li she at least kept it clean. Sandra was silent all the time | was fixing the new | listened to Elvis singing hairdo. about someone who was “so square, but baby, | don’t care.” “1 do care, though,” | told her, “because you're my best friend.” Her questioning eyes met mine in the mirror, so | knew she hadn’‘t been listening again. “There,” | shouted when | finished, “that looks swell!” She smiled. “Yes. Thanks, Marie. | mean Zsa | Zsa.” “You can use my pink lipstick to make your botton lip look pouty like mine, and I'll let you wear one of my short skirts to school Monday, “I told her, getting more excited as | went on. “And you can wear my white glasses with rhinestones in them!” Sandra watched me in the round mirror, her mouth and eyes wide open. “1 don’t even need glasses,” she mumbled. "Oh, boy,’ | thought, “do | need to tell you a few things.” Waiting to regain my composure, | turned the record over again because the needle was clicking at the end. “1 know,” | began slowly, “but we all want you to look real nice like the rest of us. Besides, all of the neat kids wear plastic glasses with rhinestones and big rims.” “All right,” she gave in, wrinkling that long nose of hers and shrugging her narrow shoulders. “Let’s go to bed. I’m tired.” Everything went perfectly Monday. Before school began, JoAnne Daly ran up to me. “Oh, Zsa Zsa," she squealed, “you did a wonderful job ion Sandra! She almost looks like a real....a real person!” You see? Those kind of compliments came pouring in all day long. Sandra looked almost as nice as the rest of us; and Monica Hillam, walked with her knees bent because of the short skirt, and squinted a lot through my glasses all day, | was sure she was a great improvement. That afternoon, about an hour after school, Sandra came over to bring my things back. | was doing my nails and listening to records, and | almost fell over when she walked in. That dishwater hair was in a page boy again, and her nose looked longer than ever. | just sat on the floor and stared at her in the same openmouthed way she had stared at me last Friday night when | told her about the glasses. “What happened?” “\'m sorry, Marie,” she apologized, watching the record go around and around. “I just can’t do it. | can’t be like you and the rest of your friends.” “Why not?” “| guess | just have to be myself.” She put my black wool skirt and my glasses on my bed and walked toward the door. “I’m sorry, Marie, | just can’t do it. Ill just have to be myself,” | was mad then. “O.K.” I yelled at her back. “Be yourself! Be a creep. But don’t ever come to me for advice again, and for heaven’s sake, don’t call me Marie!” That was two years ago. I’m a Sophomore in high school now, and everyone calls me Marie. The funny thing about it is how much Sandra has changed in the last two years. She wears her hair in a long, shiny pony tail with full bangs. And even her nose is pretty. It’s not that it has gotten any shorter, but now the rest of her face and body has caught up io it. She looks like one of those Italian movie stars. And now she’s popular, believe it or not. At the last of our Freshman year, she was elected Sophomore class representative. Sometimes at school she stops and talks to me and asks me to come one most popular girls in our of the crowd, asked me to fix her hair for her next date. Although Sandra had over and visit her. But comes to visit me anymore. (6) she never CATTLE DRIVE SUE SINGLETON Long cactus shadows Creep slowly nearer Now growing clearer Sun circles upward Air feels on fire Longhorn cattle tire Nothing in sight now But far purple mountains Images of fountains Endless sagebrush carpet Far as | can see Nothing like a tree Hot sands and sagebrush Cactus and cattle As I sit in the saddle. wy Vy