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He told me what he did during the days while I was at school. He painted pictures of himself saving a couple of sheep from a neighbour’s farm who had tangled themselves in the boundary fence. He regaled secrets of getting too hot hauling hay on his own and jumping naked into the same river where we all swam.
He made me laugh.
He made me fall asleep knowing 2008 was going to be the best year ever.
And in many ways it was, but it was also full of embarrassing moments as I started to grow up faster than before.
For the past year or so, I’d been acutely aware that older kids and even adults kissed, touched, and did things that I was curious about.
I’d wanted to ask Ren why watching him kiss Cassie made my tummy go queasy, but a curiosity welled to know more, too.
But I never dared.
I never asked the questions burning inside me, swallowing things like: ‘Why do you have different body parts than me? Why does Cassie rub against you like a moronic cat? Why does Liam have the same body as you but smaller? Do you rub against Cassie like a moronic cat, too?’
Silly things but things I desperately wanted to know.
Kids at school tried to educate each other thanks to overhearing parents talk, and so far, I’d gathered snippets about birds and bees and squirms infecting eggs and eggs being delivered by cranes which weren’t really eggs like chickens laid but babies, and sometimes babies were caused by other magic when daddies touched mummies where pee comes out and then she got fat.
It made no sense to my unenlightened child brain, and I was too embarrassed to ask Ren.
I was even too embarrassed to ask Cassie.
So who did I ask?
Probably the one person I shouldn’t as he was just as clueless as me.
I turned to Liam Wilson. Nine years old, boisterous but shy and still obsessed with lizards.
Including the lizard in his shorts.
And that was how Patricia Wilson found us one summer afternoon.
God, I’m blushing even now.
I can’t believe I’m about to write this down, but here I go…
Liam and I hung out but not all that often.
I liked him, but I found him so young and silly compared to the calm, collected reservation of Ren. Liam squealed and charged. Ren spoke with rough serenity and moved with assurance.
Ren was mature with his rough-stubble cheeks and strong muscles. Liam was juvenile with his baby face and twig arms.
But Ren was too perfect to sully with gross things like what I wanted to know, so I figured Liam would be the perfect teacher.
Basically, I asked him to show me his if I showed him mine.
Obviously, I know now why he was only too happy to oblige. It seems all boys are happy to get naked for the right incentive.
We clutched hands, heat blooming on my face and scandalous danger welling in my chest as we left the house where Patricia was tending to her roses and walked quickly to the shaded grotto around the pond.
There, we stood awkwardly until Liam pointed at my summer dress with splashes of purple and pink and told me to pull it off.
I remember the rush of naughtiness even then, quickly swamped by shivers of fear.
Hiding my quaking hands, I grabbed the hem and jerked the dress over my head and stood bravely with just my white knickers on.
He nodded all business-like and the severest nine-year-old scowl I’d ever seen, then unbuckled his shorts, shoved them down his legs and ripped off his t-shirt.
I’d seen Ren naked many times—not so much recently, but I had memories of thick legs, hair-covered thighs, heavy flesh dangling between them, and a stomach and back rippling with light and shadow whenever he moved.
Liam was a sapling while Ren was the oak.
He shrugged in his white underpants, almost identical to mine. “Now what?”
“I du
His nose wrinkled. “Squirms?” “You know, the things that make mummies fat, and then birds deliver babies.” “You’re weird.” Pointing at my knickers, he commanded, “Maybe you have squirms. Take them off and we’ll see.” “You take yours off, too.” He nodded sharply, hooking his fingers into his underpants waistband. “Okay. One…two…three.” We both shoved down our underwear and kicked them away at the same time. I stood barefoot. He stood in his socks. We stared at the differences in our bodies, moving closer in fascination. “It’s so small.” I reached out to touch the worm-like thing between his legs. “Ren is bigger. Did yours shrink?” He batted away my hand, poking his finger in my nipple. “You have no tits like Cassie. Did yours shrink, too?” I looked down at my flat chest, so much like Liam’s and not at all like Cassie’s fullness. An awful pressure of inadequacy filled me, of fear that I was deformed, of terror that I needed what Cassie had to make boys like Ren notice me. My shoulders slouched. “I don’t know how to get tits.” Liam sighed. “I don’t know how to get a bigger worm.” His melancholy matched mine, and I found a kindred soul. Wanting to cheer him up, I smiled. “It’s a nice worm, though.” He returned my smile with a trace of self-consciousness. “Thanks.” We looked at the ground, exhausting our ability of conversation and not sure what to do next. Then I had an epiphany which well and truly got us into trouble. “Liam?” He looked up. “Yeah?” “Do you know about kissing?” His nose wrinkled again, but this time his whole face joined in, scrunching up like a prune. “Eww. Mummy and Daddy do it, but it’s gross.” “Cassie and Ren do it,” I confessed. “And I don’t like it.” “I don’t like it, either.” He stuck out his tongue as if he’d tasted something nasty. “Yucky.” “Want to try?” I gulped, cursing the words but also eternally curious. “What?” He backed up again, his worm bouncing. “Nuh-uh. No way.” “Just one. Don’t you want to know?” “I know already. It’s gross.” “I know but how gross?” I followed him as he stepped deeper into the grotto; his socks soaking up the damp ground and my bare feet skating over slippery leaves. “Don’t you want to know why they keep kissing if it’s so gross? Don’t you want to know why they seem so happy afterward?” I rubbed at the fist wrapped around my heart. Happiness was never something I’d begrudge Ren, but happiness from kissing Cassie drove me into a painful place that I couldn’t untangle. “I du “’Cause I’m sick of not knowing. I want to know everything.” Brushing aside a frond, I stood directly in front of him. He eyed me warily. “I want to go back.”