The big boy told Joey to move the bottom part of his body up and down on the bottom part of mine. Caught up in the game, we both did as we were told, laughing all the while. But once Joey started moving like the big boy told him to do, we both grew silent. Suddenly this didn’t seem like a game anymore. The mood inside the bush had changed. The big boy had a funny look on his face and he had grown quiet and withdrawn.
Joey abruptly got off me and started putting on his clothes. The big boy had now turned away from us. All I could see was his back. I felt so uncomfortable that I too sat up and put my clothes back on.
“It’s time to go,” the big boy said in a low, strange voice. He no longer seemed interested in playing with us, and that was fine with me because I suddenly didn’t like him as much as I had before.
The big boy rose up off the ground and, crouching, made his way through the opening of the branches to the outside. He walked off without saying a word.
Joey and I sat silently inside the playhouse for a few more minutes. Something had changed between us. I felt self-conscious when he looked at me.
“I better be getting home,” Joey said.
“Yeah, me too,” I replied.
Even with the strange way things had ended, I couldn’t wait to show Momma what I had learned. When I got home I found her napping, and as was usual when it was hot she was on top of the covers without any clothes on. I jumped up on her bed and started doing what the teenage boy had taught Joey to do to me.
Momma looked at me with a horrified look on her face. “Where did you learn that?” she demanded, eyeing me like I was some stranger she had just met.
I blurted out what had happened with the teenage boy.
Momma tried to do all the right things. She found the boy and his parents and told them about the incident, and he was forbidden to come near me or Joey again. She also told Joey’s parents what had happened to us.
But being my mother, she put an extra spin on things. She forbade me from playing with Joey anymore. That was a real blow, because Joey was my only friend. And forbidding us from playing together also sent me the message that I too must have been bad, I too was responsible for what had happened. It all made me feel very confused. What exactly was proper behavior and what was not? My mother made it clear that what we had done was wrong. And even though she seemed to hold the teenage boy primarily responsible, from that day on my mother considered me “sexually precocious.” Somehow she had not understood that I was only showing her what I had learned, as children tend to do. Instead, she saw my actions as sexual.
Whenever something bad happened to me or whenever someone hurt me, as far as Momma was concerned, it was always my fault. If I caught a cold, it was because I’d gone outside without a sweater. If I came home from school and complained to her that someone had been mean to me, she would always say, “Well, what did you do to her?” In my mother’s eyes, I was always up to no good. If there was trouble, I was the instigator.
And since it was always my fault, there was never any empathy or compassion from her. There was never any, “Oh honey, I’m so sorry that happened to you” or, “Come here and let me kiss away your tears.” The message was always clear: “You brought this on yourself. If you had only done this or not done that, you wouldn’t have been hurt.”
This left me feeling confused, angry, and hopeless. Why couldn’t she ever take my side? Why did she always blame me for everything? Would a time ever come when she would understand me and care about my feelings?
chapter 6
I almost flunked kindergarten. This was surprising, mostly because I’d tried so hard to get in.
I’d found out about kindergarten from Joey before we were banned from spending time together; he’d told me he couldn’t wait to start school and meet lots of new friends, and that was all I needed to hear. I wanted to start too. I was so desperate for friends and for something to do, and I had a sense that school could be my saving grace.
I have a December birthday, so I wasn’t quite five when school started in September, but I begged my mother to let me start anyway. In fact, I more than begged her—I hounded her.
“Momma, please let me go to school,” I pleaded.
“I’m sorry. You have to wait until next year.”
“Why do I have to wait?” I said, stamping my feet.
“You have to be five years old to start kindergarten.”
“But I’m almost five,” I insisted. “Why don’t you tell them I’m five already?”
“They know how old you are. And they won’t let you in.” She was starting to sound irritated.
I don’t know what changed Momma’s mind, but she ended up talking the school administration into letting me start early.
When the first day of school rolled around I was beside myself, and I was even more thrilled when I saw a whole room full of other kids. No holding on to my mother and crying when she left the room for me. I wanted to take a leap and jump into the middle of those kids as if they were a roomful of balloons.
Every weekday morning, Momma set her alarm clock and called from her bed for me to get up. She didn’t have to call more than once; I was so eager to get to school I jumped out of bed right away.
There was no
