Becoming A Butterfly (The Butterfly Chronicles) Read Free Page A

Gawd!” Tasha exclaimed, and then quickly covered her mouth. My mom rolled her eyes and lifted out a studded, stonewashed denim jacket. Lana appeared in the doorway and squeezed her way between us to peer into the box. She elbowed me out of the way, and I returned the favor.
     
    “ These were tough!” Mom defended. She lifted leg warmers, pleated jeans with narrow ankles, layered skirts, lacy gloves, and tons of scarfs and bandanas. Then she pulled out fists full of beads of all sizes in florescent colors, turquoise, hot pink, lime green, and neon blue. She plopped everything on the dining room table.
     
    “ Mom, those should be against the law!” I said between gasps.
     
    “ Vintage, this is all making a comeback. You watch, in a few years you’ll be begging me to borrow these.”
     
    “ If I do, you have permission to lock me up in the attic with your boxes,” I teased. She rolled her eyes and opened another box. It was full of notes on hot pink paper, old textbooks, and notebooks.
     
    “ My Trapper Keeper !” she squealed and pulled out a green binder with a flap on it. There were puppy dogs on the cover and in the corner were the words Trapper Keeper.
     
    “ Calm down; it’s just a binder,” I said.
     
    “ JUST. A. BINDER? I think not. This kept everything together and in its place.” I had seriously offended her. She squealed again and grabbed a picture.
     
    “ Eric, look at this!” She waved a picture as if he could see her from the great room.
     
    “ What is it?” Tasha asked.
     
    “ Eric, Megan, Melissa, Billy, and me.” My mom and dad were friends growing up. They didn’t start dating until after he was a junior in college. She used to do his hair. Then she pulled out a poster of a woman in an orange swimsuit.
     
    “ Who is that?” Jade asked. Mom held the poster to her heart as if it were an old dear friend.
     
    “ Farrah Fawcett. She was my idol growing up, one of Charlie’s Angels. ” She looked dreamily at the poster again and continued, “Every guy wanted to date her, and every girl wanted to be her.”
     
    “ Amber, can we use some of these outfits?” Jade asked, fingering the beads on the table. Tasha and I both raised an eyebrow at her.
     
    “ Why?” Mom asked cautiously.
     
    “ I want to take some pictures tonight.” She shrugged.
     
    “ We’re in for it,” Tasha whispered to me under her breath.
     
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
    When I smiled at myself in the mirror, I looked like a completely different person. Tasha had curled my hair, (though I knew it would fall soon) and I put on some dramatic makeup. I watched intensely as Jade put blue, green, and yellow on her eyes with thick angled black eyeliner lines. I couldn’t understand how she did it.
     
    “ I make a thin line first,” she said, as she started in the corner of her left eye and drew a line to the outer corner.
    “ Then I make a thicker line halfway to the outer corner and finally blend it to the inner corner.” I was amazed.
    “ Here, you try it.”
     
    “ I have; you know I can’t do it!” I exclaimed, refusing to take the liquid liner brush she held out to me.
     
    “ Try once more for me; if you can’t get it, I’ll do it for you, but at least try,” Jade coaxed. Tasha watched my reaction in the mirror as she worked on her face.
     
    “ Fine.” I took it from her and tried. I didn’t get the first one quite right, but the second was almost perfect. I impressed myself. Jade fixed the other eye for me and then we went to wardrobe. Lana snuck in behind Jade and watched us for a few minutes before disappearing into my closet. She returned holding a really pretty gray top my mom had bought me at the beginning of school, but I’d never had the nerve to wear it. It was silk and flowing.
     
    “ Can I borrow this?” she asked.
     
    “ Why?” I narrowed my eyes. She was getting ready to go to her friend Amanda’s house for a sleepover.
     
    “ You guys have inspired me; I want