"It's not a fruit bowl, Nick." Mom laughed. "It's a hat! Put it on, it will go so well with your bow tie collection. You can wear it when we go for that expensive meal you promised me about nine years ago."

Luckily I did not receive any animal bones this year and was instead pleased to be given some very pretty jewelry. "You can wear this necklace and feel brave," my mom said gently, holding out an amber pendant.

When she had finished making herself at home, which involved scattering bright and colorful patterned throws from Peru across all the sofas, beds, and chairs in the house, we sat down with a cup of tea, and I filled her in on everything that had happened that semester.

Dad huffily went about the house removing all the throws and clearing up the mess Mom had already made in the bathroom, and then joined us just as I was elaborating on the events of the school trip, placing great focus on the thermal underwear situation.

"So as you can see, either I need to make a big change, or I need to leave the country. I can't go back to school without doing anything." I sighed dramatically.

"I see." My mom placed her teacup down onto the saucer. "Well, I take it you won't be leaving the country anytime soon, otherwise Dog would be at a loss, so what are you thinking for the big change?"

I shrugged. "I've got a few ideas. But that's where I need your advice. Dad is no help."

"Hey!" Dad said, shuffling round in the armchair. "I keep receiving these unjust accusations. I helped with the boy advice, didn't I?"

"Dad, I told you; I can't go around cooking steaks at school."

My mom looked confused. "What does steak have to do with boy troubles?"

"A lot apparently." I rolled my eyes and reached for a cookie.

"I don't see why you have to make any changes," Dad stated grumpily. "You're perfect just as you are. You can't stop being you."

"Unfortunately not, but I can stop being so obviously me."

"What on earth does that mean?" he asked, looking at Mom for help. She shrugged.

"None of your business," I said curtly. "But I have enlisted the help of Helena and Marianne. Both of whom will be meeting us for lunch today."

"I didn't know about this."

"You're not invited, Dad. Girls only. Mom, we're meeting them at one thirty."

"I don't see why I can't come," Dad huffed, looking very disgruntled.

"Because I need you to approve of the end results. But it wouldn't be right for you to witness the process," I explained.

Dad looked baffled, and Mom laughed out loud. "I'm sorry, Nick, looks like you're on your own this afternoon. Isn't our daughter a hoot!"

Ah. That's where I inherited that word from.

"She's certainly a lot of things," he muttered, furrowing his eyebrows.

We met Helena and Marianne at the hairdresser that Helena had recommended. I didn't consider until we were there that I maybe should have let my dad introduce his future wife to the mother of his only child, but I needn't have worried. Mom and Helena immediately hit it off. I think my dad may have a type: beautiful, headstrong, and ever-so-slightly crazy.

They sat down on the sofa together with their glasses of champagne and talked without interruption about travels, film sets, movie stars, children, and my dad. The only time they stopped to pay attention to anyone else was when the hairdresser, Burt, ran his fingers through my long, flat, mousey-brown hair. "I think bangs. And I think auburn. Marianne?"

Marianne, who had stepped back somewhat while our moms loudly and excitedly got to know each other, was now confident and in her comfort zone. She moved forward to stand next to Burt and scrutinize my reflection. "I think you're right," she said, taking a handful of my hair and holding it up in the light. "I think red would suit her skin tone. And bangs would bring out her lovely eyes."

I flushed at the compliment, but Marianne was too distracted by my split ends to notice. Helena and Mom did that thing that only moms can do, which is tilt their head and make an "aw" expression without actually saying anything. They both did it. I saw them in the mirror.

"Are you sure about this, Anna?" Marianne suddenly asked, gently letting down my hair and taking me by surprise.

"Yes. Why?"

"You don't need to change what you look like to try to please everyone else," she said matter-of-factly. "It's hard work. That's what I have to do every day. It's not you."

"I want it to be me though." I sighed. "I'm tired of being sad when I see myself."

"All right then," Marianne said. "As long as you're sure you're doing it for the right reasons. Let's find you some more confidence."

And with that she gave the go-ahead to Burt with a nod. He pulled his tray of instruments and bottles of color toward him. "Let's get to work," he announced dramatically, pinging the end of the disposable glove he had just put on with a flourish.

Gulp.

I sat quietly while he mixed the color and began to twist locks of my hair up to be clipped on the top of my head. Mom and Helena were giggling on the sofa over a story that Helena was retelling, and Marianne sat patiently in the chair next to mine, flicking through a magazine.

I let Burt push my head at awkward angles and smother it in strong-smelling goo. "Why the change?" he asked suddenly, rubbing the color to the ends of my hair.

"I've embarrassed myself and my friends too many times," I explained. "I want things to be different."

"Hair is a great place to start." Burt nodded. "Marianne has done that a million times."

"I have not!" She swiveled in her chair to face us. "I just get bored with my hair color."

"Mmm," Burt said knowingly. "Funny how you get bored with your hair color whenever some scandal about you comes out in the papers."

"Completely coincidental." Marianne smirked.

Burt chuckled, finished rubbing brown liquid in my hair, and then said it was time to wait for the color to set in. "I'll leave you ladies to it, and I'll come back and have a look in a minute. Meanwhile, Marianne, why don't you tell Anna here about the scandal that came out right before you dyed your hair auburn." He flounced off giggling.

"What? What happened?" I asked eagerly.

"I believe Burt is referring to the time that I drove a golf cart into a lake," she replied, examining her makeup in the mirror. "Or he might be talking about the time I went a slightly brighter auburn, and that was after I lost my house key and tried climbing over a wall. Two tips for you in that situation. Don't climb a wall when there are photographers around, and it's a good idea to disable the security system."

"That was quite a fine you landed me," Helena piped up, holding out her glass for a refill of champagne and graciously thanking the assistant who poured it. "Wasting police time."

"Wow." I nodded. "Now I feel really boring."

"You're only twelve, right?" Marianne shrugged. "There's still time."

Mom and I sat enthralled as Helena launched into a series of scandalous tales about her many costars of the past with commentary from Marianne. By the time Burt came back to check on how things were coming along, we were all in fits of giggles as Helena re-enacted a moment on a movie set when an actor, furious at his lines being cut, proposed a fencing duel with the director.

Burt attempted to examine my head as I shook with laughter and then put a hand in the air to demand quiet. "To the sink!"

My hair has never experienced so many products as Burt scrubbed and rinsed, before blasting the hair dryer at me. Then there was more combing, some hair spray, a rather uncomfortable moment when I couldn't see anything as he pushed my hair down over my face to create bangs, and suddenly everyone was quiet.

"Well, Anna?" Burt took a step back and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "What do you think?"

For a moment I couldn't say anything because there was a girl looking back at me in the mirror that I didn't even recognize. My auburn hair was glossy, really glossy, like Marianne's. And it actually had volume, framing my face rather than hanging limply around it. My eyes peeked out from under the bangs and somehow they looked bigger and brighter. I looked . . . nice.

"It's amazing the difference a simple haircut can make." Marianne smiled gently at me.

"Simple?" Burt huffed. "Great artists make it look easy."

"Darling, you look just stunning!" Mom said, choking back tears. "So grown-up!"

"Burt, you really are a genius," Helena gushed. "You look beautiful, Anna."

"Well"-Burt smiled kindly at me in the mirror-"it helps when your model has the raw material."

"Now," Helena said, clapping her hands excitedly, "shopping time!"

"Excellent idea, Helena." Mom jumped up. "Lead the way!"

As the two of them started mapping out the shops we needed to visit and how many days they would need to get around them all, Marianne looked very amused.

"Looks like we're in for an interesting week."

I stared back at my reflection and nodded. "Yeah. Looks like it."

By the end of break I had been to so many stores, and been primped and preened by so many people, that I wondered how anyone managed to look this prepared all the time. Celebrities must feel constantly exhausted by everything that goes on to make them look naturally good. Friday was the biggest day of all, because Marianne had invited me to a premiere.

She even let me come to her house first to have my makeup done, and her stylist was going to help me pick out a dress from her collection. Dad was so ecstatic that Marianne and I were going to be getting ready together that he stopped whining about how I was changing too much and growing up too fast. Instead he kept going on about how nice it was that we were "bonding" and played Billy Joel at full volume as he drove me over to their house, singing along and bopping his shoulders. When "Uptown Girl" came on I thought he was going to explode with joy. I had to tell him to calm down as I didn't want him to have an aneurysm or anything.

Even Mom in the front seat was slightly disconcerted by his behavior. "Honestly, Nicholas, I haven't see you this smug since you interviewed Paul McCartney."

He wasn't the only one. Helena had organized snacks that would have fed a small nation, and their entire living room had been transformed into our dressing room. I looked through the clothes racks that were dotted around the room in awe. "We have some ideas for you, so you can pick the one you like the most," Cat, Marianne's smiley stylist with pink dip-dyed hair, informed me as she started pulling dresses out of the mass. "But I think Marianne has one that she thinks you'll particularly like."

"Yeah I do." Marianne came traipsing down the stairs and into the room, her hair in curlers, wearing a white bathrobe that had a gold embroidered "M" on it. On her feet were really big . . . Winnie the Pooh slippers?

Wait a moment.

"Marianne!" I blurted out before I could think. "What are those?" I pointed at her footwear.

"What? They're slippers." She shrugged and stuck out a foot. "What's wrong with them?"

"They're big Winnie the Pooh faces. On your feet."

"What's your point here?"

Oh ho ho. How the tables had turned.

"Marianne." I smirked. "You are a secret nerd."

"What?" She glanced in a panic at Cat. "No I'm not."

"Yeah you are!" I beamed. "You are a nerd! You have Winnie the Pooh slippers!"

"I'm not a nerd!"

"I have to say, you had me fooled. I thought that we were not of the same ilk, but . . ." I reached into the tote bag I had brought with me and dramatically whipped out a pair of Eeyore slippers. "I was wrong."

"Oh my goodness!" Helena cried from the doorway. "You are matching!"

Marianne looked from me to her mother and back at me again. Before she burst into laughter. "What can I say?" She grinned, reaching for a clothes bag hanging on one of the racks. "Geek chic?"

Helena scuttled off excitedly to get my parents and inform them of the slipper revelation while Marianne held up a navy blue long silk dress. "This will suit you-try it on."

I'd never seen anything so beautiful and was happy just to stare at the dress on the hanger, but Marianne was being all bossy and made Cat get me into it before I even got to inspect it properly.

"Go on, go on," Marianne said, herding me toward the full-length mirror when Cat had finished fussing and making her last adjustments.

I held up the dress around my ankles so I didn't trip and shuffled over to the mirror, making a mental note to practice walking like a normal person before we left. I felt like a five-year-old who had raided her mother's wardrobe-until I looked up into the mirror.

I was so surprised that I did a little gasp that made Cat and Marianne exchange a smug glance. The silky dress fell down from the tiny jeweled spaghetti straps like a waterfall, just skimming the floor. And its deep navy hue was the color of midnight. I couldn't stop looking at it.

"Well? What do you think?" Marianne asked.

"I feel like a movie star," I breathed, twirling around and watching the dress catch the light from all different angles.

"We haven't finished with you yet," Marianne stated as Cat came over to help me reluctantly step out of the dress so that a nice makeup artist named Taylor, who had been in the kitchen chatting with Dad about great places to go fishing, could sort out my face and hair.

When both our makeup and hair were done, Marianne ordered everyone out of the room.

"No need to be quite so controlling, darling. You really are becoming more and more like me every day," Helena grumbled as she was sent to the kitchen, having been admiring the whole process with my mother from the sofa.

"So they can see the full effect as we emerge," Marianne explained once they had all filed out. "I'll help you into your dress."

She zipped me up and then let me put on my shoes and jewelry before she took a step back, and with her hands on her hips, said, "All right then. Show me your pose."

"My what?"

"Your pose."

"I have a pose?"

"You have to have a pose. For all the photographers. That's why we're going."

"We're going for the film," I said pointedly.

"No one goes for the film apart from nerds. Oh yeah, for a second I forgot who I was talking to. Okay, I guess you're going for the film." She raised her eyebrows. "Go on then."

"Go on what?!"