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sizes, filling my chest with an unnatural bliss that was so foreign to the sulky demeanor I’d adopted lately. I couldn’t care less about dishes and chores or peeing in an outhouse. Dad was right, for once. Every cloud did have a silver lining, and that lining was about six foot two with arms the size of culverts.
    Hurrying from the kitchen, I was aware that the dishes remained untouched; the cream separator alone with at least fifty pieces to wash. I would probably be in trouble, but I couldn’t find a reason to care.
    I raced out the door, springing over the three steps from the porch and landing gracefully in the spongy grass. Nothing could bring me down off this natural high. As much as I hated to describe what I was feeling in such a cliché fashion, words couldn’t have been more true: I had fallen in love at first sight.
     
    * * * *
     
                  “You don’t know how lucky you are to date a senior,” Louise said. “You’re even luckier he took you back. Why did you break up with him anyway? Dave’s the cutest boy in the whole school. Maybe the whole world. I’ll bet he’s a great kisser.” She sighed. “I can’t wait to get my first kiss. Jimmy Walls tried to kiss me behind the bleachers at school, but I pushed him down. He’s no Dave.”              
    I knelt alongside Louise, dodging her incessant questions about Dave. The two of us had been sentenced to weeding the potato fields as a result of the unfinished dishes. The sun beat down relentlessly and my back ached from hunching over the rows of plants. It wasn’t even noon yet, and dark circles of sweat had soaked through my cotton T.
                  Watching Louise carefully, I made sure to pull out only the weeds instead of the actual plant, although the weeds and plants looked the same.
    “How long do we have to do this?” I asked, discouraged by the sheer size of the field. Rows and rows of plants stretched for what seemed like miles in every direction. “Isn’t there some sort of child labor law in place?” I said, the joke going over Louise’s head. She had no sense of sarcasm.
                  “They’ll call us when lunch is ready. It’s your fault we’re out here anyway. Usually, Matthew, Pat and Dean have to do this part. Hey! You’re missing the bugs!” Louise pointed at a few tiny gray roly-poly bugs on the leaves of the plant in front of me. She picked them off and squeezed them between her fingers, their shells making a definite sickly crunch.
                  “My bad,” I said, turning my head in disgust. I have to weed and pick the bugs off? Gross. Why was everything so barbaric?
                  The sun was directly overhead when a sharp clanging sound came from the direction of the farmhouse. Louise sprang up and sprinted down the path, her bare feet kicking up dirt as she ran.
                  I sighed with relief. My fingernails were caked with the rich black soil and my shirt was completely soaked with sweat. I needed a shower and a massage. Holding the small of my back, I hobbled like an old woman across the fields toward the house. The closer I got, my thoughts turned from my aches and pains to my date that night with Dave. A Senior!
    There were so many things to worry about; mostly, how I was going to pull off my hardest performance yet. Could I pretend to be Sarah without him getting suspicious? He mentioned a present, too, and I shivered with anticipation. A date with him was the perfect gift. Knowing my father wouldn’t approve of the date was like icing on the cake. I hadn’t been allowed to date back home, my father forever treating me like a baby. And now, I was doing the forbidden, which made the date all the more thrilling. Knowing he was that much older than me, I was positive Dave would want to do more than just kiss me on the cheek, and my face grew hot just thinking about it. My friends would be sick with