There were girls in long dresses and high-heeled silk shoes, girls with elaborate braids and sparkly clips in their hair. All of them were chattering nonstop as they fixed each other’s hair and costumes. Magnolia could barely turn around without being stabbed by a safety pin or choked by a cloud of hairspray. In one corner, a horde of girls swarmed around the rack of dresses from the Drama Club’s costume collection. Plastic plates and goblets, spray-painted gold for the Capulets’ party scene, lay scattered underfoot. Magnolia elbowed her way to the dress rack and dug out her costume: a flouncy, floor-length white gown, embroidered with fake diamonds, and a huge silver tiara. Then she staked a place among a crowd of girls in front of the mirror, found a hook to hang up her dress and started putting on her makeup. She’d just finished the left eye and was starting on the right when Hannah Flynn popped out of the thicket of ball gowns and appeared beside her. “Oh, Magnolia!” Hannah exhaled.
