Seniors Ball Quotes

The following day the editor presided over a sudued meeting with his senior staff. Tony Montano sat to one side, a silent observer. "It's time we ran more regular columns. They're cheap, and everyone else is doing them. You know, we hire someone of low to medium intelligence, possibly female, to write about, well, nothing much. You've seen that sort of thing. Goes to a party and can't remember anyone's name. Twelve hundred words." "Sort of naval gazing," Jeremy Ball suggested. "Not quite. Gazing is too intellectual. More like naval chat.

It was that summer, too, that I began the cutting, and was almost as devoted to it as to my newfound loveliness. I adored tending to myself, wiping a shallow red pool of my blood away with a damp washcloth to magically reveal, just above my naval: queasy. Applying alcohol with dabs of a cotton ball, wispy shreds sticking to the bloody lines of: perky. I had a dirty streak my senior year, which I later rectified. A few quick cuts and cunt becomes can't, cock turns into back, clit transforms to a very unlikely cat, the l and i turned into a teetering capital A. The last words I ever carved into myself, sixteen years after I started: vanish. Sometimes I can hear the words squabbling at each other across my body. Up on my shoulder, panty calling down to cherry on the inside of my right ankle. On the underside of a big toe, sew uttering muffled threats to baby, just under my left breast. I can quiet them down by thinking of vanish, always hushed and regal, lording over the other words from the safety of the nape of my neck. Also: At the center of my back, which was too difficult to reach, is a circle of perfect skin the size of a fist. Over the years I've made my own private jokes. You can really read me. Do you want me to spell it out for you? I've certainly given myself a life sentence. Funny, right? I can't stand to look myself without being completely covered. Someday I may visit a surgeon, see what can be done to smooth me, but now I couldn't bear the reaction. Instead I drink so I don't think too much about what I've done to my body and so I don't do any more. Yet most of the time that I'm awake, I want to cut. Not small words either. Equivocate. Inarticulate. Duplicitous. At my hospital back in Illinois they would not approve of this craving. For those who need a name, there's a gift basket of medical terms. All I know is that the cutting made me feel safe. It was proof. Thoughts and words, captured where I could see them and track them. The truth, stinging, on my skin, in a freakish shorthand. Tell me you're going to the doctor, and I'll want to cut worrisome on my arm. Say you've fallen in love and I buzz the outlines of tragic over my breast. I hadn't necessarily wanted to be cured. But I was out of places to write, slicing myself between my toes - bad, cry - like a junkie looking for one last vein. Vanish did it for me. I'd saved the neck, such a nice prime spot, for one final good cutting. Then I turned myself in.

Being a failed teenager is not a crime, but a predicament and a secret crucible. It is a fun-house mirror where distortion and mystification led to the bitter reflection that sometimes ripens into self knowledge. Time is the only ally of the humiliated teenager, who eventually discovers the golden boy of the senior class is a bloated, bald drunk at the twentieth reunion, and that the homecoming queen married a wife-beater and philanderer and died in a drug rehabilitation center before she was thirty. The prince of acne rallied in college and is now head of neurology, and the homeliest girl blossoms in her twenties, marries the chief financial officer of a national bank, and attends her reunion as president of the Junior League. But since a teenager is denied a crystal ball that will predict the future, there is a forced march quality to this unspeakable rite of passage. It is an unforgivable crime for teenagers not to be able to absolve themselves for being ridiculous creatures at the most hazardous time of their lives.

THE COUNCIL WAS NOTHING LIKE Jason imagined. For one thing, it was in the Big House rec room, around a Ping-Pong table, and one of the satyrs was serving nachos and sodas. Somebody had brought Seymour the leopard head in from the living room and hung him on the wall. Every once in a while, a counselor would toss him a Snausage. Jason looked around the room and tried to remember everyone’s name. Thankfully, Leo and Piper were sitting next to him—it was their first meeting as senior counselors. Clarisse, leader of the Ares cabin, had her boots on the table, but nobody seemed to care. Clovis from Hypnos cabin was snoring in the corner while Butch from Iris cabin was seeing how many pencils he could fit in Clovis’s nostrils. Travis Stoll from Hermes was holding a lighter under a Ping-Pong ball to see if it would burn, and Will Solace from Apollo was absently wrapping and unwrapping an Ace bandage around his wrist. The counselor from Hecate cabin, Lou Ellen something-or-other, was playing “got-your-nose” with Miranda Gardiner from Demeter, except that Lou Ellen really had magically disconnected Miranda’s nose, and Miranda was trying to get it back. Jason had hoped Thalia would show. She’d promised, after all—but she was nowhere to be seen. Chiron had told him not to worry about it. Thalia often got sidetracked fighting monsters or running quests for Artemis, and she would probably arrive soon. But still, Jason worried. Rachel Dare, the oracle, sat next to Chiron at the head of the table. She was wearing her Clarion Academy school uniform dress, which seemed a bit odd, but she smiled at Jason. Annabeth didn’t look so relaxed. She wore armor over her camp clothes, with her knife at her side and her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. As soon as Jason walked in, she fixed him with an expectant look, as if she were trying to extract information out of him by sheer willpower. “Let’s come to order,” Chiron said. “Lou Ellen, please give Miranda her nose back. Travis, if you’d kindly extinguish the flaming Ping-Pong ball, and Butch, I think twenty pencils is really too many for any human nostril. Thank you. Now, as you can see, Jason, Piper, and Leo have returned successfully…more or less. Some of you have heard parts of their story, but I will let them fill you in.” Everyone looked at Jason. He cleared his throat and began the story. Piper and Leo chimed in from time to time, filling in the details he forgot. It only took a few minutes, but it seemed like longer with everyone watching him. The silence was heavy, and for so many ADHD demigods to sit still listening for that long, Jason knew the story must have sounded pretty wild. He ended with Hera’s visit right before the meeting.

I didn’t know it yet, but he would become one of our high school’s super-athletes. There were hints of athletic (and, presumably, sexual) prowess there. For one, boys as ridiculously Abercrombie- esque good-looking as he was are always sports stars throughout high school. It is a rule, a self- fulfilling prophecy. It seems as if, sometime during elementary school, coaches make note of the little boys with the most classic bone structure and the best height projections and kidnap them, training them under cover of night. Not all of them will make it in college ball (that’s what people call it, right?) because by the time they’re all seniors, many of them will have been riding more on the sportsman-like nature of their faces than their actual abilities. But until that day, coaches will keep putting them on the field in the most prominent and visually appealing positions because they just kind of look like that’s where they should be. At least I’m pretty sure that is what’s going on.

Now that you’re old, cut yourself some slack, would you? Let yourself off the hook. Give yourself a break. You don’t have to do it all anymore. Take it easy for a change. It’s OK with the rest of the world. So why not you? For the first time in your life, do what you want. Not what everyone else thinks you should. Not what you think everyone else thinks you should. Do what you want. Excuse yourself. Say no. Back out. Beg off. Stay home. Take a rain check. Take a nap. Watch the ball game on TV. Anything but what you’d rather not do but feel you have to for everyone else's sake but your own. And then feel bad about having done it. That's plain wrong. And ask for some help when you need it: 'It’s too heavy.' 'It's too far.' Too near. Too cold. Too hot. Too bright. Too dark. Whatever. It's OK because there's always going to be something you need help with anymore. And be grateful for the helping hand. You'll find more and more people extend one to you these days. Whatever the reason for accepting you’ve got the best excuse in the world. The only one you’ll ever need: 'Hey, I’m old.

At supper—the thirty piratical Digams sitting at a long and spotty table, devouring clam chowder and beans and codfish balls and banana layer-cake—the Freshmen earnestly repeated after a senior: On old Olympus' topmost top A fat-eared German viewed a hop. Thus by association with the initial letters they mastered the twelve cranial nerves: olfactory, optic, oculomotor, trochlear, and the rest. To the Digams it was the world's noblest poem, and they remembered it for years after they had become practicing physicians and altogether forgotten the names of the nerves themselves.

We walk the streets of Fuzhou at night, in the one summer when I come back. Streetlights send our elongated shadows tumbling ahead of us, across the neon-tinged storefronts and buzzing lamps. Everyone comes out, the old men in wife-beaters and plastic sandals, the teenagers in fake American Eagle. Senior citizen ladies roll out before bedtime in pajama pants printed with SpongeBob or fake Chanel logos. There is a Mickey D's and a KFC, street dumpling stands, bootleg shops, karaoke bars. Everything is open late, midnight or even later. There are places to get a full-body massage, an eight ball, a happy ending. If you stay on these streets long enough, it's possible you could get everything you want, have ever wanted. Because I disremember everything, because I watch a lot of China travel shows when I am alone at night in New York, because TV mixes with my dreams mixes with my memories, we walk along the concourse that runs alongside the river even though there is no river, we turn down boulevards punctuated by palm-tree clusters even though those belong in Singapore, we smoke cigarettes openly even though it's unseemly for women, especially in my family, to smoke in public. But the feeling, the feeling of being in Fuzhou at night, remains the same.

He had panicked. Tessier cursed his own stupidity. He should have remained in the column where he would have been protected. Instead, he saw an enemy coming for him like a revenant rising from a dark tomb, and had run first instead of thinking. Except this was no longer a French stronghold. The forts had all been captured and surrendered and the glorious revolutionary soldiers had been defeated. If the supply ships had made it through the blockade, Vaubois might still have been able to defend the city, but with no food, limited ammunition and disease rampant, defeat was inevitable. Tessier remembered the gut-wrenching escape from Fort Dominance where villagers spat at him and threw rocks. One man had brought out a pistol and the ball had slapped the air as it passed his face. Another man had chased him with an ancient boar spear and Tessier, exhausted from the fight, had jumped into the water. He had nearly drowned in that cold grey sea, only just managing to cling to a rock whilst the enemy searched the shoreline. The British warship was anchored outside the village, and although Tessier could see men on-board, no one had spotted him. Hours passed by. Then, when he considered it was clear, he swam ashore to hide in the malodorous marshland outside Mġarr. His body shivered violently and his skin was blue and wrinkled like withered fruit, but in the night-dark light he lived. He had crept to a fishing boat, donned a salt-stained boat cloak and rowed out to Malta's monochrome coastline. He had somehow managed to escape capture by abandoning the boat to swim into the harbour. From there it had been easy to climb the city walls and to safety. He had written his account of the marines ambush, the fort’s surrender and his opinion of Chasse, to Vaubois. Tessier wanted Gamble cashiered and Vaubois promised to take his complaint to the senior British officer when he was in a position to. Weeks went past. Months. A burning hunger for revenge changed to a desire for provisions. And until today, Tessier reflected that he would never see Gamble again. Sunlight twinkled on the water, dazzling like a million diamonds scattered across its surface. Tessier loaded his pistol in the shadows where the air was still and cool. He had two of them, a knife and a sword, and, although starving and crippled with stomach cramps, he would fight as he had always done so: with everything he had.

After graduating early from high school, I carefully listened to the quarterback during my first play in college spring ball. My mind was on the very basics of football: alignment, assignment, and where to stand in the huddle. The quarterback broke the huddle and I ran to the line, meeting the confident eyes of a defensive end—6-foot-6, 260- pound Matt Shaughnessy. I was seventeen, a true freshman, and he was a 23-year-old fifth-year senior, a third-round draft pick. Huge difference between the two of us. Impressing the coach was not on my mind. Survival was. “Oh, Jesus,” I said. I wasn’t cursing. I was praying for help. Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray ( James 5:13). That day Matt came off the ball so fast. Bam! Next thing I knew, I was flat on my back, thrown to the ground. I got up and limped back to the huddle. Four years later...standing on the sidelines in my first NFL game, bouncing on my toes, waiting for my chance to go in, one of the tight ends went down. My time to shine! Where do I stand? Who do I have? I look up and meet the same eyes I met on my first play in college football. Matt Shaughnessy! ...

Imagine it’s time for that big, end-of-engagement presentation. You and your team have been up until 2 a.m. putting together your blue books,* making sure that every i has been dotted and every t crossed. You’re all wearing your best suits and trying to look on the ball. The senior executives of your Fortune 50 client, anxious to hear McKinsey’s words of wisdom, are taking their places around the boardroom table on the top floor of the corporate skyscraper. The CEO strides into the room and says, “Sorry, folks. I can’t stay. We have a crisis and I have to go meet with our lawyers.” Then he turns to you and says, “Why don’t you ride down in the elevator with me and tell me what you’ve found out?” The ride will take about 30 seconds. In that time, can you tell the CEO your solution? Can you sell him your solution? That’s the elevator test.

Even though Gary was on various committees, and was the Chairperson of the Labor Committee, he had introduced some legislation that was part of his platform. However, they all failed, mostly because Gary never made any backroom dealings, and shied away from buttering up the senior members of the General Assembly. He claimed, to his constituents, that he tried to bring them justice, but those nasty Republicans, banks, and loan companies were always in his way. Never mind the fact that Illinois was controlled for the most part by the Democrats, but his constituents fell for that line all the time. The current U.S. Senator from Illinois, Kara Brown, was retiring. She mostly worked to advance Mayor Riley’s goals, was part of the Chicago political machine, and was retiring to make way for the young superstar, State Senator Gary Jackson.

In the years directly following World War II—the time when modern childhood began in earnest—the toy boom began in earnest too. In 1940, toy sales were a modest $ 84 million; by 1960, they had reached $ 1.25 billion. Many classic children’s toys were invented during this era, including Silly Putty (1950) and Mr. Potato Head (1952). And the pickings back then were paltry compared to today, when playrooms as well stocked as Emily’s are increasingly common. In Parenting, Inc. (2008), Pamela Paul writes that toy industry sales “for babies between birth and age two alone” were over $ 700 million annually. According to the Toy Industry Association, domestic sales of kids’ toys were $ 21.2 billion in 2011, a figure that didn’t include video games. Such oceans of plenty have had unintended consequences. In Huck’s Raft, Steven Mintz notes that toys before the twentieth century were primarily social in nature—jump ropes, marbles, kites, balls. “Modern manufactured toys,” on the other hand, “implied a solitariness that was not a part of childhood before the twentieth century.” He’s thinking of Crayons, for instance, introduced in 1903. Or Tinker Toys (1914), Lincoln Logs (1916), or Legos (1932).

Several days ago I was talking to my brother about what went through his mind as his senior season wound down. I asked him if it was different knowing he was going to the playoffs and not knowing if any given week would be his last. He told me that every person that has ever played ball knows the end is coming, whether they choose to admit it or not. “Up

Well, go in,” said Pandora. “It’s open to the public.” “So, for once, we won’t have to destroy private property,” Uncle Mort said, opening the door. “Look how far we’ve come, gang—” A shriveled, bony fist punched him in the face. Since there wasn’t much force behind the blow, however, it just sort of shoved him off balance for a second. Uncle Mort rubbed his cheek, as if he’d been stung by a mosquito. “Ow.” “Don’t you dare come in here!” a little man in a bow tie and suspenders yelled. He stared out at them from behind a pair of humongous old-man glasses, his wispy white hairs quivering as he shouted. When the Juniors came in anyway, he got even angrier. “Don’t you dare take another step!” They took another step. “Don’t you dare—” “Turlington!” Pandora blared, holding up a balled fist of her own. “You shut that pie hole of yours or I’ll stuff it with a hearty slice of knuckle cobbler!” “Knuckle cobbler?” Lex whispered to Driggs. “Good name for a band,” he replied. The man almost fainted. “Pan—Pandora?” “Damn straight!” She puffed out her chest and trapped him up against the wall. “Now, you’re going to let these friends of mine bunk here for the evening, and you’re going to be real nice and real pleasant about it, and above all, you’re not even going to think of ratting us out. Got it?” “Yes, yes,” he said, shaking. “Whatever you need. I think I might even have some pillows and blankets left over from the last overnight camp, in the closet behind the—” Pandora karate-chopped the side of his head. The Juniors watched as he went down like a sack. “What’d you do that for?” Uncle Mort asked once the poor man stopped twitching. “He would have ratted,” Pandora said with confidence. “Old Turly was my partner for a brief stint back in our younger days. Thick as thieves, we were. But he’s a squirrelly bastard, I know that much.” “So are you,” Uncle Mort pointed out. “That’s why we were such good friends!” Uncle Mort stared at her for a moment more, then rubbed his eyes. “Okay. Fine. Make yourselves at home, kids. Just step right on over the unconscious senior citizen.

Fuck.” I unzip my jeans and pull out my dick. Spitting on my hand, I slowly start to stroke it, imagining I have one hand in her hair that’s shoving her mouth on my cock. She steps in what I know is her shower, and I see water spraying onto her body. Closing my eyes, I pick up the pace with my hand and see her on her knees inside the shower. Her pretty blue eyes look up at me while her parted lips just beg to be fucked. “Whatever my girl wants,” I pant, my hips bucking in the driver’s seat. I wrap my hands into her wet, dark hair and slide my cock inside her hot, wet mouth and begin to fuck it. “Blake.” I moan, my hand picking up the pace as I imagine her pretty blue eyes crying while I fuck that pretty face. My balls tighten, and my breath quickens seconds before I come in my hand. “Fuck,” I hiss, reaching up, I remove my shirt and use it to clean up my mess. Looking up at her window, I see the light to her bathroom turn off, then the one to her bedroom. Taking a deep breath, I lean my head against the headrest, trying to calm my racing heart. “Soon, Blake. Soon.” I won’t have to use my hand or imagination. I’ll have her mouth, pussy, and ass to use. I will fucking own her. JUNIOR YEAR I exit the room and start walking down the hallway to my bedroom. Shoving the door open, I slam it shut to find Matt sitting on the side of my bed. “Get the fuck out.” I walk past him toward my adjoining bathroom. He jumps to his feet. “What in the fuck did you tell Lincoln?” Spinning around, I shove his chest. “I didn’t say shit!” He stumbles back and then shakes his head, giving a rough laugh. “You should have my back.” “And you should have known not to fucking touch her,” I shout back. “If you would have let me fuck her …” “You mean rape her?” I correct him. “Fuck, Matt! What in the hell were you thinking?” Abstinence is part of our oath, until our senior year when we are granted a chosen. If I had told Lincoln that he was going to rape the woman, he’d for sure be stripped of his Lord title. Matt

She had a dozen rings in each ear, and she looked as if her lithe curves had been poured into her Hijun hide leather jumpsuit. Stiletto-heeled knee-high boots rounded out the senior citizen cool look.

Daniel Inouye, a nisei senior at McKinley High School long before he became a U.S. senator, furiously pedaled his bike to help at an aid station. He looked up into the sky and said to himself: “You dirty Japs!” On cruiser San Francisco an engineer came topside to join Ensign John Parrott. “I thought I’d come up and die with you.” Rear Admiral William Furlong stood on the bridge wing on Helena. A gunner called: “Excuse me, admiral, would you mind moving so we can shoot through here?” An officer playing golf went into a sand trap after his ball to find a soldier there shooting a rifle into the air. A bomb blew off a comer of a guardhouse. The inmates rushed out to help set up a .50 caliber machine gun. The phone rang in a Hickam hangar and someone reflexively picked it up. The caller wanted to know what all the noise was about. Kimmel stood in a window at his headquarters as a spent bullet tumbled in the window and hit him on the chest, smudging his whites. “It would have been better if it killed me,” he said. Down the hall Layton, Kimmel’s intelligence officer, caught sight of Admiral Bye who the day before had said the Japanese would never attack the United States. He was wearing a life jacket, his whites smeared with oil, staring wordlessly into the middle distance. “Soc” McMorris appeared: “Well, Layton, if it’s any satisfaction to you, we were wrong and you were right.” •

of the tiny aircraft and helped the third passenger aboard, his girlfriend Sandra, 30. The plane taxied and sped down the runway. As it rose into the blue California sun, Norman felt a surge of excitement. But as they banked east over Venice Beach, it was clear there was a storm ahead. In front of them a thick blanket of grey cloud was smothering the San Bernardino Mountains. Only the very tips of their 3,000 m (10,000 ft) peaks showed above the gloom. Norman Senior asked the pilot if it was okay to fly in that weather. The pilot reassured them: it was just a thirty-minute hop. They’d stay low and pop through the mountains to Big Bear before they knew it. Norman wondered if he’d be able to see the slope he’d won the championship on when they wheeled round Mount Baldy. His dad nodded and sat back to read the paper and whistle a Willie Nelson tune. Up front, Norman was savouring every moment. He stretched up to see over the plane’s dashboard and listened to the air traffic chatter on his headphones. As the foothills rose below them, he heard Burbank control pass their plane on to Pomona Control. The pilot told Pomona he wanted to stay below 2,300 m (7,500 ft) because of low freezing levels. Then a private plane radioed a warning against flying into the Big Bear area without decent instruments. Suddenly, the sun went out. The greyness was all around them, as thick as soup. They had pierced the storm. The plane shook and lurched. A tree seemed to flit by in the mist, its spiky fingers lunging at the window. But that couldn’t be, not up here. Then there really was a branch outside and with a sickening yawn, time slowed down and the horror unfurled. Norman instinctively curled into a ball. A wing clipped into a tree, tumbling the plane round, up, down, over and round. The spinning only stopped when they slammed into the rugged north face of Ontario Peak. The plane was instantly smashed into debris and the passengers hurled across an icy gully. And there they lay, sprawled amid the wreckage, 75 m (250 ft) from the top of the 2,650 m (8,693 ft) high mountain and perched on a 45-degree ice slope in the heartless storm.

The fact that fallout would also drift over Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Syria didn’t really cross his mind, he was determined to establish a world-wide Muslim Empire by wiping out the Jews first. He didn’t have long to wait before he saw that some of the missiles were veering off course or had stopped functioning altogether. He demanded an explanation from his engineers, “What kind of trickery is this? What are your explanations?” “We don’t know. According to our computers, the missiles are still on their target trajectories. There is no plausible explanation,” the senior engineer tried to explain. “This is not acceptable. Heads will roll for this failure!” As he angrily watched the display, one missile turned while over Iraq and went directly for the city of Mosul. In the next instant, there was indication that Mosul was now a radioactive ruin. Karimi knew that the Iraqi government would be demanding answers almost immediately. The remaining missiles stopped functioning as soon as they reached the border of Israel, dropped harmlessly out of the sky, and hit the ground in Jordan.

A belly laugh A toy from your childhood Your favorite song from high school The number 222 A beach ball A senior citizen in a fashionable hat A smile from a baby A billboard with a message for you

All the creatures seemed happy to be at the library. The Headless Horseman gave horsey rides and the kids lined up! Someone brought out a ball and played fetch with the Hound of the Baskervilles. Dracula told jokes. The giant gently picked up some kids and lifted them high in the air. Everyone was enjoying the fun. The characters didn’t seem so scary now! Virginia Creeper’s happy smile suddenly changed to a worried frown when she looked out the window and saw the seniors’ book club coming up the walk. “Oh my,” said Ms. Creeper, “I almost forgot. It’s time for the book club! They can’t see this! It will give the seniors such a fright.” “Go and tidy up while I stall them at the door!” the librarian told Miss Smith. Virginia Creeper blocked the impatient readers from entering while Miss Smith ran around in a tizzy. She picked up overturned chairs and straightened the book shelves. Outside, the seniors were getting grouchy, but inside, the kids and the characters had become too silly to notice. “Can I help?” Zack asked Miss Smith. She handed the Incredible Storybook to Zack. “Remember,” Miss Smith said, “we have to finish each story so that the characters will go back into the book. Read the last page of each tale, while I deal with this mess!” Zack opened up the book and quickly finished all the stories. One by one, the characters went back into the Incredible Storybook. The puzzled book club burst into the room just as Zack finished the last page. “Okay, class, it’s time to check out your books,” Miss Smith said. She guided the class toward the big front desk. Everyone thanked Virginia Creeper before marching down the library steps and heading back to school. With borrowed books under their arms, the children were looking forward to reading more about all the characters they had just met. Zack smiled and wondered what they would read tomorrow.

I remember Manjrekar admonishing me for rolling the ball back down the pitch. (I was keeping wickets with our regular keeper injured.) Polly Umrigar in a friendly match at CCI, as soon as he came in, would not play balls on his leg toward short leg preferring to take them on his thigh-pad till he was set; such was the seriousness and professional attitude the Bombay player displayed. And the more senior you were, the greater was the discipline for they saw themselves as role models. This was not evident in Madras or Bangalore where players who had made the grade often thought they were above the law and the code of conduct that was preached. Venkataraghavan was the exception—apart from talent, his discipline, fitness and work ethic has ensured that he is till today, the most successful cricketer from Tamil Nadu.

The Senior Ball was upon us and I didn’t have a date. Having spent my high school years attending this school didn’t help. Perhaps I should have invited Thelma. Now, that would have been something! Looking back I wonder what would have happened if I had? Everyone at the school knew Thelma, and Ridell High, being a snobbish school in a snobbish town, would certainly have ostracized the two of us. Besides, Thelma was just a little too old for me and I was just too chicken to bring the town’s hottest girl to the schools biggest function.

Whenever I failed to control the ball, whenever I made a bad pass, they let me know, what the hell are you doing with the seniors? Why did they pick you? I knew why, it was because I ran. You just had to run.

Senior came to learn that the Catholic Church respected the integrity and the goodness of the created order, and that her teachers would say, with Saint Thomas Aquinas, that the grace of God perfects nature rather than supplants it, and that all of our knowledge, including what we know about God himself, comes to us first through the senses.

Much may preserve her from a state such as mine—growing old, unloved, and unprovided-for. And yet I am only ten years her senior. Only ten years!—Of balls, and flirtations, and new dresses and fashions; of disappointments, broken hearts, and fading hopes. I shall be nine-and-twenty next Christmas; and Lucy only just embarked upon her ten years. I would not wish them to end as mine have done.