Free Pretending to Dance by Diane Chamberlain

sisters, though some of this stuff is theirs. Or was theirs, anyhow.” She giggled. “No, I got this from a drugstore near my house.”
    I opened my eyes. “You shoplifted it?”
    â€œClose,” she commanded, and I shut my eyes again waiting for her to answer.
    â€œYes,” she said. “I don’t do it a lot but this stuff is so expensive and it’s so easy just to slip in your pocket. You’ve never stolen anything from a store?”
    â€œNo,” I said. I didn’t have the guts to steal something. I’d get caught for sure.
    â€œI can teach you how,” she said. “Open.”
    I opened my eyes and looked into her face, and I saw a beautiful girl who looked so much older than me. I wasn’t sure if I envied her or feared her.
    *   *   *
    It took her half an hour to make me up, but I looked absolutely amazing by the time she was finished. I had to get close to the mirror to see her handiwork, and I finally took the mirror off the wall so I could stare at myself while I sat on the bed. “I don’t even look like myself,” I said.
    â€œYou look at least sixteen,” Stacy said as she loaded her bottles and pencils back into her makeup bag.
    I thought she was right. I loved how I looked without freckles. And without glasses. Too bad the real me came with both.
    She zipped her makeup bag closed. “I have to pee,” she said, getting to her feet. “Where’s the bathroom in this place?”
    â€œOh, it’s a latrine,” I said. “It’s outside. I have to go too, so I’ll show—”
    â€œWe have to go outside to use the bathroom?” Her eyes were open so wide that her lashes lifted her bangs.
    â€œIt’s not too far.”
    â€œIf I’d known that, I would’ve said we should stay in your house.”
    â€œPut on your sandals,” I said, tying my tennis shoes. I slipped on my glasses. I hadn’t used the latrine in a few weeks and I remembered how overgrown the path was even then. By now, it would be impossible to find without my glasses, especially in the dark.
    I grabbed a roll of toilet paper from the bottom drawer of the dresser, picked up the two flashlights from the counter and handed one of them to her. “Come on,” I said. “Just follow me.”
    We stepped outside and the sound of the cicadas fell over us like a blanket of noise. I pointed my flashlight at the ground and could just make out the vine-covered path. Another week and it would be indiscernible from the forest floor. “Come on,” I said.
    â€œOh God.” The path was too narrow for us to walk next to each other, but she had a death grip on my arm from behind me. “Are there snakes out here?” she asked.
    â€œNot at night,” I said.
    â€œThat is not reassuring!”
    One of Morrison Ridge’s barred owls picked that moment to start its eerie howling and Stacy let out a scream and stopped walking completely, her fingernails digging into my bicep. “What is that?” she asked.
    â€œJust an owl,” I said.
    She seemed frozen in place. “I thought owls just said ‘who, who’?”
    â€œThey say all kinds of things.” I pointed the beam of my flashlight ahead of us. “Come on.” I moved forward and was relieved when she came along with me. I hoped the owl was the worst of what we’d hear. There were nights when, between the howling and screeching and soul-piercing animal screams, I was certain something was being killed in our woods. That’s all Stacy needed tonight.
    After a minute or two, I spotted the wooden side of the latrine through the trees. “It’s just a little ways,” I said.
    She followed me, sputtering against the cobwebs and bugs and complaining about the lack of a path, and we finally reached the latrine. It was ancient, the wooden door warped so that it wouldn’t close all the way, and