I'm Pretty, Too By: Fiona Seckari Dedicated with warm hugs and wishes to my friend Amanda with the purple hair! The bright spot light beamed brightly down on the ten small girls as they stood on stage. Their ages ranged from five to eight, and their dresses were as different as the wings on ten different butterflies, but they all had that same look about them. Dark rouge smeared on pale little cheeks, dark lip gloss carefully applied on young lips, lips that should have been chanting jump rope themes instead of smiling for judges, premed curls carefully slicked back with styling gel and eyelashes thick with mascara. They were all competing in the Little Miss contest. None of them should have been there that day, they should have been on the playground playing happily on the merry-go-round, playing hopscotch in their yard, or rocking their dollies to sleep on the living room carpet, but they were there, up on stage like powered and starched Barbie Dolls smiling for the audience. Little hands waving regally at flashing cameras as aristocratic men and women discussed the way they walked, they way they smiled, the very way they breathed. A breathless crowd watched as a woman judge stood to announce the finalists. Hot spotlights beat down on ten scared little girls as beads of sweat mingled with their fifty dollar perfume trickles down ten little backs. The tension was so thick that it could be sliced in half with a knife. “And the semi-finalists are, Pricilla Sue, Cheryl Ann, and Maurine Scott.” The corners of seven miniature hollow smiles on seven petite faces dropped as the unchoosen little girls dropped their chins toward their chests and curtseyed quickly before walking off stage, away from the beating lights and uncaring eyes of the crowd. Priscilla smiled even more sweetly and batted eyelashes so thick with glittered mascara that they almost dropped under the weight rather than curling. She was the second oldest in the class, and her carriage and demeanor proved it. She knew the others wouldn’t make it, she was going to when this pageant, she was going to be this year’s Little Miss. She had the most experience, best posture, and the best looks. Diamonds glistened on her earlobes, around her neck and her fingers like past victories worn proudly for all to see. The others had been to young, all accept for Alyssa, she was to old, to full figured. What made her think she could be “Little,” Miss anything? Besides being to young Ann walked with a slightly uneven step, and Beth looked nervous, one of Kate’s hairpins was showing so conspicuously that a blind man in Berlin under a blanket would have noticed, and the rest simply weren’t good enough. The girl standing proudly on her right was no suprise. Cheryl had been a semi-finalist with her many times before, but she never won, not when she was against Pricsilla. The girl on her left was another matter, how in the world did Maurine make it to the semi-finals? She was nothing to look at, where did she think she was going with that auburn hair anyway? You’d think she could decide on a color instead of brown with hints of red. Auburn didn’t really count as a color anyway, Priscilla raised her head a little higher, golden blonde was the only color that mattered, the color of her beautiful curls. This was one of Maurine’s first pagents, too. It was sheer luck that the judges didn’t turn her away when she walked in for the application, considering what her mother did for a living. Her mother was a Nurse’s aide for pity’s sake, she wasn’t even a nurse! Not that a nurse would have been much better anyway. Her Daddy owned his own company and her Mommy was a Senator. Priscilla swished her golden curls gently with a minute turn of her head away from that disgusting Maurine. “Its almost cruel of those judges to be so mean to her,” Priscilla thought, “they brought her all the way to the semi-finals only to drop her like a bag of potatoes just moments later. Almost cruel, that is.” The same woman stood to speak again, now that the judges were done deliberating their choices. “The two finalists are Priscilla Sue and Maurine Scott.” “There goes Cheryl, you are the weakest link.” A smug smile inched its way onto Priscilla’s lips. “But what about Maurine?” The woman stood to speak yet again, this time walking onto the stage. “And this year’s Little Miss is,” “Oh well, Maurine, don’t feel to bad-” “Maurine Scott!” “What?” The little word slipped almost silently from Priscilla’s lips. Nobody heard. Nobody cared. Then Maurine stepped forward to be crowned with a little golden tiara, and she was handed a dozen long stem roses as the piano played a loud and boisterous overture. An overture that Priscilla thought should have been for her. Maurine Scott had won, and Priscilla Sue had lost, but none of this mattered to one older girl sitting in the audience, Priscilla’s sister, Laurie. Her hair was cropped short and her figure full, she wore comfortable blue jeans, and a dark leather jacket over a stylish Lane Bryant top. All she wanted to do was go home, drink a cold Pepsi, and maybe work on her Lit project. Instead her silly somewhat obsessed mother insisted that she be here to, “support her darling little sister.” She almost choked on the thought, Priscilla was a stuck up snob who needed to be turned over someone’s knee and spanked soundly. Laurie sighed as she stood up with her distraught mother, the two of them would never hear the end of it on the long car ride home. She sighed inwardly. “So why couldn’t she help but love the two of them anyway?” she thought as she walked with the two of them towards their car. Laurie had never won a single beauty pageant, would never have dreamed of prancing around in a tight sequined dress, and hardly wore any makeup, but somehow she was prettier than Priscilla and Maurine combined. She was simply beautiful.