Lulu’s mother took them shopping and Lulu got four new pairs of shoes—all of them beautiful. Tessa begged for a new pair, too. But their mother pointed out that now that Tessa had all of Lulu’s shoes as well as her own, she had many more shoes than her sister. Tessa would have to settle for the hand-me-downs. Lulu brought all her old shoes and dumped them into Tessa’s closet. Even though they were a little over a year apart, Tessa and Lulu always had been almost the same size. Sometimes one of them had a little spurt and then the other caught up. And then it was the younger sister’s turn to grow. But one thing that had always remained the same size was their feet. In the past, they had always been able to share shoes. “Here,” Lulu said. “I don’t need these anymore.” This was the beginning of the end. Lulu’s feet were bigger than Tessa’s, and somehow, in Lulu’s size, the shoes were always cuter. When Lulu grew another two inches, it became clear that Lulu had sprouted and Tessa had leveled off.
