Never Wear Red Lipstick on Picture Day: (And Other Lessons I've Learned) Read Online Free PDF Page B

going to need to find a big container to dump all of the toys in first. Yesterday I used two sand buckets, but they are still in the toy room, and I do not want to go all the way downstairs and pass Mom, Timmy, and the twins again in order to fetch them. Instead, I walk out of Timmy’s room and into Mom and Dad’s. I know Mom keeps a giant basket in their bathroom for dirty towels—that will be perfect for moving Timmy’s toys.
    I walk past their bed and into their bathroom, and I do not think it is fair that they get one in their room and I have to share the hallway bathroom with Timmy. I told Mom once that I would share her bathroom with her and Dad could share with Timmy, but Dad said, “Absolutely not” (though Mom seemed to think this was a pretty funny idea).
    I tiptoe into their bathroom and stare at myself in the gigantic mirror above the sink. The mirror in my bathroom is big enough to see just my face, and that is only if I stand on a step stool, so I like this mirror much, much better. I take my hair down from its ponytail and lift Mom’s round brush from the counter. I run the brush through my hair over and over, and it is pretty tangly at first, if I am being honest. But I count my brushstrokes until I reach fifty, which is how many times Rainbow Sparkle likes to be petted on her show. My hair looks very shiny then, and I open the middle drawer in between the sinks to see what else I can find.
    I take out a bottle of Mom’s favorite lotion and squirt a gigantic glob onto my hand. I run it back and forth in between my fingers, just like I see Mom do, but there is so much of it that I have to rub it on my face and my neck and my feet, too.
    I dig farther into the drawer until I find it: Mom’s makeup bag. Mom says I am allowed to wear makeup only on Halloween, but she gets to wear it much more than that, which I don’t think is fair. I dig through the bag and find a container of pink blush, which I spread onto my cheeks and forehead and chin with a large, ticklish brush. Then I find the black mascara, and I remove the wand from the tube and try to place the stuff on my eyelashes very carefully, opening my eyes wide in the mirror so I can see better. The mascara ends up all around the outsides of my eyes, but the black dashes look like Rainbow Sparkle’s whiskers, so I still like them.
    At the bottom of the bag I find my very favorite type of makeup ever: lipstick! There are four tubes of lipstick in here, and I open each of them so I can decide which one is best. One is orange like a bad suntan, and I think Mom should throw it out immediately. Another is pink like a baby blanket, and I hate pink. The third is purple, like a really dark periwinkle, and I am about to put it on my lips, but I decide to open the fourth tube first.
    And in the last tube is a brand-new, never-­before-used, beautiful cherry-red lipstick. Slowly, I screw up the bottom of the tube, so that the ­lipstick slides out from the top in a perfect point, just like a rose growing out of the dirt. If this were my lipstick, I would use it every day, and I do not understand why Mom has not even worn it once yet. I wait until the lipstick is poking all the way out of the tube, then I lean very close to the mirror, place the smooth part from the top of the lipstick on my bottom lip, and spread. I do the same for my top lip, pressing my lips together like I see Mrs. Spangle do after she puts her lipstick on after lunch, and then pop them open again. I give my best Picture Day smile into the mirror, rub some lipstick of f my teeth with my finger, and then clap my hands together once with excitement.
    And I am fairly certain that I have never looked more beautiful in my life.

    I place all the makeup back in the bag, and the bag back in the drawer, along with the lotion and Mom’s hairbrush. Then I stick the tube of ­cherry-red lipstick in my pocket, grab the ­laundry basket from the corner, and