Mountains

Grade One

Adam's backyard faced the back of the school yard. Adam's backyard was a huge hill.
Being in the same grade with Adam meant many field trips to his house in the winter months for tobogganing.
His mother had long brown hair and she always had rice crispie squares and hot chocolate waiting for us when we were done.

Adam had orange hair and eye glasses. He wore plaid button up shirts tucked into his corduroy pants.
One day his shoe fell off during recess.
"You do not have toenails!" I said to him, surprised.
"I know," he said.
"Why?" I asked.
"I Dunno," he replied. "No one in my family does."
"Did you ever have them?"
"Yes," he said.
This scared me.

Adam was the smartest kid in class. He could draw real well. I could not. I remember wanting to tear up his picture of little Indian men.

Mrs. McCrory was our teacher. She liked it when we read books. If you read 10 books you would get a pin, 20 books, a bookmark. If you read 60 books, she would take you to McDonalds for lunch.
Adam beat me by three books. He was always doing stuff like that. And he always had his hand in the air.
And he pronounced my name 'Beff'.
Sometimes I wanted to break Adam's glasses.

It was the middle of Winter. There had been lots of snowfall. It had been plowed to the edges of the school's blacktop. All the way around. You had to climb the hard snow to reach the top.
Slides were made, forts were built, hard snowballs were thrown.
'I am the King of the Castle
And you're the Dirty Rascal...' everyone seemed to scream.
One recess, it was decided that the newest fort was called Castle Grayskull. Brett decided I was going to be She-Ra and Adam was going to be He-Man.
I looked at Adam as we stood on the large hill of ice and snow. I said "Well, we better kiss, then."
I mashed my 6 year old mouth into his and pulled away.
He just stood there, staring at be wide-eyed and blushing.
The next day at recess I kicked him really hard in the shins because the kiss had not made him stupider.