Rowen and I are sitting in my bed with Mandy; talking about the party that we got home from about an hour or so ago. We’re thinking about rating the night a seven-point-five on the fun scale, and an eight on the weird meter.
There are twenty-one kids in our grade, with me being the only change to the class list since kindergarten. Rowen and I do hang out with some of the other girls sometimes when we see them around town or at the park or school, but today was the first time we were together with everyone since school ended in June. There were some other kids and teens at the party too, including some of Roger’s cousins; younger and older friends; and a couple of his guests brought dates. Getting to spend the afternoon and evening with everyone was fun, but my analytical mind pointed out to me that Rowen and I really aren’t as close to the other kids in our class as they are with each other. There are probably lots of reasons for that, but we should probably work on getting more involved.
Some of our friends would probably tell us that we’re the weird at the party, and it was obvious to both of us that we are now the last two holdouts – nineteen out of twenty-one about to be Grade Seven students have crossed over. I suppose they could be right, but then Rowen and I weren’t doing anything that could even remotely be called weird, while most of the other guys and girls were busy trying to impress or be impressed with the usual array of strange and crazy antics. If you’ve spent any time around a gang of eleven to thirteen-year old kids, you know what I’m talking about.
The party started at four o’clock. Rowen and I didn’t get the memo to be fashionably late, and were the first two girls at Roger’s house. He had his closest buddies there already too, but that just made it a bit more awkward until the next group of girls joined us. Rowen and I went with sundresses, and that worked fine as a fashion statement; but not so well when, um, stacking up compared to the more physically developed girls. The guys all definitely noticed those differences, though that also put more than half of them at a height disadvantage – or advantage as I overheard one guy who shall remain unidentified here whisper to his buddy.
I wonder what he might have meant by that – not!
So the party started with a social hour and a half or so before the barbeque dinner. We weren’t completely divided along guys and girls lines, but it sometimes felt like we were – partly because the girls were mostly spectators to the guys’ efforts to show off. Wearing dresses didn’t exactly make running around the yard playing Frisbee or tossing baseballs or footballs around an option either – though I suspect the guys would have liked it if some of the girls did do that. Speaking of sports, the guys were doing a lot of football talk tonight, and while I don’t follow it much at all; apparently our school team is looking good this year for their small-school division. That might have something to do with Kyle Landry. He hasn’t actually doubled in size in the last year, but he is definitely on the way to being as big as his father, Lee; and I can see why that might scare the players on the other teams.
Moving along, Rowen and I mostly sat and talked with some of the other girls while listening to music being pumped out of a small DJ-type sound system that had one of the standard school laptops hooked up to it. The top topic was back to school shopping with starting Grade Seven being second on the list. Rowen and I didn’t say much about why we were looking forward to school; mostly because our reasons didn’t have much in common with the other girls. For instance, getting to see certain guys every weekday is not on our lists at all. Neither is getting away from stuck on a farm boredom; chores; work; babysitting; or too much parent time. About half of the girls, including Rowen and me, are going on the shopping trip on Monday, but all of us are doing at least one trip to the city before school starts. I expect that all of the guys will be doing that too, but none of them wanted to talk shopping or fashion.
Rowen and I know that crossing over is inevitable, but we’re hoping that we can delay it until after the guys get through this tween phase. Dinner was scary, and boys are definitely worse in packs. Yes, some are worse than others, though by their standards; that means better. Imagine a pack of starving wolves let loose at your average backyard barbeque, and you’d be getting warm. Just as scary was the fact that nearly all of the other girls at the party were as impressed as the boys’ intended. Let’s just not bother adding any more details. There was cake and ice cream for dessert; Roger opened his gifts; and then his parents led a cleanup crew that we weren’t allowed to help with even though some of us offered.
The dance wasn’t starting until dark, so we had some more time to hang out in the back yard, or do whatever we wanted until then. Some couples went for walks, and that included a handful of our classmates. Rowen and I kept up with that kind of news, so there weren’t any surprises; but it was still strange seeing those friends holding hands, hugging, or kissing. Here’s where there was some more weirdness for me. I haven’t specifically looked into the future for any of my classmates; though I do know about some things for the kids who will be closest to me – like Rowen. That said, my abilities still let me sense things about others, and what I was sensing most strongly tonight was that almost none of the tween and teen couples at the party were matches.
I really haven’t paid much attention to the dating game at school or around town, and maybe that’s a good thing. Seeing couples like Violet and Dillon, or Jake and Stephanie; and being able to tell that they are matches is cool, but seeing the flip side of that, like tonight, isn’t. Neither is getting a mental picture of watching the rest of my classmates taking turns dating each other until they find those matches.
Is that why you’ve been playing matchmaker with me this summer, Aunt Leanne? Are you worried that I’ll be the odd girl out if I wait too long to cross over? You’ve got nothing to worry about there, so feel free to turn your matchmaking attention elsewhere.
Let’s get back to the party. While there are only a few ‘official’ couples in our class, I’d guess there are a two or three more getting close to that point – or at least there are after tonight. Roger wasn’t one of the guys in any of those couples, but he did get asked to dance by a few of the girls; and he looked like he was having a great time. I’m sure that the burning question for some of you (Aunt Leanne) is whether I was out on the dance floor too. Yes, I was. Rowen and I were up and dancing with some of the other girls for most of the up-tempo songs. No, I did not go dancing with any of the boys, and neither did Rowen. That might have something to do with the fact that we did our best to find somewhere else to be every time we hit a batch of ballads in the playlist.
Try to look at that from my perspective. There are some things I don’t really want to remember, and what some of my friends and classmates were doing and whispering to each other during those slow dances are definitely some of those things. There’s also the fact that if I had gone dancing with any of the boys, and they’d tried any of the hand-wandering moves on me that I saw tonight; that dance wouldn’t have ended well at all for him. I really wouldn’t want to be responsible for that kind of a reputation killing incident. In this town, a guy would probably never stop getting razzed about something like that.
Rowen and I probably lost a few reputation points because of that, since we were the only two kids in our class who didn’t do at least one boy-girl dance, but we’re okay with that. We’ll probably know by the time we start school about any official new couples, but there were also some unsuccessful guy and girl chases too – or at least unsuccessful so far.
All right, Rowen, I’ll add that; but only because Aunt Leanne will hear about it by tomorrow anyway and have something to say. You know I don’t care about it.
Michael was one of those guys being chased tonight; and he went dancing with Vanessa every time she asked him. I’m sure that half the guys at the party were jealous that she picked him. If you insist on going down this road, though, maybe we should discuss whether any of the other guy-girl dances tonight were of any interest to you, Rowen. Yeah, I thought you might want to move on now.
The party started wrapping up by eleven, though the goodbyes took a while. Rowen and I ended up walking home with Michael and Tim, but only because we were all going the same direction; and Tim was staying overnight at Michael’s house. Unfortunately, that also led to the final weirdness of the night. Miranda and Jacob were out on the front porch, so Rowen and I stopped in for goodnight hugs. I don’t know which was worse – Miranda asking us why Michael and Tim weren’t getting goodnight hugs too when we were leaving, or having Aunt Leanne urging us to go back there and do that after we got home. She and Mom were out on our front porch with Dad and Uncle Adam, and the teasing started before I even had a chance for welcome home hugs with Dad.
Yes, it did occur to me that at least some of our favorite adults were out on their front porches specifically to watch out for us getting back from the party. Rowen and I are not at all sorry to have disappointed anyone with the complete lack of action.
Even though it meant getting teased for a while, we stayed downstairs for a while mostly so I could spend some time with Dad, and hear a bit about his week in the city. Our party recap skipped most of the details above, and just gave Aunt Leanne more ammunition to use against us for ‘wasting’ the opportunities of our first boy-girl party. We had fun and the weird didn’t get personal, so I think we had a really good night.
Now it’s time to get some sleep, and for me to figure out a way to not dream of soft, fluffy bunnies.
Live from Witch Falls; this is Cassie and Rowen, signing off!
