Dumplin

When Willowdean and Ellen go to the pageant registration, they run into Millie and Amanda. Millie announces that they, too, are going to compete in the pageant. Willowdean, however, doesn’t think this is a smart idea:

I’m not doing this to be some kind of Joan of Fat girls or whatever. I’m doing this for Lucy. And for me. I’m ready to go back to the version of myself I was before Bo. […] I’m doing this because I want to cross the line between me and the rest of the world. Not to be someone’s savior (155).

Ellen disagrees and thinks if the girls want to enter the pageant, they should. Will, Ellen, Millie, and Amanda walk to the registration table. Willowdean is told that she needs her mother’s signature, which she has not gotten, to register. Willowdean’s mother shows up and asks if Will is pulling some kind of joke. She admits that she doesn’t think Will had the right intentions in joining the competition. Will tells her mother that if her mother doesn’t let her compete, she is saying that every girl in the competition is better and more deserving than Willowdean. Eventually, with the promise that she will not give her daughter any special treatment, Willowdean’s mother signs the registration form.

As Willowdean’s mother starts to speak to the registrants, Hannah Perez shows up, asking if it is too late for registration. Hannah joins the group as Willowdean’s mom explains the pageant rules to the room. When Will finds out that Ellen, too, has decided to compete in the pageant, she asks Ellen to back out, as Will is determined to “have this one thing” (163). Will understands that there is no reason that El shouldn’t compete, but she doesn’t want her to. Will tells Ellen: “You already have everything […] let me have this” (163). Ellen tells Will that maybe Callie is right and maybe Ellen and Willowdean have outgrown each other. El says that she misses a lot of things because of her friendship with Willowdean and she can’t believe Will would ask her not to join the competition. Willowdean says she is not Ellen’s “sidekick or chubby best friend,” and Ellen calls Willowdean a “shitty-ass friend” (164).

Ellen stops talking to Willowdean. Will starts to cry when she sees Callie run up to Ellen in the hall at school and the two take off together. Mitch sees Willowdean crying in her car and follows her back to her house. He says he wants to make sure Will is okay. He tells her that he heard that she has entered the Miss Teen Blue Bonnet Pageant and thinks Will has a chance of winning. When he leaves, he tells Willowdean that he is sorry for whatever made her cry.