Virginia: Pony Tails

Grace Anne is probably the most ridiculous person I know. I have always thought so, and I now I pretty much know that it is absolutely true. I have never heard of another kid in all of Tennessee or even all of America who has ever done anything as ridiculous as the thing Grace Anne did yesterday. 

Our group was just sitting in my yard, eating sandwiches after school (except for Suzanne whose mother is on the Atkins diet. She was eating tuna salad rolled up in lettuce) when Grace Anne came outside and asked if any of us would come in and play My Little Ponies with her. Samantha had just given her a whole great box of My Little Ponies that she said she had outgrown and thought some little kid like Grace Anne might like better. Grace Anne is all about toys and will even make toys out of things that aren’t like grapes and crayons and nail polish, but you should see her when she’s got real toys. She can really do some wacky stuff then. 

Caroline said we were too old to play with dumb old ponies, which Malorie thought wasn’t ver nice but Malorie only said that because she got two My Little Ponies for her birthday and I know she still plays with them. Samantha said thanks, but she didn’t care to ever look at them again and Margo and Suzanne were too busy trying to french braid each other’s hair to bother answering. Charlotte asked whatever was a My Little Pony and was it absolutely necessary to call it a My Little Pony every time we mentioned it or could we just call them ponies? 

Juliet and I just said no thanks. Juliet has a younger sister too and we know how ridiculous kids can be. But Grace Anne crossed her arms and said that when our cousin got here to babysit for the weekend that she would play My Little Ponies with her and that all of us had gotten boring and now that she thought about it she didn’t want to play with us anyway and she had pencil erasers that were more fun than we were. She went back inside then and Caroline asked if our cousin really was coming to babysit for the weekend and I said yes. Katie is our cousin from North Carolina and since my parents are away for the weekend she is coming to stay with me and Grace Anne. She’s 17 and can drive and stuff so my parents ask her to come stay with us when they’re going to be gone for a couple of days. 

Katie got there a few minutes later and all my friends were very curious about her since she is a teenager and has a boyfriend and a purse and only Malorie ever carries a purse and we all know that she only keeps Skittles and a mirror in it so it isn’t all that interesting. But Katie’s purse is fascinating (that was a spelling word last week and it is probably one of the hardest ones I’ve had but I practiced it a bunch and got it right on the test). She has pictures of her boyfriend and her other friends in this little plastic picture book, about seven different types of lipstick, Big Red and Juicy Fruit gum (she wouldn’t give us any because she said she wouldn’t have enough for everyone and she is like most babysitters and grown ups who only do what is extremely fair when there are a lot of kids around), and a wallet with money and her drivers license in it, and Tic Tacs. It was very fascinating. 

While Katie was sitting in the yard showing us what was in her purse, Grace Anne came back out and said “Come on Katie, let’s play My Little Ponies! I’m going to be the pink and purple and yellow ones, but I saved some for you to be!” Katie said she would come  in a few minutes after we had dumped everything out of her purse and put it all back, and Grace Anne acted like that was about the worst thing she had ever heard and went back inside and slammed the door, which my mom would have punished her for doing if she had been there. Then she opened the door again and said that it would be a lot of fun and it was ok if Katie didn’t remember how to play My Little Ponies because Grace Anne would teach her. Katie said to give her just a few more minutes and then she would come inside but Grace Anne just slammed the door again.  

Anyway, Katie ended up staying outside a long time. We asked her questions about high school and drivers licenses and how anyone ever decides they want a boyfriend, and we all completely forgot about Grace Anne. Samantha asked if Katie was looking at colleges and she told her a few that she recommended which I thought was ridiculous coming from Samantha. Juliet asked if high school lunches gave you an option of regular milk or soy milk and Suzanne asked if anyone ever brought their lunch to high school or if everyone bought from the cafeteria line, which is Suzanne’s dream. Margo didn’t ask anything but just kept redoing french braids in Katie’s hair, and Caroline tried to talk Katie into letting her “borrow” a piece of Big Red gum, which is a joke because everyone knows you don’t borrow gum. Malorie was thrilled because Katie gave her one of her old lipsticks that was mostly gone and Malorie is always thrilled with old make-up. 

After all this had gone on for a pretty long time Katie said she better check on Grace Anne, and the girls thought it was time for them to go home and they all hugged Katie and said how beautiful she was and told her a bunch of dumb secrets about the boys they were thinking of liking and how they all couldn’t wait to get their driver’s license which I agree is a pretty fascinating subject, and Charlotte said in the UK their family had lived in the city and usually taken the bus or walked so she wouldn’t have needed to get her license if she still lived there but now she’s quite interested. Then they all went home and Katie and I went inside with her purse. 

That’s when we saw the really ridiculous thing Grace Anne had done. She was sitting on the couch in the living room watching Arthur on TV, and we saw that she had left the My Little Ponies all over the floor in families, which didn’t surprise me at all. Grace Anne groups everything into families. She didn’t look at us when we came in and even when Katie said she would play My Little Ponies with her now Grace Anne only shrugged and kept watching Arthur on TV. Katie is a pretty nice teenager and she sat down on the floor and started to pick up some of the My Little Ponies when we both noticed none of them had their tails. They all had these little holes in their bottoms where their blue or pink or purple or green tails were supposed to be and Katie and I had no idea what was going on. 

Katie said, “Grace Anne, where are all the tails? Were they like this when you got them?” Grace Anne said that no she had taken them out and hid them and Katie asked her why in the world would she do a thing like that? Grace Anne said it was because she wanted them to grow new ones and I about lost it. Katie didn’t look like she thought it was as funny as I did and asked Grace Anne for the tails and Grace Anne pointed to the box that Samantha had given her the My Little Ponies in. When Katie and I looked in the box there was a pile of rainbow hair and it looked like Grace Anne had given a clown a hair cut. Me and Katie sat down and it took us two more Arthur episodes to stick all of those tails back into the holes in the My LIttle Ponies’ bottoms and I could tell that Katie was not happy about it. I still thought it was funny but Grace Anne didn’t think it was funny at all and asked us why we were putting them back in and that if we left them out we could watch them grow new tails that could be more beautiful than their old ones, which she thought were not the beautiful kind of tails that real My Little Ponies should have. I kind of thought she was right but I told her that the My Little Ponies were just old because Samantha had played with them for a long time before she outgrew them and that the tails had probably been beautiful when they were new. 

Right now Grace Anne is in her bedroom playing My Little Ponies but she said she didn’t want me or Katie to play with her. She says we don’t believe that they’re magical and that she also doesn’t want to play with us because we can never remember which My Little Ponies are families. She can be a pretty ridiculous kid.