Summer Fun - Danielle Armstrong

Chapter One: The Life of a Tomboy (Part 2)

I have gotten used to being a the only girl in a group of four boys, even though I've heard people say some nasty things about me. Such as, I'm a slut, whore, dike, I'm apparently fucking all my friends, and that I'm not pretty enough to be touched. I try my best not to let the gossip bother me because the ones that know me and actually care about me know the truth, it still hurts though. Which is why I'm very self conscious and shy. If no one notices me then they won't judge me. The only peoples opinions that I care about are my friends, but even still I'm starting to think that I'm not pretty or 'hot' enough for a boy to like. My friends have never made an inappropriate comment about me that I know about, whereas it'd be nice to know if someone thought that way about me.

In our cal-de-sac we have a police officer, Mr. Mackey, so that's kind of nice to feel safe and sound. He is super nice and not too bad on the eyes either. The rest of our neighbors are cookie cutter ones; nice houses, nice lawns, and prefect families. There's also a girl, Nikki, who's two years older than me and lives across the street. The guys think she's the hottest girl in the world and my brother has a huge crush on her. I think his crush started when Nikki used to babysit us four years ago. I've caught the boys creepily looking into her bedroom with binoculars from my brother's window. The first few times I told them that it was creepy and morally wrong for them to be spying on her like that, but they kept doing it so I gave up. Nikki was always super nice to us and she taught me to put on makeup. I'll never forget the first time the boys saw me wearing makeup, it was so funny. They were completely confused and Woody asked "What's all that crap on your face?" Tommy answered for me saying "it's makeup, dumb ass. Our little Dani is growing up." I punched his arm pretty hard for that. I miss her and I wish we still hung out, but she wouldn't want to hang out with fifteen year old's. She used to take the four of us to the movies, bowling alley, and shopping, until we became old enough to go alone.

Every other week, we play a game called Manhunt with all the neighborhood boys. Of course, I'm the only girl they've invited to play and I really think that's only because my brother made them. However, they all tell me that they really like me and wouldn't play or have enough players without me. We all have our usual hiding spots, mine is Eatsy's tree house and to avoid getting caught I change my spot every few times. I've hidden in the tree house, on the roof of the tree house, the bushes around it, or in between the fence in my backyard and this giant flower bush. I don't like to hide anywhere else because I know that's other people's property. I have only been found once in the tree house and it was by Eatsy himself. He scared me so bad that I thought my heart stopped or maybe that was because I was alone with him in the tree house.

It was completely dark and I sneakily climbed up the stairs to the tree house. I struggled to open the door and when I got inside I tripped on something. I crashed onto the floor, it hurt and I cut my hand on something. Cursing under my breath, I covered it with my sleeve and held my tears back as I hid. About five minutes later, I heard someone coming up the stairs and then it went quiet, deafeningly quiet. I stayed silent and just when I thought whoever it was had gone away, Eatsy came barging into the tree house. I screamed so loud that he physically covered my mouth and told me to shush before I woke up his parents. They'd probably beat his ass if we woke them up. He doesn't deserve his home life and that's why I  keep my window open, so he has somewhere to go. My parents say that I'm not aloud to have any boys in my room, but what they don't know won't get me grounded. Tommy's come over many times after a fight with his parents and I've made him sleepover in my brother's room. When Tommy's hand met my skin, I felt an electric current run through me. My face became flushed, my breathing heavy, and I almost forgot about the pain in my hand. Until Eatsy pulled away to turn on the light. "What's wrong? Sad that I caught you breaking into my tree house?" he joked when he saw my watery eyes. I pulled up my sleeve to reveal the cut in the middle of my palm. I shook my head as a tear slid down my cheek. "Aw Dani, it's okay. Don't cry, come on" he gently cooed as he grabbed my wrist and carefully pulled me away from the tree house. He took me to my house and we went into the downstairs bathroom. My parents were out for the night, so we didn't have to worry about them bugging us about being alone together. I know it's just Tommy and we're best friends, despite that my parents still don't like me being alone with him, ever since I hit puberty. Guess they thought we'd start fooling around, as if.