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We walk around for the rest of the two hours trying to find La Rock and Slayer but we never do. I tell Carmen Penelope that they seemed like assholes anyway, and she agrees. I never say words like "asshole" unless I'm hanging out with Carmen Penelope. I feel bad cursing out loud. God can hear that, for sure. I leave her leaning against the wall in front of Pretzel Hut smoking another cigarette.
"I'm meeting someone here in twenty minutes," she explains, and I don't feel so bad leaving her there.
Walking back through the mall by myself, I think about stupid things in life that I have to stop doing. I know I'm not supposed to play with Barbie anymore, but sometimes I do anyway. And my little sister still likes to play so I play with her, too. It's a habit I have to break. Also I have to start dressing better if I'm going to hang out with Carmen Penelope at the mall trying to pick up boys. I'm walking slow because I know my mother is always at least fifteen minutes late, when I see Slayer and La Rock in front of Musicland talking to a girl with huge boobs. I am staring at her boobs because I can't believe how big they are and then I get this strange,  wet, squirting feeling in my underpants. My own much smaller boobs seem to harden. I am staring at this girl's chest and it occurs to me that my mouth is open and then Slayer recognizes me.
He says, "Hey, where's your pet pig?" and then slaps his knee and laughs like he's Gargemel making Smurf stew.
La Rock says, "Shut up asshole. You're scaring her. She's still a kid."
But I don't feel like a kid. I feel like I've just discovered something very, very evil and it's dripping out of my private parts.
When I meet up with my sister and Mom in front of JC Penney's, Sidney is holding a bag of Swedish fish and smiling. Mom is holding a shopping bag and she hands it to me. I look inside and it's a bra.
"I don't want this," I say.
"I know that. Don't you think I know that? But it's time. You need to start wearing one. I got you some deodorant too." I want to die.
"I'm not wearing this," I say.
My mother looks at me like she's very tired and I don't say anything else. I want to go home and forget about this day. I want to play with Barbie. Sidney sees I'm upset. She holds up the bag of Swedish fish.
"Do you want a red one?" she asks, and I realize this is why I love my sister. She didn't skimp out and ask if I wanted a yellow or a green. I take a red one and let it dissolve into jelly on my tongue for as long as it will.
We pull into the driveway and Mom pops open the trunk. I hear chirping and realize that Sidney got her way after all. Two baby parakeets, sky blue, one a little fatter and shorter than the other.
"It was going to be a surprise," says Sidney. "I was gonna put on a magic show with them but now the surprise is ruined."
"You can still do it," I say.
She shrugs.
In the kitchen Sidney sets the birds up in a brand new fluorescent orange cage. She attaches a water bottle, a feeder, a mirror, a swing, a pink plastic cord with bells on it and a flat white rock that, she explains, "will keep their beaks sharp for as long as they both shall live." Also that "their names will be Fido and Rover and they're going to get married as soon as they're old enough."
"Duh," I say. "Those are both boy names. You can't have two boy names and let them get married."
"Why not?" She wants to know.
I say, "Because boys marry girls and that's the way it is."
She screams, "Mooooooom! Boys can marry other boys if they want to, right?" My mother is only three feet away, breading chicken cutlets.
She shakes her head no and says, "That's not how God intended it."
I am looking at my mother in a way I know I shouldn't be. I am staring at her boobs and I am waiting for that feeling I had in the mall to come back. But it isn't coming back and I think, maybe if I can just relax it might happen again. So I close my eyes and I concentrate on nothing, but of course, nothing's exactly what happens.
The show takes place in the living room. A formal occasion. I'm the only one in the audience. My mother is asleep in her bed. Sidney comes out of her room wearing a brown towel for a cape and an Indian headdress. She is carrying the birdcage with both hands like a grocery bag. The cage is covered with her baby blanket but I can still hear the tweeting underneath.
"Just pretend you don't hear that, " she says. She puts the cage down and runs back to her room. She returns with her old Easter basket filled with raw, white, grade-A eggs.
"Behold. I am about to turn these ordinary household chicken eggs into actual living alive birds! But first a few jokes. Why did the chicken cross the road?"
"Why?"
"To be with all his friends!"
I laugh anyway, like it's the funniest thing in the world.
"How many chicken eggs does it take to turn them into birdies?"
"How many?"
"A million trillion!" Sidney laughs for a long time.
When it comes time for the eggs to finally turn into actual living alive birds the trick falls flat. Sidney thrashes off the baby blanket only to reveal the birds engaged in some sort of pecking war with one another. Sidney forgets she's performing.
"Why are they doing that?" she asks.
"I don't know. It looks like they're trying to kill each other. They just need to get used to their cage," I say.
"It's gross. It's like they hate each other," she says. I get a chill and shake it off.
"Let's leave them alone for a while," I say. We watch TV until nine and then we go to bed. We leave the parakeets in the living room by themselves — still pecking.
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