And I never said anything. I didn’t know what I would do if I met a boy I liked. I never had much to say to boys. I couldn’t remember the punch lines to jokes and didn’t know what kind of questions to ask to get a conversation started. Whenever I did meet a new boy, I’d stammer and mumble, tripping over my tongue as often as I tripped over my own feet.
Then that summer, three baseball teams with twenty fifteen-year-old boys on each team camped at our park.
Everyone was in heaven!
Everyone . . . except my father.
“You are to be inside at ten o’clock tonight,” he said. In all those previous years, I never had a curfew at the campground. Neither had my brother. Except this time. My brother was still allowed out and I, like Rapunzel, was locked in my tower while the rest of the world (my friends) were being swept off their feet. Unlike Rapunzel however, I knew what I was missing. They were all going to have another romance while I, once again, was not.
“Oh Andrea,” Kelly had said the next morning. “It was so amazing! The guys on this team are so cute!”
My stomach crashed to the floor as she listed off their names. Taylor, Matt, Anton, Erik . . . I had missed it again.
“And we’re going to their game this afternoon!”
I was allowed to go to the game. The game itself wasn’t great—they weren’t the best players and they weren’t even playing on a very good ball field. It was out in the country and it didn’t have any bleachers. We had to sit under this old, wooden canopy that had a few picnic tables. It was sunny and hot and we were dying of thirst, but I LOVED it.
My friends pointed out each of the players that they had met the night before. We were sitting pretty far away, so it was hard to tell what they looked like, but I felt that this was what having a romance was all about—going to watch your guy play baseball and cheering him on.
“And that’s Erik,” Kelly pointed out this guy who was kind of skinny with a few loose curls that stuck out from underneath his baseball cap. He looked over at us girls, waved and smiled. My stomach was flopping around like a fish on dry land.
They lost their game and the tournament. We spent the rest of the day swimming and hanging out on the beach. Erik and I went for a walk on a road just outside our campground. He held my hand as soon as we were outside of the park. I hadn’t thought about what a guy’s hand would feel like holding mine.
It was fun walking with him, holding hands. We walked along a dirt road leading to a hill through a grove of poplar trees. In the midst of the trees, at the top of a hill, was a giant rock. We sat there for a few minutes, still holding hands. He kept smiling. His teeth were so white they were glowing in the early darkness. I could smell him— sort of a mixture of bug repellent and lake water. He slowly leaned his head closer to mine.
This has to be what falling in love feels like, I thought. I was so totally nervous that my stomach was doing flip-flops.
His face was just inches away and then his lips pressed against mine. His lips opened just a little and I followed his lead, opening my own lips just a little. As I did, I felt this odd little gurgle creeping up in my throat. The next thing I knew, I let out this tremendous burp right into his mouth!
Mortified, I excused myself and looked away. I wanted to run away but he was still holding my hand.
Then, weirdly enough, he laughed. Then I laughed too, and the “romance” of my first kiss was over. We walked back to the campfire holding hands.
Finally tasting a kiss didn’t change me, make me feel older or more self-confident around boys. But I discovered that sometimes people like Erik come into your life and can help make an embarrassing moment a little easier.
Andrea Adair
Ditched
Whether joy or sorrowful, the heart needs a double, because a joy shared is doubled and a pain that is shared is divided.
Ruckett
When I was in the sixth grade, I met this boy named Grayson Mitchell who was in the seventh grade. All I could do was think about him and talk about him and dream about him. He was the first boy I had ever felt this way about. I thought I might be in love!
Days went by, then weeks and pretty soon months and I still hadn’t gotten up the courage to speak to him. I was so sure he was the one that I didn’t pay attention to how rude or snobby or stuck-up he was. I just thought it made him even cooler.
Pretty soon I started changing my hair, my clothes and my personality for him. I wanted to be like all the girls he spoke to and liked all put together. After a while, he started to notice the changes and I thought he was starting to like me. Then a few days later, I got on the bus and there was Grayson, looking cooler than I had ever seen him before.
After a while, he started whispering to his friends and glancing over at me. A moment later, he turned and said to me, “I gotta ask you something. Everyone is sayin’ you like me. I was just wondering if it’s true.”
I looked down at the floor and nodded. “Really, you do?” he asked. I nodded again. “So, uh, you wanna go out Saturday? I really like you.” I looked back up and nodded again. I was so excited, I couldn’t speak! He named a little restaurant near my house and a time that I should be ready.
That Saturday, I went to the beauty salon and got my hair straightened and then my nails manicured and polished bright pink to match my new skirt. I went home and put on my new outfit and heels. My best friend, Nicky, was with me all the way. I then realized that Grayson hadn’t told me if he was going to pick me up or meet me at the restaurant since I was so caught up in the moment on the bus. So, I quickly called him up, and he said that he would have to meet me there. “I’m so sorry. I wanted to pick you up. I really did,” he apologized. I said it was no big deal for the millionth time and told him I’d see him there.
“Do you need a ride?” my mother asked, when I was ready to go. I thanked her for offering but told her that Nicky and I were going to walk, and the two of us headed for the restaurant.
“I can’t believe he asked you on a date! You are the luckiest girl in the world. Oh, my gosh! I can’t believe it— Grayson Mitchell . . .” Nicky kept talking the whole way to the restaurant.
When we finally got there, I said, “Well, here it is. The first date with the man I’m definitely going to marry!”
“Well, go already,” Nicky said, as excited as I was. “Are you gonna go home or wait?” I asked her. She practically yelled, “Wait, of course!” I looked at her with the biggest smile on my face and headed inside. As I approached the front door, I felt happy and scared at the same time. “Mitchell, please,” I said to the man at the counter. He started rummaging through the list of reservations. When he finally looked up he said, “There is no Mitchell.” I looked at him astonished and asked him if he could please look again. He again looked through his papers and came back with the same answer. I must have gone to the wrong restaurant, I thought. I went back outside and told Nicky what happened and how I might have gotten the wrong restaurant, and she agreed.
We walked back to my house and I tried to call Grayson, but there was no answer. He must be waiting for me at the restaurant, I thought. The right restaurant.
Nicky and I waited for his call, but it never came. At school on Monday, I looked around for him everywhere, but I couldn’t find him. Then, finally at lunch, I spotted him outside and went over to talk to him. He saw me and started whispering to his friends. I thought he was talking about how much he liked me or something. When I finally reached him I said, “What happened last night? There was no Mitchell on the list at the restaurant. I think I got the wrong one.”
“You didn’t get the wrong restaurant,” he said with a mean look.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Does she understand anything?” he asked his friends in a sarcastic voice.
I just stared at him waiting for an explanation.
Suddenly, he started laughing and laughing and wouldn’t stop. “What an idiot!” he said between laughs. Finally, after he stopped la
ughing, he said, “You don’t get it, do you? I don’t go out with people like you. You’re a sixth-grader.” My eyes started getting watery as the nightmare became true. I turned and ran away. Nicky had seen the whole thing and started to run after me.
I got to the girls’ washroom and went inside one of the stalls hoping no one would see me or hear me crying. A few moments later, Nicky was in the washroom, too, trying to get me to come out. Right when I thought she was going to leave, she asked me something that at the time seemed like the stupidest question you could ever ask. “Do you still like him?” I was so astonished!
“Of course not!” I answered. “He ditched me on what seemed like the most important night of my life! How could I still like him?”
Then she said something else I couldn’t believe.
“Then why do you care so much?”
“Whadda ya mean?” I questioned her.
“If you don’t like him, why do you care so much that he burned you? Now you know how he really is, and you don’t have to worry about him anymore.”
She was right. I shouldn’t care! I opened the stall door and stepped outside and hugged my friend as hard as I could. She looked at me with big eyes and a weirded-out look. Then, after a while, she smiled at me, and I smiled back.
“Let’s go to lunch,” Nicky said. And that’s just what we did, not caring who saw me or what all the whispers were about. I just kept on smiling—knowing that it was a good thing Grayson didn’t show up so I didn’t have to have dinner with that creep. I didn’t need Grayson or anyone else.
That is, except Nicky, my best friend!
Colleen Mahoney, twelve
Clueless
A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.
Harry Emerson Fosdick
I fell in love with him because he was the most popular guy in school.
He was the new boy in town, and he and his brothers had become the rage of the whole school. Not only were they all the most handsome hunks we’d ever set our eyes on, they were also musicians. And Peter—he was the lead singer. How cool is that!
I was at home, sick, when he joined our school. My friends would call me up and rave about this great new guy that I just had to see. My curiosity rose even higher when they told me stories of how he’d play the guitar in class, never have any homework done and didn’t care about anyone or anything. When his trips to the principal’s office had beaten the school record, I was intrigued. This was one guy I just had to meet.
I had gotten sick at the beginning of the school year, so when I came back to school fifteen days later, all the seats in our class had already been assigned—except to Peter and me. Our teacher set up two chairs and a table on the side of the class—a temporary arrangement until she could fit us in.
Our first day was a complete disaster. Not only was he stubborn, selfish and immature, but he made it a point to argue with me about everything.
“What’s the circumference of a circle?”
“It’s not that!”
“World War II started in 1939, right?”
“Yeah, if history textbooks are all correct.”
“What’s the capital of Finland?”
“Why? You planning on going there?”
Soon, we were in each other’s faces all day long. I swear, if it hadn’t been for his hazel eyes, I’d have killed him. Finally, one day our teacher warned us that we better start getting along or she’d make us sit together through the entire semester. Not wanting to spend a moment with him longer than was necessary, I decided to give it a try.
Being nice to him wasn’t as hard as I had imagined. It was impossible! His atrocious attitude, sarcastic comments and blatant disrespect for everyone around him was more than I could take. But once he’d start to sing, you’d forget everything in the room. The only thing you’d hear was his voice, the only thing you’d see—his eyes.
With each passing day, we became closer. His atrocious attitude now seemed pretty cool, and the sarcastic comments were kind of funny. It was hard not to like him after getting to know him. Then I went a step ahead and fell utterly head-over-heels in love with him. Little did I know a spark had hit both sides.
A common friend, who’d noticed the change of attitude, decided to play Cupid. So, he asked Peter out for me, without asking me! Then asked me out on behalf of Peter, without asking him! We ended up going out and laughing over what had happened!
A week later, we were officially a couple. I felt so lucky to be with the guy all the girls were literally drooling over. He was charming. He was funny. Best of all, he was popular. I could feel other girls’ eyes piercing into my skin as I sat with him and laughed at the latest escapade in his life.
Popularity has its consequences, though. About a week after we’d started going out, I discovered a secret. He’d been going out with another girl, too. And another. He was leading us all along the same sweet path, with none of us having the slightest clue of what was going on. As soon as I found out, I decided to dump him. I wasn’t about to take any of this.
The so-called relationship ended in the drain. With so many girls running around trying to impress him, he found it very convenient to play with each one’s emotions.
For him, it was a popularity game. The one with the most girlfriends wins. Me, I don’t work like that. I wanted exclusivity. In the end, we finished where we had started—detesting each other’s guts.
I fell in love with him because he was the most popular guy in school. I fell out of love for pretty much the same reason.
Mridu Khullar
Teasing Tami
I didn’t have the best self-image in junior high, and there were two things that I fell back on in order to be accepted: athletics and humor. I’ve always been a decent athlete and I have always been able to make people laugh. Unfortunately, sometimes the laughter came at someone else’s expense. At the time I didn’t fully realize what I was doing to other people around me, especially Tami.
When I found out that she had a crush on me, I did everything possible to get her to stop liking me. While some of the boys in my class were starting to be interested in girls, I just wasn’t there yet—in fact, the whole thing kind of freaked me out. Instead of trying to let her know that I wasn’t ready for a relationship with a girl yet, I went out of my way to make things miserable for her. I wrote stupid songs about her that made my friends laugh whenever they saw her, and loudly told crazy stories about having to save the world from “Tami, the Evil Villain.”
Everything all changed about halfway through the year though, when Mr. Greer, my favorite P.E. teacher, stopped me in the hall one day.
“Hey, Michael, you got a second?”
“Sure, Mr. Greer!” I said. Everybody loved Mr. Greer, and I looked up to him like a father.
“Michael, I heard a rumor that you’ve been teasing Tami and making her life miserable.” He paused and looked me straight in the eye. It seemed like an eternity before he continued. “Do you know what I told him? I told him it couldn’t possibly be true. The Michael Powers that I know would never treat another person like that—especially a young lady.”
I gulped, but said nothing.
He gently put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I just thought you should know that.” Then he turned and walked away without a backward glance, leaving me to my thoughts.
That very day I stopped picking on Tami.
I knew that the rumor was true and that I had let Mr. Greer down with my actions. More important, though, it made me realize how badly I must have hurt Tami for Mr. Greer to want to talk to me about it. He not only made me realize the seriousness of my actions, but he did it in a way that helped me to save some of my pride. My respect for him grew even stronger after that.
Even though I did stop teasing her, I never was brave enough to apologize to Tami for being so mean to her. She moved away the next year, and I never saw her again.
Just because I didn’t know how to deal with Tami liking me, I still sho
uld have known better than to handle it the way I did. I think I actually did know better, but it took my favorite teacher’s gentle guidance to help me change my ways.
Michael T. Powers
The Note
Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
Blaise Pascal
When I was in the fifth grade, I fell in love—real love— for the very first time. It only took about a week into the school year for it to happen, and I was completely, head-over-heels crushing on Mike Daniels. No one ever called him just Mike; it was always one word—Mike Daniels. Blond hair that stuck up in every direction and blue eyes that crinkled in the corners when he laughed—visions of Mike Daniels occupied my every dream.
To say I wasn’t the most popular or prettiest girl in our class would be an understatement. In fact, I think I must have been the original geek. I was so skinny that I still had to wear days-of-the-week panties and dorky undershirts when most of my friends were starting to wear bras and more grown-up undergarments. My mom made me wear brown orthopedic lace-up shoes to school every day, because I had a foot that turned in and my parents wanted to “correct it before it was too late.” Right smack dab in the middle of my two front teeth was this giant space that even gum surgery the year before hadn’t fixed, and the two teeth on either side of my front teeth overlapped, making me look like I had fangs. Add a pair of thick glasses, thin baby-fine hair (with a home permanent from my mom—help!), knobby skinned-up knees and elbows—and what do you get? A kid that only a parent could love.
I wouldn’t—couldn’t—tell my friends that I was in love with Mike Daniels. It was my secret to write about in my journal. In my dreams, Mike Daniels would all of a sudden grasp what a beautiful soul was hiding inside of my gawky body and realize that he loved me for who I really was. I spent hours writing poetry for him and stories about him, until one day I got up the nerve to actually write to him about how I felt.