Shelby the Fearless

A little girl who looked about ten climbed up on the playground and asked, "Do you guys play the guitar?"

Logan had his guitar and amp plugged in, and I answered, "Well, they do, but I don't. I play the piano and the bass guitar."

The girl watched us for a bit, and then said,"My name's Shelby. What's yours?"

I told her mine and Logan's and Tyler's, and she continiued,"I used to play the guitar, but mine got all smashed up."

She hung around, and eventually, when Logan and Tyler left to go do something with the amp, I hung out with her under the playground stuff with her brother, cousin, and friends. It turns out she was nine years old, not ten. She was in the third grade.

Those kids were some of the coolest kids ever. We talked about what they were in to, and they were really mature for their age. It was really nice talking to them.

When Logan started playing his guitar, Shelby sat next to me on top of the playground equipment and we watched him.

"He's really good," Shelby said. "He's kind of cute, too. That's good. He can play the guitar, and he's cute. I already have a boyfriend, though."

"Really?" I asked. I sighed at heart, though. Kids grow up way too fast. I suppose I did, too, though. "What's his name?"

"Levi," she replied. "He's really nice."

"I have a friend named Levi," I said. "I really like that name."

I looked over at another group of people across the park. They appeared to be punk rockers, and it looked as though they all had swords.

"Hey," I said to Shelby, "do those kids have swords?"

She looked. "I don't know," she said. "Let me go check."

"Oh, wait, you don't have to-"

But she was already off, fearlessly running secret-agent style across the park to the sword-weilding punk rockers. I pondered this. It was strange to me that she wasn't the least bit afraid, especially of people with swords. When I was younger, it seemed like I would have been afraid of people with swords. But I can't remember, so I'm not quite sure. Perhaps she was just a brave little girl.

When she returned, she climbed onto the playground and said, "Yep. They're swords. I don't know what kind they are, but they're definitely swords." I wondered what she referred to when she said what kinds of swords, but I decided not to ask.

When my family was leaving, I ran back over to the playground equipment to say bye to Shelby.

"Shelby, I've got to go," I said. "We're going home."

"Aww, you are?" she said sadly.

"Yeah," I said, just as sadly, I must admit. "It was great meeting you guys. Maybe I'll see you again sometime. Hey, if one of us gets famous, we can say, 'Hey, I met that girl!' "

We laughed and waved goodbye. As I was walking away, she pointed at her cousin and yelled, "Hey, he said he likes you!" I laughed some more. Days like that are definitely worth having.

Dance, Dance, Dance

John looked very nice. He was wearing a black suit and a tie. I thought he did, anyway. Especially next to everyone else I had seen so far. I had seen a few boys wearing tuxedos, but everyone who wasn't was wearing a polo shirt and nice pants, which was what Tyler had decided to do.

I walked up to him and gave him a hug. "My dad wants to take some pictures of us," I said.

"Okay," he said. I led him over to my dad, who directed us to a brick wall and took a few pictures. He told us to have fun and we started walking toward the door to the cafeteria.

John paid for my ticket and we walked around for a bit. The dj was going to play nothing other than, of course, rap and country, because that was all anybody listened to in Vancleave, Mississippi. Anybody except me and my friends. So, we kind of expected everything to be bad except each other's company.

Once people started dancing, John started saying he was going to dance, too. I had firmly resolved that I was not going to dance at this dance, because at some previous dances, I would end up dancing just because all of my friends were dancing. I had never enjoyed it, because I had always just been trying to fit in with everyone else and I had never had any fun with it. But I wanted to see John dance. I figured he would have fun with it.

Me, John, Tyler, and Zack stood around talking until Tyler encouraged John to start dancing. Which he did.

Now, I'm not quite sure how to describe John's dancing. I had never seen anything like him, except in maybe a Missy Elliot video. He was all over the cafeteria, going in between groups and circles with these ridiculous dance moves. It was fantastic.

There was a circle of preppy girls who were dancing and not looking like they were having any fun with it, much like I used to. Tyler dared John to interrupt this particular circle with his dancing, and John happily obliged. He walked in to the middle of the group and began his outrageous dancing, and the girls scattered. Tyler, Zack, and I were dying when he returned to us.

I told a girl with a yellow dress that she looked like Beauty and the Beast, and I bought two sad girls brownies. John and I sat down and talked for a while, and then we returned to the dance floor, where a bunch of people had formed a circle. John took off his jacket, handed it to me, and threw himself into the circle, dancing crazily. It was kind of a great moment, because people started cheering and yelling. I had a huge smile plastered across my face and had been laughing hysterically through it all when he turned toward me to leave the circle. I walked and he danced over to Zack and Tyler.

When it was over, John and I sat together on a bench until Dad came. He walked me to the car, told Dad he had a "nice unit" (which, for all you people who don't know what that means, is a car), and hugged me goodbye. I told Zack bye and left.

When I got home, I took my makeup off, got into some sleeping clothes, and turned on Amelie, which is one of my favorite movies. Logan and Dad joined me, and I fell asleep thinking of how surprising a person John was.

The Rather Grand House of John

"Hey, what are you doing tonight?"

I didn't even have to think before I said, "Nothing."

"Do you want to come to my house?"

I stopped. Was he kidding? God, how could he be so casual about me coming over to his house? I mean, I had already met his dad, but coming over to his house was still a bit of a big deal for me, because I was worried about what his family thought of me and everything. I thought a little longer this time, but I realized I did want to go to his house and see where he lived, so I said yes.

My mom agreed, and drove me over there. He came outside and talked to my mom a bit, and then he led me up to his front door and into his house. The first thing I noticed was all of the pictures and different little things hanging on the walls. There were these two pictures of children with dark, gloomy eyes and old-fashioned clothing in his kitchen, and many owl and elephant pictures and figurines, which he said had come from his late grandmother. He showed me a his dad's room, which had a dresser with a huge stack of DVDs on top that, when piled as they were, rather resembled a wall. I breifly got to meet his grandfather, who seemed like a very kind man. He brought me outside and showed me his dog, Zoey. She was a blue dog. We brought her inside and played with her.

"She likes you, " he said. "She doesn't usually like women. Like my mom. When she picks me up, Zoey always barks at her and stuff, 'cause she doesn't like her that much."

"Really?" I said. "She seems like a really sweet dog to me..." She was a chow, and my mom said that chows were really violent sometimes, but right then I couldn't imagine the dog barking at anyone. She was very gentle.

He showed me a room that nobody slept in. It was just a storage-type room, I suppose, but it was one of my favorite parts of his house. The room was filled with things that he and his dad had made, like indian headdresses and carvings, which sounds rather strange, but I thought it was fascinating. There was also jewlery. He showed me four or five glass cases full of gems and silver and tons of pretty little things. He showed me a bear his dad had made out of jade, and rings and pendants made out of various stones. He had already given me an aquamarine ring, which is my birthstone, and a necklace made out of jade, both of which I happened to be wearing.

We went to his room and watched music videos. Lots of music videos. I especially liked his room, because it was decorated with drawings The Other John had done during lunch and posters and whatnot. There were a few other interesting things about his room that I liked, such as his floor, which was covered in yellowish shag carpeting, and his ceiling fan, which was missing an arm. I was just about to teach him how to waltz before my mom came to pick me up.

He came outside and talked to my mom a bit, and then he hugged me and I left. He promised me that he would call me the next day, which he did. We had a conversation in which he asked me:

"Do you... what did you think of my house? I mean, did you think it was crappy or anything?"

I laughed. "No, John," I told him, smiling.

"I thought it was fantastic."

Fireflies

Savannah and I caught fireflies tonight. We had gone outside to take a walk, but ended up taking her bug-motel out of her clubhouse and running around our yard, chasing the little insects.

After we had caught five, I told her we ought to let them go. I sat down with the bug-motel in my hands as she objected, saying that she wanted to keep them for at least...thirty minutes.

"You know what I bet fireflies eat?" I asked her.

"What?"

"Freedom."

I saw her roll her eyes at me.

"That's why, when you put them in a cage, they don't blink as much. They have to have their freedom to live."

"They don't eat freedom," she scoffed. "They eat leaves and stuff."

I smiled, recognizing defeat, and asked, "I wonder whether they eat honeysuckles or not?"

"It's worth a try," she said, walking off to find some greener leaves than the ones on the ground.

I found some honeysuckles and picked four. She held open the cage door and I stuffed two of them in, real quick-like so none of them would escape. I held the door open so she could put her leaves in, and I held out the two remaining honeysuckle flowers.

"One for you, one for me," I said.

She took hers, and eventually agreed to set the fireflies free. We walked back to the house together and left the bug-motel on the porch with the door open, so that the little creatures could fly away and again feast upon their freedom.

Memory of Tea

I have a memory in which I am four or five. It is a very bright, sunny day, as most days in southern Mississippi are. My mother, Logan, and I, as Savannah hadn't been born yet, drove out to this beautiful field on the side of the road somewhere. It was full of these little red plants that grew on the ends of grass, which, according to my mother, were some form of tea plants. She handed brown paper bags to Logan and I and told us to pick the plants so that she could use them to brew tea later. We set off, and, although we spent what felt like quite some time in the field, I only picked enough to fill the bottom of my bag. The grass that the tea grew on was very tall, especially to a person as small as myself at the time. I remember walking about this little field, the sun beating down on me and my family, and feeling rather tired. The entire memory was, in a way, surreal. I also remember the bags full of tea sitting in our garage for the next year or so, because Mom had evidently decided not to make tea. Which was fine by me; the plants didn't look like any kind of tea I had ever seen, and I would rather have the memory anyway.