How to Be Popular by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page A

he’d cry. Well, knowing Jason, he probably wouldn’t have said any such thing. But in my feverish four-year-old brain, I was convinced he wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore if he knew I was a bed wetter. Also, of course, it would come up every time I beat him at anything: “Well, okay, maybe you’re better at Candy Land, but at least I’m not a bed wetter.”
    Finally, as my undies grew colder and colder around me, I couldn’t take it anymore, and I got up and padded to the master bedroom, where Jason’s grandmother was sleeping.
    She woke up right away, though she was a bit groggy.
    “Oh, Stephanie,” she said when she realized it was me. “Darling, it’s not time to get up yet. See, in this house, we get up when the big hand is on the twelve, and the little hand is on the eight. Or nine.”
    But I explained to her I wasn’t up up. I had had an accident.
    Kitty was GREAT. She got me out of my wet undies and threw them into the washer, without waking up Jason.
    And then when she’d tried to make me go back to bed, and I’d balked because I didn’t have underwear on(Yes. That’s the kind of kid I was), she got out a pair of Jason’s and told me boy underwear was just as good as girl underwear, and that I could wear it under my pajamas, and Jason would never know.
    I was, of course, skeptical. I mean, boy underwear is nothing like girl underwear—it has a fly! Plus, Jason’s underwear had Batman on them.
    But it was better than nothing. So I went back to bed with Jason’s Batman underwear on, with the promise that, in the morning, my own underwear would be returned to me, clean and dry.
    I had lain there thinking, “I’m wearing Jason’s Big Boy pants,” because that’s what he’d called them back when we were both transferring out of training pants—his were Big Boy pants and mine were Big Girl pants.
    And the truth is, I’d felt kind of a thrill about wearing Jason’s Big Boy pants. I was a sick kid, even way back then.
    In the morning, while Jason was in the bathroom, Kitty smuggled my panties back to me, and I gave her Jason’s Big Boy pants—which I was sort of sad to see go. And she never said a word—not to Jason, not to his parents or mine, nobody. To this day, I don’t know if she remembers how she saved me…but I will never forget it.
    And I’m glad she’s going to be my grandma, because I think she’s one of the finest grandmas a girl could have.
    It’s sad my mom doesn’t agree. But maybe that’s because Kitty never rescued HER from the mortal embarrassment of wet panties before.
    “No,” I said to Grandpa, in answer to his questionabout Mom. “But don’t worry. She’ll come around.”
    I don’t actually believe this. It’s just something I tell Gramps when he looks sad, like he did just then. My mother is a very determined person. I once saw her physically throw a guy she suspected of being a shoplifter out of our store, just because he’d been hanging around the earring rack a little too long. He was way bigger than her, but it didn’t matter. Mom’s center of gravity is lower than most people’s, I think on account of her having given birth so many times.
    “I hope you’re right, Stephanie,” Grandpa said, his blue eyes narrowing as he stared at Mom over in the church parking lot. “I sure do miss her.”
    I patted him on the arm. “I’ll keep you posted,” I told him. “And expect another installment against my loan next week.”
    “I’ll keep an eye on interest rates,” Grandpa assured me.
    Then I kissed him good-bye and ran through Bloomville Creek Park to join the rest of my family by the minivan. They, as usual, had no clue I’d even been gone.
    Which is the only advantage of having soon-to-be five brothers and sisters.

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    What are some other habits of popular people?
    Popular people:
Got that way because they are “the real thing.” They are genuine, true to themselves.

Are totally consistent in their beliefs and their actions. They