I am devouring another Romance Novel.

I found a box of them in an old storage shed when Nana and Papaw bought land on Borders. We were exploring these strangers’ things that they just left here, and I came across this entire box full of books. Most of the front covers are missing. Bookworms made little tunnels through the pages. The back covers tell me they were 75 cents brand new back in the early ‘80s.

I am in love.

I read about Marnie, a model turned recluse after some tragedy or other, who is wooed out of her misery by a handsome, stubborn contractor who won’t stand to see her so gloomy. And Rachel, whose grandfather owned a game reserve in Australia that she surprisingly inherits and so must deal with the argumentative albeit insanely attractive foreman.

I read them over and again. I cry when hearts are broken or when another happy ending is resolved. I stay up until 2:00 am on school nights because I can’t bear to sleep until I know that these wayward lovers finally reconcile and live happily ever after.

On the bus, in study hall, at lunch time, riding in the back of the car. I tune out the entire world and let my imagination run away with these beautiful people in preposterous circumstances who are destined to be in love. Pirates, vagabonds, kings… and the women who love them.

My English teacher tells my family that she was initially concerned that I read novels through her class each day, but that my grades are good and I keep up with the assignments so she lets it slide. My teammates on the basketball team show no interest in interrupting my silent descent into these salacious stories, and for the most part I’m happy to not have to awkwardly interact with them. When I have friends over, we read aloud and giggle at the scandalous affairs, inappropriate dinner time behavior, and blushing virgins who become vixens on their wedding nights.

In time, I get picky about my romance writers and am no longer able to simply enjoy them like I used to. Some of the writing is just too awful. I look back on that time, though, with fondness. I fell in love so many times and lived so many stories and enjoyed it all so much.

Real life love, I soon learn, is not really like the kind in books. Better to enjoy those fictional characters and their guaranteed happiness than to risk too much of yourself when it comes to matters such as this.

Mom is about to pop.

Her feet are swollen and she eats salt straight out of the shaker and her long, long hair keeps slipping out of the tight little bun on the back of her head. I have been playing basketball every weekend, as usual. The other moms ask about the baby and the due date and what they’ll name her. Mom smiles at them all, but as soon as we get in the van to go home, she’s a very cranky pregnant lady once again.

I get to skip school on Friday because Mom is being “induced.” I don’t know what this means other than supposedly it makes the baby come out on time instead of as a surprise. She got to the hospital super early, and Dad wakes us up at our regular school time and takes us in to visit her.

She and her enormous belly are propped up on the hospital bed, hooked up to buzzing, whirring machines and dripping bags of clear liquid. The TV is on, but turned down very low. My brothers are restless and Dad takes them to McDonalds when he goes to find brunch. By lunch, they are terrors, so he takes them home. Mom tells him to hurry back or he’ll miss the baby.

The baby needs to hurry up. I have to leave for a basketball tournament by 4:00pm. It’s after 1:00 and she’s still not here. Finally, Mom starts contracting and having pains and nurses rush in, and then a doctor. They don’t know that I’m not really supposed to be here. You have to be 14 to be present during delivery, according to hospital policy. I am three years too young, but I’m taller than most of them so they don’t question me staying in the room.

Good thing, too, because I am fascinated by this birthing process. I’ve only ever seen it in movies. The amount of blood and guts is unreal. And then the baby?!

Yuck. It’s covered in cottage cheesy stuff and bloody and all squenched-up in the face. The umbilical cord is disgusting. After the baby comes out, I think it’s over. I am wrong. Suddenly, Mom is pushing again and I learn about the existence of after-birth. Double yuck! That stuff is as big as the baby! They never show that part in the movies.

The nurses are busy prepping my little sister for life on the outside. They flip and flop her around, pulling on arms and legs, sucking liquid out of her lungs, pricking toes for blood samples, and eventually cleaning her up for a proper viewing. It’s all very thorough and routine.

When we get to hold the baby, you would think she was a landmine about to explode. It’s all soft, soft touches and slow, deliberate movements. Her tiniest activity causes the whole room to freeze in an instant. Each is afraid one of the others of us will be the one to drop her on her head. A few minutes later, I have to leave for the tournament. My head is so high in the clouds about my new little sister that I accidentally score a layup for the other team. What can I say? I’m smitten.

Here comes Summer.

Spring rains made the Creek rush and rage for a few days, but now it’s perfect for wading and crawdad catching. We find patches of clay that we use as a Slip-n-Slide, hurling our bodies toward the creek bank only to go rushing under at the last second when our feet hit the slick, blue patches of clay in the creek bed.

We run our fingers along the surface of the water and collect handfuls of the slimy green moss that floats on the top. Squeezed dry, it makes a clump the size of a kitchen sponge. We use it to wash rocks, then dunk the moss back into the water so we can squeeze them dry again.

I walk over a snake. Every time. My brother is behind me and I hop from rock to rock or let miniature waterfalls rush over my bare feet, and suddenly my brother calls out, “Snake!” I jump, shriek, and search frantically. It’s always right where I stepped last. They are skinny, short water snakes curled up on dry rocks, enjoying the Summer sun. They don’t even blink when we pass them. Sometimes, we pick on them with twigs and long pieces of grasses, poking at their faces. Mostly, we leave them be and keep an eye out for their comrades.

We collect crawdads in large-sized McDonald’s cups. Mama Crawdads have small, bubbly eggs attached along the sides of their tales. You get extra points for finding one. We find itsy-bitsy baby Crawdads that are all but impossible to catch. Very rarely, we find a Big Daddy. The closest thing to lobster that we’ve ever seen in the wild. We jump backward when they rush under rocks, evading our grasp. When you do catch it, you hold it by the middle, pinchers facing out. He’ll flip his massive tail and clamp his claws menacingly, but he can’t get a hold of you if you hold him by the middle.

We collect rocks of all colors, scratching and grinding them together to make face and body paints. We draw designs on our arms out of clay, and it gets stiff and crusty as it dries. When it gets too hot, we get down on our hands and knees and slurp the water straight from the Creek. It tastes like dirt and fish and Summer.

Trash. Broken bottles. Old tshirts. Lots of things come floating down the Creek. Papaw collects the glass bottles if they’re in decent shape. He digs the mud out of the neck and sets each one out on a shelf in the barn. They are green or blue, fat or tall, and we wonder if they were ever used for moonshine.

When a big rain comes, the Creek turns into raging rapids. The water gets so high that sometimes they close the road and we get to miss school because the bus can’t get through. Sissy and Papaw wade across in their giant rubber boots. Nana fusses the whole time the Creek is high, certain my brother and I have a secret plan to jump in when she’s not looking and get carried away forever.

I get to be the Chiquita Banana in the Spring Concert!

I tried out for a solo in the Christmas Concert because there were a bunch of them, but I did not get picked. I almost didn’t try out for this one because I was afraid I would lose again.

Mr. Simon left after the Christmas Concert and we have a new substitute music teacher for the rest of the school year. Mr. Simon has been playing his guitar and wearing his shaggy hair cut ever since I can remember. When we’re good in class, he’ll play “Cats in the Cradle” for us. Once, we went to see Mr. Simon perform with his band at The Daily Grind in Nashville. He waved at us from the front and played “That Filthy Cockroach,” which he sometimes sings for us in class too.

But he’s gone now. His wife got a new job and so he had to move away. And we have a new lady. She’s young and excitable and needs someone to be the Chiquita Banana since we’re singing the jingle in the Spring Concert.

I can’t even really say that I auditioned. Her selection process started with,

“Boys in one line, girls in another” then

“Line up by height” specifically

“I need someone tall to wear the skirt because it’s very long” and so

“Sarah! You get to be the Chiquita Banana! I even have a basket of fruit for you to wear on your head during the song!”

We have the concert in the gym. Rows and rows of folding chairs fill up with our parents and grandparents and baby siblings. We stand nervously at center court and warble a few tunes.

Half way through, I leave my spot in the back row and tie a red skirt around my waist and someone’s mom plunks a heavy, plastic fruit basket onto my head. When I hear the opening chords and “I’m Chiquita Banana and I come to say I come from leetle island down eQUAtor way” I shimmy and snap my upheld arms just the way I was told.

Everyone in the audience smiles. A few of my classmates snicker. I don’t care.

I get to be Chiquita Banana!

I sing a song about bananos.
I sing it low and I sing it hi-igh.
I make big hit with ‘mericanos
singing songs about bananos.

The Easter Bunny came!

Easter morning, we wake up to big, brightly colored baskets full of eggs, candy, and sidewalk chalk. We gulp down as much chocolate as we can before we have to get dressed for Sunrise Service.

Getting up early on Easter morning is so much easier than other days in the year. I know a brand new Easter outfit will be laid out for me on the couch. The baskets will be lined up in a row in the living room floor, one for each of us. And at church, they will be making pancakes.

During the whole sermon, you can smell sausage and syrup wafting through the sanctuary. The new Easter dress is fabulous, of course, but the tag is kind of itchy and my tights are very tight. We pass babies from one lap to the next, straightening Easter bonnets and trying to look like we’re paying attention.

Finally, the minister asks us to bow our heads and we pray in thanksgiving for Christ Our Savior, His Death and Resurrection, and the Food We are About to Receive. The race to the food is demure. Everyone is on their best behavior. We have visitors today who don’t usually attend the service. People tend to come to church on certain Sundays, like Easter and Christmas, regardless of their habits the rest of the year.

In the afternoon, we head out to Cousin Mickey’s. She has a big yard, picnic tables, a basketball hoop, and a swing set at the bottom of the hill. We pick our way through the muddy, Spring grasses in search of tiny pink and blue plastic orbs loaded with chocolate and dollar bills.

We eat way too much. The kids are shooed outside to play, but we end up back under the grownups feet any chance we get. We gorge on pop and candy and fried chicken.

When it’s time to go home, we load up the van with leftovers and twice as many baskets as we came with. We will be pulling green and purple little strips of Easter grass out of the seat belt buckle for months. We are exhausted, sugared up, and cranky.

My brother and I squabble in the back seat and fall asleep before we reach home. The twenty minute drive is all it takes to knock us out. Tomorrow, we have to go back to school. Today, we doze away the rest of the afternoon, watching The Easter Bunny Is Coming to Town on Channel Four, munching on jelly beans while Nana, with glasses perched on the end of her nose, reads aloud the Easter story again from her leather, large print KJV Bible.

I never get up for school when I’m supposed to. Papaw comes to my room the first time, “Time to get up, Sarah!” A few minutes later, he comes by and flips on the light. Finally, he hollers out, “One foot on the floor!” and that’s when I know it’s really absolutely time to get up or I’m going to miss the bus. Then, I scramble, rush, and forget to brush my teeth and zip my coat, and run out to the end of the driveway as the bus starts to pull away. Our bus driver, Gail, always stops for us though. Those Matlock kids, always late for the bus.

On those rare days when I have time to eat Cheerios before the bus comes, I watch cartoons with my brother.

VR Troopers – kind of like the Power Rangers, except they wear digital headgear and are kind of nerdy.

Histeria! – a ridiculous cartoon with Big Fat Baby and Father Time and a museum tour guide who is always saying, “We’re walking. We’re walking. We’re stopping.”

Power Rangers – obvious.

Hercules – I love the movie Hercules and the cartoon is cool too. I love the singing statues and the little demon guys who are always messing up Hades’s plans.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – obvious. Also obvious that this is the original, well before the digitization, computerized version. Yuck.

Sailor Moon – Oh, I want to be her! "Fighting evil and moonlight. Winning love by daylight. Never running from a real fight."

Animaniacs – “Hellooooo, Nurse!”

Tiny Toons – kind of like Looney Toons, except they are all really young and at school together and still getting into all kinds of trouble.

Fraggle Rock – My absolute favorite! Puppets that live in a cave and try to avoid the giant trolls that are always hunting them. Fortunately, the trolls aren’t very smart. Man, those Fraggles sure love to sing.

Gummy Bears – "bouncing here and there and everywhere! High adventure that’s beyond compare!" This is probably where I develop my sense of “high adventure” that will last well into my twenties.

Care Bears – I am such a softy. I cry easily and I can’t take being teased and I love everything the Care Bears stand for. They just want to love and hug and help and treat people well. If I could, I would move to Care-a-Lot and live the rest of my life there.

Uh oh! I have to go! The bus is here!

Girls Scouts is a lot of fun.

We meet on Wednesdays after school in the library and do crafts and read books and earn badges. Once a year, we have to sell Girl Scout cookies. Mom schedules us a table right at the checkout at IGA and we sit there giving our best puppy dog eyes, hoping to lure in unsuspecting cookie cravers.

The bathroom at IGA is all the way in the back, and you have to go through swinging doors and a stock room to get to it. Brooke and I come back from a restroom trip, and then a manager comes stomping out to our cookie table, furious.

“Who made such a mess in the bathroom?” she demands to know.

Brooke and I don’t look at each other. Maybe, after we peed, we pulled out some paper towels and smeared soap on the mirror. Maybe we didn’t.

When the other girls leave, Mom makes me sit at the Girl Scout cookie table all by myself. I hate it. I’m alone and responsible for all these cookies and no one else’s mom is forcing them to stay. Instead of selling cookies, I sit in the shop window and cry. When Mom gets back, she scolds me.

“What were you thinking? Why would anyone want to buy cookies from a crying girl? Get it together.”

We also get to go camping as a whole big Girl Scout Troop. We head out to Belmont, a caravan of minivans, moms, and Daisies. Rather than staying in outdoor cabins, we end up in a cozy little suite with running water, heat, and television. This is not camping, but we’re not complaining.

When we do dishes after dinner, Allison teaches me about only using hot water to wash dishes. The cold water won’t get it as clean, she explains. At least, that’s what her dad told her. We make sit-upons and foil pizzas and learn about different countries around the world.

In May, we get to march in the Spring Blossom Parade! Dad rents a giant pink bunny suit and plans to walk along beside our troop. The parade gets rained out though. We don’t get to march.

Dad puts on the suit anyway, and I wear my Girl Scout uniform, sash and all, and we have a photo shoot in Nana’s living room. It’s so dreary and wet outside; we enjoy some Peppermint Patties and Thin Mints to cheer us up.

Girl Scouts is a lot of fun.