2004 - Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science

The only problem was that one girl was missing.The Miss Teen director searched all over forher and eventually found the girl had oversleptat her host family’s house. The rest of us sataround backstage in our puffy dresses andmile-high hair chatting until she arrived andwe could start the show. The poor girl arrivedten minutes later and hurriedly changed intoher gown. It was then that she realized she hadleft her makeup at home. Now, to a fluff, thisshould have been the end of the world, and infact many of the other fluffs were freaking outfor her. This fluff, though, did something veryunexpected. She started pinching the fire out ofher cheeks, and then she began pillagingthrough every drawer backstage. All of ustrailed her, asking what in the tar-nation shewas doing, but the blond-haired, blue-eyedfluff just ignored us. She kept on searchinguntil a moment later she whooped with enthusiasmand thrust her discovery high into theair. I swear you would have thought she hadstumbled onto something like King Tut’s tomb,but no, all she had found was a black finepoint Sharpie pen.“Rachel, what in God’s name are yougoing to do with that Sharpie? We’re on intwo minutes.”“Honey,” Rachel replied, “when life throwsyou lemons, you shove them inside your braand hope everyone notices. I’ll tell you whatI’m going to do with this here Sharpie. I’mgoing to line my eyes. So, if you don’t mind,how about you just shut your mouths and findme a mirror?”I was shocked. Not because this crazy girlwas about to line her eyes with a Sharpie,though, but because it was right then that Irealized how wrong I had been about the capabilitiesof all fluffs. This girl was actually tentimes wiser than I could have ever imagined.Life had thrown her a lemon, alright, and thisgirl hadn’t cried, whined, or given up. She hadshoved that lemon in her bra and moved on.Rachel ended up placing in the competition,and her eyes had never sparkled on stage theway they did that night. I, on the other hand,walked away with no awards and nothing toshow for the hard work I had put into the program.I was okay, though. I just shoved it in mybra and moved on.Operation CondorAcrylicEmily VanceS V2 5