Best Kept Secret by Debra Moffitt

spoken for. It’s cold and hard and I’m sick of it.
    You haven’t lived until you’ve spent 7 weeks far from home at “sports camp.” Some girls were awesome and we became friends, but some were just awful, talking about you behind your back. If you’re an average athlete, you may think it’s bad when people say, “Oh, she’s just so-so.” But think of what it’s like when you are GREAT at your sport and everyone is whispering, “She’s got such a big head. She thinks she’s going to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated. ”
    Your friend,
    Queen Quitter
    Meanwhile, the PLS continued to help girls with more common and easily answered questions:
    â€¢ I sweat, I mean really sweat. I’m so embarrassed. I hate when summer comes!
    â€¢ What do you do if a girl is following you around and calls you her best friend? I don’t want to be rude to her but I don’t want to be friends with her either. What do I do?
    â€¢ What do I do if I get my period at school? I know you’re going to say “Be prepared,” but what if my locker jams and my mom doesn’t pick up her cell phone and the school nurse is out and my teacher is a guy?
    No, I hadn’t gotten my period yet, either. But I had mostly gotten over my period-phobia. And by “mostly,” I mean that I accepted that the day was coming (soon I hoped). And yes, I was prepared (some pads hidden in a pencil case at the bottom of my backpack). But like that worried girl, I, in no way, under no circumstances, wanted this important moment of womanhood to strike at school. I didn’t think I’d be brave enough to go down to the nurse’s office with my jeans stained through!
    Now, I knew stained pants were unlikely, and even if there was a stain, I could tie a sweatshirt around my waist as a temporary stain-hiding technique. But still, that long walk to the office, thinking of what to say, was just deadly. I wished there were some sort of form you could fill out or button to press. To get to our school nurse, you first have to walk into the main office and deal with the unsmiling Mrs. Percy. If you came into the office because you forgot something (like your lunch money), she would roll her eyes. Or if your mom was there because you left your Spanish book on the kitchen table again , you’d get that quiet sigh that said “I think you are a disorganized mess.”
    So I worried about what if IT finally happened to me at school and our school nurse wasn’t there. I could not imagine looking Mrs. Percy square in her blue eyes, framed by her already-graying hair, and saying: “I got my period.” Only four words, but it was four too many.
    And something else was gnawing at me. When Taylor Mayweather found out I was on the track team, she said, “I wouldn’t do that Jemma, if I were you. You’ll never get boobs.” Ordinarily, I try to ignore what she says, but I had heard similar stuff from other girls—that your period would come late or not at all if you were a runner or a serious athlete of any kind. Hadn’t I heard this was true for some gymnasts who trained really hard? This was not a question the Pink Locker Society had answered yet. No one had asked it yet. But I decided to put it on our list.

Twenty
    The meeting with Bet, Piper, Kate, and me happened the next day at lunch. We spoke in whispers for obvious reasons:
    BET: This story demands to be told. Girls everywhere must know about it.
    ME: But isn’t that just going to dredge up PLS stuff, in general, and then that’s it for us? We’ll be out in the open and finished.
    PIPER: Yeah, don’t go blowing our cover.
    BET: I promise you, I will say nothing at all about the current PLS. It’s a sworn secret.
    KATE: Are you super sure?
    BET: Yes, pinky promise, as you say. And you guys kind of owe me one.
    ME: What do you mean?
    BET: For not telling me the PLS was back