Everyone loves the new Mary Anne - except the BSC!

As I was brushing Tigger's fur, all I could think about was the BSC meeting. That dumb little incident was still in my mind.

I kept picturing that model with the hairstyle I liked. Stacey had said, "It's not you, Mary Anne."

That's all. Not a terrible insult, right? People say that kind of thing all the time.

But still, it was sticking in my mind like a piece of bubble gum under a table top. How could Stacey know what was "me"? Or Claudia, or even Dawn?

I picked up this little hand mirror I have on my desk. Looking into it, I tried to see "me."

I saw a decent neat-looking girl with sort of blah hair and a gloomy face. I forced a smile, but that made "me" look worse.

Okay, so "me" wasn't so hot. No big deal. Not everyone can be a super-model.

Still, I wondered what everyone found so funny. I reached behind my neck and pulled my hair up. I tried to imagine what the short haircut would look like.

I looked great with short hair!

Maybe this really was "me." Maybe all these years I just never allowed the real Mary Anne to come out.

Then It dawned on me. It didn't matter that my friends laughed. I laughed when I saw my hair up. A drastic change is always a shock, and maybe shocks make you laugh.

I tried to imagine what they's all do if I came in with short hair. Sure, they'd probably giggle and make comments at first. But what fun it would be when they realized how nice it looked! I opened the bottom drawer of my desk, which is my own special hiding place (I got the idea from Claudia)> I took out a few fashion magazines I'd stashed there. They were a couple of months old, but I quickly leafed through them.

In the second one, I found the hair cut. Well, not the exact one, but close enough. In fact, this model was a little more my type.

That was when I made my decision. I was going to get my hair cut.

Mary Anne's Makeover
Published by Scholastic Inc. 1996
ISBN: 0590456628