Chapter 3

As I got on the bus and sat down, I felt a slap on the back of my head.

“Ow!!! What the heck!”

I turned around and saw Tim Walton glaring at me. Tim was another eighth-grader who had been one of my teammates along with Johnny and Eva last year. He was just under six feet tall and outweighed me by at least seventy pounds. His family owned a small farm about a mile away, so he was a ‘farm kid’ like me “Stop poachin’ on my territory, you fuckin’ geek!”

I heard Mr. Smithers, the bus driver, yell at Tim. “Walton, get to the back of the bus!”

The other six kids on the bus ‘oohed and awed’, as Tim skulked back, muttering, “Keep your fuckin’ hands off of her.”

Aside from him being on the Elks team with me last year, I did not know Tim very well. He got annoyed when Coach Jeffers put me in at the end of games because it meant that Johnny got moved to third and I took Johnny’s position, as he took Tim’s. Still, aside from making fun of my height, I never had any major problems with Tim. He was in my grade, but we weren’t in any of the same classes. He was a big guy and was one of the few eighth-graders on Freshman Football team up at the high school, so I had no desire to antagonize him. Still, I wondered what he meant as he walked to the back of the bus.

Who the heck is he talking about? I thought.

First-period English was just plain weird. I had a number of girls looking at me, including Janie Parker and Jennifer Bridges. I sat next to my buddy, Karl, and started taking notes when my teacher went into her lecture on Hemingway’s character, Nick Adams. When the bell rang, I looked down on my desk and saw a note. I was so intent on what Mrs. Douglas was saying and taking notes, I did not see who left the note.

“What the heck? Who left it?” I asked Karl, as he was beginning to pack up his satchel.

“It got passed. I have no idea sent it.”

I opened it and it had a distinctive neat, feminine look to the handwriting.

I need a favor that I hope you can help me with.
Talk to you at lunch.

JP

Janie Parker was writing me notes. My day was getting weirder and weirder.

My morning dragged I had two other classes with Janie before lunch (History and Introduction to Physical Science). I could barely look at her because whenever I did, she would catch my eyes and grin and I would blush.

“Dude, what’s going on between you and Janie Parker,” my buddy Axel whispered to me in third-period Pre-Algebra.”

“I honestly have no idea,” I whispered back, trying not to think about the beautiful, best-developed girl in the eighth grade. I had no desire to look like a ripe tomato.

“Karl said she passed you a note first period.”

“Yeah, and I have no idea what she wants,” I sighed, as I struggled to wrap my head around the set of integers I was working on, but with failing concentration.

After struggling through IPS (Introduction to Physical Sciences), mercifully, it was lunchtime. I got into the lunch line, grabbed my tray and girded myself for whatever the mystery meat of the day was. I was pleasantly surprised when it was pizza. Not exactly Little Italy’s in the center of town, but it was respectable enough compared to the usual fare.

I sat down next to Pete O’Brien (another of my geek friends, who was a tall, thin, string bean type) and to my horror, I saw Eva Harrington walking over.

“Tommy, you know if my mom marries your uncle, we could be kissing cousins,” she teased and stroked my hair, giggled, and ran off.

Everyone at the table began to laugh their butts off. I just put my head in my hands. A moment later, I felt someone tap my shoulder.

“Is there a line to pet you on the head, or can I just cut right in,” grinned Janie Parker.

“Uh...” I started, while hopefully looking smarter than I sounded.

“Relax, Tommy. Could we talk in private?”

“Sure,” I almost squeaked but managed to keep my voice in my new, lower register.

Janie led me to a table across the cafeteria. It was closer to her turf, as she tended to sit with other cheerleaders and jocks. This particular section of the table was empty at the moment.

I sat down with my tray and she opened a bag lunch that looked a lot better than my school pizza.

I lifted my head and found myself staring into a set of blue (apparently) guileless eyes. “So, Tommy ... here’s the thing. I’ve been asking around about you and discovered that you are the perfect candidate for me to date.”

“Really?”

Janie rolled her eyes but then softened. “Yeah, really. I know I haven’t always been the nicest girl to you, but you’re really a nice boy and you fit into the limitations that my parents have given me.”

Ah, there is a specific reason for why I was her choice.

“Out of curiosity, what are those limitations?” I asked, expecting her to jump down my throat.

Instead, she just smiled. “That’s a fair question. I know we don’t know each other really well, so I should tell you. First of all, we are both fourteen. My parents said I couldn’t seriously date until I was sixteen, but I could go on ‘practice dates’ with a boy as long as he was fourteen like me and the same grade. No older or younger boys.”

I could see that those limitations would give her a very small pool of possible choices. Most of the kids in our grade were only thirteen. As if she could read my mind, she grinned at me. “I know what you’re thinking and you’re right. We’re almost ‘birthday twins’. I was born the day after you.”

Wow, she really did her homework on me.

Part of me suspected some kind of plot to embarrass me that would involve Tim and his football buddies hanging me from a branch of the tree in the quad and using me as a piñata. Still, I didn’t think that was the case.

“What would the rules be?” I asked.

“First of all, we wouldn’t be boyfriend and girlfriend, even at school, though I’m not ruling that out for the future.”

Then it hit me. Tim Walton’s little warning this morning. It seemed that he had heard about Janie’s plan for me and was warning me off. Funny I never saw Janie hanging all over him, like some of the cheerleaders do with the jocks. Since Tim was still only thirteen he would be out of the running for Janie.

I must have said some of that out loud because Janie scowled. “Tim is just a friend, and I’m not sure THAT is even true now,” her eyes narrowing as her pitch got lower and darker.

“Janie, um...” I started. The last thing I needed was to get into a fight with Tim Walton. I’m sure that I would be able to hold my own against that big puke, but it was gonna hurt.

“Don’t worry about Tim. He’s just jealous. If he ever wants me to talk to him again, he better not even breathe in your direction.”

Her words calmed me. I knew that if Tim crossed Janie, her other cheerleader friends would spread the word next year for when we would be in high school. Janie could make his name mud and he would be celibate as a monk for the next four years.

“Look. Tommy. I’m not saying that you have to do it, but we could have fun getting to know each other and you could even get to know Jenny better.”

And there it was. The carrot. I guess Jennifer Bridges must have told Janie about the crush I had on her. Jenny was still only thirteen (she would turn fourteen over the summer). In fifth grade when I first moved to town, I had given Jennifer a Valentine’s Day card and asked her to be my friend. She thanked me sweetly but said that her parents did not want her to have a boyfriend or even boys who were friends. I blushed and was crushed. She still always managed to catch my eyes at the most embarrassing times. I guess some things never change.

“So, what would happen on these practice dates?” I asked.

Janie smiled. She knew she had me hooked.

When I got home from school, I went out to the barn to do my afternoon milking. As I milked Amber, I thought about my strange conversation was the most beautiful girl in the eighth grade. We had a tentative “date” set up for Friday night. Pending my parent’s permission. Apparently, Janie’s parents went to school with my mom and Uncle Steve, so they approved when Janie had suggested me for a ‘practice date’. We would have dinner at Janie’s house so I could meet her family. Then her dad would drive us to the movies and then drop me off at home.