Pretty Is

“Shew! Shew! Shew!” Ricky Talmadge, playing Legolas, shot arrow after arrow from an imaginary bow, aiming into a group of kids lining up for kickball.

Next to Ricky were Sam Lyons and Jesse Miller, but they weren’t watching him; they were head-to-head. “I’m Aragorn,” said Sam, folding his arms. “I said it first.”

“You were Aragorn last time. You always have to be Aragorn,” Jesse said in an accusing tone. “That is so unfair.”

Ricky turned and shot at Luke Sullivan, a big hulk of a boy who never minded being a bad guy and was thrusting out his chin and baring his teeth and growling like an Uruk-hai. He clutched his chest and collapsed slowly onto the ground, twitching.

“Look, we’re wasting our recess,” said Sam. “How about you be an Uruk-hai, and we just won’t have a Gimli.”

I was swinging right beside them, watching. “Hey,” I said to Sam. “Isn’t anybody going to be Frodo? I could be him.”

“Fight, fight, fight,” I mocked, but he had already run off, hacking at Jesse and Luke with his imaginary sword. The boys played The Lord of the Rings all the time, but the only part they liked was the fighting.

I pumped the swing, higher and higher, thinking what dummies boys were, and how they didn’t have a clue about all the beautiful, noble themes in The Lord of the Rings. How the brave little hobbits go into terrible danger even though they aren’t fighters. How the immortal Arwen loves the mortal Aragorn, knowing that he will age and die. How friends are absolutely loyal and will face any peril to help each other.

I missed playing pretend games like that. Most of the fifth-grade girls had quit doing that kind of thing. Or, if they did play a pretend game, they only wanted girls’ parts. So then who could you be in The Lord of the Rings? Galadriel was kind of cool, I thought. She was powerful and beautiful, and so was Arwen, in a different way. But they weren’t that important, and they didn’t have a lot of adventures.

I pulled back on the chains, pumping, and hung my head back. Chunks of blue-and-white sky, cut by the poles of the swing set, swayed dizzily above me. I wanted to be something great, right now. I wanted to be as beautiful as Arwen and bold as Aragorn and noble as Frodo. I wanted some wild, on-my-own adventure in foreign lands.

At the peak of the upswing I flung myself out over a vast precipice in the mines of Moria. “Yaaah!” I landed with a thump but couldn’t keep my footing and fell onto my butt. I got up and brushed off the wood chips, a little daunted by my awkward landing but still feeling the rush of flight.

A silvery laugh made me look up. Kayla and Danielle and Jane-Marie were nearby, leaning on the climbing structure and watching me. The laugh was Kayla’s.

“Erin,” she said, all sweet and smiley, as if she was talking to a kindergartner, “are you playing Tarzan?” The other two giggled and grinned, and Danielle said, “Tarzan, queen of the jungle!” You could always count on stupid Danielle to copy anything Kayla did. Lately she’d started swinging her blond hair around like Kayla, even though Danielle’s wasn’t nearly so long and golden. In fact, it was kind of stringy and the color was dirty blond.

My face was hot, and I swiped at the wood chips still clinging to my shorts. I leaned over and pulled more wood chips from between my feet and my thick sandals.

All three of them were wearing skirts and delicate, girlie sandals. Kayla was even wearing stockings. All three wore their hair in ponytails held by scrunchies that matched their outfits. It was like they were almost grown up and I was a grubby little kid.

“I’m not playing Tarzan, I’m just swinging,” I said without looking straight at any of them. Then I walked away from their smirking faces toward the school, feeling them watching. I was awkward and hot and ugly and stupid.

Out of their sight, I sat down on the low wall that separated the climbing structures from the paved part where kids were playing kickball. I watched the game for a while, occasionally glancing back uneasily, but I didn’t see Kayla and her crew anywhere.

Finally, with only five minutes of recess left, Hannah came out of the building. Mrs. Winsted had made her stay in to finish the math worksheet. “Math, Hannah,” Mrs. VVinsted had said. “Not doodling. Not whispering.”

Hannah ran straight to the monkey bars, crossed them hand over hand, and dropped down. Then she came over and sat next to me, tucking her smooth brown hair behind her ears.

Hannah had a small nose and mouth, and her grin was a little bit crooked. She wasn’t as pretty as some of the other girls, but she had the most wide-awake face I’d ever seen. Whenever you were around Hannah you felt that something exciting could happen. You looked at that grin and thought that whatever came next just might be fun.

Or, if you were a teacher, you thought it just might be trouble. Not really bad trouble, though—more like mischief. Mrs. Winsted, for instance, seemed to like Hannah, but you could tell she was keeping a close eye on her.

I told Hannah what had happened, leaving out the way I yelled “yaaah” as I flew out of the swing.

“You know what Kayla is?” Hannah said thoughtfully, gazing over at the kickball game. “Prissy. I can’t stand prissy girls.”

I clenched my hands on the gritty edge of the wall we were sitting on. “I’m gonna get her back.”