I hurried home from summer school, and dropped my books down on my bed, eager to get my homework done. Mommy greeted me with a kiss, and Daddy with a warm hug.

"How was school?" Mother asked, wiping her hands on a dishtowel sitting on the counter. I shrugged.

"It was OK," I muttered.

"Did you talk to anyone?" I shook my head.

"May Isaacson," Mommy hissed, walking over to me and seizing my shoulders. "You've got to quit being so shy. You need to meet new people, make some friends."

"Nobody understands me," I cried softly.

"Why don't they understand you?"

"It's because I'm not into the popular things that they are in. I just sit around and read and study. Maybe I should change."

"Oh no you don't!" Mommy exclaimed. "There isn't a thing wrong with you." I sighed and nodded reluctantly. She smiled.

"Good, now go and do your homework," she advised and went back into the kitchen and picked up where she had left off in the recipe that she was making for dinner tonight. I shuffled up to room, and shut the door, walking over and putting on my CD player and putting on the Sleeping Beauty soundtrack and pulling out my algebra work. I cuddled up on my bed, and started to work, getting lost in the music and the homework. But the fact that I might have needed to change still lingered in my mind.

Maybe I'll be more popular if I start shopping at the mall, or get my hair and makeup done or something, I suggested to myself. But Mommy wouldn't like that. She thought that I was just fine without a different hairstyle and makeup.

"You're golden hair accents your blue eyes. I think that would attract any boy," She told me. I shrugged. It was true. I considered myself pretty, but not as gorgeous as some of the other girls at my school. They had boys dripping off of them, just wanting to go out on one single date. It almost sickened me that those things happened at our school.

I had never had a boy like me before. Once, in fifth grade, but that wasn't anything to keep track of. His name was Brian Charles, and he wasn't one of the most popular in our class. He had thick, black framed glasses, and had a face full of pimples. He didn't have the guts to come up and talk to me, and that which I was thankful. All of the girls in class had made fun of me because he had liked me.

"Doesn't May Charles sound good?" They sneered, twisting their lips in a twisted smile. I usually ran off crying, or just ignored them. But, I thought with a sigh, It wasn't exactly easy to ignore the popular people in school.

I thought of how I would look with only a little bit of makeup on. I couldn't picture it as I wanted to though. A picture of a clown with stage makeup caked on flashed in my mind, and I shuddered.

Just forget about it May. You're too insecure, I thought.