Leo the Lioness (8 page)

Authors: Constance C. Greene

Nina gave me a hard time going home.

“Of all the idiotic things I ever saw,” she said. “You were practically the youngest girl there and you made a fool of yourself leaping up in the air.”

“Knock it off,” I told her. “If you weren't so dignified, you would have caught it yourself.”

That is true. Nina is a much better basketball player than I am.

I put the cake under my pillow and I didn't dream at all.

That figures.

23.

Nina's nose has started to peel. I don't know why; she has never peeled before. The timing is bad because, on top of her nose peeling, she found out that there is going to be a dance at the canteen to which boys are supposed to ask dates. She found it out because bigmouth Charlotte Forbes called, in a turmoil. Two boys had asked her and she didn't know which to accept. What would Nina advise? Seeing as how this was the first Nina knew about the dance, due to the fact that not even one measly boy had asked her, things got tense.

After a gay chat of about half an hour, during which Nina managed to avoid telling Char that she had not been invited, Nina hung up. Then she started to brood.

I mean, I've seen her brood before, but this was something. Talk about air pollution.

“Gawd,” she kept snarling out of the corner of her mouth, “will you look at me!” She blamed everything on her nose. She looked in the mirror about a thousand times, first at the right profile, then at the left, then full face. She had heard that actors and actresses have a good side and a bad and they prefer to be photographed, naturally, from the good. Nina had decided that her right side was better. She has developed a sort of lopsided walk from always trying to remember to approach the mirror from her right side.

My mother said, “Nina, would you please iron those few pillowcases and napkins I left in the basket?”

Nina put her hand to her head. “After I take a couple of aspirins,” she said.

“Have you a headache?”

I think of my mother as a fairly perceptive woman but sometimes she draws a blank. Evidently she didn't see the gray cloud forming around Nina's head.

“Maybe you haven't noticed, but my nose is peeling,” Nina said. “Maybe you don't know that my whole summer is ruined. I can't face my friends. I am a mess.”

John came in to get some old frankfurters for Count. We usually have a supply of kind of stiff franks that have been pushed to the back of the refrigerator by mistake. Sometimes I think that John pushes them there. Count doesn't seem to mind that they are past their prime.

“What's the matter with your nose?” he asked Nina. That did it.

She went into a catatonic state. Keening like a banshee, if banshees keen, she raced out of the room.

“I'm not up to it today,” my mother said.

“It's not only her nose, Mom,” I said. “It's a dance at the canteen that Charlotte Forbes had two invitations to and Nina hasn't had one. That's all.”

“That's enough.” There are times when my mother feels like giving up. She says “I give up” quite frequently. I think this was one of the times.

“Things pile up at fifteen,” she said.

“More than they do at fourteen?” I said. I hope not. They pile up plenty at my age. I don't think I can stand it if they keep on piling the older you get.

“Well, in a different way,” she said. “It happens at all ages but somehow, at fifteen, you're not quite grown up but you're not a little girl any more, either. And you have moments of wanting to be both. It's a hard age.”

“I don't look forward to it,” I said. Which wasn't strictly true, only partly. Maybe things wouldn't pile up for me as much as they seemed to for Nina. We are not similar in personality, as I have mentioned.

Jen came to the back door. “Where's Nina?” she said. “I have something to discuss with her.”

“She's upstairs,” I said. “Her nose has started to peel and also she had a conversation with Charlotte Forbes.”

“Oh,” said Jen. “What did Charlotte have on her mind?”

“Oh, nothing was on her mind,” I said. “She just couldn't decide whether to go to the canteen dance with Laurel or Hardy.”

“Who's Laurel and who's Hardy?” Jen asked. She is a little dense sometimes.

I explained about Charlotte's two invitations against Nina's none, and about her peeling nose. Jen is fairly easygoing but even she got a little pale.

“Oh, my Gawd,” she said.

Nina came into the kitchen. She had a big glob of some white stuff on her nose. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have said, “Who hit you with the pie?” or something equally clever. But I held my tongue. I have always liked that expression. Have you ever tried to hold your tongue? It is very slippery.

“Come on over to my house,” Jen said. “I've got a fantastic new record.”

“I look so ghastly,” Nina moaned. “I feel so ghastly.”

I was going to suggest that she borrow John's hat but I didn't. She went anyway. Probably they took the back way through the garbage pails so no one would see them.

I didn't go. Instead I stayed at home and did something I have never done before. I got out the laundry basket and did the ironing that Mom had left for Nina. I actually did. Every time I think of it I am impressed. I never even said I'd done it. I never even got credit. It was my
beau geste
. I just took the pillowcases to the linen closet and put the napkins in the drawer, and I didn't say a word.

Nina didn't thank me, either. But that was all right. She was in such a state when my mother asked her she probably didn't remember she was supposed to iron.

24.

I think I have changed a lot this summer. I have grown and matured and I am also a sadder and wiser person. This comes with age. My character is being strengthened by leaps and bounds, as Carla said.

I know that people and things are not always what they seem. I know that people you think are strong are sometimes weak. I know that the first date in a long dress can turn out to be a bomb. I know that I am not as nice as I thought I was. I have always thought of myself as a fairly nice person. But when the chips were down, I turned out to be mean and small and almost didn't go to Carla's wedding.

I hope I have learned not to sit in judgment on people. I hope I have learned not to think I am always right and the other guy is always wrong. I hope I have learned to take a broader view of the world. As long as my standards remain mine and I stick to them, then it shouldn't matter what other people's standards are.

I hope I have learned not to contemplate my navel as much as in the past.

I have finished reading
The Deerslayer
. I am in love with Natty Bumppo. He was nothing but good. He was kind, noble, soft-spoken, honest, and all good things.

I intend to make a study of him. I would not be in the least surprised to find that Natty Bumppo was a Leo.

My horoscope for today says: “Hope begins to make you optimistic. Your mind will expand now. New ideas bring exciting possibilities.”

I hope this is prophetic.

About the Author

Constance C. Greene is the author of over twenty highly successful young adult novels, including the ALA Notable Book
A Girl Called Al
,
Al(exandra) the Great, Getting Nowhere
, and
Beat the Turtle Drum
, which is an ALA Notable Book, an IRA-CBC Children's Choice, and the basis for the Emmy Awardâwinning after-school special
Very Good Friends
. Greene lives in Milford, Connecticut.

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All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

ISBN: 978-1-5040-0096-3

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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