ONE THING I’VE noticed about life; it’s filled with all sorts of surprises. The littlest incident—a change of plans, a chance meeting—can start a whole chain reaction of things happening. Before you know it, your life has changed and will never be the same again.
That was just what happened the day Jan Zieglebaum and I decided to take the subway home from Huntington, the school we go to, instead of our customary bus. There, in the very car we wound up in, was sitting none other than the great Sheldon Emory. And it was that chance meeting that really started everything.
To understand the importance of all this, you have to know what is so great about Sheldon. He’s sixteen years old and absolutely gorgeous! Not only that, but I get the credit for having discovered him in the first place. It was way back when I was in sixth grade, and still having silly crushes on immature boys my own age, that I spotted Sheldon playing baseball in the park.
He was so good looking he absolutely took my breath away. I watched him running, tossing his head to flip away the thick black hair that flopped forward into his eyes. I saw him scoop up the ball and skillfully fire it to home plate in time to get the batter out, his strong muscles rippling under his T-shirt. Then I heard him yell in victory, with an adorable crackling in his voice that had already started to change.
His voice made me realize that, even though he was short, he had to be older than I was. It turned out he was three years older—too old to be interested in a girl just turning twelve. But now that my friends and I were past thirteen and official teenagers, three years didn’t seem like so much. We found the boys our own age, whom we used to like, to be too immature and babyish for us now. We were interested in older boys—boys fifteen and sixteen years old to be exact—boys like Sheldon. We figured they should be interested in us, too.
Unfortunately, Sheldon did not yet seem to be aware of this fact. Oh, he graced us with a few words now and then, or threw us a quick smile. But that was about it. Obviously, we were still just cute little girls to him instead of girlfriend material. Something had to happen sometime to change all that. And maybe that sometime was now.
“Look, Jan, there’s Sheldon!” I whispered excitedly. “And there are two empty seats next to him. Let’s go sit in them!”
“Sit? Next to Sheldon?” Jan’s brown eyes widened and seemed to fill her tiny face. “B-but then we’ll have to TALK to him. And w-what are we going to say?”
“We’ll find something,” I said with more confidence than I felt. After all, I don’t think I’d ever said more than two or three sentences at a time to Sheldon. And it had always been at times when there were other kids around. To carry on a conversation with him on the whole ride home meant thinking up twenty-two minutes’ worth of things to say. It would be pretty embarrassing to run out in the middle of the trip!
“Okay, Linda, it’s up to you,” said Jan. So she followed me through the car as I made my way toward where Sheldon was sitting.
That’s the way it always was with Jan and me. She was always looking up to me to take the lead and give her courage.
Jan was only a few months younger than I was, but she looked more like eight or nine than almost thirteen. With her big brown eyes and her brown hair cut like a pixie’s, Jan was actually cute, in a mouselike kind of way. But she was also skinny, completely flatchested, and shy, and boys never seemed to be aware that she was around.
For me, fortunately, it was different. Although I’m not much taller than Jan, my body at least has started to develop. My figure is in proportion, and my shoulder-length light brown hair is nice and thick. And while my nose that’s one size too big for my face absolutely ruins my looks, as far as I’m concerned, people tell me that my big blue eyes more than make up for it.
At any rate, I’ve at least had some limited success with boys. In sixth grade there was Jeff, but that relationship died a slow, torturous death when we wound up going to different junior high schools. Then, last year, I fell for Mark, the first older boy to pay enough attention to me to make me feel important. Not important enough, however. Over the summer, Mark met another girl when he was away in the country. He wound up going steady with her, and that was the end of our relationship.
So here it was, a new school year. Jan and I were in eighth grade, and Sheldon, who was sixteen, adorable, and had lots of cute friends as well, was prime boyfriend material. And here we were, with a perfect opportunity to get something going by talking to him on the train.
I took a deep breath and started making my way toward where Sheldon was sitting. Jan followed slowly behind me. Sheldon was engrossed in some math textbook and didn’t even notice we were there.
I stood in front of him for a second, trying to come up with some cool and clever introductory remark. Then, without warning, the A train stopped short in the station. This caused me to lurch forward and lose my balance. My books dropped to the floor, and I wound up sitting in a startled Sheldon’s lap. Jan wound up down on her knees, leaning on top of me for support.
“Hey! What’s going on here?” was Sheldon’s angry reaction.
“Sorry, Sheldon. It was the darn train,” I apologized. I pushed Jan off me and struggled to my feet. I busied myself with picking up my books and papers as fast as I could. I didn’t want him to see that my face was burning with embarrassment. And to think I had been trying to look cool!
“Well, if it isn’t Linda Berman,” Sheldon said, letting out a big laugh at my predicament. “And little Jan. What are you girls doing on this train anyhow?”
“Coming home from school—just like you!” I explained as I stuffed my papers back into my looseleaf. I brushed myself off and sat down in the seat next to him. Jan plopped down beside me, gazing at Sheldon through love-glazed eyes.
“Oh. How come I never ran into you on the train before?” Sheldon asked logically as the train started up again.
“We usually take the bus,” I explained, placing my books on my knees where I hoped they would stay put. “But we went to our club after school today. It’s at the Manhattan School for the Blind, and from there it’s easier to take the train.”
“School for the Blind? Why do you have a club there?”
I was surprised that Sheldon was interested enough in our activities to bother asking. But since he had, I took full advantage of the opportunity to keep the conversation going. I explained all about the service club at our school, Huntington, that did volunteer work at the Manhattan School helping out with the blind kids. I told him Jan and I worked with the Manhattan School’s art club, since we were both good in art.
“Art—huh?” Sheldon didn’t look too excited. “I’m not much good at art, myself.”
“Well, we can’t be good at everything,” I said. “And after all, you’re so-o-o good at sports.”
“Yeah? You think so?” Sheldon positively beamed. Then he went into this long description of how the team he and his friends played on, the Royals, would soon be taking part in the baseball finals, and how his position, shortstop, was so important.
I listened to Sheldon as if what he was saying was the most fascinating bit of information in the world. When I first started liking older boys, my father had given me a piece of advice I always tried to keep in mind. When talking to someone else, it was important to pay attention to and be interested in what they were saying. If you didn’t and just started thinking of yourself and what you were going to say next, the chances were you’d wind up all self-conscious and self-centered, and mess up the conversation anyway. It was better to just relax, listen, and be yourself.
So that’s what I tried to do with Sheldon. It must have worked. Because from talking about baseball, we went on to talk about sports that guys and girls could all do together. We decided one of the best was ice skating.
“It’s the one sport where size and strength doesn’t matter,” I told him. “Girls can skate as well as any boy.”
“I don’t know about that,” he grinned impishly, showing a full mouth of braces that, on him, actually looked cute. “I’ve only ice skated a few times, myself. But I bet after a little practice, I’d be as good as any of you girls who’ve been ice skating for years.”
“Oh yeah?” I felt my face flash angrily at that. It made me furious when boys acted so darn superior! “I’d love to take you up on that one, Sheldon. My friends and I will meet you and your friends at the skating rink any time you like. Then we’ll see who are the better skaters!”
Sheldon laughed, and I noticed his eyes were not brown, but hazel, flecked with specks of green and yellow. “I’ll accept your challenge, Linda. In fact, I just heard that the rink in Central Park is opening up soon for the season. Why don’t you get a few friends together, and so will I. We’ll show you girls that boys are just naturally better at everything!”
“I can’t wait to prove you wrong, Sheldon. It’s a deal!” I extended my hand out to him. He grabbed it, then sprang up and pulled me to my feet. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.
He laughed again. “I just thought you might want to get up now, Linda. This is our stop you know!”
Jan and I waited until Sheldon took off in the direction of his house. Then we grabbed each other and jumped up and down with joy. We had a date with Sheldon! It was practically too wonderful to be true! Wait until we told our friends, Roz and Fran, about this one!