and trying to make it stick, were not quite so much so (it did, however, make her smell a bit more like Luna, which kept her at it for a surprisingly long time). She was partly deterred and partly spurred on by the fact that nobody seemed to notice.

Unfortunately for Star, no amount of research can alter one's genetics. And since plastic surgery had not yet been pioneered, at least for canine purposes, her efforts only made it just so far before meeting with defeat. Not to be deterred, she became all the more diligent and began to ask Luna to teach her how to do those things she had failed to accomplish by mere observation.

It was on one such occasion that Angel came in with a request. Luna was just in the middle of explaining the trickier details when she stopped.

“Hold on. What... oh, Angel. Is something wrong?”

Star looked up, curious. Since Angel, for reasons she could not understand, looked more like a girl than she, anything she did must be worth observing. Who knew what the secret of looking nice might be?

The pup in question shook her head. “No,”she replied. She hesitated then, and for a second Star could have sworn her sister looked right at her with an expression of distrust. But why? Whatever the reason, she took a step back and whispered to Luna, “Could you lean down here for a sec?”

Luna leaned down so that her ear was right next to Angel, who stuck her nose as far in as it would go before she whispered something. Star strained to listen, but all she heard was the barest hints of sound, more like a soft wind than actual words.

Whatever it was, Luna pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Did she say where you were going?” she asked.

Angel shook her head. “Just around,” she said offhandedly.

The matriarch thought for a moment. “Alright,” she agreed, “But don't be gone more than an hour or so, alright?”

Angel nodded. “Okay,” she said, and took off.

An hour or so? Just around? Star might have been ugly, but she wasn't dumb. Angel was going out to play with her friends. “I wanna go too!” she complained.

Luna shook her head. “No, why don't we let Angel do this herself?” she suggested. “She was the one Lily invited. Maybe you can go along next time.”

Star hung her head dejectedly. “Okay.” Defeated in that, she returned to the original subject. “So, how do I get behind my ears again?”

Star spent a good hour or two more peppering her mother with questions, and several more off by herself trying and trying to perfect what she had been taught. She primped and preened, fluffed and flattened, licked and scratched, and did everything she could think of to change her appearance. In the end all she accomplished was a nearly bald spot behind her right ear, and several places where “teasing” as it is called when women do it to their hair, had all but turned into outright harassment. She pulled Arrow aside briefly from a game of tug-of-war with Eugene to ask her opinion.

“I think you're just making a big deal about it,” Arrow replied. “Who cares what Lily says anyway? You look fine.”

That's easy for her to say, thought Star as she walked away after a half-hearted “thank you.” She actually looks like a girl.

And it was true. As a matter of fact, in some regards Arrow looked more like Luna than Star did. Oh sure, her brown fur and black markings were completely unlike Luna's tidily bordered lighter hues. But at a good four months at least older than the other pups, she was already beginning to slim out and grow longer legs. Despite being less than half-grown, she already looked a fine specimen of a dog and every inch a lady.

But I look like an overgrown dust bunny with feet, thought Star, exaggerating the facts even after her haphazard grooming attempts.

She heard footsteps and saw Connie coming her way. In no mood to play as she usually would, she moved aside to avoid being stepped on and let the girl pass. Then, as the towering human did so, a thought hit the pup.

Connie's beautiful, she thought. She knew this because she had once sat on the bed while Connie talked to a strange book she called a diary. As best Star could guess, the book must not have very good hearing, since Connie always talked very slowly to it. She also scrawled with a thing called a pen as she spoke, making black marks on the clean white pages. All this had seemed like another human oddity at the time, but now Star distinctly recalled Connie telling her diary that a boy in her class liked her and had even passed her a note in geometry that day asking her to be his girl.

If that boy liked Connie, she thought, then Connie must be beautiful. True, she was not too comely by dog appearances – all that bald skin and only a long bunch of hair atop her head. But maybe, thought Star, If I learn how humans look nice, I can learn how to make myself look nice for dogs. It was worth a try. And circumstances being what they were, Star would have settled even for ugly, so long as dogs knew she was a girl. With her tail wagging, she followed Connie up the stairs to her room.

Luck was with her. Connie went into her room, not bothering to close the door all the way. Star nudged it open and saw the human girl opening a drawer and removing several objects made of materials such as glass or wood.

Star watched curiously as Connie stuck her fingers in a jar and began to dab a strange paste onto her face, smearing it around until it covered her features, then blended with them as if it were being absorbed into her skin. As it did so, it left behind an odd difference. Connie's visage seemed a touch brighter than before, and as she regarded herself in the mirror, a smile spread across her lips. Next she stuck something resembling a head of cauliflower with a black stem into another jar, raising a puff of dust. This she proceeded to dab onto her cheeks. Next came something like a very tiny black toothbrush, which she ran not over her teeth, but her eyelashes.

Star regarded this with some confusion. Luna had told her before that Connie practiced this ritual, something the humans called “makeup,” to make herself better-looking. But how could rubbing stuff on one's skin make one prettier? The last time she had gotten something in her fur, during a frowned-upon snack at some spilled garbage, the humans had given her a bath to get rid of it.

On the other hand, maybe this time was different. What if these jars, the ones Connie kept on her night stand, were the only ones that could make someone sweet and pretty, instead of yucky and smelly? It made sense – after all, things kept in high places were generally considered important by people. If only she could get up there and try it for herself, she thought.

Then, as she surveyed the dresser and the objects near it, she realized she could get up there. Connie had pulled a box from under the bed to look through its contents, and its top was low enough for Star to easily climb up onto it. From there she could make her way to the bed, and from there to the night stand where sat the precious jars of beauty.

Star climbed onto the box, then jumped up toward the bed. Missing her mark, she grabbed the quilt in her teeth and tried with little success to claw her way up. Connie, noticing the tug, glanced down and smiled, “Star,” she said in a voice that pretended to chide, “You want to climb up on the bed?” She bent down and scooped Star up in her hands, depositing her on the blanket beside her. “Okay, but don't make a mess.” She then returned to her makeup, still making conversation. “You know, Luna liked to sleep up here before you pups were born. I bet that's why you like it so much.”

Star made her way across the mattress to Connie's side to observe the goings-on. Unfortunately there was little to watch, for after a few more smears and a dab or two, Connie nodded as if satisfied with her work and got up, replacing the lids on the jars. “Be good,” she said, patting Star on the head, and left.

Star's heart jumped in her throat. This was her chance! As soon as she was sure Connie was quite gone, she jumped from the bed to the low table. She studied the jars, trying to figure out which one to open first. Finally, she picked out the one she was fairly sure held the same cream Connie spread on most of her skin and set about trying to pry it open. At first it looked like she would have no luck, but then she managed to clamp the jar between her front paws and work the lid off with her teeth. Inside was a strange, sugary-smelling paste. She wondered how best to get the stuff on her face, and after some thought, she pushed a paw into the jar and pulled it out, coated with the goo. Experimentally, she ran the paw over her face as best she could, smearing it through her fur and around her features like a cat washing. Better use a lot of it, she thought. After several more pawfuls, she decided she had enough and moved on to the next jar. This one held some black stuff that smelled like coal, and she realized from the brush inside that this was what Connie had applied to her eyelashes. So she stuck a paw in and rubbed some of that over her eyes. She was sure this treatment must be making her beautiful, but in reality the smeared black patches and plastered-on cream made her look more like a very muddy burglar.

Next, she found the odd cauliflower-looking thing upside-down with its stem in the air, sitting in a dish that concealed the white top. Batting a paw, she knocked the thing out of the dish along with a cloud of dust that made her cough and sneeze. Once the dust settled, she regarded this peculiar