The School Bus was late! I was chilled to the bone, my teeth chattering from the cold, when it finally lumbered into sight.

I boarded the school bus that wintry morning, grateful to be out of the chilly wind and into a nice warm place.

I grabbed an empty seat. At the next stop, two younger girls got on and started chattering away. I hardly heard them; my thoughts were on the school day just ahead.

Latin, I hate it! I thought, I wish I had taken something else!. I loved literature and anything to do with writing; but Latin was a subject I could just as well have done without.

I felt out of place at my new school. I missed my old school, longed in vain to return. However, when your folks are renters you don't always have a choice where you want to live.

One of the traits in my huge family is we loved teasing one another, and for me it sometimes carried over to total strangers; like the two twelve year old girls in the seat in front of me.

"Ouch... ! Who did that?" an angry little voice demanded. Turning around in her seat her beautiful little brown eyes glared defiantly into mine.

"Did you pull my hair," she asked, obviously accustomed to getting an answer when she asked a question.

"Why would I want to pull your hair?" I said, smiling mischievously.

"I know you did it!" she said. "How would you like it if I pulled your hair?" she asked.

"Why, do you like to pull boy's hair?" I teased.

"No... , my mother told me, I should be nice to everyone."

Feeling properly put into my place as the guilty party, I said nothing. But, there was something about the child-like innocent way this little brown haired girl addressed me that made me feel badly about having teased her.

"Okay, I'll try to be nice," I teased.

Next day she and her little friend boarded the bus and again took a seat just in front of me. Immediately they started chattering happily back and forth to each other.

Reaching up, playfully, I give her long brown hair a gentle little tug. Instead of being mad, she turned around and made a funny face at me.

"You promised," she reminded me.

"I just wanted to say, hi..." I said smiling back at her.

I notice she was sweet and sort of cute at the same time. Her hair was cut in a pageboy look. From the way she was dressed, I could tell her folks must be well-to-do.

This was in early December, and this went on for a couple of weeks. I always gave her hair a little tug. She always turned in her seat—smiled at me and said hello. I come to realize she was taking the seat right in front of me on purpose. I know it's silly - but I was flattered.

Then one morning she got on the bus. A moment later, I noticed a pair of shiny patent leather shoes standing in front of me. I looked up and there she stood.

"My friend wants to sit with someone else," she said, "Can I sit with you?"

Always the tease, I acted as if I was thinking it over.

"Well... ," I said, "Does that mean I won't get to pull your hair this morning."

"Yes... , Silly!" she laughed. "But if you're nice—maybe I'll let you." she giggled in that way little girls have that is so endearing.

My dear little Seatmate

I learned her name was Dora Mae Lindsey and she lived just a couple farms away from where our rented house was located.

Although she was only twelve years old, she intrigued me. Even though I was fourteen, I had become a bit impressed with myself. Coach Swank had told me that I had made the High School basketball team a year earlier than usual.

In spite of thinking of her as a little girl, I found myself becoming very fond and protective of Dora, a bit like the way an older brother would feel about a little sister.

Each morning as the old school bus lumbered along the country roads I never tired of listening to her bright-animated happy chatter.

Dora Mae was very intelligent... sharp-tongued, and sassy as all get-out! During our bus ride to and from school, she would usually manage to give me a cheerful little earful of her likes and dislikes.

Taking her cue from me, she learned how to tease me back unmercifully. She knew exactly which one of my buttons to push. Apparently, she just assumed it was her mission in life to tease the dickens out of me.

We would often spend our whole ride to school laughing, talking and teasing each other. To my great delight—She always held her own.

Dora Mae for a little kid, was one aggressive little female and had a 'take no prisoner' attitude whether it was during our frequent sessions of teasing each other or just talking.

Eventually, even at fourteen, I found myself computing our ages in my mind, wondering what we might be like when I was eighteen and she was sixteen.

My fondness for her continued—I'm not going to call it love. After all, she was a twelve-year-old girl; and I was a high school freshman.

In the earnest way, little girls sometimes have; one morning sitting next to me, she cupped her hand to her mouth so no one else could hear then whispered in my ear.

"If I tell you a secret, do you promise not to tell anybody? "

"Sure... okay, I promise, "I said, willing to play along.

"I really, really like you. Could you be my boyfriend?" she asked.

"Well, maybe in a few year," I said, not wanting to hurt her feelings. "We're already friends anyway, right?" I reasoned with her.

She thought it over in that serious way that little girls have for a moment. "'Well," she agreed, "I guess that would be okay."

It was coming up on Christmas. A festive atmosphere surrounded all of us in that little close knit farming community.

Each day Dora and I not only shared the same school bus seat but also our lives with each other. There was something so innocent and fragile about this twelve-year-old girl who had a crush on me. I looked upon her fondly like a little sister. She made me feel like such a grown up.

On December the twenty-fourth, Christmas Eve when Dora got on the bus and sat down next to me she said, "Here. I have a little present for you."

It was wrapped in bright green and red Christmas paper. When I unwrapped it, there lay an exquisite yellow rose.