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"Usually, I do," he said. "But you're the exception. Maybe we'll find out now," he added, throwing a look at his buddies, who drew closer, their faces full of lusty smiles. He reached out to seize my wrist and pull me to him. "How about showing us what you're hiding under there?"

Once, in the ninth grade, I got into a fight with a boy. His name was Eddie Goodwin and he was always teasing me because I had gone out for the boys' basketball junior varsity team and almost made it. The girls had their own team, but the coach, maybe as a way of jolting his lackadaisical players, let me come to a tryout. Eddie telegraphed his every move, so I was able to steal the ball from him twice. He took a great deal of razzing from his friends about it and afterward came after me in the hall. I realized he wasn't just going to call me names and make fun of me. He was going to do something more, maybe even punch me. I didn't give him the chance. When he was close enough, I jammed my knee between his legs and he crumbled to the hall floor, squirming in pain.

Later, I had to go to the principal's office. Because I was the one who had been physical first, I got into the most trouble. I was suspended from school for two days. It didn't matter that I had felt threatened. I was punished at the foster home, too. I thought it was very unfair, but being treated unfairly in this world was not terribly unusual for me. Of course, beating up a boy like that didn't do my reputation much good. It simply reinforced the image of me most of my fellow students and even my teachers already had.

But I was tired of being put down for it, tired of being looked upon as some sort of freak just because I didn't fit some preconceived idea of what a girl had to be. We might as well be robots or mass produced in genetic laboratories, I thought, and I held onto my own self-image and self-respect, regardless of the cost, even if it meant I wouldn't ever be the object of some handsome boy's interest.

Danny's fingers squeezed down on my wrist. It stung. I felt my skin burn as he twisted my arm. He reached out to open my shirt with his other hand and I turned swiftly, bringing my right knee up and into his groin. The pained look in his face demonstrated his complete surprise. He let go of me, doubled up, and fell over, screaming and cursing.

His two friends gazed down at him writhing like a snake that had just been run over, and then they looked at me with rage.

"Get her," Danny ordered.

They started toward me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a broken wood crate and seized a piece of it that still had nails protruding. They stopped their advance when I raised it like a club.

"I'll use it," I said shakily

Raven came up behind me.

"What happened?" she asked, looking down at Danny, who was now on all fours, taking deep breaths.

"He tried to pull off my shirt," I said. "I saw them in the bathroom window when I went to take a shower. He and his idiot friends were being Peeping Toms, getting their kick of the year."

Danny's friends helped him to his feet.

"You bitch," he said. "You'll be sorry.-

"Go soak yourself in tar," I spit back.

"Now you've gone and done it," Raven said. "What's Patsy going to do?"

&nbsp

; "Probably give me a medal," I replied.

"Are you all right?" Crystal asked, coming up alongside us.

"Fine. Let's go back inside. I doubt he'll say anything to Patsy, Raven," I told her. "He'll have to explain why he was behind the cottage and at the window."

We saw the three make their way to a car in the lot. They lit cigarettes and glared our way.

"Let's go inside," Crystal said.

I told them the whole story, every gritty detail. "I forgot to hang a towel over the window," I said. "He's probably been there before."

"I'm sure it's the only way he'll ever see a girl undressed," Raven quipped. She kept her eyes toward the window, waiting, hoping for signs of Taylor.

Finally, I calmed down, but I never got up the nerve to take that shower. Crystal, Butterfly and I decided to go to bed, but Raven insisted on staying up, sitting in a chair, refusing to go to bed because Taylor might still come for her. She sat in the dark, staring out at the parking lot.

"He's not coming, Raven. Why torture yourself?" I said after a while.

"Something very unexpected must have happened," she muttered.

"Sure."

"You're glad, aren't you?" she fired at me.

"Don't be stupid, Raven. I'll admit I wasn't happy about your getting too involved with someone while we stopped over here, but I don't want you to be unhappy. I just worry about you," I said.