my own style."
"Wow," Mary Anne murmured. "I know we experimented with a new look, but you're going all out. How come? Is it because of Lewis?"
"Not really," I replied. "It's just time for a change, that's all." I was going to tell her why I felt I needed a new image. That it wasn't just because of Lewis. It was because I was a dud with boys altogether. But I'd noticed that cool kids don't talk a lot. They don't explain everything they're thinking and feeling. Cool kids just go ahead and do what they want to do.
"Maybe it is time," Mary Anne agreed.
Mary Anne was really surprising me. Was she just being supportive? Or had she been thinking something was wrong with me all along? I had expected a little argument from her. A little "Dawn, you're fine the way you are." I didn't know if I was glad or annoyed that she didn't say that.
I take that back. I did know. I felt that I should be glad. But deep down I was annoyed.
My friends had different reactions to my new appearance.
"You look strange," Kristy said. (I more or less expected that from her.)
"You don't need so much blush," Stacey advised me.
Claudia's reaction took me by surprise. "The look is all wrong for you," she said. "It's not
who you are." Can you imagine Claud Ч of all people Ч saying that? I just shrugged. (Cool kids shrug a lot.) But inside 1 was steaming. I guess Claudia thought it was okay for her and Stacey to be stylish and cute, but not me. No. I was just plain, wholesome Dawn, and 1 was supposed to stay that way.
I decided she might even be jealous. She might not want anyone looking more "unique" than she herself did.
So, by the time of our Wednesday afternoon BSC meeting, I was pretty angry at Claudia. I slumped on her bed, chewing hard on a wad of pink bubble gum. (It was sugarless.)
"I've never seen you chew gum before," Stacey observed.
"There's a first time for everything," I replied.
"Can you blow a bubble?" asked Mal from her spot on the floor.
I shook my head. Believe it or not, this was the first piece of bubble gum I'd ever chewed.
"Do you have another piece?" she asked me.
I took one from my back pocket and gave it to her. She quickly chewed it, then blew a giant bubble. "You flatten it down, then stick your tongue into it and blow," she instructed me.
I tried and got a small bubble going.