Cannie Shapiro 02 Certain Girls Read Online Free Page A

said.
    "She says I can get implants, too, when I'm sixteen," said Tamsin. "As if."
    I flushed, thinking of James again, who hadn't seemed bothered by my chest. "Amber Gross doesn't have big boobs," I said. "Amber Gross barely has any boobs at all."
    "Yeah, but she's Amber Gross." Out loud, it sounded stupid, but I knew exactly what Tamsin meant. In spite of her last name, which you'd think would be an automatic disqualifier, Amber Gross is the most popular girl in our grade. Amber Gross has chestnut-brown hair, straight and shiny as a satin curtain, and a twinkly smile that would make you think her braces are jewelry she had commissioned for her teeth. No zit would ever dare deface her skin. Her body is tiny and perfect, and her clothes are tiny and perfect, and she is going out with Martin Baker, who's on the J.V. soccer team even though he's only a seventh-grader. Best of all, most important, Amber can talk to anybody, parents or teachers or boys, and everything that comes out of her mouth--the words and the sound of the words--is always just right.
    I am the anti-Amber, the girl whose face you'd skip right over, the one who stands in the back row of class pictures, slouching, looking away; the one who smiles and nods at things she can't quite hear and hopes that will be good enough. I never know the right thing to say, not even in my own head, and half the time, if I do manage to say something, people ask me to speak up or repeat myself, because my voice is so low and gravelly and strange-sounding that they can't hear me or understand what I'm saying.
    I used to think that I was special--special in a good way, like my mother used to tell me. I remember being maybe three or four, in my speech therapist's office, feeling my mother's fingers against my chin as she gently moved my face so I was looking at her lips in the mirror. Watch me, Joy. I was born premature, with mild hearing loss in one ear and moderate loss in the other, so it took me longer to talk than most kids. In nursery school, I'd get frustrated when people couldn't understand me. I'd scream, throw things, hurl myself onto the ABC carpet and pound it with my feet and fists. My mother came to school with me every day. She never got mad at me or lost her patience. She'd wait until I stopped crying. She'd wipe my face and give me apple juice in a sippie cup and lead me over to the easels or the Story Corner, where she'd settle me in her lap and read me a book. At home, we'd practice in front of the mirror, her eyes on my eyes and her fingers on my chin. You're doing so well! You're doing just great! Say "mmm." She'd sit with me in her lap, pressing one of my hands against my throat so I could feel the sound's vibration, and my other hand on my lips, so I could feel the air streaming out of my nose. Say "mmm." Say "mmm." Say "Mama."
    We'd walk home together at lunchtime, and if it had been a hard day, I would get a treat. We'd go to Pearl Art Supplies for water-color paint or new buttons, or to Rita's for water ice when it was warm, and my mother would scoop me into her arms and say that she was so proud, that I was so special. It has taken me all of this time to learn that I'm really not. The only reason anyone in the real world thinks I'm special is because of my hearing aids and my weird voice and because once, a long time ago, my mother wrote a book.
    "Can I go now?" asked Tamsin. She had one hand curled around Ghost World, her finger marking her place.
    "I'm only on two. Two," I said. "She and my father are disgusting." They laugh together all the time. They kiss when they think I'm not watching. They speak a private language, one made up of all the movies and TV shows they've seen and the magazines they've read. One of them will say something like "Can't we all just get along?" or "Lewis Lapham has gone too far this time," and the other one will start laughing. "Who is Lewis Lapham? What's so funny about a sweatshirt that just says 'College'?" I'll ask, and