"Me, too, only I'm sure not as much as you So?"
"So what?"
"Do you think what Wendi says is true?" she asked. "Are we more promiscuous?"
She couldn't be more obvious about fishing for personal information. I thought, or was she trying to conform something in herself?
"I don't know. No," I decided. "Why should we be?"
"Because were moving so often. Wendi says, they think we don't care about our reputations."
"That's stupid," I said, and she nodded.
"I thought so. too. Have you had any boyfriends, though?" she followed, raising her brown eyes toward me quickly in anticipation.
"No, not anyone I would call that. How about you?"
She shook her head. "I like this boy. Trent Ralston, though." she confessed, "You're the first person I've told."
"So Trent Ralston doesn't know. either?"
"No," she said, raising her eyebrows and widening her eyes as if that would be outrageous. "Wendi says once a boy knows you like him, he gets more aggressive. She says you have to keep them in doubt all the time."
"I guess she thinks she's an expert when it comes to boys. huh?"
"I suppose she is She's very popular. She didn't actually tell me these things," she confessed. "I was just nearby when she was telling them to her friends, and I overheard."
"What about your older sister. Caitlin?"
"What about her?"
"Don't you ever ask her questions, get advice about boys from her?"
"No," she said quickly. "She thinks I'm still too immature to talk to me about such things." She shrugged. "We've never been that close."
"That's too bad."
"You never had a sister or brother?"
"No, but I wish I had." I said. "People never appreciate what they have when they have it," I added, a little bitterly, recalling the way some of my friends resented or argued with their brothers and sisters.
Autumn nodded.
One of the mothers started to chastise her son for being too rough with the others on the slide. She shook him hard, and he started to cry as if she had rattled something in him and caused something to break. His feelings were shattering. I thought. No one likes to be punished so vehemently in front of his friends. His mother looked so enraged, I could see she frightened even the other children, who cowered back to watch,
"I'm so terrified of becoming someone's mother," Autumn said, watching the scene before us.
"Why?"
"I'm sure I won't be a good mother. I'll be too permissive. I could never do that." she said, nodding at the way the mother 'vas still reprimanding her child. "My children will become wild animals, and my husband will hate me and leave me out of frustration."
"My father says you never know what you will really do until you have to do it. Everything else is just talk. So don't be so quick to condemn yourself," I told her.
She smiled. "C'mon," she said. jumping to her feet and seizing my hand. "Let's go to my house to listen to some music and talk some more before it's time for dinner."
"I'd better go home one more time first and be sure there isn't anything my mother needs me to do," I said. Her eyes drooped with disappointment. "If there isn't. I'll come." I said, and she beamed again.
"Good, because there is so much I have to tell you. You should know who to trust and who not to trust, what to believe and what not to believe. It's so hard when you have to discover all these things yourself. No one is going to be a better friend to you than I will, because we come from the same world." she emphasized.