1Such a Pretty Little Girl

I was six years old. It was the last days of summer and the first days of school, and as soon as my mother pulled her car in to our driveway, I flung open my door and ran to the house, dragging my backpack behind me. I wanted to go and play. She unlocked the door and I handed my backpack to her, then began to run down the short road in front of our old house. The weather was warm, yet, strangely cool for a day in August, and I was wearing cut-off shorts and a yellow tank top with a small brown jacket. I was excited to get out of school, because, only a few days before, I made a new friend. His name was John, and he was seven years old. I felt so cool to have a friend that was both a boy and older than me - it made me feel like I was ‘one of the boys’. But the best thing was that John had an older brother named Kyle, and he was a teenager.

John’s house was only a few minute’s walk away, and I arrived there very quickly. Their home was a large, pale yellow one, with dirt smears up the side of the house that faced the road. A broken window also faced the road, and broken baby toys, belonging to their younger sister, Crystal, littered the grass. Their dog, Porkchop, was chained behind the house, near a gravel road. Though the house seemed rather ragged and dirty, the only thing that I cared about was the trampoline. Although I had my own trampoline, this one was better - it was larger, and it had a net the surrounded the bars that held it together. It reminded me of a fortress, in which I could play and impress the boys with tricks. Just the day before, Kyle had taught me how to do a front flip and land on my feet, and I considered it the best accomplishment that I had made recently. I couldn’t wait to learn more tricks.

When I arrived in the yard, John was bouncing high on his trampoline alone. The sun flashed brilliantly every time that he leapt in to the air.

“Hey John!” I yelled with my toughest voice. He looked at me but continued to bounce. I yelled louder. “I said hey John!” He stopped bouncing and looked at me.

“Well wadda’ya want Mariah?!” he yelled to me. “If you wanna bounce, ya gotta take off your shoes. Ya ain’t gonna bounce if ya don’t.” I laughed at him and ran over to the trampoline, opening the mesh fence around it and crawling on to the warm, black surface.

“I never wear shoes. And also, ain’t isn’t a word. It doesn’t mean anything.” I tried to bounce, but he was holding still, and I only bounced a few inches from the surface.

“If you tell me how to talk ya ain’t gonna bounce,” he said. “Let’s play 1-2-3.”

We began to play the game called 1-2-3, leaping as high as we could in to the air and then falling on to our backs. I always bounced higher than him since he outweighed me by probably fifty pounds, but, we always had a rematch. I looked at my feet as we bounced, watching my shadow getting further away with each jump. The springs that gave the trampoline its bounce clanked with every movement. We played and jumped for a very long time, to the point that John, wheezing, declared that we needed to stop bouncing and lay on the trampoline for a while. As he lay down, I continued to jump, trying my hardest to make him bounce. He bounced a few inches from where he lay, but, I was too light to make him do anything exciting. But, I continued to try. He was getting annoyed, and just as soon as he was about to kick me off of his trampoline, the front door of their pale, dirty home slammed shut and I stopped bouncing. On the porch stood Kyle, shirtless, and with cargo shorts and tennis shoes. He looked at us and leaned against the door, then pulled out a cigarette and chewed on it. John, who had been watching, sat up quickly.

“Kyle you dummy! Ya know Mom and Dad’ll kill ya!” he shouted, his voice angry. Kyle walked down the wooden porch steps, still chewing on the cigarette.

“Mom and Dad ain’t coming home today. I’m watchin ya,” he said, smirking and spitting out the cigarette. I thought that he was some sort of bad boy that was really a good boy, like my dog Toby. He was doing something bad, but, he made up for it by being good and fun other times. Kyle smirked and gave me a weird look, like he was trying not to laugh or smile. “You guys wanna play in the hose?” he asked finally. We both jumped up in the air and eagerly agreed. Kyle and John were too poor to have a sprinkler, I supposed. But a hose was just as good.

We climbed down from the trampoline and ran over to the spicate with the teenage boy, who quickly turned on the hose. I suddenly realized that my mom wouldn’t want me to get my clothes all wet.

“Kyle? Do you have a bathing suit for me?” I asked. “My mom doesn’t want me to get my clothes all wet, I think.” I was very worried about the possibility of me not being able to play in the hose. He looked around for a moment, and then grinned at me.

“You can just take off your clothes. Your mom won’t care if you get your underwear wet, will she?” he said sweetly. I shrugged. “I bet she won’t. Just don’t tell her that you did, all right? It’s our secret.” I felt very strange when he said that. I knew that the only secrets I was supposed to keep from my mom were about presents and parties, but I was also excited. I got to have my own secret with a nearly grown-up boy, so, he must have thought that I was very cool. I took off my clothes, leaving me in the backyard behind the shed in nothing but my white underwear. “John,” he then said, as if he just realized something very important. “You should go put on your swim trunks.” John ran in to the house, opening their old, ratty door and leaving it wide open. His brother bent down to me. “You know, you don’t have to wear those either,” he said, tugging on the elastic of my panties. “Then none of your clothes will have to get wet.” I didn’t like that idea. And I didn’t know why.

“I think I should keep them on,” I said quietly. “My mommy won’t let me play in the yard naked. She’d get mad at me.” Kyle smiled at me and looked up to the porch, where a very chubby John was standing, in blue swim trunks with “flames” up the sides. Kyle sprayed me with the hose, and the water was very cold, but, John began to play with me, and I didn’t mind being cold if I was playing. But after a while, I was getting too cold, and I noticed that my panties where getting see-through. I tried to get out of the stream of water, but Kyle kept on spraying me.

“Stop it!” I yelled. “I’m cold! I wanna jump on the trampoline!” John agreed with me, and he began to walk, shivering, to the trampoline as Kyle turned off the water and I gathered my dry clothes. I put on my shirt and pants and began to run to the trampoline, but Kyle grabbed my arm with a force that nearly made me fall. I looked at him, wondering why he had grabbed me and why he had a stern look on his face.

“Come over here,” he said, trying to take me back behind the shed. I shook my head no, telling him that I didn’t want to play in the hose any more. “You have to do something for me.” I shook my head no and tried to fight his grip. He continued to look at me sternly, but, suddenly let go as a car slowly drove by. It was enough time for me to run over to the trampoline, dragging myself up the side and beginning to jump with John, my long, wet hair flinging water everywhere.

“I don’t want to do something. I want to jump,” I said, pouting. Kyle’s face became more stern, and he came over to the trampoline and climbed up the sides. He stood in front of me and grabbed my shoulders.

“You have to, or you aren’t allowed to jump today.” I wiggled out of his grip and began to jump. I was only playing, but, I learned that he wasn’t when he grabbed on to my neck and slammed me to the bottom of the trampoline. John stopped jumping. “You have to come behind the shed or you’re not allowed to ever see John again! And I’ll tell your Mommy our secret!” I wanted to cry, but I didn’t want him to make me leave, so I agreed. He led me behind the shed, and John followed him. He placed my back against the shed’s blue wall, and I found myself looking at Porkchop, the dog, down near the distant gravel road. Kyle put his hands on my shoulders and stared at me in the eyes.

“I’m not going to play in the water anymore-” I began.

“You’re not going to,” he said. “Pull down your pants.” I looked at him, shocked. I knew that this was wrong. It was this summer, not long ago at all, that I had asked my mom where babies came from, and I knew that it started with taking off your pants. I told him that I didn’t want to. “You have to, Mariah, or you’ll never see Toby again!” he yelled. I began to cry. I loved Toby too much to never see him again, so, I unbuttoned my cut-offs and pulled them down. Kyle quickly tugged down my panties. “Now, Mariah, you do what I say and let me do what I want to do and everything will be okay. You’ll get to play on the trampoline. But, if you tell your mommy or anyone else, Mariah, I’ll kill them.” I started crying harder than ever, and he began to touch me where he had pulled down my pants. I didn’t look at him, and instead, I looked at Porkchop. He was tangled up in his chain, and howling and barking miserably. I stared at Porkchop through my tears, until something wasn’t right again.

“You’re hurting me,” I said angrily, through gritted teeth. He didn’t stop. “You’re really hurting me!” I yelled.

“You need to be quiet, Mariah,” he growled. He was trying to put his fingers inside of me, and I was horrified; I thought I was going to have a baby. “You know, you’re such a pretty little girl.” His left hand was in his pants, the other was on me. He kept on pushing harder and harder on me. Finally, he managed to force his fingers to do what he was trying to do, and it hurt worse than when I had broken my first toe earlier that year. I was still crying, and the tears were replaced by horror when Kyle lifted up his right hand, which was covered in blood. He told me to put my pants back on, and I quickly did. He unbuttoned his own, and was in a pair of black boxers. He told me to touch his boxers, and he grabbed my hand and led it to where he wanted it, and I shut my eyes. It seemed as if, as soon as I did, I heard the sound of a car. His parents were home. Kyle gasped and wiped off his hand on the ground, and led me over to the yard. He said nothing to his parents. But he did talk to me. “You can jump on the trampoline with us now Mariah. But remember, it’s our secret...” I didn’t say a word. He lifted me up by my arms and placed me on the trampoline, and he climbed up after me.

I silently and shakily jumped, my legs straight and locked. I watched my shadow as I jumped, watched it get smaller the higher I went. And I thought, this isn’t my shadow anymore. This isn’t my summer anymore. I felt a strange feeling of heaviness, like I had suddenly been given lead for feet. And it seemed like that old, pale house, with the broken toys on the lawn, and the rickety wooden porch, was the ugliest thing that I’d ever seen. Porkchop continued to howl in the back yard, so far away, near the thin gravel road.