"Shoppin'! Let's go shoppin', Kaylee! everybody goes shoppin' when there's nothin' else to do!" Jenna stated matter-of-factly in her southern accent. Jenna is my best friend, we're practically sisters! Ever since the day we met, we've been inseperable. I remember that day like it was September 8th of 11 years ago. She had a purple cast on her left arm from falling off of her swing set a few weeks before. I had on the ugliest pair of red and white plaid pants you could ever imagine, because I had to give all of my good clothes to the flying monkeys. Red and white plaid pants plus a pink and green Veggietales backpack equals one five-year-old disaster! But, I guess Jenna didn't really notice that about me when she came up to me and introduced herself like she'd done it a million times before. Of course, it could have just seemed like that at the time, because I was the least talkative girl in Mrs. Rafferty's kindergarten class. I found that the less you talk, the more you observe. By the time I got back on my bus that day, I knew everything about my new friend...except her name. It took me weeks to realize that it was Jenna, not Jetta. Her favorite color was purple, she was obsessed with sharks, her mom packed her lunch in really tiny containers, and she was by far the smartest girl I ever sat by at a circle table in blue chairs. When I got home, I knew I had made my first best friend. And from that day on, I was positive we would stay that way forever no matter what happened. We fought a lot when we played dress up, because I always wanted to play the princess. She got stuck being the maid, but I thought it was fair at the time. Like...I truely was a maid, and if I had to play a maid in dress up, it just wouldn't be acting anymore! Plus, I had a smashing good British accent to fit the part...just saying. Even though stuff like that happened almost eleven years ago, we managed to stay the best of friends through it all. and now, only a couple of things have changed about Jenna. Her favorite color is lime green, she really wants to hug a panda, her mom has up-graded her lunch container sizes, and we both have a huge interest in good looking dudes. The only thing that's stayed pretty much the same is the fact that she is by far the smartest girl I have ever sat next to in the second row of metal desks in our Algebra 2 class.

"No, Jenna...I think that's just you," I said, flipping past the adds in the Glamour magazine that she snuck into my room for me through the only window in the basement above the washer and drier. I can't even begin to tell you about all the times she's crawled through that window to save me from Donna. "Besides, I don't have any money to get anything with."

"We don't have to spend any money to have fun at the mall! Don'tcha think it would be as sweet as apple pie to have our own mini fashion show and try on some of those really expensive clothes that we could never afford just to see what it would feel like to be rich for one night? I mean...I have a tad bit of spare cash on me, so we could at east get us somethin' to eat. C'mon, Kay. Our only other option is to keep on sittin' on your fluffy bed flippin' the shiney pages of that there style book hopin' to run across one of them personality quizzes to take to amuse ourselves," she closed my magazine to make sure she had my full, undivided attention. "Ya know...again."

I let out a long, dramatic sigh. "Okay, so you have a good point. Our lives are boring, but don't you remember the last time we walked around the mall?"

"I try to forget about things that would emotionally scar me for life, Kaylee. You know that!" She responded, flopping back on my puffy pillow.

"Then I guess I'll have to jog your memory! Gang. College boys. Whispering. Laughing. Pointing. Slushy. Face. Garbage can. Head-first. Need I go on?" I asked in an attempt to change her restless mind. She and I have only one difference aside from our learning span...she is the worst shopoholic in the history of all recorded shopoholics anonymous meetings. I litterally had to pry her hands off of the last top she wanted...who knew a Michael Stars V-neck Henley would cost over one thousand dollars? That's when I finally convinced her to get some help.

"But, that's all in the past! We can't let one bad experience ruin the mall for us forever, Kay," she stated.

"Easy for you to say! You weren't the one that spent a week washing pretzel cheese out of your hair!" I pointed out.

"That's true, but so is this. You and I really need to start lookin' for dresses to wear for the school ball."

"Wait..our school has a ball? Like...like a special football or soccerball or something?" I asked, clueless as to what she was reffering to.

"Not that kinda ball, silly! Like a dance," she said as if I should have known all along.

"Like the Macarena?"

"No. It's a school event that takes place at night where they play music for you and your friends while you move to the beat and hope some hunky guy asks you to move to the beat with him! Better now?" She put her hand on her hips and let out a long exhail. I just looked up and gave her a blank stare. One thing you should know about me is that I really don't get out much, so any slang terms or big events that people are talking about...I don't know the first thing about them. "Like Cinderella? The ball? The prince? The gowns?"

"Ooooh, now I know what you mean! Why didn't you just say it like that in the first place? I'm not going," I promptly informed her.

"What? You can't be serious, Cowgirl! I don't have a date, and if I show up alone to the ball, I'll be...pathetic. A loser. A loner. But, if you really don't wanna go...just remember me as the cheerful girl I used to be before I was epically embarrassed."

"Nothing you say will change my mind, Jenna. So, don't play the guilt trip on me. I'm onto your game, sis. You know I can't dance that well, and nobody will miss me not being there besides you anyway. I don't care if Katy Perry is gonna be there, I'm not going," I stated, tossing the Glamour magazine onto the seat of the old wooden chair donna so generously offered to give me after breaking off one of the legs. Don't worry, I fixed it.

"I bet Nathan's gonna be there," she smiled and elbowed me in the side.

I slowly turned to face my sly southern sister. "So, is this like a formal thing?" I grinned. She squealed and jumped up off my cozy bed, grabbing me by the hand and rushing me up the stairs and out the front door.

"Yay! Shopping trip!" she shouted as we backed put of the driveway in her rusty orange pick-up truck.