`` but with mitts like that , you can hardly blame them . i said , trying to smile , having no idea what to say . she cant have both of them in her life . i demanded , standing up and stomping my foot . funny stories about animals , but real and smart . `` i want to be you when i grow up . '' i pushed away the painful image of my friends and the vicious words behind me . tad groaned and rubbed at his eyes . her strawberry-blonde tendrils were in a heaping mass of tangles . 