Wallflower In Bloom by Claire Cook

ration it so it lasted all week. Every once in a while after I finished my stash, I’d sneak into the top drawer of her shiny white bureau and steal a single powdery gray licorice-flavored wafer just to see if I could get away with it.
    The year Tag moved up to Marshbury Junior High, he left the rest of us stranded like babies at Harborside Elementary, one of four elementary schools scattered across town. Suddenly he had friends from all over the place, four times as many as we did, three-quarters of them strangers to the rest of us. But Colleen had managed to beat him to a growth spurt. Almost overnight she was skinnier than ever and almost a head taller than Tag. She scrubbed her face three times a day and tried every shade of Clearasil in an attempt to discover the magic one that would make her pimples disappear.
    “Catch ya later,” Tag said one day as soon as we got to Main Street. “I’m gonna do my own thing.”
    It was too late. Some boys had seen him with us. “What’s happenin’, Tag,” one of them said. “Takin’ a walk with the girls ?”
    Tag smiled, all confidence. Then he turned and pointed at Colleen’s Clearasil-dotted face. “Just tryin’ to help zitface pop a few white-heads.”
    The boys burst out laughing. Colleen ducked her head and kept walking, Joanie in her wake. I froze, just long enough.
    Tag turned toward me, a junior high comedian looking for some new material to impress his fans. “Yeah,” he said. He pointed a thumb in my direction. “And after that I’m gonna put fatso here on a diet.”
    I went numb. I couldn’t seem to move. The boys were on our side of the street now. The biggest one threw an arm across my shoulders and pinched my cheek with the other hand. “Whoa,” he said in Tag’s direction. “Where’d you find this porker?”
    He was on his back before he knew what hit him, Tag sitting on his chest and punching him in the face.
    The night before at dinner, my father’s chiasmus had been a quote from Mark Twain: It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog .
    “Don’t. You. Ever,” my brother finally said, “trash-talk one of my sisters again.”
    I ran the whole way home, my chest burning, hot tears streaming down my face. When Tag got home, he even offered me a Devil Dog, but I’d already decided I wasn’t going to speak to him for the rest of my life. Just because he’d defended me didn’t mean he hadn’t started the whole thing.
    It was the last time I ever walked to Marshbury Center on allowance day. I stayed home and read a book instead, and gave my Ring Ding money to Joanie Baloney, who was the only one I could count on to bring me back the change.
    I opened both eyes. Dread was sitting on my chest as if it were an animal. I mean, dread so real it had physical presence, like a Labrador retriever I could teach tricks to. Here, Dread. Sit, Dread. Roll over, Dread. Play dead, Dread .
    My hand found a hard object and I realized I’d slept with my laptop. I slid it over to my lap and pressed a key. No power. Good. Who knew how long it would take to charge up again. I patted my bed withboth hands, but it was my right toe that came in contact with my cell phone under the sheets. I caught it with my heel and slid it toward me until I could reach down and grab it with one hand.
    I closed my eyes and thought for a minute. My cell had been turned off, so chances were it still held a charge. If I turned it on I’d have to face whatever messages it held. But since I had to charge my laptop anyway, I might as well charge both devices at the same time, so that when I finally faced whatever was in store for me, I’d get it all over with at once.
    It made sense. I flopped over sideways, then slowly wiggled my way to the edge of the bed like an inchworm. I turned onto my stomach and slid off the bed till my feet touched the floor. I carried my laptop and phone over to my little desk and plugged them into the surge protector. I