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“Thir teen, Mack.”
    Mackey flips a page, says, “Hrmp.”
    He obviously doesn’t care, but I keep going—because it feels good to let it out. I say, “These people are idiots.” Then I feel bad. “I mean, don’t they know I’m too old to be a flower girl?”
    Mackey stops reading and tries some English. “I have to wear a tux,” he says.
    I say, “Togas and penguin suits don’t go together.”
    He shrugs, starts to read again—his way of telling me the conversation is over.
    â€œSo,” I say. “What are we going to do about this?”
    Silence.
    â€œ Mack, ” I say.
    â€œHunh.”
    â€œI think Birdie’s judgment is seriously impaired.”
    Finally, Mackey closes his book and looks at me. “Maybe he’s sick of being alone. Don’t you want him to have someone?”
    â€œHe has us,” I say.
    â€œIt’s not the same thing.”
    I stare at the giant zits on Mackey’s nose. They’re red and pussy—gross. He washes his face and uses that Clear-Skin stuff every night, but nothing works. Who does Mackey have to hang out with? The Lord of the Rings. Spock. He doesn’t have a Jules. The only person he ever brought home was Willy Grimes, who wore high-waters and ended up stealing most of Mackey’s action figures.
    Sometimes I look at my brother and think, Ouch.
    â€œWell,” I say now. “Let’s just hope Birdie knows what he’s doing.”
    Mackey grunts. His eyes are on the book.
    â€œOkay.” I walk backward, toward the door. “I guess I’ll be going, then. Off to put on some Underoos and play with my Hello Kitty dolls. You know. Thirteen-year-old stuff.”
    â€œGngh,” Mackey says. Which I guess means good-bye on his planet.
    I have never tried talking to my mother from a bathroom before, lying fully clothed in a peach-colored tub, in the middle of the day. But there’s a first time for everything.
    Stella? It’s me, Evyn. The oldest living flower girl. Did you see the dress? Barforama.
    Stella smiles. It’s not so bad.
    Yes it is. Probably they will put me at the kids’ table, too, with butter shaped like Mickey Mouse ears. And later, we will do the hokey pokey. I wish you were here to talk to Birdie for me, because I bet he would listen to you. “Honey,” you could say. “Evyn’s a teenager now. Let’s not humiliate her at the wedding.” But I guess if you were here, he wouldn’t be getting married, would he?
    Stella laughs. I hope not!
    I wish you were here.
    Oh, honey, she says. Me, too.

CHAPTER SIX
    It’s the first day of school. I am wearing an econo-sized backpack, underwear that itches, and a lampshade.
    Everyone else on the bus is wearing a lampshade, too, but that doesn’t make me feel better. First, I am not a kilt person, and even if I were, I would not choose green-and-yellow plaid that bells out at the knees. However, at the March School for Girls, you don’t get a choice.
    â€œThe dreaded lampshade,” one of the twins said to me this morning, shuddering. “I wore that thing for eight years.” She had on jeans, a silver spangle top, and beat-up cowboy boots.
    And the other one said, “Oh, God. The lampshade.” She said this from the comfort of her suede pants, plum-colored sweater, and giant hoop earrings. “You’ll want to burn that thing in a week.”
    I just nodded. There was nothing to say except, Where do you keep the lighter fluid?
    At breakfast, only two people looked as bad as me: Ajax, in a green-and-yellow-plaid blazer with Thorne School for Boys emblazoned on the pocket, and Phoebe, wearing a mini version of my outfit.
    â€œI’m in the lower-school building,” she told me. “It’s yellow. You’re in the middle-school building. It’s green.”
    â€œOh,” I said. “Uh-huh.”
    Eleni plopped some