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PROLOGUE

Once there were four girls who shared a pair of pants The girls were all different sizes and shapes, and yet the pants fit each of them

You may think this is a suburban myth But I know it’s true, because I a Pants

We discovered their ic last su up for the first tiotten the to try the to throw them away, but by chance, Tibby spotted theet; then Carmen

By the ti extraordinary was happening If the same pants fit—and I mean really fit—the four of us, they aren’t ordinary They don’t belong cos you can see and touch My sister, Effie, claiic, and maybe I didn’t then But after the first su Pants, I do

The Traveling Pants are not only the most beautiful pair of jeans that ever existed, they are kind, coood

We, thePants We’ve known each other since before ere born Our nancy aerobics class, all due in early Septe about us We all have in coot bounced on our fetal heads too much

We were all born within seventeen days of each other, first ust, and last Carmen, a little late, in thedeal about which tas born three minutes before the other one? Like it nificance from the fact that I’m the oldest—the most mature, the most maternal—and Carmen is the baby

Our roup play date running at least three days a week until we started kindergarten They called themselves the Septembers and eventually passed that

naab in whoever’s yard it was, drinking iced tea and eating cherry toht Honestly, I remember my friends’ mothers almost as well as my own from that time

We four, the daughters, reolden age Gradually, as we grew, our iant hole was left, and none of thee it Or e

The word friends doesn’t seeh to describe hoe feel about each other We forget where one of us starts and the other one stops When Tibby sits next tothe funny or scary parts Usually I don’t even notice until the bruise bloorabs the loose, pinchy skin atto show her soether when I turn to explain so We step on each other’s feet a lot (And, okay, I do have large feet)

Before the Traveling Pants we didn’t kno to be together ere apart We didn’t realize that we are bigger and stronger and longer than the tiether We learned that the first summer

And all year long, aited and wondered what the second su We learned to drive We tried to care about our schoolwork and our PSATs Effie fell in love (several tiular fixture at Tibby’s house, and she wanted to talk about Bailey less and less Cars to friends We all kept our nervous, loving eyes on Bee

While we did our thing, the Pants lived quietly in the top of Carreed on We had alwaysrule, we didn’t want to overuse the went by when I didn’t think about theic for e needed theain

This suan differently than the last Except for Tibby, who’d be going to her fil home We were all excited to see how the Pants worked when they weren’t traveling

But Bee never e So froo the e expected

Oh who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried

—Lord Byron

Bridget sat on the floor of her roo On the carpet lay four envelopes, all addressed to Bridget and Perry Vreeland, all with Alabama postmarks They were from a woman named Greta Randolph, her mother’s mother

The first letter was five years old, and asked them to attend a memorial service in honor of Marlene Randolph Vreeland at the United Methodist church in Burgess, Alabaet and Perry that their grandfather had died It included two uncashed checks for one hundred dollars apiece, explaining that the randfather’s will The third o years old and included a detailed fae, Greta had written across the top The fourth letter was a year old, and it invited Bridget and Perry to please come visit whenever they could

Bridget had never seen or read any of them until today

She’d found them in her father’s den, filed with her birth certificate and her report cards and her h he’d given them to her

Her hands were shaking when she went into his roo off his work shoes and black socks as he always did When she was very small, she’d liked to do it for hi in the day Even at the tis in his days

“Why didn’t you give these to h for him to see what she held “They are written to me and Perry!”

Her father looked at her like he could barely hear her He looked that way no matter how loudly she talked He shook his head It took hi in his face “I a terms with Greta I asked her not to contact you,” he said at last, as if it were si deal

“But they’redeal to her

He was tired He lived deep inside his body Messages took a long tiet out “You’re a minor I’m your parent”

“But what if I had wanted them?” she shot back

Slowly he considered her angry face

She didn’t feel like waiting around for an answer, letting hi there!” she shouted at hi “She invited ”

He rubbed his eyes “You’re going to Alabama?”

She nodded defiantly

He finished with his socks and shoes His feet seee that?” he asked her

“It’s suot some money”