Not the way I did.īut I was so humbled by the invitation, I didn’t really care how I’d managed to score it. Not that Wally Cook would notice another boy’s looks. Regardless, I doubted Wally found me visually appealing. Cutting my hair would ease the ‘har har, you look like a girl’ comments, but I hated the way my ears stuck out, so deemed it the lesser of two evils. And after a day in the pool, my auburn hair was probably tangled and stringy.

No matter how much I ate, or how much firewood I chopped for my folks all year, I was still too skinny, my muscles small and unremarkable. That, and my less than masculine physique. But I suspected that had less to do with prettiness and more to do with my long hair. At least for a boy, I guess, since I was used to being teased I looked like a girl. I wasn’t the best volleyball player by half. I was shy, so it wasn’t like I’d wowed Wally with my wit or sparkling personality. I wondered what I’d done to stand out in the crowd of other kids that afternoon. Sleeping over at Wally Cook’s house? Me, Jude Applegate? This was blue ribbon stuff. I was stunned to be singled out for this honor. Twisting to look behind me, I checked to make sure he wasn’t talking to someone else. My heart skipped as I watched Wally climb out of the swimming pool. “You wanna sleep over?” Wally asked as the other kids were leaving the party. Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is punishable by seizure of computers, up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 per reported instance.

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I Saw You First by Darien Cox