Sweet Mountain Sunrise

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In fourth grade I fell in love for the first time. Her name was Judy. She had short pixie hair, twinkly green eyes, and dimples. It was the dimples that sealed the deal. I loved dimples!

At recess, Judy was completely out of my mind. But in our classroom, she was the warmth of the sun, and I wanted nothing more than to sit next to her.

The problem was, she wanted nothing to do with me. “Go away,” she often said. “Bug. Pest!”

That should have discouraged me, or at least slowed me down. But it didn’t, because even a few junk words from Judy were better than no words at all.

Judy, Judy, Judy, I dreamed. You are so cute!

One day our teacher, Mr. Adams, assigned the class this huge project where we were to break up into groups of four, then … just as we began to leap out of our chairs to run around choosing who we’d group up with … he held up his hand. “Stop!” He said. “I’m picking the groups,” which, of course, caused a not-so-quiet group groan.

“Now listen up,” Mr. Adams went on. “The idea for this project is for each group to come up with a skit. What I’m looking for is originality. That means I want you to be creative. Give us something we haven’t seen before. Something fresh. The winning group will have no homework for a week.”

That caused a minor classroom earthquake. I mean, a week!

My knees were bouncing with pent-up energy as I sat at my table waiting as Mr. Adams took his own sweet time tacking the list of his groupings onto the cork board. Then he turned around to look at us with a mischievous grin on his face … and waited … and waited .. then, finally, whispered, “Okay,” and the whole class exploded toward the cork board, pushing and shoving and cramming up to see who was in what group with whom.

I fought my way forward and squinted up at the list, looking, looking. Finally, I found my group. None of my friends were in it, and worse, I was in a group with three … girls!

But … one of those girls … was Judy!

Ho, man, forget the no-homework prize. I didn’t need it, because I’d already won! I was going to be sitting at a table with Judy and her dimples!

She sat across from me as the four of us got to work on a skit. We leaned in on our elbows so no one else could hear our secret plan. Except we didn’t have one. No one said a word as each of us looked at the other, waiting for someone to come up with an original idea. This was my chance, I thought. I could impress Judy and we’d become friends. She might even let me sit next to her.

“I got an idea,” I said. “This is gonna be great.”

All three of them brightened. Judy looked at me with those green eyes, her smile and dimples telling me she was all ears for my original thought … which, unfortunately, I didn’t have … yet.

But their eager faces encouraged me to go on. “I um … I um ….”

What, what, what?

Then it came to me. Boom! Yeah!

“Listen,” I said, leaning in close. “We can make up a song where we’re all toads, and all the words in the song are ‘ribbit,’ and you,” I said, looking into Judy’s green eyes, “you can be the Queen Toad, and we’ll all be your servants.”

Wow, I thought. Where’d that come from? That’s pretty creative.

I looked at each silent face, waiting to be recognized as a darn good original thinker. They stared at me, their eyes narrowing into squints. They looked at each other, then back at me … and Judy said,“That … is so … stupid!”

When she said the word stupid, a drop of spit flew from her lips and landed on my wrist. I looked at it. No one saw it but me. A little white bubble.

“We’re not doing any dumb toad skit,” Judy said, her dimples echoing the same opinion. “I have a better idea. I’ll be a mom in a grocery store, and you three are going to be vegetables, and as I put you in my grocery cart, you beg me not to take you home and eat you, and I have mercy on you and wave a magic wand that I have in my purse, and I touch you on your heads and make you all turn into my children, and together we save all the other vegetables in the whole entire store from being eaten. Now, that’s original!”

The other girls loved it, all smiles and excitement. But I hardly heard a word of it, because I was enthralled with the spit bubble on my wrist. Judy’s spit. A piece of the love of my life, right there on my skin.

I got up. “Be right back,” I said, as if they were even listening. I went over to Mr. Adams. “Can I have a bandaid?”

“A bandaid? Are you hurt?”

“Uh … yeah … I got a blister … on my toe.”

He glanced down at my bare feet. I didn’t wear shoes to school until the sixth grade. “A blister, huh?”

“Yeah. It hurts.”

Mr. Adams shook his head and got me a Bandaid.

I peeled away the wrapping and carefully laid the clean new Bandaid over my precious drop of Judy’s spit, preserving it forever. It would be absorbed into my skin, and she and I would become one.

We did the vegetable skit, but we didn’t win. Another group did. They were mongooses raiding somebody’s garbage can and found a diamond necklace that they cashed in, got rich, and bought their own garbage dump. I had to admit, that was pretty original.

But oh my, that preserved bubble of spit. Seriously, I kept that bandaid on for days, periodically lifting it to lovingly rub the spit spot against my cheek. To this day I can show you exactly where that little white bubble landed.

Right here.

Even now I can touch my wrist and remember the exquisite thrill of being so close to the first true love of my life.