Free The Cat That Went to Homecoming by Julie Otzelberger Page B

towels in the sun. “You can’t go
in the water for twenty minutes after eating,” Mrs. Haskel told
us.
    Sarah and Margaret were both on their cell
phones, taking goofy pictures of themselves and posting them to
Facebook, and Brandon was napping. Cindy and I were sitting in
awkward silence, so I decided to break the silence.
    “Hershey and I are officially a therapy
team,” I said to her, “I just got the confirmation today.”
    “That’s awesome!’ Cindy said. “When do you
start?”
    “I’m not sure, I’ll talk to Jane when I go to
work next week and find out.”
    “Wait a minute, you have a job?” she asked in
surprise.
    “Yes, but just for the summer,” I told Cindy
about Jane, Pet Partners, and how Jane had given me a job to help
me to get to this point with Hershey and all the steps I had taken
with him.
    “Wow, I think you are going to make a lot of
people happy. What made you decide to do this?” she asked.
    I paused and thought about it. Why did I take that leap?
    “Cindy, I’m never going to be a cheerleader
or the Prom Queen and in all honesty, I don’t care. Those are such
frivolous goals for shallow-minded people. I just want to have a
genuine purpose in life.” She remained quiet and still, just
looking at me, so I went on. “I understand isolation and
loneliness. Life has not been great for me, but Hershey has been my
support through it all. I decided one day that if he could make me
happy, he could make others happy. We could do it together.”
    I looked around and discovered that Sarah,
Margaret, and Brandon were no longer sitting with us, they were in
the pool. I looked over at Brandon and he winked at me. He gave me
this time alone with Cindy. Boy, that Brandon sure was one hell of
a guy!
    Cindy was fidgeting with her hands and
looking down at them, “Ellen, why did you isolate yourself for so
long?” She looked up and looked me right in the eyes. “Why did you
stop being my friend?”
    “Honestly, I thought I was doing you a favor.
I mean, look at you Cindy, you’re beautiful, you’re smart, and you
were meant to be popular. I was holding you back.”
    “So you think I’m shallow and that I would
rather be like Darcel?” she asked in astonishment.
    “Oh, gosh, no, I don’t mean it like that.” I
defended myself, but the more I thought about it, wasn’t she
right?
    “Cindy, I didn’t want you to feel obligated
to the fat girl in the class,” I said with tears in my eyes.
    “Ellen, some people tease other people about
an imperfection so that their peers won’t notice what’s wrong with
them,” she said, “and the weaker the person that’s being shamed is,
the more successful the bully is.”
    I had to stop and let what she had said sink
in. Should I be offended that she was implying that I’m weak? I
wasn’t offended. It never occurred to me that I was partly to blame
for my circumstances.
    “Ellen,” she said as she stood up and held
her hand out to help me up, “come with me for a second.” We walked
to the garage. She removed a dusty shoe box from a shelf and blew
away the dust. She opened the lid, and when I saw our old Bratz
dolls looking up at me, I put my hand over my mouth.
    “These are our Jade dolls. Remember, she was
our favorite Bratz. We never fought over who got to use Jade and
who had to use another doll, we both got to use Jade and keep the
name Jade!”
    I picked my Jade out of the box and looked at
her. She was wearing a leopard print dress and big goofy pink
boots. I knew she was mine instantly because I remembered how I
swore I’d own boots like hers someday.
    “We didn’t care that they were exactly the
same doll. We were just happy to have her,” she said, “and as much
as I loved my Bratz dolls, I could not look at them anymore after
we stopped being friends.”
    “Can I have her back?” I asked timidly. She
wasn’t really mine per se, Cindy’s Mom had bought her for me
because I didn’t have a Bratz doll and I wanted her so