A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews and messages. I haven't updated in so long because this was actually only intended to be something to tide me over until an original idea came along. Naturally it had to take over, so I'm sorry that I haven't been as frequent in updating as I once was. Also, sorry for the length of this chapter, but it's just my start of trying to get back into this. Thanks again and enjoy!

Chapter 26

It was around the same time that Mary Alice returned to school from her bout with chicken pox when Kathy began parading around with her new friends. Mary Alice and I were sitting outside at recess talking about the leftover pockmarks on her arm when we noticed the three girls walking around the playground, pointing towards different people and laughing loudly to themselves. I wasn't sure of either of the other two girls' names, but I did know that they were in the fifth grade and probably lived in the same neighbourhood as Kathy. They each wore a pretty dress, one in pink and the other in yellow, and they had their hair done so nicely that I could not help but feel a secret jealousy towards them.

It was nearing the end of recess when they took notice my friend and I across the schoolyard, and when they did Kathy began saying something quietly before all three of them burst out into fits of laughter.

"What's their problem?" Mary Alice asked, shifting uncomfortably on our bench.

"I don't know," I said, "but I wish that they'd stop pointing at us. Don't they have other people to bother?"

Apparently they didn't though, because only a second after I said that the three of them started marching in our direction, the same evil look pasted across each of their faces.

"Want to go somewhere else?" I asked Mary Alice.

She shook her head. "We don't have to move because of them." She had a point. We shouldn't have felt like we needed to run away at our own school, but at the same time I could remember the last confrontation that I'd had with Kathy and couldn't promise myself that this one wouldn't be exactly the same.

"Well hello," Kathy sang when she approached us, using that false friendly voice that she had once used on others when we played with her.

"What do you want?" I asked, standing slowly to face them. Mary Alice did the same, and though neither of us were really tough, we knew enough kids who were to know how to look like we weren't the least bit intimidated by her.

"I just came over to introduce you two to my friends. This," she said, nodding to the brunette in the pink, "is Joyce. And this," she pointed to the redhead in the yellow, "is Lynn. Joyce, Lynn, this Mary Alice and she's Tiger Lily."

"It's just Lily," I informed her harshly, crossing my arms over my chest. That was a big mistake, because suddenly all three of them began to laugh.

"I told you," Kathy sang, while Mary Alice and I exchanged confused glances.

"Told them what?" I asked, wanting to know what this joke was about.

"Oh nothing," Kathy rolled her eyes, but was still smiling enough to make me curious.

"Really," I asked. "You're laughing about me and I want to know why."

"You really want to know?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah."

"Absolutely positively sure?"

"Yes."

"You're one hundred percent sure you want to know."

"I already said yes."

"So your absolutely positively one hundred and fifty percent sure that you want to know."

"I'm sure enough that if you don't tell me soon I'm gonna punch that crooked nose off your face!"

Even my threat didn't wipe that ugly grin off her face. She just turned to her friends. "I told you she has a temper."

"Come on Kathy," Mary Alice urged gently, like she didn't want to be part of the joke herself.

"Fine," Kathy gave in. "I was just telling Joyce and Lynn how neither of you wear a bra yet." All three of them began laughing again, but I didn't see what was so funny.

"You don't wear a bra either," I pointed out to Kathy, which put a quick stop to their giggles.

"I do so!" she spat.

"Since when?"

"Since last year. I just never told you because I didn't want you to feel ferior of me."

Mary Alice snorted. "Ferior's not even a word. Dummy!"

"Is too."

"Is not. It's inferior for your information, and we don't feel inferior to you because you don't wear a bra, and even if it's a training bra you don't need one because you've got nothing to fill it with!"

I was proud of Mary Alice for that. She had been out of school for awhile and already she was back knowing the meanings of words that I didn't even know existed. Neither of Kathy's new friends even snickered at that though, and they quickly told us why.

"She actually does wear a bra," Lynn informed us snobbishly, "and it's not a trainer either. We were there when she bought it and we'd know better than you anyway because we actually wear them."

"Yeah," Joyce jumped in with a voice as equally snooty as Lynn's. "And you two better pray that you actually get something by next year other wise the other fifth grade girls are going to make fun of you so bad that you'll want to drop out of school."

"Yeah," Kathy said. "Everybody in the fifth grade wears a bra. Even the girls in trainer's get made fun of."

"How do you know we don't wear them?" Mary Alice asked, though I could have pointed out the most obvious of reasons why it was clear we did not.

"Please," Kathy sighed. "Everybody knows you don't. Besides," she looked at her friends when she said this next bit, "even if they could fit into bras they're both too poor to buy one."

I felt the urge to punch her again, and I was just starting to make a fist when Mary Alice put her hand down on mine to stop me. They noticed, because they all starting giggling again.

"Look," Lynn said, "they're holding hands."

"We are not!" I said as each of us pulled our hands away.

"It looked like it to me," Joyce said.

"Me too," Kathy laughed.

"Fine!" I snapped, taking a step closer to them. "We were holding hands. Happy?"

Joyce let out a slight laugh then.

"What?" I said through clenched teeth.

"It's just that Kathy was right."

"About what?"

"You are kind of short for a girl your age," she said, her smile growing wider. "Actually you're really short. I wonder if you're really a midget."

I was just about to clock her when I heard Lynn cry out, "What are you staring at?"

"Oh nothing," Mary Alice sang, and I stepped back to see that she was leaning over and looking right up into Lynn's face.

"What is it?" Lynn begged to know.

"It's just that you have the longest nose hairs I've ever seen." She stood up straight. "Even my grandpa doesn't have hairs like that."

I don't think Mary Alice saw it coming, because I know that I didn't, but a split second later Lynn reached up and smacked my friend with the back of her hand, and believe me I was surprised that I didn't see teeth go flying out of her mouth. She didn't make a sound though, didn't cry out loud or anything. Instead, she brought her own hand up to her face, like she couldn't believe that somebody had actually just hit her.

Apparently the other girls couldn't believe it either because they all looked entirely shocked. Nobody said anything for a moment and we all stared at Mary Alice in silence to see what she would do. Our silence was interrupted by the school bell, and suddenly Lynn seemed to realize what she had done.

"You better not tell anybody about this," she said to her threateningly. "If you do I'll just deny it."

"Don't worry," Kathy said hatefully. "They're greasers. They aren't allowed to rat out other kids."

All three of them turned to leave before we could respond to that, but as they walked away Mary Alice shouted after them, "Don't trip over your boobs on the way inside." It wasn't much of a comeback, but then she had just been smashed in the face so I couldn't exactly hold it against her.

I knew that she was not going to tell on them. Mary Alice didn't tell on anybody, and though we wouldn't have admitted it, Kathy was right. We weren't the type of kids to rat on people, but that was clearly not what made me angry about her. I could see the tears beginning to fill Mary Alice's eyes as we walked into the school, but I wasn't sure whether they were from the physical or the emotional slap across the face.

Though it had never bugged me before, all I could think about for the rest of the afternoon in class was that my chest had yet to develop anything. It was flat, and while I looked around at a the other girls in my class I noticed that none of them had much of anything either. There were a few who had hints of something, but it was definitely nothing to brag about, and two of those girls were a bit on the chubby side and I thought that maybe their weight had something to do with it.

Mary Alice clearly had nothing, but then Kathy looked about the same and she was wearing a bra. One thing that really bothered me though was that both Lynn and Joyce did have breasts, and they were almost as large as some of the junior high school girls. I didn't know what they looked like a year earlier, but I knew that I didn't even have a year before the fifth grade to work on getting into a bra.

On the way home from school Mary Alice and I discussed the events from recess, and it seemed that she had some of the same concerns that I did.

"I don't think we can grow something before the next grade," she said, sounding worried. "My mom told me that it has to do with nature and that we can't control it." I was surprised to hear that she had actually spoken with her mother about such a personal matter, especially since it was something that I thought girls only spoke with their friends about.

"Maybe we could just get bras," I said. "If Kathy can then so can we."

"Except that we don't have any money. And we don't know where to get one, or how to pick one out."

Sometimes I was concerned about how easily she could come to such depressing conclusions, but I wasn't going to complain about it this time because I knew that it was true.

"At least I know that my mom's got big ones," Mary Alice said with hope in her voice. "I guess that mean's I'll get them too. What about your mom's?"

I shrugged. "I never paid attention to them." In truth it had never been a very big deal. Sure when I was really little I used to wonder what it would be like when I actually grew breasts, but it wasn't something that little kids really had to worry about. It shouldn't have been something that a nine-year-old worried about either, but when other girls are concerned about it then it's hard not to be.

"What if they don't grow?" I asked. "Everybody's gonna laugh at us."

"I know," she admitted. "Do you think boys won't like us if we don't have huge boobs."

"Since when do we care if boys like us?" I asked, though I knew that if I found out a boy did like me I would have died and gone to heaven.

"I don't know, but boys do like it when girls have big ones. You ever see your brothers or their friends go out with girls who have flat chests?"

"I don't know. I don't usually see who they go out with. Besides, Kathy doesn't have anything either." I was only kidding myself though, because the wish right then that I had my own breasts was not nearly as strong as my desire to even own a bra.

Just then Mary Alice raised her hand up to her head.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"My face hurts," she said, and turned to show me where Lynn had struck her.

I gasped when I saw it. "Have you looked in the mirror at all?"

"No," she answered nervously. "What's wrong?"

"Well you've got a black eye, 'cept it's not on your eye. It's on your cheek."

"She bruised my cheek?"

"It looks pretty bad too."

"I have to see it," she said as we took off running towards her house. When we got there we rushed up the steps and in through the front door where we made our way through the house to the bathroom. I thought she was going to faint when she saw it.

"It's not that bad," I tried to tell her, but even she could see that it was pretty grim.

"Mary?" Mrs. Weston called as she walked into the bathroom. "I didn't know if that was you. Oh hi Lily. How are you girls?"

"Fine," Mary Alice replied, keeping her face turned away from her mother so that she wouldn't see her bruise.

"What's wrong?" Mrs. Weston asked, sensing that her daughter was upset.

"Nothing!"

"Mary? What happened?" She walked around to the other side of us and as she did Mary Alice moved again. After she did that her mother grabbed hold of her firmly and turned her to see what she was hiding. Her eyes went wide when she saw the bruise, and I could tell that she was concerned.

"What on earth happened?" she asked, her voice in almost a whisper.

"Nothing," she replied, and I could see the tears filling her eyes. I could remember how when my mother was alive no matter how much I told myself that I was not going to cry the second I saw her I would begin to bawl.

"Did somebody hit you?" her mother asked. "You didn't get into a fight, did you?"

She shook her head. "No, a girl slapped me."

"With what, her fist!"

"She backhanded her," I explained.

"When? On your way home?"

"No, at lunch."

"Did you tell a teacher."

Neither of us said anything, and Mrs. Weston sighed. "Who was it?"

Mary Alice shrugged. "One of Kathy's friends. Lynn or something."

"I'm calling the school first thing in the morning," her mother said and I could see her anger rising.

"No you can't!" Mary Alice cried. "She's a year older and she'll hate me if I do."

"I don't care if she hates you Mary she practically broke your cheekbone! You should have gone to a teacher."

"I wasn't going to tell on her! Besides, it doesn't even hurt that much."

Her mother just looked at her for a moment, like she was trying to decide what to do. Finally she shook her told us to go outside and play.

"You think she's going to tell on Lynn?" I asked once we were outside.

"Probably. She's always worried about me when I get hurt. I just don't want Lynn to get mad at me. What if she tells people stuff about me?"

"What's to tell?" I asked. "She doesn't even know you."

"But Kathy does."

She came home with me so that we could continue our conversation while I dropped my books off. Our talk was really going nowhere, after all neither of us had the answers we wanted, and as we sat on my front steps we only seemed to confuse ourselves more.

"I wonder why they were making fun of us," Mary Alice said. "We've never done anything to them."

"Like Kathy said, it's because we're greasers."

"But we're not even. Just because our families are and because we live over here they make fun of us. We're not nearly as mean as Kathy is."

"I know," I said. "Sometimes I think that when I grow up I want to be rich so that I don't have to live in a place like this, but what if I have a daughter? I don't want her to be rich. Sure, I want her to have nice stuff but I don't want a kid who's stuck up like Kathy is."

"I know, but you could tell them they aren't allowed to be stuck up."

"But then I can't give them nice things either, because you can't have lots of stuff without being stuck up."

"Why not? Lots of the older girls 'round here are stuck up and all they have are cigarettes and lipstick."

"But they only pretend to be stuck up," I explained.

"Why would they pretend?"

"So that boys will like them."

"Boys like girls who are stuck up?" Mary Alice asked. "Why?"

"I don't know. Probably makes them seem more mature or something."

"But I thought they liked girls who have big boobs."

"They like that too." Where I was getting these facts from I'll never know, but it seemed reasonable at the time.

"So for boys to like us we have to have huge boobs, and act stuck up?"

I nodded. "I think so."

"Well how come we have to have them? Why don't boys?"

"Because that would be weird."

"Well it looks like I'm not going to have boobs for awhile," she pointed out, "and I if I ever try and act stuck up my parents will spank me back to kindergarten, so I guess I'm never going to have a boyfriend."

"Neither will I," I said, and even though I didn't want a boyfriend right away, I figured that by high school I would be ready for one.

"Who needs boyfriends anyway?" she asked. "What's the point?"

"I guess so we can get married."

"Then what? What's so great about being married?"

"Well your parents are married."

"Yeah, but I heard my aunt say that they only got married because my dad got my mom pregnant. That's another thing. How do you get somebody pregnant?"

"From doing 'it'," I said, as though I knew all the answers.

"I know that," she scoffed, "but I don't actually know what 'it' is."

I understood exactly what she meant. I knew that "it" was just a secretive term for sex, and I knew that being a virgin meant you hadn't had sex and not being a virgin meant that you had, but that was all I knew. Mary Alice and I both learned about that in the first grade when one of the boys in our class was playing the "yes or no" game. He went up to everybody and asked "Are you a virgin". Everybody except myself and one other boy said yes, and of course the joke was that we weren't virgins because we'd had sex with each other. But what I didn't know was how people could actually have sex, and what the act of losing your virginity meant.

Another thing I knew was that it wasn't something that I could talk about. It was one of those things that from birth you automatically know that you aren't supposed to talk about. It's okay around friends, but definitely not around family and never around a teacher, because they would tell your parents, and then you would really be in trouble.

"Do you think we know anybody who's done it?" Mary Alice asked me, and just as she did Two-Bit came strolling down the street and up to our front steps. We tried to stifle our curious giggles when he did but he knew something was up because instead of going inside to see Pony he sat outside with us.

"What are you doing?" he asked, grinning happily along with us.

"Talking," I replied.

"About what?"

"It," I said, thinking that he would have no idea what I was talking about.

"Oh," he nodded. "You're a bit young for that yet, aren't you?"

Mary Alice and I quickly looked at each other, wondering if he was talking about the same "it" that we were. He must have been though, because the next thing he said couldn't have been about anything else.

"I guess I learned about that stuff when I was your age. Back then I though I knew everything there was to know. Now I figure I do, but heck, maybe when I'm twenty-five I'll look back and think that I was an idiot for trying. What do you two know anyway? And who told you 'bout it, Darry?"

"No! We figured it out ourselves."

He whistled and then nodded. "Who am I to judge."

I didn't understand what he meant by that, but apparently my friend did because she suddenly punched him in the arm and said, "You're disgusting!"

"I'm kidding," he laughed. "So what exactly were you saying?" He seemed too amused to really be interested in what we were saying, but I figured that since I actually had a boy around to ask questions to then I might as well ask them.

"How come boys like girls to have big you-know-whats?"

He tilted his head to the side and squinted like he was trying to think. "Can you ask me that again in a couple of years?"

"Fine," I said, "but how come girls have to have big ones?"

"Yeah?" Mary Alice asked. "How come boys don't have to have anything big?"

He stood quickly then, and ran a hand along the side of his slicked hair. "I can't believe it."

"What?" we asked.

He crossed his arms over his chest and looked almost distraught. "I am actually uncomfortable answering you girls. I've never been uncomfortable about this stuff in my life." Hw took a deep breath. "I need a drink." With that he took off into the house, leaving Mary Alice and I sitting there and wondering what was wrong with him.