Date: Wed, 25 Jun 1997 08:10:09 -0500 From: Phanny Subject: SUB: CONTEST: Non: Prose: Number 9 Number 9 Becky Wilkins didn't know anything. Why, she didn't even know enough to skate on her own pond. Number 9 was ours, a small pond where kids skated every day from November until the spring thaw. It was kind of secret, and you couldn't find it unless someone showed you the way. I would race home from school, change my clothes, a walk the mile or so down Auburn Street, across Worthington Parkway and down Bay View with my skates hanging off my shoulder just like a professional ice skater. The walk seemed long, but a pair of ski pajamas under my jeans helped keep out the cold. Once I was there, the cold disappeared. It was a race to see who would be first on the ice. The girls figure skated, or attempted to, at one end of the pond, and the boys played hockey and tried to prove who was king of the ice at the other. There was a sort of unwritten rule that figure skaters didn't cross over into the hockey area unless they wanted to take a chance of getting hurt. We didn't go home until the street lights came on and until we knew supper would be almost ready. At five thirty, my legs took over and my brain sort of coasted, taking in all the neighborhood sights. I knew what Mrs. Egan was having for dinner, and I could tell Mr. Cohen was out an an important insurance call if his grey Buick wasn't in the driveway. If the lights were on in Mrs. Hennessey's parlor, they were having company. Being in the crisp air for two hours made me hungry. Dinner tasted good, no matter what Mom cooked. Everything except liver, that it, but that's another story. Life seemed a lot simpler back then; that is, until Becky Wilkins. Why didn't she skate on her own pond? She moved to our town when I was in ninth grade from some God forsaken place like Carolina or Wyoming that sounded like it should be out west, not in New England. Why didn't she stay there? Hearing her silly giggle all day was bad enough and seeing her flirt with Rob Mitchell and Pete Stone in the corridors between classes was disgusting, but watching her chase them across the ice was more than I could stand. She kind of leaned forward from the waist and lunged across the ice. She had pink pompoms on the toes of her skates with bells that jingled every time her ass wiggled. And what an ass it was--sticking out of her fluffy little pink felt skirt. Didn't anyone ever tell her that was for the Ice Capades, not for Number 9 on a cold day in February? That silly little giggle of hers could be heard all over the ice. And when she laughed, she batted her eyelashes and covered her face with her hands. It was bad enough in algebra class and Mr. Conrad hated it in Latin, but that wasn't nearly as annoying as it was on the sacred ice of Number 9. Someone must have told her the ice was better here than on the pond at Highland Farm. That was where the kids from her neighborhood were supposed to skate, but the pond there was surrounded by trees. When the leaves fell, they got stuck in the ice, making skating difficult. So she and her fancy friends decided to skate at Number 9. That was just the way they did things--they just took without asking. They thought anything they wanted should be theirs because they lived in the "rich" part of town and we had to walk past St. Francis and Mrs. Egan's lace curtains to get our dinner. Why didn't Becky Wilkins stay where she belonged? I wished she had stayed in Carolina or Wyoming, or better still Durango or Carolina, and I would have personally given her an uppercut in her pouty little mouth to put her there and silence that damn giggle for once and for all. Number 9 was my pond, and I was going to be a professional ice skater. I could do spins and figure eight's, and when I stopped I sprayed an arc of ice crystals that glittered in the sun. This was my rehersal for my life in lights. Who told her she could come there, anyway? And she thought she knew everything. That is, until the day Rob Mitchell broke his leg. He tripped over Mike Beagan's hockey stick when he was going in for a shot, and he just lay there on the ice real quiet. By that time, it was getting dark and it was hard to see his face, but from what I could see, he looked kind of grey and white. Then he said, "I don't think I can get up. Help me, guys." Joe Gorman and Bill Murphy stood on each side of him and tried to lift him, but he fell right back down again. Joe said, "Somebody better call his mother." That's when Miss Smarty Pants who thought she knew everything learned her lesson. She wasn't listening then. She started screaming so loud, and she wiggled her way over to the side of the pond and sat down on the frozen ground and tried to undo her skatges with her mitten on. Anyone in their right mind knows you have to take off your mittens to tie or untie your skates. And everybody knows when you have an emergency you run on the points of your skates up the bank across the grass to Mrs. Jackson's house. That is, if you belong there, not an outsider like Becky Wilkins. When I saw how stupid she looked just sitting on the bank howling, I ran to Mrs. Jackson's house myself and pounded on the door until she opened it. She could tell something was wrong. The ambulance arrived, with Rob's mom and dad right behind it. When they strapped him onto the stretcher, Becky Wilkins was standing there all alone on the bank crying so hard she was hiccuping. Her face was all red and blotchy, and she was shivering in that stupid pink skirt that was all covered with dead grass. She sure didn't know everything. And on that cold February day on Number 9, she showed the rest of the world she didn't.