KALICO: 1 Hypnotized, Naked in Hope Springs, Texas

Madison: Precocious

Now Serving: Fried Dill Pickles – Sign At The Glory Hole Restaurant

Madison: Tuesday

My sister, Kalico, had already left the house before the rest of us got up this morning. She's decided she wants to be in sports at school, so she walks or runs the two miles to volleyball practice for the extra exercise involved.

Hoofing it also gets her to school by 7 a.m. which I think is an insane time of day to be up during summer vacation. I'm sure she's crazy for that, but I admire her, too. High school looks like it will be a lot of fun.

I didn't keep track of exactly what time our day started, but Mom and Granny and I had a nice breakfast and then Mom dropped me off at Hope Springs Youth Center on her way to her new job at the insurance office.

I thought about staying at home to visit with Granny, but yesterday I started chess lessons with the kids at the youth center and I had promised them more today. Also, Mom said I need to be available reasonably close to the high school in case the teachers there want to talk with me about my application for the advanced writing class.

The chess lessons were going just fine when Kalico showed up with her new friend Amy Thompson to take me to lunch at the Glory Hole. It's mostly high school and junior high school kids who hang out there, so I felt honored to be among them for the second day in a row. That's when Kalico told me Mrs. Decker wants to see me about my application.

Some guys were playing chess at one of the tables at the Glory Hole but they didn't have time to talk to us about it. The guys said they were preparing for some big varsity match, but I think the real reason was that we are girls and therefore weren't qualified to approach their Staunton-style chess pieces. The boys promised to give us some lessons next week. That should be fun.

Kalico kicked me under the table to signal that I shouldn't tell these guys that we play chess already. My sister has been real strange lately about things like that. One or two schools back, I lose track of just when it happened, but Kalico noticed that boys don't like to play chess with girls, or even hang out with girls, who can beat them at the game.

"So what?" I say. But she has decided she wants a boyfriend, and I suspect she's going to pretend to be dumb about this. Not that I see so much about these guys to want, but what do I know? Kalico didn't quit chess, but she doesn't make a big deal about it when kids her own age are around. She's still willing to show a few things to the younger kids, I hope.

We've gone to a lot of different schools, changing every few months. I never bothered to count how many or tried to remember where they were. Our last place was in Center Lake, Texas. That town has a nice library that let us teach chess on weekends and some days after school.

The Glory Hole is an interesting place and should make a good topic for a journal report, in a day or two; but today my personal interest is in that schoolhouse three blocks away, and Mrs. Decker did say to write about what interests me.

Despite this being my third day living just outside Hope Springs, I had not yet set foot on the school campus. I'd seen it from the outside, though, because Johnson Road, the path to our house, runs along one side of the campus. I say they should have named it "Johnson Trail" because it's unpaved when you get past the back edge of the athletic fields.

We live 2.1 miles down that unpaved road. That distance is important because when school starts, we will be eligible to ride the school bus. At 1.9 miles we might have had to walk.

Glory Road makes a T-shaped intersection with Eternal Avenue which runs along the front edge of the campus. Obviously the positioning of the street with the front of the school was set up years ago to make the building appear even more grand.