"I wish I could do a French braid," she said, staring at her own reflection. She turned her head to examine the messy braid in her dark hair, sighing as it fell apart once more. "Oh well."

"It looks better when you put it up with a hairclip anyway," I said, retrieving a butterfly clip from her dresser. "Here, let me do it."

She smiled and let her hands fall to her sides. "Okay."

"Hold still." I grabbed her hairbrush to untangle her long, straight hair. "Your hair is turning reddish again," I noted.

"It might just be the light." She peered more closely into the mirror. "I've been swimming a lot. I think the chlorine and stuff in the pool bleaches my hair."

"Probably." I concentrated on smoothing her beautiful hair. She fidgeted on her feet. "Stop moving so much."

She giggled. "I feel like I'm your doll or something. You're always doing my hair."

"Because your hair's so pretty."

"Your hair is pretty, too. It's all black, unlike mine."

I shrugged, uncomfortable with questions of my appearance. I glanced at her dresser and spotted a velvet headband with a cute butterfly design. "Oh, this'll look so pretty! Here, like this..." I carefully arranged it on her head before letting her look in the mirror again. "What do you think?"

"It's cute. But it's really tight." She made a face. "I think this is my sister's, actually. It's too small for me."

She carefully removed the headband?and flopped down on her bed, ruining my careful work on her hairdo. She grinned at my resigned protest.

"You know," she said after a moment, "you're really pretty, too."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, sure."

"No, I mean it." Her voice was sincere. I hesitantly raised my eyes to meet hers. She had an odd expression on her face, sincerity and confusion and perhaps just a touch of sadness. I didn't understand.

"I think you're really pretty," she said. "You just always wear your hair up like that, and you never wear jewelry or anything."

"I don't like wearing jewelry," I replied, and before she could say anything about it, "I don't like make-up, either." I hated the stuff; it made my face feel fake.

"Well, you don't have to wear make-up. But you are pretty."

I made a small, noncommittal sound and changed the topic.

I wasn't pretty; I had known this since I was very little. Other people were cute or angelic or beautiful; if I were generous with myself, I could be sweet. Mostly, I was just well-mannered?a quiet, well-mannered girl with thick glasses and a badly proportioned face.

I wasn't pretty. There was no point in trying to convince me otherwise; I could look on the bright side for other people and see their beauty past the faults, but I saw my own face too often in the mirror to believe any white lies about it.