Free Shining On by Lois Lowry

to go.”
    It doesn't matter what I say. We're going. And that's that. Dad phones his sister. Mum writes an acceptance note. Dad buys a crystal decanter and glasses as a wedding gift. Mum chooses a new suit, blue with a black trim.
    “You'll have to have a dress, Angela.”
    “Me?”
When I'm out of school uniform I live in jeans and T-shirts.
    “Come on now, Angela, use your head,” Mum saysimpatiently. “You can't go to a wedding in trousers and trainers.”
    She drags me all round this grim department store looking at the most terrible outfits. I moan and complain. Even-tually we fetch up in Topshop and I get a dress and a purple jacket and new shoes. I get quite excited at the way I look. Older, for a start, and although the shoes pinch like hell, it's really cool to be wearing sexy high heels.
    “You look lovely, Angela,” says Dad, when I dress up. I
feel
lovely too.
    Not on the wedding day, though. My hair won't go right, for a start. It sticks out in a terrible frizz and won't be subdued. I've got little spots on my forehead and chin and I slap on so much makeup to cover them that it looks like I'm wearing a beige mask. I have to wash it off and start all over again. I splash water on my dress and I'm scared it will mark. I'm not sure it really goes with the jacket now. My shoes are still beautiful, but whenever I try to walk I go over on my ankle.
    I'm going to look a right sight at the wedding. I stare at myself in the mirror. The first Angela peeps over my shoulder, her fine eyebrows raised.
    Mum's having second thoughts too. When we set off, her eyes are red and her nose is shiny and she clutches her lace hankie as if it's a cuddle blanket. Dad puts his arm round her and gives her a quick squeeze.
    Everyone stares at us when we get to the church. People hang back as if our stale mourning is contagious, but thenmy aunt gives my dad a hug and soon everyone's whispering and waving and Mum manages to smile bravely and wave back. I keep my head down, glancing up under my bangs every now and then at all these relations who are practically strangers. I haven't got a clue who half the peo-ple are.
    There's a good-looking lanky guy with dark hair who peers round at me curiously. He's wearing a shirt the exact royal purple of my jacket. He grins, acknowledging this. I grin back foolishly. And then the organ music starts up and Becky and my uncle come walking down the aisle.
    The guy keeps looking at me during the ceremony and the reception. (I'm allowed my very first glass of cham-pagne.)
    He doesn't come and talk until the disco starts. He stands behind my chair, fingering the jacket I've slung over the back.
    “Snap,” he says.
    “Snap,” I reply, casually.
    “Would you like to dance?”
    Would
I! Though the glass of champagne and my new high heels make me walk very warily onto the dance floor. He is really gorgeous and he's asked
me
to dance. He's quite a bit older than me too, probably nineteen or twenty. A student. Smiling at me. I hope he doesn't know I'm only fourteen. I don't think he's family.
    “What's your name?” I mumble shyly.
    “James. And you're Angela.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Well, I live next door to Becky. I knew your sister.”
    My heart misses a beat.
    “You're not a bit like her,” he says.
    I knew it.
    “Not that I can remember her all that well. I was only a little kid when she … But I remember that last summer be-cause she came to stay with Becky. She had all this pretty blond hair and big blue eyes, yes?”
    “Like a little angel,” I say. I've stopped dancing.
    “Mmm,” says James. He pauses. “Well. Not exactly
angelic.
I was terrified of her, actually.”
    “You were … what?”
    “I was this pathetic little wimp, scared stiff of the big girls. They teased me and I blubbed and that only made them worse.”
    “My sister, Angela?”
    “Becky wasn't too bad, but Angela gave the most terrible Chinese burns. And she had this way of pulling my ears, really twisting