Pinky Swear: A YA Short Story

Ft. Knox, Kentucky

September 1964

         The blaring sounds of reveille drilled through her bedroom window as Donna Garcia closed the pink cover of her new diary just moments after writing “September 8, 1964 – first day of school.”

       She always got a new diary for each new school she attended.  As she was the oldest child of an enlisted man in the U.S. Army, that pretty much meant every school year.  She counted herself lucky if she didn’t have to buy a new diary partway through a school year – yanked out of Ft. Sill or Ft. Riley before the teachers had even gotten around to remembering her name.

       Donna shook her head to clear her thoughts.  At age 15 being an Army brat was all she had ever known – along with the visits back home to San Juan. She smiled to herself – sophomore year in high school.  Only three more years to get through.  At least she wouldn’t be the only new kid – many if not most of her classmates would be new too.

       Pulling open the door of her bedroom, she glanced around at the pictures taped to her walls:

      Dick Clark on American Bandstand, the four cute Beatles, and President Kennedy waving from an open-air car in Texas.  In November it would be a year since he had been shot and killed.   

      As she left her room her mother called from the kitchen.  “Si, Mama,” she yelled back.

     Entering the kitchen, she kissed her mother at the stove and her father sitting at the table in his fatigues.  She lightly slapped her younger brother on the arm, wishing him good luck on his first day in 8th grade as she grabbed her lunch bag and dashed out of the kitchen before being scolded about skipping breakfast.

      The truth is she would have liked breakfast.  But as always the radio in the kitchen had been broadcasting the news of the most recent casualties in Vietnam, and Donna adamantly refused to listen to this.

***

      Jennifer Turner sat at her bedroom desk staring at the diary lying closed in front of her.  She had gotten it the year before, and its pink-and-white check cover still appeared brand new.  With a father like hers, what secrets could one expect to fill diary pages with?   

     It wasn’t that he would read her diary.  He just wouldn’t let her do anything that could even remotely mean having something interesting to write about.             

            Of course she did have a secret.  One that she hoped her father would never discover.

         She reached inside her blouse and pulled out a necklace.  A boy’s ring with the back wrapped in pink angora hung from the chain.  Jennifer picked up a toothbrush from her desk and brushed the angora so that it fluffed up from the ring.  Then she dropped the chain back inside her blouse.

        At the front door Jennifer’s father, Major Turner, stood in his Class A uniform.  Ages ago Jennifer had stopped noticing the military award ribbons on his jacket.  She only noticed them today because her thoughts were on her own “award,” the one hidden inside her blouse.

       “Remember,” her father said, “this may be the first day of the new school year.  But it is just as important a day as every other day at school.  I expect you to always do your best.”

      Jennifer took the lunch bag he handed her and nodded.

      “And come right home after school.”