Part 3

Sixth Grade was an interesting year for all of us. I guess that for every kid it is, but after having the same class with your seven best friends.(which I think our parents had something to do with.) And then suddenly you're all dismembered its hard.

Its not only that, but you also discover your unnatural attraction to the opposite sex and for some reason you have crushes on people that you thought you absolutely hated. Its like your hormones mislead you, its disturbing to think about the crushes I've had.

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1994

Middle school is when they start to separate the smart kids from the not so smart kids. When your brains actually decided what friends you get to see during the day.



So I spent most of my day with Tommy Aisha and Billy. While Trini, Rocky Kat and Jason spent their school days together. And if that wasn't bad enough The lunches were alphabetically. So ti was Me Aisha Billy Rocky and Trini. Then Jason Tommy and Kat had lunch togther. Trini and I only had one class together all day and that was the class we all had together, which was PE! And so naturally it was our favorite.



Even Kat, who hated outdoor sports, well most of the time, Loved PE. We always picked each other for teams, even when the guys were captain's they would pick the rest of us first, including the girls, even though we weren't that good. It was just the thing, whichever one of us was captain would pick the rest of us, it was only natural. Even If that meant losing all the good players we did it anyways. IT was okay that we did it, because Tommy and Jason were amazing players, and Rocky would scare the other team away with that hair…er I mean attitude. And Billy he always tried his hardest.



That isn't to say that us, the girls weren't any good. Jason and Tommy spent many afternoons with all of us practicing and getting lessons from them that way we could always win. To the guys that was the most important thing, damn the male ego.


That was the year that you start making new friends, and we all did. We got new friends that we spent time with and had fun, but we never brought them into our little group. It was an unspoken rule. It was our pact, that no one ever had to mention. It was our group only. No Questions asked.



We all started to care what we looked like. The girls started to wearing cuter clothes, no longer the tomboys that we use to be. And the Guys made sure they didn't look like the just came from playing in a giant mud hole.



Then there were the crushes we all had them. One Saturday when the boys were all gone on this big Father son fishing trip, we sat on the grass, and started talking about our crushes. IT was a funny thing to see the way things turned out. We all had crushes on one of out counterpart Lovelies. And Now that I look back on it, the crushes were so…wrong. It was like this puzzle where the pieces just didn't fit together.



Kat had a thing for Jason. Aisha was googly over Billy. Trini was mad for Tommy and I was going to die for Rocky



I don't even remember why, I liked Rocky, I mean I hated his hair. And Most of the time he was this big jerk. I blame it on screwed up hormones.


That's is when it started. We would tease each other to no end about our silly little crushes.



There was this period of time about a month I believe when Aisha didn't understand the math. And she didn't ask me, her friend, for help. And She didn't ask Tommy who was probably smarter than I was, so she asked Billy.


and everyday after other day she would go over to his house or they'd be sitting in the back yard and help her with the math. Well he would try to help her, but all she could do was sit there and stare at him. One time she even put a Flower in her hair in an effort to look beautiful.

And Billy would never notice. Kat Trini and I would always walk by and make little kissy noises until Billy got so confused that he'd go play with the other boys.




Jason started playing Peewee football at this little recreation center a few minutes away from where our houses were. So Kat would make us all get on our bikes and ride the whole five minutes just so she could sit and watch him. He was actually pretty good, but we would never admit that to him, and every single time he'd do something good, Kat would stand up and cheer, like she actually knew what was going on and it was our duty to tease her to no end about it, of course.



"Why are you cheering so loud?" Aisha would ask and then I'd say

"I don't see anyone special"



And Trini would just giggle.


It was hard for me to really do anything with Rocky. He was always hanging around with Tommy or just gone, no one knows where he'd go, or he'd be playing video games with Billy. I never really saw him, maybe that is why I liked him for as long as I did.



I know I'm awful

Tommy loved to swim, which is probably why they had a pool. It was one of his favorite things to do in the sixth grade. He'd hop into his swimming trunks, and go to the pool and swim for a while. Occasionally begging me or Aisha to go swim for him because Rocky and Billy would be playing video games.

And for Tommy it was easy to beg us too. Especially since Trini would drop whatever it was she was doing every single time she saw him head for that pool, that girl had it bad. Then she would drag the three of us over in our own swimming suits to sit in the lounge chairs and 'work on our tan' We were in sixth grade, like anyone would believe that we were working on our tan. But that is what she said, but we all know what she was really doing. She was giving her eyes a workout is what she was doing.



And she was the smoothest of us all. She'd wear sun glasses and turn her head to the side, so it made her look like she was either sleeping or just relaxing while she was staring at Tommy. Then Tommy would swim up to us and give me or Ish the puppy dog eyes and he'd say. "Kim the water sure is nice today"



Or He'd say, "Ish, the water is awfully warm today"



And then there was my personal favorite, when he would sink down about as low as his masculinity would let him and just say " Kim….Ish….please"



That was begging you see.


And there sometimes when we would. When we didn't mind the jealousy coming off from Trini in waves. But most of the time we'd stick by our best friend guidelines and stayed were we were, despite the splashing.



And he very rarely he'd ask Trini to join him. But she never jumped at the chance. She tried to play the Sixth grade version of hard to get. And whenever he asked, she would toss off some rehearsed line about working on her tan. Like I said who'd believe that we were actually working on our tan we were only in the sixth grade.



And I most give her credit. If I hadn't been her best friend on the face of this planet, I'd never know that she had rehearsed it. And Of Course Tommy feel for it every time.



And Of course he never asked Kat. I guess he figured that asking his own sister was just lame.

at the end of the week we had this thing where we all would dish about each of them over Ice Cream. Kat would always be shrugging acting like Jason was nothing special. I never had anything to report about Rocky. Aisha would just get this far away look in her eyes that you would see in the movies. That should have told me that it wasn't going to last for long. And Trini Would bounce around and start talking to herself, pretending that she was Tommy and that he had just confessed his life crush to her.



Whenever she would go on about that I never listened to her babble on about Tommy. I don't really know what it was I mean I would listen to Aisha and Kat , but whenever Trini would start to talk about Tommy, I'd tune her out.



Maybe I knew that it would never be so listening just seemed like a waste of time.

Maybe I was just weird.

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