By entering the beauty contest

"I still don't understand how can I help," Lauren looked at her mother and aunt confused.

"Well you see," Janice explained, "Mindy already has a spot in the pageant, she signed up for it nearly a year ago, and as there is such a strong family resemblance between the two of you, we were thinking you could enter the pageant in her place."

"What? Are you crazy?" Lauren nearly jumped backward, "This is a contest for children, if you haven't noticed, I'm a grown woman now, this plan of yours isn't only insane it's completely impossible. No one will believe I'm Mindy's age."

"Lauren, this is a contest for girls 11 to 13 years of age, you would be surprised how developed some of these girls are," Lauren's mother told her, "And I think with a little special makeup and wearing Mindy's clothes you could easily pull this off."

Lauren couldn't believe what she was hearing. "This is madness. Even if I could do this, I wouldn't, beauty pageants are the epitome of everything I hate."

Mindy heard most of this and started crying. Janice naturally went over to console her daughter leaving Lauren and her mother for a moment. Clearly disappointed in her daughter, Lauren's mother took the opportunity to lay on a huge guilt trip. "Honey, couldn't you see it to do this for Mindy? After all it was Janice who helped us when we needed a hand. Where would you be if she hadn't made the sacrifice back then and given you all that money for school?"

Lauren was torn. On the one hand she wanted to help out Mindy and her Aunt Janice and repay their family for all their kindness and generosity. On the other hand though she had great reservations about joining a beauty pageant for children. If she was found out she would be humiliated and even if she wasn't uncovered there were other concerns regarding her 'physique' that she couldn't explain even to her family having kept them a secret for so long.