"Betty Miles - The Trouble With Thirteen" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miles Betty)

"We can change in my room," Kate said, starting upstairs.
We crowded into Kate's bedroom. One whole wall of it is glass.
"Pull the curtains!" Debbie shouted right away. "What if somebody peeked in?"
"There's no one out there but Marvin," said Kate, pulling the drapes closed.
"Marvin who?" Debbie sounded panicked.
Everyone laughed.
"Marvin the dog, you idiot," Angela said.
"Oh, yeah, I forgot," Debbie said quickly. I could tell she was embarrassed. I almost felt sorry for her. But then she took this flowery makeup kit out of her bag and started rummaging around in it in a show-off-y way. "That's the trouble with giving dogs people names," she said. "You get mixed up."
"Most people can tell the difference between a dog and a person," I said quickly, angry because of Nora.
Debbie raised her eyebrows. Then she pulled out a little mirror and held it up and inspected her face very smugly. If Rachel had been there I would have poked her, and we would have cracked up.
But now I didn't feel like laughing. Everyone was starting to get undressed. They all had pajamas. Even Debbie hauled out a pair of ordinary faded blue ones. I wished terribly I'd brought my old ones along. I couldn't imagine struggling into my nightgown with all of them watching.
"C'mon, slowpoke," Janie shouted at me. "Get going!"
"I am." I pulled my nightgown out of the bag.
"Hey, that's a neat color!" Janie climbed over Kate's bed. She grabbed the nightgown and held it up by the straps. "Wow, get a load of this!"
"Hey, Annie!" Sue shouted. "Is that new?"
"Sex-y!" Debbie yelled.
That did it. "Your bathroom's down the hall, right?" I asked Kate. I grabbed my nightgown and ran out the door.
I locked the bathroom door. Then I got undressed. I worked my head and arms through the straps of the nightgown and pulled the whole thing down. It felt sort of tight across the top. That seemed funny, considering. I looked in the mirror. I'd put it on backward! I tugged it off again and turned it around
and put it back on. This time it felt better. I checked the mirror to make sure. The nightgown drooped a little bit in the front, but the total effect was quite good.
I stared at my reflection. My eyes looked big. I think I have pretty nice eyes, actually. They're my best feature. That's what you're supposed to accentuate. I might wear eye makeup when I'm older. Not eye shadow. But just outline the natural curve of my brows.
There was a bang on the door. I jumped.
"Hurry up, Annie!" It was Sue. "We're going down."
"Just a second." I flushed the toilet so they wouldn't think I'd been looking in the mirror all that time.
They were all outside the door. Someone wiggled the door knob. "Hey, Morrison!"
"I'm coming!" I yelled. I wasn't ready to face them so I waited while they thumped downstairs. Then I came out. I held up my nightgown so I wouldn't trip and hung on to the banister and walked down the steps very slowly. I stood in the dark at the bottom and smoothed down my skirt and pulled up my straps.
"Oh, Annie-you startled me!" Mrs. Levy came out of the kitchen.
"I was just going to the bathroom," I said, like a dope.
Mrs. Levy was staring at me. "That's quite a gown!" I didn't know how she meant it. I hoped she wasn't
shocked or anything. "You surely are growing up, all of you," she said. Then she patted my arm and went upstairs.
I arranged my nightgown again and walked to the living room doorway. All the kids were lying around on the floor, laughing. But when I walked in they sat up and stared.
"Look at her!"
"Hey! Terrific!"
I headed for the couch, stepping over them and trying not to trip over my skirt.
"That is some nightgown!" Angela said knowingly.
I sank down on the couch and folded my arms across my chest in as natural a way as I could.
"How did you get that past your mom?" Debbie asked.
"She didn't care." I was sorry as soon as I said it. I didn't want Debbie to think Mom was tacky.
"My mom would have a fit," she said.
I wondered if Mrs. Levy might come downstairs and ask me to cover myself or something. I scrunched back on the couch and put my feet up so my knees hid my chest. I wanted to die.
Then Kate's dog Marvin started yipping, and Kate got up and let him out of the kitchen. Everyone began to make a fuss over Marvin. He jumped around yipping excitedly and wagging his tail. He didn't even notice me up there on the couch.
"Anyway," Debbie said, as though my coming in, and Marvin, had interrupted something, "the boys in our class are such babies."
"They'll laugh at anything," Angela said.
"Yeah," Sue said, "like, every time the word bras comes up in French, Todd Mitchell cracks up."
"Bra!" Janie yelled. "What's it mean?"
"It means 'arm,'" Kate told her. "It's spelled with an s but you pronounce it 'bra.' I don't know why the boys have to make such a thing of it."
"Because they're babies!" Debbie said.
"I guess they'll act different when they're older," Janie said.
"Don't kid yourself," Debbie said positively. "The eighth graders are worse." She leaned back against a chair and stuck her legs out in front of her. All the kids looked so comfortable in their pajamas. I felt out of it, sitting by myself on the couch. I wished Marvin would come and sit with me but I didn't want to call to him.
"You know Bob Thompson?" Angela asked. "He has this big poster of Farrah Fawcett-Majors popping out of a bikini on his locker door. And he always holds his door open so you'll see it."
"That's nothing. Danny Wilkins has a Playboy Bunny on his," said Debbie. "Lying on a fur rug with her boobs flopping."