Page 11 of The Princes of Stone and Steel

“I don’t know. You always seem to have more fun. What’s your secret?” Beside her movie star looks and personality to draw the men in.

“My secret is that I don’t give a snot if they’re interested or not. So then they are. It’s Psychology 101, sweetie.”

“Well, I wish I could care less, but as it stands,” –Where it hadn’t been true before, today it was the truest. As the fog which had settled over my brain lifted more, feelings of longing for closeness crept in and I found I actually wanted those relationships— “I’m poised to graduate high school in the spring never even having been kissed.”

It all started with meeting Korrigan. I didn’t know what it was about her, but each time we hung out, I knew I couldn’t go back to not caring.

“Kissing’s overrated,” she said. “Wait—no, it’s not.” She laughed. “Who am I trying to kid?”

“Certainly not me. You’ve shared too many stories in the short time I’ve been here.”

“Because kissing is awesome and someone needs to spice up your drab existence.”

She and I bent to pick up toys from the carpet to at least appear to be working as talking didn’t get my yellow form signed for my service hours and I suspected didn’t keep her gainfully employed.

“Whatever.” I rolled my eyes in mock-exasperation.

“Don’t leave me hanging. Are we hitting the club tonight?”

“Oh, fine. Now I’m going to earn my service points.”

The corner of her mouth tipped up in a partial smile. “I can think of a few ways for you to earn service points tonight,” she called out to me as I walked over to a group of girls sitting on the carpet mats, arguing. I flipped my hand in the air to let her know I was tuning her out.

“Hey… Is that how we work out our problems? By yelling?” I reprimanded the girls.

“No, Miss Millie,” they sang together. The singsong made them sound way too untrustworthy.

“Okay,” I said, not willing to take their crap today. “What’s wrong now? Blythe?”

Blythe sucked in a huge breath as if preparing to lay down a whopper of a tale and began, “Diamond wants to do ‘Miss Mary Mack,’ but we did that yesterday. Morgan wants ‘Miss Suzy,’ but I want ‘Rockin’ Robin.’” Ah… hand games.

“Well, have you thought about doing all three? They aren’t that long.”

“But I want to go first,” Blythe insisted, crossing her arms over her little girl chest in protest.

“So do I,” Diamond chimed in at the same time Morgan whined, “Me, too.”

“Let’s rock, paper, scissors this out, then. Whoever wins, that’s whose song goes first, and whoever comes in second, their song goes second. Sound fair?”

“Miss Millie, how do you play?” Blythe asked, dropping her arms and seemingly her protest, too.

“You’ve never played?”

“Nope,” the three answered together.

I sat down on the carpeting next to Diamond to explain the game to them. The actual name was Roshambo, at least from what I remembered. To play you used a fist for rock. For paper, a flat hand, and for scissors, just your pointer and index fingers straight out—like the blades of scissors.

The rules: Paper covered rock. Rock smashed scissors. Scissors cut paper. The girls nodded, drinking in my every word. If all chose the same, no one would win that round. We called that a scratch. If two chose the same and it beat the third player, she’d be the first out and they’d square off. If two drew the same but neither beat the third, the third would win first pick and the two remaining would try again until they had a second pick winner.

“Got it?” I asked.

The girls showed some pretty cutthroat grins for six-year-olds.

“On the count of three. Sing… one… two… three—Rock. Paper. Scissors.” Two little hands formed scissors. Blythe, whom I’d secretly been rooting for, pulled ahead with a rock. She crushed both pairs of scissors triumphantly and leaned back, smiling wide.

“Okay, Blythe’s song is first. Now we go into sudden death to see who goes next and who is last. Diamond, Morgan, ready?”

“Rock. Paper. Scissors.” They both sang. Both paper this time. “Okay, Rock. Paper. Scissors.” Both rock. “Last time, let’s do this. Rock. Paper. Scissors.” Diamond’s fingers formed a pair of scissors while Morgan played rock a second time.

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