Chapter 10: Kansas in August

In the girls' hut, Ginger was dishing to Mary Ann about her encounter with Horace. She spared none of the details.

Mary Ann sighed. "Yep, that's Horace, all right. He always did think he was God's gift to girls. Of course, a lot of girls back home used to think so too."

Ginger couldn't believe it. "Really? How come?"

"Simple. Horace's dad owned the bank over in Horner's Corners. So Horace always had plenty of money, and he got a car for his sixteenth birthday. Pretty nice one, too. So he never had much trouble finding girls who would go for him - or at least put up with him."

That made sense to Ginger. "And did you?"

Mary Ann snickered. "Never got the chance to turn him down. Remember, Horace is three years older than me - when I was a freshman in high school, he was a senior. And then we never did get along. When my dad and Mr. Blake had the feed store, we both worked there - well, actually, I was the one who worked there; he just had a job." She rolled her eyes. "And you should have seen the way he used to kiss up to Mr. Blake. It was embarrassing. Anyway, we had a little argument once. . ."

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Enough was enough.

13-year-old Mary Ann knew she was never going to like Horace - whenever she saw that darn car he was so proud of, it looked like her dad's farm, foreclosed on by Horace's father, driving away on four wheels in the Kansas dust.

Still, there was life to be lived and work to be done, and not much time to nurse grudges. Horace teased her about her height? Fine, let him; she didn't mind. Maybe it didn't seem quite fair that Horace got paid the same for goofing off as Mary Ann did for actually working in the feed store, just because her dad's partner was pals with Horace's dad. But she could live with it. When you thought about it, it was kind of like the parable about the farmer who paid his hired hands who'd worked a half-day the same as the ones who'd worked a full day. As for the girls who buzzed around Horace, Mary Ann knew why they buzzed and (therefore) what they were; so, as far as she was concerned, the laugh was on them and Horace.

But there were limits. Horace never bothered to notice what other people cared about; but even Horace should have known better, on this blazing hot day in August, than to knock 4-H.

Mary Ann hadn't even been talking to him. She and Laurie Casey were in front of the drug store, talking about last night's 4-H meeting and the upcoming county fair. Horace was parked nearby, with nothing better to do than lounge on the hood of his stupid car with his ears flapping. He broke into his patented idiotic cackle.

"4-H!" he hooted. "What a complete waste of time!"

Mary Ann wheeled on him.

"Who cares what you think, you creep?" she snapped. "I bet you don't even know what 4-H stands for!"

Horace hadn't been expecting a counterattack, not from quiet little Mary Ann. "Ummm. . . lemme see, now. . . . Head, hearth. . . uh, horses and hay?"

Mary Ann rolled her big brown eyes in disgust. "That shows how much you know about it! It's 'Head, Heart, Hands, and Health'! And you don't qualify on any of those! You've got nothing in your head, you've got no heart, you've never used your hands in your life. . . and if you don't stay away from me from now on, your health is gonna be in jeopardy!" She turned back to her friend. "Let's go in, Laurie. We can get ice cream sodas and talk without a zillion weirdos eavesdropping on us."

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The memory made Mary Ann smile. ". . . and I told him what I thought of him. After that, he wouldn't have had the nerve to ask me out, even if he ever wanted to."

Ginger grimaced. "Well, you sure didn't miss much."