That Day


trueOur big, black Chevy pulled into the lot in front of the Ulta makeup department store on Saturday. My mom needed a new hairbrush because hers was destroyed by our cat. The sky was a bright, watery blue, and the clouds grazed the bottom of the sky.

The sliding doors of the makeup department parted as my family and I walked in. I suddenly found myself trapped in a kingdom of beauty products. I felt sick to my stomach; I have never been a fan of makeup. My sister, Lulu, grinned an elfish grin and took off down one of the aisles.

“Where are the brushes?” Mom muttered. A woman, around the age of 25, maybe, sat behind a counter in the middle of the store. She had a short, tousled, pixie cut that was dyed green. Her lips were doused in blood-red lipstick, and her eyes…her eyes were purple. That’s right: they really were purple! She probably put in those weirdly colored contacts.

I walked up to the counter. “Excuse me,” I asked the purple-eyed lady, “where can I find the hairbrushes?”

“Aisle nine,” she said without looking at me—she was dealing with a major hangnail crisis. I walked back to where my mom and sister were. Lulu was now as happy as some candy-loving kid in a candy store, of course, and I had no idea why. She has always been a moody little girl.

We walked down aisle nine. Along all the racks were different colored hair extensions, bottles of hair dye, combs, and at the end of the aisle: hairbrushes. Lulu reached for a striped pink-and-white brush and ran it through her hair. My mom snatched it away from her. “You can NOT do that in a store, Lulu!” my mom bellowed. My sister put on a pouty face, and I knew the waterworks were coming. I, personally, didn’t want to hear Lulu screaming and crying, so I walked away.

We stayed around an hour and a half in the “makeup kingdom.” Most of our time was spent trying to get Lulu to quit crying. My mom ended up buying a large, black brush, the size of my fist. The purple-eyed woman rang us up. What a coincidence?! Apparently, she hadn’t figured out that hangnail crisis because the perfectly painted middle fingernail was hanging off her finger. I noticed Lulu looking at it, too. Then, Lulu reached over and yanked the nail right off the purple-eyed woman’s finger. “Owww!” the woman screamed and scowled at Lulu. Mom pushed us toward the door.

As we walked out through the doors, the wind slapped my cheek. Once in the car, I got buckled quickly. Lulu, on the other hand, was having quite a lot of trouble.

“Is it that hard?” I asked, rolling my eyes. I reached for her buckle, but then something fell out of Lulu’s hand: two Ulta gift cards, one yellow and one pink. “Where did you get those, Lulu?” She nodded her head towards the store, but stayed silent, heat rising in her face. “Mom didn’t pay for those . . . did she?” I asked. Lulu shook her head slowly.

I turned to my mom, whose face looked dumbfounded. It quickly softened. “Those are not free, Lulu,” Mom said gently. Lulu started to cry. Loudly. Mom got out of the car and opened Lulu’s door. “Get out of the car. We are returning those to the store—I am not going to jail for this.”

We started to walk back to the store, but it turned into a run because Mom was speed walking super-fast. Lulu and I walked back to the counter where the purple-eyed woman still sat.

“Yes?” she asked. I could tell she wasn’t happy to see us again. She thought the evil demon that had ripped her nail off was out of her life forever.

“Um…here.” Lulu handed the woman the two gift cards, and she explained what happened.

I admire my sister’s honesty. I love that she did the right thing, even if she didn’t want to. I would have made up some excuse for having the gift cards. But Lulu didn’t, and it surprised me. I naturally expect the worst from her. It’s nice to know that there are people in this world that can tell the truth, even if they don’t want to.

True Lyons

True Lyons is a sixth grader at Greene Street Friends School in Philadelphia, Pa. She loves to read and really enjoys writing about all kinds of things. She is currently working on a love story. She aspires to be an author and professional blogger when she grows up. She lives with her mom, cat, and sister in Philadelphia most of the time and with her dad in Brooklyn, N.Y., every other weekend.

3 thoughts on “That Day

  1. excelent story and although like most younger siblings ,your sister some times seems a brat 🙂 your parents have done a good job raising both of you to be honest. blessings on you all

  2. One day back in 1970, I was in a supermarket with my mother in the checkout line. Nearby, we both noticed the manager of the store talking to a little boy of about 10, and his mother was standing nearby. When the cashier noticed our seeing the manager and the boy, she said to us, “He stole a bag of candy from the store on his way home from school and took it home. When his mother found out, she came with him to make sure that he returned it to the store.
    Meanwhile, my mother was very impressed with the way the manager was handling the situation as we overheard him saying to the boy, “I hope you remember what happened here.”
    When we left the store, my mother told me about her brother, Joe, stealing from a store when he was a child back in the 1930s. My grandmother noticed all kinds of candy and snacks on him and demanded to know how he could afford those snacks. When he confessed, my grandmother took him to that store with the snacks. In this case, however, the manager of that store yelled at him. The manager also told my grandmother that he is giving Joe a break because he won’t call the police, but if Joe ever enters the store again, the manager said that he would call the police.

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