"So if someone ran a steamroller over this Mystery Meat, and then you did a line dance on it and then you stuffed it in a damp cardboard box in your backyard and kept it in there for a month, than Watson's cat, Boo-Boo walked on it, than you know what it would taste like?" Kristy Thomas questioned, giving her Mystery Meat a poke with a fork. "It would taste like-"

"Ew, ew, ew. I don't want to know." Mary Anne made a hideous face and we burst out laughing.

It was lunchtime again, and Kristy was making revolting comments about the hot lunch while Mary Anne turned green. Half of the school day had gone by without anyone noticing The Pimple, (or if they did, without anybody commenting on it) and I was now ready to spill the beans. I knew I could count on my friends when it came to advice. I just hoped that none of them would recommend theSMS hot lunch to cure it. I was happy wolfing down my own lunch brought from home- a Nutella sandwich, a bottle of Gatorade, a Ring-Ding, fruit roll-ups, a brownie from the lunch lines and a boring apple. Stacey looked the epitome of NYC (that's short for New York City by the way) cool, eating cold pizza in tight cropped jeans, a baggy black sweater, a black-and-purple polka-dotted vest and a black beret. From her pierced ears hung two dangling silver hoops. Dawn was wearing baggy jeans and a baggy white man's shirt with a smiling, crudely drawn goldfish on the pocket (it bore the slogan 'fish are friends not food'). She has her ears pierced twice (talk about fresh) and she was wearing one earring with a smiling orange goldfish, and another one with a sad, dead goldfish. The other holes just had big gold hoops in them. Her lunch consisted of a plain salad, yoghurt, a sprout salad (blech) and pomegranate juice. I decided never to move to California when I saw this.

"If you don't like the school lunches," Dawn suggested. "try bringing your own lunch to school ."

"Nah," replied Kristy. "It's much more fun to make disgusting comments about this." She gave the mystery meat a poke and it jiggled. "Yuck. I bet this stuff is a giant pimple scarped off some poor guy."

"Kristy, yuck!" Mary Anne giggled.

I cleared my throat. "Uh, you guys? I have something to show you,"

"Don't worry, Claud, all your art is totally dibble." Stacey said, not even looking up.

"No." I said. "It's not art." I leaned my face in. "Do you notice anything different about me?"

Four baffled pairs of eyes stared at me.

"Another ear piercing." Kristy said flatly.

"Claud, you didn't get a nose ring, did you?" Mary Anne was hiding her eyes under her fingers.

"Oh my lord, that's so chilly!" cried Dawn. "Let me see, where is it?

"No, you guys, it's not that either." I said exasperatedly. "I'll give you a hint: it's red and…" Hmmm. I tried to think of a word that rhymed with zit.

"Lipstick?" asked Stacey.

"No, you guys!" I moaned. "It's a zit! Understand? A zit!" I wanted to cry.

Kristy gave me a funny look. "And since when does Claudia Kishi get zits?"

"Since now." I wiped a tear from my cheek.

"You're right." Kristy said. "But it's tiny."

"And it's the first one I've ever seen on you." Stacey comforted.

"Don't worry, Claud. We all get them." Mary Anne put a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

"Ha. I look like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer." I grumbled, rubbing the zit on my nose. A glop of foundation came off on my finger. Wait a minute. I grabbed a compact mirror from my pocket. "Oh lord!" I moaned. "It's two of them!" I hadn't seen the other one before. It was on my forehead, and pretty small compared to the Rudolph one. But who knew pimples could come up so fast?

"I didn't see that one on your nose before." Stacey admitted. "But you covered it up pretty well. I'm sure you could cover both of them up with a good concealer."

"You think?"

"Sure. I mean, Claudia, if we were all as gorgeous as you, pimples would be coveted for. In all honesty, I'm pretty glad that I found out that you get zits too. It just proves that you're human."

Harrumph. "Well, thanks a lot." I haughtily took a bite of my brownie.

"You are what you eat." Dawn, who had been quite all this time, said.

"Huh?" I quickly glanced down at my hands. Fortunately, they hadn't turned into elongated Mars Bars or anything. "Nice, Dawn, but I'm afraid that's a dumb expression. I mean, I'm not a giant Twinkie, and you're not a big carrot, so…"

"Don't take things so literally, Claud." Dawn said. "What I mean is that everything you eat will take effect on your body. For example, every time I eat a tofu salad, I will feel much better and healthier inside. Every time you eat a brownie, you will feel moody and cranky and that brownie will go directly to your rear end."

"I've eaten brownies for ages." I pointed out. "And I've never gotten a zit before today."

Dawn looked at me wisely. "Today could be a turning point."

Glancing at the lump of fat on my stomach, I couldn't help but believe her.