Puff slammed against my fingers, deep in my slim locker.
    "Rosabeth, Rosabeth! There you are. I have the best news in all of - well - the world." A hug ball pink came bustling at me. "Hurry up and get your coat on!" my fingers slid through the coat sleeves. I just wanted to be alone, could I ask Cherry to go away? Mama would never allow it.
    "Come on'! Come on!" squealed Cherry, her arm squeezed and dug into my tender flesh. Her boot could not stop booming against the halls flat pure white tiles. I just wanted her to stop making so much noise.
    "What, Cherry? What happened?" Mama would approve of my tone.
    "It's Calvin! He wants to kiss me under the pine trees!"
I stopped walking.
    "Cherry!"
    "I know Roseabeth! Isn't it great? We are going to have the cutest babies in the world. Cherry and Calvin sittin' a tree K-I-S-"
    "Cherry! That's off where they are cutting down the old pine trees. We aren't allowed there. What if you got hurt?"
    "Calvin would rescue me! And besides you'll be there to make sure we don't get into trouble. Now, let's go." Cherry followed the steady flow of big puff balls out the recess doors, singing a tone of love that the children screamed during recess. "S-S-I-N-G, first comes love, second comes..." I could sense that going to see Calvin wasn't a good idea. Mama would not approve
    "Rosabeth! Are you even listening to me? Earth to Rosabeth!" Cherry's arms flapped around in front of me.
    "Yeah, sorry." My finger twitched in the cold as I could feel my bony knees thumping together in the cold. Mama said all she could give was the oversized green flannel. No snow pants or thick puffy coat like Cherry this year. No money mama had said.
    "We have to sneak behind the bushes up ahead and run to pinetree grove. Calvin said so."
    "Okay." Mama would not like this. The pit in my stomach went numb from the cold. I followed Cherry behind the bushes. We crawled getting my jeans wet.
    "Now we run, go!" screamed Cherry as burst to her feet as she sprinted up the hills to the nearest pine tree. I followed. Mama would not like this, my stomach spoke as heavy weight dropped in my stomach. "Look at his big beautiful dimples, he's perfect. Don't you think so?"
    I nodded.
    "You don't like, like him do you?"
    I shook my head.
    "Good, because I am going to kiss him, with tongue."
    I nodded.
    Cherry scrambled over to Calvin, as I leaned my leaned my back against the pine tree. The tree swayed. Then again. A weird, crazy, strange sound cut through my ears, down into my entire being. The tree swung low, then snapped. Numbness overwhelmed my body as I laid blinking up at the gray cloud. Then I had a long blink. When I opened my eyes I felt weird. Like I wasn't something but I wasn't nothing. I couldn't control where I was walking or really floating. I couldn't control what I looked at. I couldn't control anything. My view was of a little boy playing in the sandbox, the image changed as red and yellow leaves littered the area around the  sandbox. The image changed again. Snow piled high as the boy slammed his gloved fist against the icy sand. The image changed again. Cloudy sun poured in from all sides as he picked little dandelions and buried them in the sand. The image changed again. The sun beamed from the clear sky, the little boy was nowhere. Suddenly I was moving. As I walked blizzarding snow, rest red, yellow and orange leaves, dandelions, and bright suns blasted in my face, all at once. Trees sprouted up around me, I don't know how I knew, but I knew I was in water. Then I floated down, into its depths.