Carly grabbed the flier, for a children’s beauty pageant, and rushed over to her friend Louisa.
“Look!” she enthused, shoving the flier into Louisa’s face.
“I can’t read it if you just shove it in my face,” Louisa groused. She took the flier from Carly. “Okay. Why are you showing me this?”
“Look at the grand prize! A thousand dollars!”
“What?!” Louisa stared at the flier. “Some snot-nosed twerp is going to win a thousand dollars just to look pretty?” She sighed. “I hate this society.”
“No, Louisa, some snot-nosed twerp won’t win the money. You will,” Carly said firmly. Louisa looked at her doubtfully.
“I’m an adult.”
“An adult who has to buy her clothes from kids’ stores,” Carly said. Louisa turned red. For some unknown reason, she had never got a growth spurt. Since elementary school, she hadn’t grown a single inch. The doctors weren’t sure why. All they knew was that Louisa would forever be stuck as the size of a child.
Louisa did her best to “dress up” and look older, but she knew that her attempts failed more often than they succeeded. In addition to her height, she was flat-chested and lacked the curves that most grown women had. Not five minutes ago, a stranger had mistaken Carly for her mother. It was the tenth time it had happened since arriving at the mall.
“Okay, you might have a point,” Louisa said. “But this competition is for kids super young! Do you see the different age groups?” She pointed at the flier, which explained there were three different groups, one for daycare aged kids, one for preschoolers, and one for kids in prekindergarten. “I don’t think I’d be able to pull off a literal baby.”
“Well, no, but with the proper makeover, I think you would be a serviceable large toddler,” Carly said dismissively. “You definitely would be able to compete in the prekindergarten group. You’ve got hand-me-downs from your six-year-old niece.”
“I…”
“The money, Louisa,” Carly whispered. “Imagine the money!” Louisa caved.
“Fine,” she sighed. “I can compete in some kid beauty pageant. But since I’m humiliating myself, I’d better win.”
“Don’t worry, you will. You’ll be competing in…”