Rosemary's Double Delight (8 page)

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The first day of sixth grade…

The first day of sixth grade had been a terrifying experience for
Rosemary. She and her classmates were used to Divine Elementary
School with a total student population of 110 children.

Divine junior high school students were bussed to campuses
located halfway between Divine and Morehead. It was so much to
process, how large the school was compared to the little classroom
her twenty classmates had shared for six years. Add to that the
necessity of moving from one room to another between classes for
eight different periods and a locker with a combination she had to
remember. To say she suffered from culture shock was putting it
mildly.

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The real horror came during PE when she discovered she’d have
to change into a scratchy PE uniform while surrounded by 100 other
adolescent girls. They’d have to use the communal showers afterward
and then dry off with a towel the size of a postage stamp. Her towel
was too small to cover her little, round body for the short walk back
to her gym locker.

By the time the last bell had rung, Rosemary was completely
numb. She felt lonely as she found her locker and gathered her books.

Rosemary couldn’t wait to see Wes and Evan. She’d missed them all
day. She didn’t have any classes with them, and the one glimpse she’d
gotten of Evan during the day had made her want to cry because he
hadn’t seen her. She rested her forehead against the cold metal frame
of the locker and closed her eyes.

She felt familiar, callused hands on her arms as she stood there.

As she turned to them a commotion broke out in the next row of
lockers. Evan squatted down to get a look underneath.

“It’s two girls fighting,” Evan said. “That’s the second fight I’ve
seen today.”

“Come on, Rosemary. We don’t want to miss the bus on our first
day of school. Got all your stuff?” Wes asked as he gently tugged on
her arm.

After she nodded, Evan slipped her backpack off her shoulders
and slung it over his own, evidently unconcerned that it was pink
canvas.

Rosemary followed them to the schoolyard, where all the kids
waited for their school buses to arrive. Though they only lived half an
hour from Morehead, the bus ride would take well over an hour by
the time she was dropped off in front of her house. Following them
mutely, Rosemary noticed Wes kept looking down at her, the concern
plain on his face. Wes hugged her, quietly asking her if she was all
right. She felt Evan’s fingers slide through her wild, curly hair. For
the first time all day, she felt her world return to order.

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Rosemary had been close with Wes and Evan since they were itty-bitty, and they’d always looked after her like this. It was a comforting
gesture and one that brought tears to her eyes with its easy
familiarity, after a day that had been utterly foreign. Her chin
quivered, and she pressed her lips together tightly.

“Your day suck as bad as mine, Rosie Posie?” Evan asked,
fingering one of her unruly locks. Rosemary nodded and ignoring the
crowd around them, focused on Evan gratefully as he continued.

“Coach popped everyone who ran late coming out of the showers
with a wet towel. I’ve got a big, red welt on my butt. I can still feel it
stinging.” The quiver in her chin stopped as he grinned sheepishly
and rubbed the aforementioned butt cheek. She knew he was making
light of his pain to help her feel better.

“You have to take showers, too?” she asked, her heart beginning
to lighten somewhat.

Wes chuckled. “Yeah, nobody warned us about that, did they?”

“No! I was in a room with a gazillion other nekkid girls,” she
muttered, laughing when the boys gagged and made puking sounds.

“At least we didn’t get popped with a wet towel.”

Wes slung an arm around her and hugged her again.

It was at that precise moment they drew the notice of three sixth-grade girls and a boy waiting in the line next to theirs. Rosemary
recognized the boy from her science class, where he was seated next
to her. She’d taken an instant dislike to him that morning when he’d
flicked one of her tight, curly locks with his freshly sharpened pencil,
poking her with it and marking her new white shirt. He’d asked her if
she’d stuck her finger in an electrical socket. Hardy-har-har, like
she’d never heard that one before. She’d given him an evil look and
ignored him.

Now his jeering voice crowed over the rest of the chaotic noise on
the schoolyard. “Hey, look! Curly Girlie has a boyfriend. No wait!

She has two boyfriends! Are you gonna kiss ’em?” he asked in a
singsong voice.

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Rosemary looked on in shock as the three little girls standing with
him began laughing, and pointed at her. They took up the boy’s chant,

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”

Turning to Wes and Evan, Rosemary saw their features turn from
shock to stone-cold anger. She looked back to the other group, and
now the whole line was laughing and pointing at them.

It was hard enough to survive this first day. Add to that her
desperate need to fit in and find her place amongst these students, and
poor Rosemary made a life-altering mistake.

At the top of her lungs, Rosemary screamed loud enough for
everyone
to hear, “They aren’t my boyfriends! They aren’t my
boyfriends! I don’t like them at all!” Her fellow classmates from
Divine Elementary School turned, round-eyed, and gaped at her. They
all knew Rosemary, Wes, and Evan were seldom apart.

Bus number 11 pulled to a stop in front of their line of kids. Wes
and Evan lifted their backpacks from the ground and turned from her.

Evan glanced back at her as the kids in the other line continued to
giggle and point at her. His eyes were filled with tears of betrayal.

Wes’s shoulders were slumped, but he didn’t look back at her, just
stumbled forward in the line. She opened her mouth to speak, even
touched him, but he shrugged her hand away.

Rosemary looked at the boy, and he stuck his tongue out at her
triumphantly. She turned away in defeat. She already knew she wasn’t
going to be friends with him or those bratty girls, but now she’d lost
her two best friends, and for nothing. Once on the bus, Wes and Evan
made their way to the back seat. Unused to riding a school bus, her
instinct was to follow them, but she knew she couldn’t do that now.

She was looking for an open spot when her friend Rachel Lopez
beckoned her over. In tearful relief, Rosemary collapsed on the seat.

“Wow! Rosemary, you’re just as dumb as a brick, aren’t you? Are
you okay?” Rachel asked, as always balancing wit with compassion.

Thankfully, the insult wrapped in sympathy kept her from crying.

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“I dunno,” she whispered. Rachel patted her shoulder and left her
in peace. Rachel made sure the other kids left Rosemary alone on the
ride home.

At home, Rosemary flopped on her bed and came to the
realization that she needed to apologize. She had to make this right.

Right now. Otherwise, seven long, lonely years lay stretched before
her. After walking the short distance to their house, she asked Mrs.

Garner if she could talk to Wes and Evan.

Mrs. Garner said of course she could but then kindly asked,

“Rosemary, how was your first day?” Rosemary could’ve sworn Mrs.

Garner was a mind reader sometimes.

Rosemary looked at the woman and finally cratered. Mrs. Garner
held her as she sobbed and told the whole mortifying story.

Compassionately, Mrs. Garner patted her back and smoothed her
hair then shared a similar experience from her own life.

“Honey, I guarantee you’re going to survive sixth grade. It
doesn’t feel like it right now, but you will. This does explain why Wes
and Evan were so quiet when they got off the school bus earlier.

They’re in the backyard. Why don’t you go work all this out? Take
these with you.” She handed Rosemary a paper plate with chocolate
chip cookies Mrs. Garner had baked for them.

Carrying the plate of cookies, Rosemary stepped out onto the back
deck of the Garner house. Wes and Evan were occupied with their
soccer ball. At first, she thought they didn’t notice her there, but after
a while, it became apparent they were waiting for her to make the
first move.

She enticed them with the snack first. “Hey! I’ve got cookies.”

The boys ran over to where she sat on the deck petting their cat.

They each picked up a cookie and stood there munching on them,
looking at her guardedly.

“I came to apologize. What I said was
so wrong,
and I don’t even
know why I did it. I
hate
that boy. He was mean to me earlier today,
and when he got all those other kids laughing at me, I just…lost my

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mind.” All her pent up tears streamed down her face, and her voice
shook uncontrollably as she spoke. “I feel like my heart is breaking,
and I wish I could take those words back.” She paused at the looks on
their faces. Now they were furious. Did she say something wrong?

Did they not believe her?

“He was mean to you? What did he do?” Evan asked, his grubby
hands curling into tight fists.

Wes grasped her hand in his. “Yeah, what did he do?”

Relief coursed through her. “He flicked my curls with a sharpened
pencil and put a mark on my shirt,” she replied, pointing at the gray
mark on her shoulder.

“That rat bastard!” Wes muttered. “He could’ve hurt you.”

“His pencil was sharp, and it poked me through my shirt.”

Evan snarled and said, “Son of a—”

Rosemary put her finger to her lips. “Evan, you want your mama
to hear you talking like that? She’ll wash your mouth out with soap
again. Let me get this all out, okay?” Rosemary needed to tell them
everything. Otherwise, she might never get the guts again. “When
they started laughing at me, I wanted to make them shut up. We laugh
about gross boy-girl stuff all the time, but I really
do
love you both,
like always. I’d be your girlfriend if you wanted me to.”

She finished with a pounding heart, braced for the gagging and
puking sounds to begin. Both boys just stood and stared at her. Her
heart started pounding, and she felt an icy chill race up her spine.

Wes spoke first while Evan looked on silently. “What are you
going to do when that boy teases you tomorrow when he sees you with
us?”

Rosemary grinned at him and said, “I’m not going to do anything
but watch my boyfriends beat the crap out of him.” Wes laughed out
loud, and she gladly went to him and hugged him hard, so relieved
they still were her friends. She turned to Evan, who was still quiet,
although he looked like he’d enjoyed the mental image of punching
that jerk’s face in. “Evan, can you forgive me? Please?”

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Evan looked her in the eye and she caught a glimpse of the pain
she’d seen earlier. She tugged on his shirt sleeve. He finally hugged
her and said, “You know, we’d have kicked his butt right then if you
hadn’t said what you did. I wish you wouldn’t have been ashamed of
us.”

She’d really hurt him, and she hated the way that felt. Speaking
from her heart, she said, “I’m so ashamed of myself. I’m sorry I hurt
you. You’re my best friends, and I’m lost without you.”

Stepping back, Evan looked at her, stuffing his hands in his
pockets, and said, “Of course I forgive you, Rosie Posie. I can’t stay
mad at you.” He grinned and added, “But you’re gonna have to get a
handle on that mouth if you still want us to marry you.”

When he said that, they all fell laughing on the ground making
puking, gagging noises.