" She's turning into quite a young woman."I was saved the embarrassment of having to come up with an appropriate answer when Betsy Lou came out the fr...nt door. She kissed her mother on the cheek."Bye, Mom. Come on, Mark. Don't want to be late."Betsy Lou had on a white button-up blouse and a red plaid skirt. The skirt came down to about the middle of her thighs. I noticed that the back of it was sticking out a lot more than her skirts had the last time we walked to school. There were two. Pale, yellowporridge, with little bits of mushroom and pork studded here and therethrough it. It looked fine, and smelled good enough to make Melissa'sstomach growl. All the same.... "I'm not eating random mushrooms thatwere grown in a corner."Lonna rolls her eyes. "They're Freeman's Steaks, impossible to mistakefor a toxic mushroom - and you'll eat them, if you want to keep yourstrength up. Ever been mountain climbing?"Melissa swallowed, hard. "Can't say I have."Lonna went back to the stove. "Why are you doing thisto him? I mean, did he do something bad to deserve this or what?"I motioned my brother to come over and stand next to me. He shuffledover, head still bowed. I placed a finger under his chin and forced himto lift his head."He is a bully sometimes," I told her. "He doesn't usually use physicalforce on anyone, but he seems to dearly enjoy verbally teasing andinsulting others. Especially boys who are smaller than him. He callsthem 'sissy' and 'pantywaist'." The salesgirl was. But I enjoyed listening to her. She'd lived in New York all her life before moving here and thought it was an exciting place. When I'd first met her, I hadn't liked her, mostly because she complained so much, but the complaining had died down. I figured it was mostly due to culture shock, and now there was just excitement about her old home.I didn't think I'd ever want to live there, but Zoe made me want to visit as she went on and on about skating at Rockefeller Center or summer days in.