Only Girls Allowed by Debra Moffitt Page B

warn anyone else about
Gotcha!
If it was me and only me, then that surely meant something. I also kept weighing in my head the idea of sneaking him into the Pink Locker Society offices. I did say I would show him, didn’t I?
    My membership in the PLS is probably the coolest thing about me, so I really wanted him to know. And what an adventure it would be. We’d have a shared secret to tie us together always.
    Once inside I could show him how the Web site worked, offer him a snack from the fridge, and tell him how the society mysteriously ceased to exist in the 1970s. Wasn’tthat a cool mystery to unravel? I saw us chatting together on the couch, and then maybe I would ask him about Taylor and why he was with such a miserable girl. Then maybe he would ask my advice, and I would say, “Why don’t you go out with someone who really cares about you?” And then he would figure out that
someone
was me.
    Of course, there were problems with my plan. I wasn’t supposed to let other people into the office. I could be kicked out of the PLS, which—even though only a handful of people would ever know—would be worse than getting caught climbing out of my locker. I can’t imagine the Pink Locker Society going on without me. And I can imagine all too well how angry Piper and Kate would be. Then there was the issue of me finding the courage to actually say that Forrest should be going out with someone else—
ahem
—me. With Forrest I usually stuttered and stammered and backed myself into dumb conversations. Remember the ski lift?
    But whether I could find the courage or not, maybe I should be more like Kate and stay on my best behavior. The rules were not to take anyone into the PLS offices or reveal that we were in the PLS. “Your clients—the girls who need help—require a certain amount of discretion and confidentiality,” Edith had explained to us.
    And what if Forrest told Taylor all about it? Forrest could be trusted, I was sure. But Taylor? No way.
    I was tossing and turning all this in my head on the wayinto school on Monday when Kate and Piper stopped me dead in my tracks. They pulled me into the back of the empty auditorium.
    â€œLook at this,” they said, and opened the pink laptop to reveal the Pink Locker Society Web site. Only now there were pop-up boxes crowding the page. And in the boxes there were comments, mean comments directed at the girls who wrote in to us.
    La-ha-looooooser! Boys will never like you. Good Luck!
popped up right next to a question from a girl who was tired of having a small chest. It totally drowned out our kind and thoughtful answer about how puberty happens on its own schedule and that she should like and appreciate the body she has today.
    We kept on clicking through, and my stomach started to hurt. Our answer about freckles was paired with a pop-up that read:
Lyssa Madurci, I know it’s you. You are like one big freckle, and that ain’t cool.
    Poor Lyssa. I had kind of suspected it was her, but I would have never said so.
    â€œThis can’t be happening,” Kate said. “These poor girls.”
    â€œWho’s going to want to come to our site after this?” Piper said.
    The girl who wrote in to say she was in love with her older brother’s best friend was not spared either. We gave her our best advice on crushes and suggested she get toknow him as a friend. But the pop-up blared:
Boo-hoo-hoo! Older guys like hot girls, so give up!
    â€œWho would do this?” I asked, my voice shaking a little.
    I felt panicked, like that time I was boiling water for spaghetti and accidentally set a dish towel on fire.
    â€œPiper, what do we do?”
    Piper shook her head and said she’d have to call the computer woman.
    â€œWe have to find out who’s doing this to us,” she said. “Who would hate the Pink Locker Sociey? We get nothing but fan mail.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter who, we just