Stretch
They called him Stretch for obvious reasons. Puberty struck him like a rogue gorilla with a golf club: random, violent, and with an upward swing. Clam-hands wouldn’t stop sweating. Squiggly little hairs writhed out from his jaw. When he arrived at Camp Sapling Ridge that summer, the first thing he was told by another camper, gazing up at him, was, “Whoa. You’re tall.” And that night around the fire when nicknames were divvied out, the boys of the Campsite 11 agreed. Stretch was Stretch. He chugged a MellowYellow and stomped on the can to cheers from the others. The night of brotherhood burned on, and whoever that gangly boy was before then didn’t matter anymore.
​
The next day, Stretch discovered what would end up being his obsession for the next two weeks. Between archery and canoeing, between gulping down brightly colored sugar-water and whittling sticks into swords, one thing consumed his freshly hormonalized mind. Her name was Morna. And he never stood a chance.
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He came upon her sitting on a stump with her legs akimbo. To distinguish herself as a camp employee, she wore a blue shirt tucked into a pair of long khaki shorts. Morna taught a class on tying knots and lashes, basic merit-badge type stuff that drew the minimum attendees. Even the boys who had signed up rarely showed. But Stretch sat down for it, enthralled. Her brown hair, always pulled back in a loose ponytail, smelled like campfire smoke, which always smelled like bacon to Stretch. Her small hands moved with an unmatched agility.
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Stretch intentionally fumbled with his assigned tie, grumbled and grunted and growled with increasing volume until she sat next to him on his log.
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“Show me what you’re doing, Stretch,” Morna used his nickname because she didn’t know his real one. He wasn’t on the attendance list. For two weeks, Stretch skipped his scheduled wilderness survival course. One day he would likely die from exposure, stranded on an island, completely ignorant of how to build a proper shelter from sticks, leaves, and washed up remains of fellow passengers. But that was a risk he was willing to take, because at ten o’clock each morning outside the greenhouse, Morna sat, tying knots. She spoke slowly, patiently, “Undo it and start from the beginning.”
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If he messed up enough, she would take his hands and guide him. Her soft palms nimbly made the rope turn into a thing alive. Tying and lashing were hidden magicks. Rope and string were perfectly made to understand the mystic arts. And with the last turn of her fingers, she laid her hands on his wrists. Stretch pulled tight, a perfect Bowline produced. Morna placed her hand on his shoulder.
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“You think you’ve got it now?”
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Stretch nodded, afraid his voice would crack if he spoke. There was a feeling there, when she sat next to him and worked through the knot with him, but he couldn’t put a word to yet.
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When time was up and the class ended, Stretch would wave to Morna as he walked away. Morna would smile and wave back. It was a loop he happily went round and round within. But the day came when it struck him that he had only a few classes left with Morna, that camp was almost over, that he might never see her again. And that just wasn’t good enough.
​
###
“You’re aiming too high,” Lazer-Snake called out to Stretch as he walked down the range to reclaim his arrows. Five shafts, all flew a good foot over the target. He found them scattered and sticking out of the underbrush about ten yards back into the woods.
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“I know y’all want me to be the Legolas of this group,” Stretch said, huffing, and marched back to the range through crunchy tall grass. White and brown bugs flew up and flurried with each footfall. He held up his bouquet of freshly plucked arrows, his evidence. “But I think I should be Gimli.”
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“Legolas has to be tall. Critter’s short. He’s Gimli,” Robin Hood slapped Critter on the back.
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“My girlfriend likes it,” Critter said. “She calls me her love dumpling.”
​
The archery range consisted of a cracked concrete slab and a rough wood railing in a clearing amidst young woodland. Five round haystacks with white canvases thrown over them served as targets. A big chunk of the camp used to be farmland, so the trees thereabouts grew thick, still fighting with each other to establish themselves skyward. Brush and briars sprouted up tangled messes in all the places where they shouldn’t be— hence the name: Camp Sapling Ridge.
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“Okay, but I have more hair than all y’all, so that makes me Gimli,” Stretch said as he stepped up onto the concrete slab.
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“No you don’t!” Robin Hood said.
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Stretch pointed to the dozen or so black whiskers corkscrewing out of his chin. “See?”
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“Guys,” Lazer-Snake groaned. “We already got our nicknames. There’s no changing.”
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Lazer-Snake chose his own nickname. Lazer-Snake had no regrets.
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They were the Pack. Stretch, Critter, Robin Hood, and Lazer-Snake. Like a bunch of gangly, acne-ridden coyotes, where you found one, you’d probably find a couple others skulking about. In fact, Stretch’s hour with Morna was the only time of the day he spent without them.
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Stretch returned to the shooting position. Critter pointed and shouted, “Shoot lower.”
​
​
“Time’s up.” Dennis LeCroche, the archery counselor, called. Dennis was the kind of person who always seemed to have spaghetti sauce dried in the corner of his mouth. He smelled like last month’s laundry, and held a sheen like someone had bathed him in vegetable oil. One time, Stretch saw a mosquito land on his arm, and slide off. Dennis slunk towards them from the equipment shed, barking orders:
“Put the bow down, it’s time for you guys to split.”
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“What the shit, LeCrotch?” Lazer-Snake said. “We’ve been here for fifteen minutes.”
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“I told you to stop calling me that,” Dennis said. “You’ve been here for an hour, and I can only listen to you guys argue over Lord of the Rings characters for so frigging long.”
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Arm guards, gloves, safety glasses, and of course the bows and arrows. Turning these in felt a little like undressing. When Stretch handed his stuff over, he asked, “So, LeCrotch. Who do you think should be Gimli?”
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“Do I look like the kind of person who likes that stuff?” Dennis said with a chortle.
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Stretch didn’t answer that. None of the Pack did.
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On the dirt path to the mess hall, they kicked up dust clouds with the heels of their boots. Stretch kept looking for ways to bring up his dilemma with Morna, kept rehearsing natural segues into the conversation. Finally, he thought he found an opening.
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“You know who has really small hands?”
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“What?” Lazer-Snake said.
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“You know who. . .” Stretch faltered. “What were we talking about?”
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“Dude, we were talking about how many times we could hit the meat in the same day, what were you talking about?”
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“Correction,” Robin hood said. “Lazer-Snake was talking about how many times he could hit the meat in the same day. We were talking about checking out the canoe relay tomorrow.”
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Lazer-Snake inflated his chest. “Seven times.”
​
The mess hall was a discount cafeteria. Dimly lit, the whole room smelled like chili baked into old wood. Air conditioning was for the fridge. And only the fridge. They shuffled up the line, got their canned vegetables, beans, a portion of something meat-based, and a plastic cup full of neon-colored liquid. The tables, arranged like a medieval mead-hall, were collapsible vinyl with wobbly metal frames. The Pack took their seats at a spot near the back with a little shade from the daylight shooting in from the windows.
“You know, it starts to hurt after a while,” Lazer-Snake said, easing into his seat, his plate clattering onto the table.
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“Jerking it?” Critter asked.
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“No – I mean, yeah –but I was talking about rowing.”
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The conversation slipped away like leaves downstream. The world shrank to the size of a doorway, where she walked in. She was with some other counselors, all in the same uniform. She was laughing. Her little nose crinkled when she laughed. He wanted to make her laugh like that.
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“Stretch,” Lazer-Snake waved a hand in his face. “Dude, what’s with you today?”
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“Her,” Stretch nodded towards Morna standing in line.
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“Who? The counselor?” Critter asked.
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“She teaches the knots and lashes course. I think I’m in love with her.”
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The words inflated over the table and pushed the others back from their chairs. Stretch’s palms clammed up. His gaze bounced from Critter to Lazer-Snake to Robin Hood to Lazer-Snake and Critter again. Years from now, would they still make fun of him for this?
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“Shit,” Lazer-Snake said, putting a hand on Stretch’s back. “That’s heavy.”
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“What are you going to do?” Robin Hood leaned in.
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“I don’t know,” Stretch said, letting go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding in. “She’s a counselor. I mean, it’s stupid, right?”
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“Aragorn and Arwen,” Robin Hood said. “Mortal man and Elven princess forced apart by family and duty, but drawn together by fate.”
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“Arwen’s the hot one, right?” Lazer-Snake shoved a spoonful of beans into his gob.
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Robin Hood didn’t nod. He vibrated.
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“Nice.” Lazer-Snake slapped Stretch’s back. “You’re fated.”
​
Morna sat at a table near the front of the mess hall with some other counselors. Her toes barely touched the ground and sometimes she kicked her ankles, dancing above the stained linoleum floor. The other counselors revolved around her before taking their seats. She had a gravitational pull.
​
“I don’t know what to do. But I’ve got to do something. We’ve only got a few days left,” Stretch confessed and sunk into his meal, picking through the chili. One bean in it was smaller than the others, like a tiny kidney dumpling. The smallest one. The love dumpling. That was it! Stretch thanked the cafeteria gods for sending him this omen, then looked up from his plate, eyes locked on his target. “Critter, you said you had a girlfriend back home, right? You said she called you love dumpling?”
​
Critter coughed up his juice. All eyes fell on him. Poor Critter. He didn’t sign up for this. He shifted on the bench, creaking. Critter grimaced like he had a wedgie to pick, then nodded. “Yeah, she’s. . . I mean, we decided to take a break while I was away, you know.”
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“What should I do?” Stretch craned across the table, long neck fully extended. He hovered over Critter’s plate.
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“Most girls like somebody with style.” Critter diverted his eyes, ran his fingers along the rim of his cup. “You gotta dress to impress, you know. Clean up nicely. All that stuff.”
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“Shit,” Stretch pulled back to his side of the table and looked down at his dusty shirt and jeans. “I didn’t pack a suit or anything like that.”
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“You don’t hafta look fancy,” Critter said with a shrug. “You just hafta get her attention.”
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The others nodded sagely. Yes. Get her attention.
###
​
The next morning, Stretch ripped through his pack. Every article of clothing he brought carpeted the wood platform his green-canvas tent stood upon. Jeans. T-shirts. Boots. Baseball caps. Down at the bottom of his bag lay a pair of sunglasses and a rolled orange bandana. How could he get Morna to notice him with any of this? How could he make her think he had style?
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Stretch strode over to rope-typing with one of his pant legs rolled up to his knee. Just one. He left his flannel shirt open, his ribcage bare. And his hair, recently wetted at a spigot, stuck out in every direction possible. The bandana he tied around his neck. The sunglasses he wore low on his nose, as if he needed shade to read. For a boy of the right age, and literally nobody else, such boldness was in fact as impressive as anyone could ever be. High-fives and Alright, dude’s followed Stretch on the dirt path to class. He walked on, basking in the glory. The sheer, utter glory.
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“Those are some interesting choices,” Morna said when she saw him, drawing an eyebrow heavenward. Her ankles were crossed, swinging a little above the ground from her perch on the stump.
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“Oh, you know,” Stretch luxuriated along his log bench and ran a hand through his glistening hair, like slicking down quills. “Just felt like trying something different.”
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She smiled. “I hope you’re not trying to impress somebody.”
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“What if I am?”
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“Well,” Morna said and looked up to the trees for guidance, “let’s just say you couldn’t run from the police dressed like that.”
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Then she explained how to make a Midshipman’s Hitch.
###
​
The Pack waited at the archery utility shed for Dennis LeCroche. Stretch brought up his morning’s failure. “Writer her a poem,” Robin Hood urged. “And make it good. She’ll swoon.”
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“I’ve never written a poem before,” Stretch said. “I’m not really good at rhyming.”
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“It has to rhyme if you want it to be any good,” Robin Hood insisted. “So you should prolly start working on that.”
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“Iunno . . .”
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The shed door swung open. Dennis, sweaty and huffing, lurked in the threshold. Like the invisible tentacles of some ghastly sea creature, an aquatic stench loosed outward. Dennis wiped his forehead, “What do you guys want?”
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“Were you eating sushi in there?” Critter scratched his head. “Do they deliver out here?”
Lazer-Snake elbowed him, shook his head.
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“We wanted to do some more target practice,” Robin Hood said.
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Dennis rolled his eyes and returned to his dank shed. The smell lingered in the doorway like a guard. The Pack dared not come nearer. Robin Hood squared off with Stretch:
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“There’s nothing more romantic in the world than a poem. You’ve gotta give it a try.”
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“But is seems so . . . weird.”
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“Okay, guys.” Dennis re-emerged with his damp forearms cradling four bows, arm-guards, gloves, eye protection, and twenty arrows in small plastic quivers. “Remember, you only get an hour.”
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“I’ve got it!” Robin Hood snapped his fingers, a dramatic move seen only in cartoons. For some reason, Robin Hood thought this was normal human behavior. “Ask LeCrotch what he thinks.”
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“That sounds like a terrible idea,” Lazer-Snake said as he collected his equipment.
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“Exactly,” Robin Hood said and started to bounce. “Whatever he says to do, Stretch needs to do the opposite. Like when Saruman tries to tell Gandalf —”
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“What are you guys talking about?” Dennis cut in. “Is this another stupid fantasy thing?”
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“If you were trying to ask a girl out, would you write her a poem?”
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Dennis froze, registering exactly how far back in the conversation these little shits had been setting him up. Under his breath, he muttered, “Assholes.”
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“Seriously. What would you do?”
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When Stretch got older, an oily question would creep up through his grey matter and wrestle endlessly over Dennis’ response. Did he give him the wrong answer on purpose? Dennis puffed out his chest and said, “Poems are for gayfers.”
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Robin Hood thrust his eyebrows pointedly at Stretch as if to say, See? The Pack took their equipment from Dennis and started to head down the range.
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“Who’s the girl, anyway?” Dennis leaned against his doorframe. “This place is a sausage fest.”
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“Her name’s Morna,” Stretch said, walking backwards through the grass growing over rubble. “Do you know her?”
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Dennis didn’t say anything, but his eyes bulged a little out of his glistening face, and he shook his head. The Pack stepped up onto the concrete platform and got set up.
Robin Hood took his position at the stall next to Stretch, strapped on his arm guard, and said, “Write her a poem. Make it rhyme.”
The next day, Morna taught her group how to produce a Sheet Bend. “Do y’all remember how to make a Square Knot? Okay, so this one’s kind of like that, except you have to make an extra loop like this. Just wrap it around twice like so and pull tight . . . There you go, that’s a Sheet Bend.”
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Stretch didn’t grunt or grumble. The knot emerged easily. He might not have thought about it much, but he had in fact learnt a good deal from Morna, and Sheet Bends came without struggle. Why did she save such a simple one for the second-to-last day? But besides that, Stretch trembled with whirling inner terror. The note in his pocket burnt into his thigh.
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When the course was over for the day and the three other kids there got up and wandered off, Stretch asked if he could talk with Morna.
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“Yeah, what’s up?”
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Stretch wiped his clam hands on his jeans and pulled out a folded piece of blue-lined paper. “I wrote this, n’ I thought you’d like it.”
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“Oh,” Morna nodded tentatively.
​
Stretch read:
​
“Morna, you are the master of rope.
You give me thought and you give me . . . hope.
I’m so lucky to have come to your class.
There’s nothing better than to see your . . . sass.”
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“Oh, thank God,” Morna released a breath like a punctured water-bed. She let her head fall back inhaled, “I thought you were going to say ‘ass’ there.”
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“Crap,” Stretch whispered. “That woulda been better.”
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“Stretch,” Morna glided her delicate hands over pulled-back brown hair. “Are you alright? You’ve been acting strangely the past couple of days. Is there something we need to discuss?”
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Stretch’s butt clenched and his hands spasmed, crumbling the piece of paper. “Nope,” he said, his voice cracking, and he rushed away.
###
​
“You need to go balls to the wall!” Lazer-Snake said, throwing a rock into the lake. “Girls like confidence. If you’re confident, she’ll go out with you. Doesn’t matter who she is.”
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The Pack stood on the pebbled bank watching the canoe relay. Critter and Robin Hood had placed bets against Lazer-Snake on who would win. Both shouted at the top of their lungs while Lazer-Snake lackadaisically predicted his victory and turned his attention to Stretch.
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“How do I act more confident?”
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“Shit, Iunno,” Lazer-Snake picked up another rock and lobbed it. “Just, like, you know, be like, ‘Hey. Lemme see them titties. I’ll give you a chicken sandwich.’ Try that.”
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“What?”
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Lazer-Snake shrugged. “I’d take my titties out for a chicken sandwich.”
###
​
Stretch came to class the next morning with a chicken sandwich shoved into the pocket of his rain jacket. No one had come. Stretch stood there, next to the greenhouse, in the rain, freezing. Ugly brown sloshed in the downpour. With each squishy step Stretch took within that ring of logs and stumps, he risked face-planting into mud.
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A minute passed, then squelching steps grew closer. Stretch turned quickly, almost too quickly, almost spiralling to his knees. He thought he would see Morna, like a bright flash of light in the storm. Instead, a slouching, grey figure approached him with a hood pulled over.
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“Stretch, that’s what they call you, right?” Dennis pretended like he hadn’t heard the nickname countless times over the last two weeks. But it did occur to Stretch in that moment that this was the first time Dennis had ever used it.
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“Yeah.”
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“Is Morna around?”
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Stretch looked around one more time, in case the situation changed. It hadn’t. “Nope.”
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“So how’d your little poem work?”
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“I’m not really good at rhyming,” Stretch said. There was something about Dennis outside of his usual environs that unsettled Stretch. In the rain, Stretch couldn’t tell if he was more oily than usual, or just wet.
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“Figures. You know, it’s for the best,” Dennis said and put an arm on Stretch’s shoulder. It was heavier than Stretch expected. “Girls just don’t go for guys like us. It’s better you learned it early.”
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“Guys like us?”
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“Yeah.” Dennis shrugged. “You know.”
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“No, I don’t.”
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“I mean, what did you think was going to happen? Girls want fucking douchebags with six-packs and stupid gay haircuts. If you don’t look like Orlando Bloom, they don’t see you.”
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Stretch tried to think of a single moment in Lord of the Rings when a woman fell in love with Legolas, but came up blank. Aragorn was the one with the love-interests. And the others said he was like Aragorn. So what was Dennis getting at? Stretch looked at Dennis from the side of his eye. “I think Orlando Bloom is pretty cool. Gimli’s cooler, but—”
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“He’s a fag!” Dennis snapped. He started pecking his fingers on Stretch’s shoulder, like taps on a flute. “You’re lucky, Stretch. If I had written Morna a poem, she would have called the cops on me.”
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Stretch wished there had been a cop there then. He shrugged Dennis’ arm off his shoulder. “Well, I’m gonna go. You know. Cause it’s raining.”
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“Yeah, you probably should,” Dennis grinned.
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Just then, a light flipped on in the greenhouse. The windows were hazed and impossible to see through, but the blurred blue shape of a counselor moved inside until the front door finally opened.
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“In here,” Morna’s voice called out. “Inside.”
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Stretch shot over to the greenhouse door, slipping a little in transit, but he arrived none-the-muddier. Morna waited there, his khakied goddess. As she closed the door behind them, Stretch looked back. Dennis slumped in the rain, kicking puddles.
​
Morna and Stretch stood alone inside the greenhouse. Cacti and ferns and hibisci encircled them, watched. On the fogged glass ceiling, rain pattered and drummed. The air within was sweet, fresh. As Morna led him to a seating area, Stretch caught whiffs of the bacon-like scent of her hair.
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“I think you’re the only one who braved the rain,” Morna said, smiling. By some benches, she had a plastic bin full of different colored ropes, and a small beat-up guide book. “It’s the last day, so we were supposed to review the knots y’all learnt. Who was standing out there with you?”
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“Oh, that was Dennis LeCroche.”
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“The archery guy?”
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Stretch nodded. A small animal punched his ribcage from within. Another put a paw up into his neck. “Can we talk?”
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“Of course.”
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Stretch sat down on the cold metal bench next to a red-flowered hibiscus and Morna sat down next to him, her brows knit. He failed to keep his eyes from wandering over to her thighs, where the khaki shorts rode up just high enough to see her tan-line.
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Suddenly, a clatter burst in through the front door of the greenhouse. Like a half-drowned sasquatch, Dennis tore towards them through a collection of palm trees.
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“There’s a pathway,” Morna pointed. “Just go around.”
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Dennis didn’t listen to her, though. He tripped over a small cacti and stumbled into the seating area. He bent over, gasping for the very air his cephalopod scent was tainting. Straightening himself, Dennis looked around with bulging eyes. They held on Stretch for a moment, sitting on the bench next to Morna. It made him squirm. Taking his victory, Dennis moved his gaze to Morna. “Hey, Morna. . . um. . . I don’t know if you remember me—”
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She nodded, smiled. “Yeah, Dennis LeCroche. We met at the orientation party.”
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“Yeah,” Dennis ground his boots into the gravel path. His eyes settled on Stretch. “I just wanted to say. Fuck you.”
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“Whoa!” Morna rose. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
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“Oh, please, he’s no angel.” Dennis tried to flip his hair back, but it just swung back around and flagellated his eyeball. Wiping the tendril away, Dennis continued. “This kid and his friends have made my life miserable for the last two weeks.”
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“Are you crazy?” Morna stood.
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“Oh, yeah, I get it. What? Cause I’m not some—”
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“Get the hell out,” Morna came up shorter than him, but she looked stronger. Her arms bulged from blue sleeves. She was about to clock him. “This is my class, my kid! Get. Out.”
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Dennis stepped back, shrank. His eyes, still bulging, darted from Morna to Stretch and back. He looked like he was suffocating, like he just realized how far out of his fish tank he’d flopped. But he straightened his back and smirked.
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“Bitch,” he said and then spat. Stretch couldn’t tell if Dennis meant him or to Morna. He grumbled and stomped out of the greenhouse, this time following the path. When he slammed the door behind him, Morna’s jaw dropped. She sat back down on the bench next to Stretch.
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“Are you going to call the cops on him?” Stretch asked.
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“If only I could— What the hell was that about?”
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“Me and my friends call him LeCrotch. He doesn’t like it.”
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Morna let a small grin slip then hid it. “That’s real immature, Stretch.”
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“Doesn’t mean it isn’t funny.”
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She laughed at that and shoved Stretch with her shoulder.
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Stretch checked his throat, felt to see if there were any cracks in lying in wait in his voice box. Not feeling any, he said, “So, I guess this is a bad time then, but. . . uh. . . I got you a chicken sandwich.” Stretch pulled the tin-foil wrapped thing out from his jacket pocket. “It’s prolly still dry. I don’t know if rain can get through. . .”
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“I didn’t know they served those at breakfast.”
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“They don’t.”
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“Oh. Well, thanks.” Morna took the sandwich and placed it next to her. “What makes this a bad time for chicken sandwiches?”
​
Stretch opened his mouth, then shut it again. He plucked the leaf of a bush and started to shred it as a wave of thoughts he hadn’t thought before crashed through his head. What if he got it wrong? What if Morna laughed at him? What if she screamed and ran away? What if she slapped him? What if he was like Dennis. What if—?
​
“Come on, bud,” Morna put her hand on his shoulder. “You can talk to me.”
​
Talking, or not talking, was like standing beside a cliff. If he just took the step, he would never stop falling. He looked into her deep brown eyes, and he took the step. He told her about how his hands were so big and clumsy and he liked that hers weren’t, they were like crazy awesome magic mice hands, and he had these clunky normal human hands and the way she smells sometimes made his throat choke up and he was pretty sure his voice got higher around her and his voice was actually a little lower, he didn’t know if she could tell, and he didn’t want her to think he had a high voice and her skin looked really soft and that sometimes he thought touching it would ruin the experience of leather couches forever, because how can you go back to leather couches after that. But when he finished, he was able to put into words that feeling he had when she sat by him, and guided his hands to the perfect knot. “You make me feel like it’s okay that I’m kinda dumb. Cause at least you’re around to help me.”
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“You’re not dumb, Stretch,” Morna said. “You just need more attention than some people.”
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Stretch slumped. The greenhouse was feeling smaller and smaller by the moment.
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“I’m glad you feel like you can count on me. But, bud, you’re thirteen years old.”
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“Yeah,” Stretch scratched his head. “But will you be at Sapling Ridge next year?”
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“Maybe.”
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“I’ll be fourteen next year.”
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Morna rolled her eyes, but not unkindly. She grinned crookedly. Then, standing she pointed to the bin of ropes. “We’ve got some ropes to tie. But maybe next year, if you practice, you can teach me a thing or two. Fair?”
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Stretch nodded. It wasn’t a date, but maybe that’s not what he wanted after all. He went to work, producing knots and lashes as she called them out, as if by magic.
###
​
Lazer-Snake didn’t even wait for Stretch to bring it up when he met them at the mess-hall for lunch. “How’d it go? Did you give her the chicken sandwich?”
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“Yeah,” Stretch nodded.
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“Did you ask her to be your girlfriend?” Critter asked.
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“No, not really.”
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Robin Hood leaned in. “Did you confess your undying love?”
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Lazer-Snake brushed Robin Hood aside and got in Stretch’s face. “Did you see them titties?”
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Stretch shook his head and took a bite of the sloppy joe soaking on his plate, chewing, while the others frenzied. “Nothing happened,” he said after swallowing. “We tied knots.”
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“I told you to go balls to the wall!” Lazer-Snake pulled his hair. “Why didn’t you listen to me?”
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“That’s not how it works,” Stretch said and took another bite.
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“Then how does it?”
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“Iunno. But I can figure that shit out later.”