Cannie Shapiro 02 Certain Girls Read Online Free

pinched me too hard. I'd pushed him away and said, I don't think so, in a scornful, almost snotty voice, and I had sounded exactly like Taryn Tupping, who is actually hot and the star of The Girls' Room on TV. It was just the kind of thing she'd say to a boy who'd gone too far, the exact words and tone that a real hot girl would use. James had stepped away from me immediately, and I thought he'd look angry, but he just looked as if it was what he expected--as if that was how hot girls were supposed to behave.
    "Spill, spill!" Todd chanted. I blushed, remembering it: the feeling of James's lips and his hands, and that respectful look on his face. But I didn't want to say anything because Tamsin hadn't kissed anyone yet, and if I did tell, Todd would pass the story along to everyone, probably starting with his mother.
    Frenchelle turned in a circle, then curled up again and started snoring as my mother made her way slowly up the stairs. I rolled over, hiding my face in my pillow as she paused, the way she always did, to admire the clock at the top of the staircase. "Shh," I said. "It's her."
    The three of us lay there, the silence broken only by the sound of Tamsin clicking her retainer in and out of her mouth, until I heard my mother turn around and head toward her bedroom. I rolled onto my back, stared at the ceiling, and began my litany. "Reasons I cannot stand my mother: one through ten."
    "Here we go," Tamsin muttered.
    "'Scuse me," said Todd, carrying his pajamas to the bathroom.
    I ignored them both. "One: her boobs."
    "They're not that bad," Tamsin said without looking up from the copy of Ghost World I'd gotten her for Chanukah, to replace the one she'd read until it had fallen apart. Todd came back in, barefoot in striped seersucker pajamas, smelling like benzoyl peroxide and mint toothpaste, his dark brown hair brushed up from his forehead, his lips and nose and the arch of his eyebrows identical to his sister's. Even though he's not into girls except as friends, this would probably be the last time Todd would be allowed to sleep over-- Today I am a man, he'd said, making a face--but there was going to be a brunch at the Marmers' house the next morning. The caterers would arrive at six, and Mrs. Marmer had decided that the benefits of the twins getting a good night's rest outweighed the risks of a mixed-sex sleepover. "They're just...you know." Tamsin rolled onto her side. "Big."
    I sighed. Todd and Tamsin have been my best friends since kindergarten. We met the day Matthew Swatner started teasing me because of my hearing aids and calling me Machinehead. The two of them had plopped themselves down beside me at the sand table--Tamsin with her hair in pigtails tied with red ribbons, Todd in a red baseball cap--and told Matthew to leave me alone. Then Todd had given me his baseball cap to wear, and Tamsin had tied one of her ribbons around my wrist, and at snack time they'd sat on either side of me, glaring at Matthew, at anyone who stared. Your own personal Fruits of Islam, my mother had said when she'd seen them. I still don't know what she meant by that, but I know for sure that even after all our years together, Tamsin and Todd still don't get the deal of my mom.
    "Her chest is ridiculous," I said. "Do you know what size bra she wears? Thirty-six G."
    "G?" Todd repeated. "Is that a real size?"
    "Sort of. She has to order them online because the regular store doesn't have them."
    "Wow," said Tamsin, but she sounded respectful, not horrified, the way I'd been when I'd seen the tag on my mother's bra.
    "And she always wears clothes where you can see her chest!" I shook my head. "But that's probably not her fault. I mean, what's she going to wear so you can't see her chest?" I stared at the ceiling and told my friends the worst part. "And now I'm getting them, too."
    "You're lucky," Tamsin said, looking up from her book to gaze unhappily at her own chest. "Guys love big boobs."
    "Which is why our mom bought hers," Todd