Free Eyes in the Fishbowl by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

dark glasses that covered more than half her face. Everything she was wearing positively reeked of money, but like most of those high-style things, the whole effect was just a small—but important—inch away from being ugly. But there was one thing you could really say about it, it made a great disguise. Until she started to talk, I hadn’t the slightest idea who she was.
    “Don’t you know who I am?” was the first thing she said.
    I started to laugh. The minute she opened her mouth, it ruined the whole effect. All of a sudden it was like some little girl dressed up in her mother’s clothes.
    “I didn’t even know you,” I said.
    “Do you like it?” she asked. She tugged at the helmet where it came down tight and flat against her cheeks. She sounded worried.
    “Like it? You look like something from another planet.”
    She turned around and looked at herself in a mirror on the counter. “Another planet?” she said thoughtfully. “I saw a model wearing it, and I thought it would make me look different. So no one would know me. But you don’t like it?”
    “It’s fantastic,” I said. “You look better than most people would in it.”
    She smiled again and took hold of my arm. “Let’s go to the Tea Room and eat something.”
    That shook me a little. I’d never taken a girl anywhere to eat anything before, for one thing. And for another, I didn’t have a whole lot of money along. At the Alcott-Simpson Tea Room, even a milk shake isn’t exactly cheap. I didn’t have the slightest idea what I’d do if she ordered a whole lot of stuff. And she certainly might. A teen-age girl who could afford to buy an outfit that probably cost several hundred dollars, just because she wanted to look different, probably wouldn’t think anything of ordering everything on the Tea Room menu. Of course, there was the other possibility—that the outfit was stolen, and Sara was a thief, a shoplifter. But that didn’t make my problem any better. It wouldn’t be any easier to predict what a girl who could steal an outfit like that would do.
    But when we got to the Tea Room, Sara didn’t even look at the menu. She just said, “What can we have? I don’t have any money. Do you have any?”
    I was right in the middle of making feverish plans to keep her from knowing that I wasn’t carrying a bank roll, but the way she asked—straight out—surprised me into answering the same way. “Not much,” I said. “But we could have a shake or something.”
    “Could I have one of those?” Sara asked, pointing to a soda that a waitress was serving. I checked the menu and told her it was okay. I had enough for two sodas.
    We didn’t talk much at first while we drank our sodas, but I did get a chance to really look at Sara. Of course, I couldn’t see her eyes because of the dark glasses, but I could see enough to tell that I had been right about her face, it was really fantastic. Every time she looked up and caught me looking at her she smiled—not a come-on smile or a wise one, at least not as far as I could tell. Just a quick straight unconditional sort of smile, like you might get from a friendly four-year-old. I couldn’t begin to figure her out.
    After a while I got around to asking some of the questions that I’d been thinking about. For instance, I started out by asking how old she was.
    “By the way,” I said. “I’ve been wondering how old you are. It’s sort of hard to tell. Sometimes you look lots older than others.”
    She gave a little laugh. “How old are you?” she asked.
    “Almost fifteen,” I said.
    She just nodded, so I said, “Well?”
    “Oh,” she said. “I’m—almost the same.”
    “You mean you’re fourteen?”
    She puckered her forehead for a minute, and then she smiled and said, “Almost?” But it sounded more like a question than an answer. It wasn’t until later that I realized I still wouldn’t want to bet on how old she was. That’s the way most of the things I asked her seemed