Maggie pulled the shoes she’d ganked out of her mother’s closet from under her bed, pushing aside the half-melted My Little Ponies, plastic rings, and overly vibrant case of eye shadow her Nannie had bought her last year.  The stilettos were red, like the lipstick sitting on her tiny white metal and glass vanity—half of machine stamped flowers were painted with her sparkly nail polishes in pink, purple, and yellow.  Maggie slipped the first shoe carefully over her foot, but foot wiggled in the heel like the pieces of a board game in a box.

She blew out a breath so that her bangs flew up like a parachute and only landed half-hazard across her forehead, making her swipe at them.  There would be no more haircuts from her mother.  Maggie rolled over onto her stomach and grabbed for the shoulder pads she’d cut out of her new jacket and stuck them in the toes.  Her feet wiggled less, and the shoes were manageable, but her toe knuckles were visible, and there was no way that was sexy.  But she hurled herself to her feet, shifting her hips to test her balance and trying out a few steps.  The heels sank into the plush carpet, satisfying her need for balance, but making her glance to miniscule mirror on her vanity.  Time to practice walking on her toes since there was no need to stomp like a fatty.

Maggie bent and took the lipstick up in her hand, unwilling to bend at her knees to address the mirror head on.  She unfurled the red goop in the tube and carefully smeared the petroleum-based color across her mouth.  It ran a little over the edges of her lips, but she left it in hopes that she could fake Angelina Jolie’s famous pout.  Blowing a kiss at the mirror, she stood and strutted across her room, doing a half twirl at the edge of her bed and almost toppling over onto it, but she righted herself and strutted back, circling past the door and beyond the window as she adjusted her shorts to ride higher on her hips and her shirt lower on her budding chest.

Turning once more, she leaned forward as if to pick up one of her misplaced stuffed frogs and squeezed her arms tight to her body, denting her skin to make a bit of cleavage pop at the dip in her shirt.  They looked almost normal in her reflection across the room, and she pushed her hair to the side to show the angle of her neck and elongate the line of flesh showing.  Her hands fell to her knees as she pivoted, arching her back to see how the shorts fit along her body when a shout from her mother come from her outside her open window.

“You don’t yank those shorts back to their proper position, I’ll come yank them for you and give you a tanning until you wish no one ever saw that half moon of yours.”

Maggie fell into a cross-legged position and pressed herself back against the wall, yanking the shorts back down, her face bright to match the shoes she kicked from her feet and the lipstick she wiped from her mouth with the palm of her hand, idling rubbing it onto the carpet.