We’re writing exams now, and everybody’s cramming. Well, almost everybody. And it seems like there’s just no time left over to fool around or anything. We had a break between our math and French exams, like there were a couple of days when we didn’t have an exam and I went over to Jennifer’s after school and we fooled around with her Guinea pig, and we talked.
I asked her, did she mind if I asked her a very personal question? She looked surprised. Like, we don’t much talk about stuff like that. Mostly, there’s all kinds of other things to talk about.
“Jennifer”, I asked her, and I felt really funny about it: “Have you got your period yet? I hope you don’t mind my asking, or anything.”
“Oh, that’s all right. Funny, we never talked about it, but I always think it’s not very interesting, really. Not like when Sally blabbed all over the place when she got hers. Like it’s some big deal. What it is, is a drag, kind of. You’ve got to keep changing, like a diaper, and you get cramps sometimes and don’t feel like doing things, and sometimes it’s even embarrassing.”
“Oh. I guess you’ve got it, then.”
“Yeah. About six months ago. You?”
“Nope. Not yet. That’s funny, huh? Here I am, a couple of months older than you, and I haven’t got it yet. I wonder if Laura and Diane have.”
“I don’t know about them. But I do know because my mother said, that it’s different for different people. Like, some girls get it earlier than others and some girls get cramps and some don’t, but it’s something you learn to live with. It doesn’t mean anything special to get it, or to get it late.”
“Yeah, I know. My mother keeps telling me that. But even though she says that, she keeps asking if I’ve got it yet. It drives me buggy.”
“Oh well, you’ve got to have patience with mothers sometimes. I know what you mean. Mine says everything’s natural and like that, but when it happens, you’d think it was a world event or something.
“Yeah, well….”
And neither of us really wanted to talk about it anymore. So we didn’t.
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