Why doesn't April wear the false eyelashes with Melanie in The Egypt Game?

April doesn't
wear the false eyelashes with Melanie because she feels comfortable and accepted by her new
friend, and is not afraid to be herself.

April has had a difficult childhood.
She has changed schools a lot, and her mother is irresposible and repeatedly abandons her. To
keep herself from feeling the pain of constant rejection, April puts on a facade, hiding behind
her fake eyelashes and affected mannerisms, and acting like she is better than everyone else and
doesn't care if they don't like her. What April really wants so desperately is to be accepted
and loved, but she has learned that those things do not come easily in her life. Her false
eyelashes are a defense mechanism, something she can hide behind to keep from being
hurt.

As September approaches, April becomes worried about starting school.
She knows "from experience - lots of it - that it isn't easy to face a new class in a new
school." April plans to wear her fake eyelashes to school to help innure her from the
rejection she is sure will come, but Melanie perceptively advises against it. Melanie sees what
April does not, that the eyelashes will make her adjustment even more difficult. Melanie has
gotten to know April and likes her a lot; she knows that April's best chance of being accepted
in her new school is for her to drop her affectations and just be herself (Chapter 4 -"The
Egypt Girls").