Madison was lost in a sea of green fabric. She twisted and contorted her body every which way but it only exacerbated the problem. Wildly flinging her arms about, she yelled, “Help me!”
She heard her bedroom door open and blindly turned toward the sound. There was a long pause, and then her mother sighed, “Honestly.”
She knew she must look ridiculous—head stuck in her dress with one hand through the armhole while the other was trapped at her side—but there was no reason for her mother to sound so annoyed. After all, she wasn’t the one fighting with an inanimate object and losing…badly.
“It’s being stuck in the ultimate corn maze,” Madison complained, craning her neck in hopes of finding the opening.
“If you’d just waited like I told you too you wouldn’t be in this predicament.”
“I want to put it on before Avery and Kelly get here.” They would be arriving at any minute. The plan was for the three girls to get ready for Homecoming together at Madison’s house then the boys would arrive at six.
“You should put it on after you apply your makeup and do your hair. It’ll get crinkled this way.”
Grunting, Madison bent at the waist and wiggled her hand up. “Will you please just help me?” she grumbled, not wanting a lecture on proper etiquette.
Her mother turned her around and found a zipper hidden in the seam on the side. She unzipped it and suddenly the fabric gave way and Madison could breathe.
“That’s so much better. Thanks,” she told her mother as the dress slipped into place. After zipping the dress up, her mother removed the strands of hair caught in the back and swept it over her shoulders, smoothing the riot of curls along the way.
“Beautiful,” she stated, turning Madison to the full-length mirror near her closet. The pride in her mother’s eye caught Madison off guard. They’d been so at odds with each other over the past year she rarely saw anything but frustration.
She looked in the mirror and gave her mom a shy smile. “A chip off the ole’ block, huh?”
Her mother laughed and rested her hands on Madison’s shoulders. “I’m not so bad in my old age.”
“You’re not old.”
“I feel it. My high school Homecoming was so long ago and nothing as fancy as what you kids have now. There was a few streamers and balloons, but that was about it.”
“Who did you go with?” she asked, her eyes sparkling with mischief. This was the first time since the incident last week they were at ease with each other. She’d apologized the next morning and her mother accepted but it had been a stiff and short conversation. After that, she went out of her way to avoid her mother. Not hard to do considering she was rarely home.
Her mom pointed her nose in the air and said primly, “A very respectable young man.”
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Honor Among Friends (NaNoWriMo14)
Teen FictionNormally, Madison Chase wouldn't consider being asked to join a study group a big deal, but she quickly finds out this is no ordinary group. With one meeting, she's entangled in a web of misunderstandings and lies that lead to a series of petty crim...
