Wrapped in winter wool, the neighborhood kids seemed strangers. They hauled sleds up the sparkling hill and glided down. I pulled my new orange saucer by its rim with pride, barely minding the pink bracelets snow burned in the gap between my mittens and sleeves.

At the top, the big girls' eyes shone bright. There's a new boy, named Bill, they said, and he’s your age. Don't you want him to be your boyfriend, Carrie? A cloud coasted over the sun.

I shrieked away down the hill on my giant’s lunch plate.

Bill and Carrie sitting in a tree.

Double decker on a sled, on another kid’s back, I refled, flattened though I lay on top.

First comes love, then comes marriage.

Bill trudged along, doughy face blank in a poop brown hat.

I rode down the hill on my saucer again and slipped back home, stomach full of ice.

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