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  After school that day I rushed home to clean my room, just like I had told Mom I would. I took off my jacket and stood in front of the mirror. What Fred had said was true. I was getting bigger. Almost all of the girls in my gym class wore bras. Mom had even bought me a pre-teen bra when school started this year. I tried it on after she brought it home. I hated it. It was stupid and uncomfortable. I liked undershirts. They were soft, and easy to put on. What did I care about any stupid old bra?

  I stood in front of the mirror for a long time. Besides pooching out on top, my butt was getting bigger, too. I didn’t think I liked what I saw. I put my jacket back on and zipped it up.

  Robbie stays with Mom at the daycare center after he gets out of kindergarten. They’d only been home for a few minutes when Lisa came in. Sometimes I used to get dis­gusted with how Mom would be all slurpy over Lisa. This was one of those times.

  Chapter

  4

  “Lisa! How’s my favorite niece?” Mom said, giving Lisa a big hug.

  “Great, Auntie Helen,” Lisa answered, smiling and showing both of the dimples in her cheeks. I know it’s not Lisa’s fault she has dimples, but there are times when I wish she weren’t so cute.

  “I just love that skirt, Auntie Helen. Can I help with dinner?” Boy, did Lisa ever know how to kiss up to my mom.

  “No, Honey. You and Cassie go on and get to work on Cassie’s math. I think she needs plenty of help.”

  Lisa gave me a funny look, but she didn’t say anything. “Come on, Lisa,” I said, already on my way down the hall.

  We went to my room and closed the door.

  “Math?” Lisa asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “Well ...I didn’t really want to talk to you on the phone. I didn’t want anyone to hear me.”

  Just then Robbie came bursting into my room, carrying a deck of cards.

  “I can play Fish, Lisa. Let’s play Fish.”

  “Okay, Robbie. You deal,” Lisa said.

  That’s something else that sometimes disgusts me with Lisa. She’s too patient with Robbie. I guess if she’d had a little brother she wouldn’t have been so patient. Lisa was an only child though, so she thought having a little brother was some kind of big deal. I watched her as she sat cross-legged on the bed, gathering up her cards. Her hair was thick and shiny black. Her eyes were dark, dark brown, and her skin was creamy white. There was nothing dull about her. Everything seemed to shine. Next to her, Robbie looked kind of dull, like me.

  Robbie dealt the cards again, half of them face up. He and Lisa proceeded to play a second hand of Fish. Lisa let Robbie win. It was easy to let Robbie win if you wanted to because he was such a cheat.

  No sooner was the game finished than it was dinner time. Another thing that burned me was that whenever Lisa was at our house Mom would fix Lisa’s favorite chicken en­chilada casserole. I just happened to hate chicken enchilada casserole. When I visited Lisa’s house we were lucky if Aunt Trudy fixed anything, much less my favorite. I bet she didn’t even know if I had a favorite food or not. I liked Aunt Trudy though. She always had funny stories to tell about her work at the Children’s Hospital. You wouldn’t think she’d see a lot of funny stuff there, but she did.

  Anyway, by the time Lisa had oohhed and aahhed over the meal, and Daddy had quizzed her about her vocational banking class, and Robbie had been sent from the table for talking with his mouth full for the millionth time, and Mom had complained because I didn’t appreciate the chicken casserole when millions of children were starving all over the world, and all of that, I began to think I would never even get to talk with Lisa in private. Luckily, though, it was Daddy and Robbie’s turn to do the dishes, so Lisa and I were free to talk right after dinner. We went back to my room again. I didn’t really know how to start. We were quiet for a while, kind of like we didn’t know each other very well any more. Finally I said, “Lisa, has a man ever kissed you? Not a relative, but just some man?”

  “Raymond,” she said. “I thought he never would and then finally last Saturday night, standing on the porch, he did it. He kissed me. He’s so shy, I thought I would have to kiss him first.”

  “No, not like a boyfriend, or someone your own age. I mean like a man, maybe old enough to be your dad, or your uncle.”

  “Well...” She paused, thinking. “Old Mr. Reed, when he gave me pennies, always used to ask me to kiss him. That was long ago. He never kissed me. He just ...”

  Lisa stopped talking and looked at me. “What are you getting at, C.C.? Why are you asking me about men and kissing?”

  “Something weird happened last night.”

  “What was it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know how to tell you,” I said.

  “Just tell me, C.C.! You got me over here so you could tell me something. So now tell me!”

  So I told her about how Fred Sloane had grabbed me and held me and pushed his tongue into my mouth. And I told her what he’d said about me getting to be a babe. I know it sounds funny, but I felt kind of important and grown-up. I mean, Lisa had always been the one to tell me stuff about boys and sex and here she was, looking totally shocked and attentive. When I finished she just sat there.

  “Fred Sloane?” she said. “Fred Sloane?” she repeated, her voice high pitched. “That slime! Somebody ought to go kick him where it hurts! Somebody ought to call the cops on that slime!” Her voice was getting louder and louder.

  “Shhh, Lisa, someone might hear you!”

  “So what if they do?” she said. “Someone should hear me! That slime!”

  I was pretty scared. “Please, Lisa,” I said, and I started to cry again. I couldn’t believe it. Years without crying in pub­lic, except for movies, and today I’d already cried twice in front of Lisa. I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t stop myself. Anyway, when I started crying Lisa calmed down.

  “What are you going to do, C.C.? What if he rapes you? Aren’t you scared?”

  “I don’t know. I just feel funny about it. What if maybe he loves me?”

  “Loves?” She gave me a strange look. “Did you like what he did? Did it seem like he loved you?”

  “Well, no. I didn’t like it. He was so ... pushy. And I didn’t like him talking about my bumps, or my cherry. What does cherry mean, anyway, Lisa?”

  “C.C.! I can’t believe you. Your cherry is your hymen. You know, the little thing like tough skin I guess, that’s supposedly not broken until you have sex, like, all the way, except I think sometimes it gets broken if you fall, or ride your bicycle wrong, or something.”

  “Did he mean he wouldn’t go all the way with me when he said that?”

  “I guess so. But how could you believe a slime like that?”

  “He’s not really a slime, Lisa. I mean, he’s always been nice to me before.”

  “C.C.!” Her voice was getting shrill again. “He’s a pervert!”

  I started to cry again. “I don’t know what to do. What if Angie finds out? I like Angie. She’s like one of my best friends, even if she is older. Maybe I can just not be around Fred when I go over there.”

  “Will you go over there again?”

  “Well, I’m supposed to babysit Saturday night. They’re going to this party and Angie asked me a long time ago to save Saturday night. I told her I would, but now I don’t know what to do.”

  “You should tell your mom and dad.”

  “No! I almost couldn’t tell you, and I always think I can tell you anything.”

  “I’d tell my mom.”

  “Yeah, but your mom’s a lot different than my mom.”

  “Well... What will you do?”

  “I don’t know. It’s like I’ll never feel the same, you know?”

  “How?”

  “I’ll never feel the same about Fred Sloane again. Like I don’t really know him anymore ... Has anything like that ever happened to you, Lisa?”

  “No! I don’t know what I’d do, eithe . . . Karen, she’s in my gym class, and we were both on the benc
h one day because we were excused, and she told me her uncle tried stuff with her.”

  “What did she do?”

  “She said she’d always hide when he came over to their house. It’s strange. She said he was her favorite uncle until a year or so ago, and then he started that stuff. You know, putting his hands all over her and everything.”

  We talked a long time that night, and then we started in on our homework. Lisa curled up with her books on one bed, and I curled up on the other. When I was ten, Robbie got my old youth bed, and I got to choose new beds and curtains and everything for my room. I think I did a pretty good job, for only being ten. The walls were white. The curtains and bed­spreads were red with white checks, and there was a red rug on the floor. I had lots of pictures of animals on the walls. I like animals a lot, but my mom will never let us have pets.

  Anyway, that night we’d work for a while and talk for a while. I made up the English homework I’d missed from the night before and answered the questions from my geography book. Lisa told me more about Raymond. She told me about her banking instructor, and how hard Hamilton High was in comparison to Palm Avenue Junior High School. She told me about how some of her friends smoked pot at a party a week ago, and how stupid they acted.

  I told her about Jason, who kept dropping notes into my locker, and how Mr. Stanley had a heart attack right in the middle of math, and the ambulance came and took him to the hospital. But we always came back to Fred Sloane.

  Lisa said, “I used to think he was kind of good looking, but I’ll never look at him again without thinking Slimy Sloane.” We laughed about that, but I felt kind of guilty ― disloyal, or something. He had been real nice to me sometimes.

  Having Lisa there that night helped a lot. I didn’t feel so numb after that, and I could think about other things besides just what Fred had done to me. In the morning though, Lisa and I went with Mom to Lisa’s bus stop. Just as we were getting out, Mom said, “Cassie, I almost forgot to tell you. Angie called while you were in the shower this morning. She said she was expecting you to babysit Saturday night. I told her you’d be there. Have a good day at school, girls.” And then she drove off.

  I looked at Lisa, helplessly. Lisa said, “Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out. Call me tonight. I’ll put my computer-like brain to work on this.”

  Just then the bus came along. We both got on, and Lisa was lost to me in her crowd of friends, including snotty Diana. I almost started crying, but I held it back.

  Chapter

  5

  I ran all the way from Hamilton High to Palm that morning. I carried my books and lunch in a nylon backpack. It bounced against my back with every step I took. I could smell the banana in my lunch sack turning to mush.

  Mandy yelled at me as I went running past the first gate.

  “Cassie! Help! Cassie! I need your geography homework.”

  Mandy almost always needed my geography homework. It used to make me mad sometimes. She’d copy my geogra­phy answers while she sat in the back of our first period English class. She’d get the same little homework checks in Garcia’s pukey green roll book as I would. Then she’d come in with these ninety-eight point test scores and end up with an A on her report card. I’d get a B and a comment from my parents that I could be doing A work if I tried harder.

  Still, Mandy was my best friend. We’d been Bluebirds together when almost everyone else was in Brownies. That kind of experience cements friendships I guess. I handed her my homework.

  “Thanks, Cassie. You’re a pal, a buddy, a true friend.”

  I didn’t have an answer. I was thinking about how I would tell my mother off for the way she set me up for babysitting.

  She was always doing stuff like that, telling people I’d do something when she didn’t even know if I wanted to or not. It made me angry.

  “Cassie? Are you mad at me, your old pal, your old buddy, your true friend?” Mandy was looking at me with this simple, pleading grin. She had the bluest eyes I’d ever seen on any­one, and she could get this absolutely innocent look on her face. She had com-silk blonde hair and light freckles. The way she was looking at me right then reminded me of how she used to look in kindergarten. That’s how long we’ve been friends. I smiled.

  “No, I’m not mad at you. I’m kind of mad at my mom.”

  “Why? Is she threatening to turn your room into a thrift shop again?”

  “Ha-ha. You’re soooo funny,” I said, in my most sarcastic way.

  “Really. Why are you mad at your mom?”

  “Oh, she promised Angie Sloane I’d babysit there Saturday night and she didn’t even ask me if I wanted to or not. She always thinks she can just decide things for me without even asking. I wish she’d butt out!”

  Mandy rolled her eyes heavenward. “Your mother! Francine’s always making plans for me to wash windows for everyone in the whole neighborhood. She says it’s good, clean work.”

  Mandy’s a trip. She started calling her mother “Francine” in the sixth grade. She told me she thought “Mother” and “Mom” distorted their relationship.

  “I don’t know what to do about babysitting. I guess I’m stuck with it,” I said.

  We took our seats in the back of the room. I was sup­posed to sit second from the front row, next to the windows, but I traded with Valerie Biggers the first week of school. Old Marlow spent about ten minutes each morning taking roll from his seating chart, checking and double checking and filling out the little white slips for the attendance office, but he never caught on about the seat trade. Whenever Valerie was absent, I sat in my assigned seat, and vice versa, but we both hardly ever missed school, so that was no problem.

  Marlow was wearing his first-week-of-the-month sport coat with his Wednesday-through-Friday blue K-Mart shirt and his first-week-of-the-month brown polyester pants. I’d never have noticed his clothing patterns, except that he al­ways looked rumpled. But Mandy kept a little chart on the first page of her notebook where she marked down each day what each of her teachers wore. She said you could tell a lot about a person that way, and the more you knew about a teacher, the better the grade you got. She always got good grades, but I think it was because she was smart, like getting ninety-eight points on geography tests when she hardly ever looked at the book.

  Marlow seemed pretty dense about some things, like taking roll, and getting names straight, and just getting his shirt buttoned right. But he was okay once he got going. Thursday was writing day and he told us, “Write about a time when you’ve been angry with one of your parents. Just write in any form. Whatever comes to you, write it down.”

  Mandy leaned over and whispered, “He must have read your mind.”

  I had already started writing. I started with how it made me angry when my mom made plans for me without even talking to me about it. I wrote about how she’d never let us have pets, and how Robbie could do whatever he wanted and not get into trouble, but I couldn’t do the least little thing without having Mom jump all over me. I was just getting warmed up when Marlow said, “Okay. Put it in correct form. Remember topic sentences, supporting details, examples, and please remember I can’t stand to be bored. If yours is the paper I fall asleep over, it’s an automatic ‘F’.”

  After English, Mandy and I had gym together. We were on the seventh grade girls’ soccer team, so we always got to practice soccer second period. The rest of the class did dumb exercises and stupid modern dance stuff, like pretending you’re some tree waving in the breeze.

  When I got home from school I tried to talk to my mom about saying yes for me without asking.

  “But Angie told me she’d already asked you to save Sat­urday night. And I knew you didn’t have any plans.”

  “Sometimes I just don’t want to babysit,” I told Mom. “I don’t always have to babysit, do I? It’s a free country, isn’t it?”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Miss Democracy. I’ll have to be more careful next time,” she said, pulling herself up about two inches in height a
nd looking down at me. My mom always got bigger when she got mad. Dad came into the kitchen where we were talking.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, opening the refrigerator door and peering inside. “How come we never have anything to snack on around here?”

  “Maybe because you never go to the market!” Mom yelled. She stomped out of the kitchen and into the bedroom, slam­ming the door behind her.

  “Oops, wrong thing to say,” Dad said, smiling at me.

  “Well, we don’t ever have anything to snack on around here,” I agreed.

  “Is that your mother’s fault?” Dad asked. I hated it when he asked those kinds of questions. I knew it was a trap, and pretty soon he’d be telling me I should help with the grocery shopping, even if he was the one who had started complaining in the first place. I went into the den and called Lisa.

  “Did you get out of babysitting at Slimy Sloane’s?”

  “No. I can’t get out of it.”

  “C.C.! Just tell them what happened!” Lisa said in her most exasperated voice.

  “Be serious, Lisa. I can’t do that. Besides, I’m mad at them both. I don’t want to talk to them for a month.”

  “But C.C., this is important. What will you do?”

  “I’ll just babysit. It’s no big deal.”

  “It is too a big deal.”

  She was right, I knew, but I just couldn’t figure out what else to do. “Maybe you could come with me?” I said.

  “I would, but Raymond’s got the car Saturday night. We’re even going out to dinner.”

  There was a long silence on the phone, then I suggested, “Maybe I could run away. Like just for a week or something.”

  “Don’t be stupid, C.C. Where would you go?”