Marco

July 15th, 1984

"Mine!" I shout, bumping the volleyball, passing to Randall. Randall sets the ball to Jack, who spikes. I set the ball to Randall. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see a girl with red hair and acid washed jeans and a pink polo shirt walk over. Her skin's kind of pale, which is weird, because her dad's part Arabic, so you'd expect her skin to be darker.

That makes her one of the only people I know who aren't a hundred percent white.

"Can I play?" Daria asks, kicking at the green grass with the toe of her boot. "Aly's on vacation, so I've got nothing to do."

"Aly?" I say, spiking the ball to Jack. "On vacation? She never goes on vacation. Neither do you."

"She's going to British Columbia for two weeks," Daria says. The ball flies toward her, and she bumps it to me. I set it to Randall. "Her brother goes to uni there. Mine also goes to uni, except in Edmonton."

"Really?" Jack asks, spiking. I reach in to bump. "You actually have a brother?"

"I also have two sisters," Daria says. "One's going to graduate from high school this year, and the other's in Grade 4."

"I have an older sister," I say.

"Jack and I don't have any brothers or sisters," Randall says, bumping. Daria glances at Rando.

"Is Sue still in love with you?" Daria asks. I set the ball to her, and she sets in back.

"With me?" Randall asks. His hands go to his chest, and he leans sideways a little.

"Yeah, you, you dirt bag."

"I don't know."

There's a moment of silence. "Me, Sue, and Aly used to be friends, but then Sue started having a crush on Randall at the end of Grade 6, and she would talk about him all the time. She wouldn't let us talk about anything else, so eventually we stopped hanging out with her."

I catch the ball in midair. All of us stare at Daria.

"Tell me about it," Randall says, putting his hands on his hips.

"Okay," Daria says, putting her hands on her hips. "But each of you have to tell me something about yourselves once I'm done."

Daria

July 19th, 1983

I take another lick of ice cream as Sue puts her lipstick on again. I can hear Aly sigh. Sue's always putting lipstick on. She's trying to impress Randall, even though he's a dick weed. Aly and I don't get what she sees in him.

"This ice cream sure does taste good," Aly says. She's holding a double chocolate chip ice cream cone in her hand. The ice cream drips down the edge of the cone as she takes a huge bite out of it. "Especially in the summer heat," she continues.

"Damn skippy," I say. Aly, Sue, and I just went to the creamery for ice cream. Sue's the only one who didn't because she's scared of getting fat.

"Randall won't like me if I'm fat like you guys are gonna be," she said. I almost threw my ice cream away, except it's too hot, and I really wanna cool down. Besides, it's not like I'm gonna be a blar from one ice cream. I'm starting to feel like a bunk for even thinking that.

It's around 19 degrees Celsius today. That's pretty cool for a Calgary summer day, if anyone knows how hot it can get during the summer. Calgary's like a desert. The desert gets hot during the day, and ridiculously cold during the night. Only with Calgary, it's the seasons. Unbearably hot during summer, really cold during winter.

"No one cares about the ice cream, Aly," Sue says, readjusting her sun hat. "All I want to talk about is Randall."

Aly and I sigh in perfect synchronization. We're both thinking the same thing: What does she see in him?

"I'm gonna throw a huge party to myself when Nico's gone," I say, biting off a huge chunk of ice cream. "There's gonna be no annoying older brother to bother me."

"I wanna talk about Randall," Sue says, just as Aly opens her mouth.

"Sue," Aly says, leaning over. "I'm sure there are other things to talk about besides Randall."

"Are you saying Randall's not important?" Sue asks. She stands up and crosses her arms.

"No!" I protest, throwing my hand up. "It's just that it's kind of annoying when all you talk about is Randall. There's lots of other stuff to talk about, like hot musicians. David Bowie, Wham, Dexys Midnight Runners, Billy Idol, Queen, so on."

"Isn't Randall the only hot guy out there?" Sue says, turning her gaze away.

I open my mouth to speak, but Aly beats me to it.

"Sue, just bag your face about Randall for once!"

"Then you're not my friends anymore. You think I'm bad for liking Randall."

Aly and I watch Sue walk away. I stand up to reason with her, except Aly pulls my arm down.

"Forget it," Aly says. "There's no point."

Jack

Now

"And that's when Aly became my only friend," Daria says. "It kind of hurt because we'd been friends since Grade 4, and Sue had been really nice to us back then."

"Darn," I say. "Did Sue really obsess over Randall that much?"

"Damn skippy," she says. Randall, Marco, and I look at each other, then we look at Daria.

"One of you guys has to tell me something about yourselves," Daria says. "If no one volunteers then I pick."

"I'll go," I say. I take a deep breath in as everyone turns to look at me.

"It was last June," I begin.

June 23rd, 1983

"Boys," Mr. Delancey says, looking at all of us. "How many of you have had a crush, but got rejected?"

I raise my hand. Last week, I told Astrid Birgisson I liked her, and she rejected me for this bohunk guy named Anson.

"I see you're the only one," Mr. Delancey says, pointing to me. "I can see why this girl rejected you."

"Oooohhhh," the whole room goes.

Randall

Now

"The end," Jack said. "Who's next?"

"I'll tell the story of how I sprained my ankle in fifth grade," I said. "It was in November of that year..."

November 30, 1981

"Marco!" I shouted, waving my hands. We were at the playground, right on the equipment. My eyes were shut close, because we were playing a game.

"Polo!" everyone else shouted. I could hear the footsteps on the ground.

"Marco!" I called out. I was walking backwards, and all of a sudden, I could feel my foot out in the air, and the rest of my body following, hitting a pole.

I had fallen down the fire pole.

I landed on the ground with both feet, but as soon as I landed, I felt a jolt of pain run through the left. I immediately collapsed as soon as I tried to stand up.

Marco

Now

"That's what happened," Randall says, "Do you remember that, Jack?"

"Damn skippy," Jack says. "That was Fuckn' A. Now it's Marco's turn."

I rub my chin as everyone turns to stare at me.

"I'll tell you the story of how I nearly got killed by my cousin," I say.

December 23rd, 1982

"Here, son," Dad says, handing me a box. I rip it open. A pair of red boxing gloves is resting inside. I take them out and put them on. Nearby, my cousin Jules is testing his boxing gloves. Jules is fifteen. He's ace at boxing.

"Jules!" I say. "You wanna fight?" I hold up my arms to look macho. Jules' looks so much like a Clydesdale, you would think he's not even Canadian.

"Cheeuh," Jules says. He moves in front of the glass table, and I follow him. We begin boxing. At first, Jules isn't that hard on me, and I'm not that hard on him, but over the period of the next two hours, Jules punches harder and harder. I can already feel some bruises on my cheeks.

"Jules, cool out," I say. Now I'm starting to feel scared. How hard will Jules punch me this time?

"Bag your face!" Jules says, as he delivers the last punch. I can feel myself fall backward onto the glass table, with the sound broken glass following.

Now

"I spent three days in the hospital," I say. "The stiches I got were painful." I rub the back of my neck, where some of the scars from the glass still remain.

"What happened to your cousin?" Daria asks.

"I don't remember what happened after too well," I say. I really don't. "All I do remember is that Jules wasn't allowed to come back to our house again."

"Dang," Daria says. "Harsh."

"Yeah," Randall and I say at once. "Harsh."