Seeing Cinderella by Jenny Lundquist Page B

concealed in puddles of grease anyway.
    I continued to watch them, feeling like I was a guest in my own room. So I did what I was starting to do every time I felt nervous: I put my glasses on.
    The air waved and shimmered and blue screens launched up by Stacy, Ellen, and Raven.
    Raven stared at Stacy and Ellen, looking just as uncomfortable as I felt. Inside the screen hovering by her, white words scrolled across a blue screen: Maybe coming here was a mistake. Maybe I should’ve stayed home with Mom and her loser boyfriend after all.
    The screen next to Stacy showed a picture of Green Braces Girl sitting alone on a couch with a bowlful of candy.
    Stacy frowned at her reflection, wiped off her lipstick, and grabbed a different color tube. When she caught me looking at her, her thoughts changed: What is she looking at? She can be so judgmental sometimes.
    I looked away. Was I judgmental? From reading people’s thoughts I already knew sometimes they thought I was stuck-up because I didn’t talk a lot. I was trying to change that, though. Hadn’t it been my idea to get everyone together tonight in the first place?
    But judgmental? Was that me? I felt mad, and ashamed, and confused, all at the same time. I wasn’t sure what Stacy meant, and I almost wanted to tell her I was sorry.
    But then I shook myself. Stacy was trying to steal my best friend. I wasn’t apologizing to her for anything.
    “What time is Ana coming?” Ellen asked.
    “ She’s coming?” Raven asked. “Why?”
    “Callie invited her,” Ellen said. “Ana’s her Spanish tutor.”
    I should have said something then. Something about how Ana was my friend, not just my tutor. But Raven’s searing glare sealed my mouth shut.
    “Whatever,” Raven said, picking up a compact and beginning to apply white powder to her already chalky skin. “She can’t even speak English right.”
    I flinched, figuring she meant Ana’s accent. Raven scowled at her reflection in the mirror. In the screen hovering next to her, her thoughts were just as nasty as her words. Except she wasn’t thinking about Ana, she was thinking about herself: But Ana’s not even American and she reads better than you, little miss reads-at-a-fourth-grade-level. What kind of an idiot are you? Why can’t you see words like normal people instead of jumbling them all up?
    Raven Maggert was the last person I wanted to feel sorry for—but I did anyway. Words never jumbled up on me, and I still struggled in school. From spying on Raven’s thoughts I knew she stressed out whenever we had to read aloud in history, English, or drama class. I guess now I knew why.
    “It’s been really helpful, having a tutor,” I said carefully.
    “People who need tutors are losers,” Raven said.
    Raven went back to powdering herself into a ghost. Ellen stared defiantly in the mirror while she fluffed her bangs, and I read the screen hovering next to her, showing me her thoughts: I’m tired of being good little Ellen all the time. No matter how much or how well I do, Tara always does better. I’ve had it. Mom can refuse to buy me a guitar—but she’s still going to see a different Ellen this year. She can just deal with the changes.
    “What changes?” I asked, and then froze. I’d said it out loud. Not good. So not good.
    But I don’t think Ellen even realized I’d read her thoughts. She just stared at me in the mirror as different images flashed on the screen hovering near her. Ellen, at what I thought was a club meeting, looking bored. Ellen glancing over at a boy in the cafeteria, then blushing when he smiled at her. Ellen laughing with Stacy while they played around with the guitar. The screen changed again, and one sentence scrolled across: Callie wouldn’t understand.
    Callie wouldn’t understand. I was so sick of reading about how “Callie wouldn’t understand.”
    “Why are you wearing those?” Ellen asked suddenly, turning around and facing me.
    “Wearing what?” I looked down at my