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Threadbare
Towel
Cindy Matthews /
fter we pull into Wooden Planks Nature Resort, my parents cheer me on as I strip off
my clothes on the back seat of the car. It’s our third time camping here. Perspiration
rivers my spine on this steamy June morning, a day promising to be blisteringly hot and
humid. I gnaw my bottom lip, trying to contain my excitement. When we park, Elise is already
waiting on the stoop outside our rented cabin. I study her lean, freckled body, her naked bottom
nestled against a threadbare towel.
“Finally, Iris,” Elise says, thumbing glasses up the bridge of her wide nose.
Elise is a full year older than I am but shorter by half a foot. Her eyes are mocha brown
and the thick lenses make them bug out. There’s a space between her top teeth that causes her
to whistle when she speaks.
Mother says, “we’ll unpack. Go have fun with your friend.”
I know why they both let me go. Elise is my one and only. Most kids push away from
the ones who are different: those who natter about trains, the ones with gimp-legs, and those
who are pudgy. I fall into the last category.
Father sighs. “Mind the sulphur spring. We’ve had a lot of rain.”
A sun bonnet covers Elise’s short hair. Cherry and yellow polka dots explode like
confetti from the hat’s fabric. Her forehead shines big and bossy from beneath the bonnet’s brim.
Like a shy, red fox that’s been spotted, she darts ahead. By the time I slip a pebble from my shoe,
I lag in her dust. Elise soars, pushing for the woods, her bare bum offering a curly smile. The
soles of my runners soon become tacky.
Up ahead, she squats near a fallen log, a blanket of lime-green moss coating it. >>