Fruit Lion

When I was a child, I was a little bit shy. So in 6th grade, I met my best friend Shelly. We hit it off right away and I would stay at her house as often as I could, even if my mom did not know I was going to. I would sneak on her bus and Id go to her house. While at her house, we would prank call people. Of course, we would prank call our mutual crush… Chad. He had blondish brown hair, freckles, and blue eyes. We thought he was a “total babe” and we also thought he was completely clueless that we liked him. I do not know why we thought we could hide it that well when we giggled about him all the time or thought we were so slick using our makeup mirrors to admire him while never actually applying makeup. Those were the days with phones with long cords that you end up getting tangled into if the call was a particularly good one. They did not have caller id unless you were the real wealthy at that time, and everyone had your phone number if they had a phone book.

So one day, Shelly and I mustered up our courage. She would tell you that it was my hair-brained Idea. I want to think it wasn’t but let’s face it, It probably was. I was sure I was going to marry Chad one day. He was thee “popular boy”. Thee football player. Well, middle school football player, not exactly pro. Not that any of that mattered to us! So giggling, we called him. Ring, ring, “Hello”. It was his mom, duh of course. We hadn’t thought of that. Panicking, we hung up. We almost backed out right then and there.. But I mustered the courage and we dialed again. “ Is Chad there? “ I say in my little trembling voice. I was scared, but I figured he did not know who I was, so I can say what I wanted, right? “ Just a minute dear, I will go get him,” His mom chimes into the phone. My Palms start to sweat, my breathing comes out faster. I almost hang up when I hear “ Hello”. Oh my goodness, it was him! I freak. I shove the phone into Shelly’s face, who shoved it back to me, and for a few minutes, we are wrestling over who is not gonna have the phone. We could hear Chad continually saying “ Hello, Is anyone there?” “Helloooooo”. Oh, dear. So I took a deep breath and say as fast as I can on the phone something about our affection for him, or at least I was trying to say something about our affection for him when what I really said was “ you are so fruit and we lion you so much” And I hung up. Shelly looks at me, and I at her. What did we just do? Oh, know. Comprehending what I actually said, we sat there staring at each other. Then busted out laughing. Did I actually just say he was fruit? That we “lion” him! Forehead slap. Oh well, he won’t know who we are so it will be okay we told each other. The whole night we giggled over what had happened and the fact that we actually talked to the cutest boy in the school. We just knew he would not know who we were and all was ok…

The next day, at first the class was normal. We pretended to touch up the makeup we were not old enough to wear yet so that we could watch our beloved Chad and whisper and giggle about him. Typical day. Except that this time whenever we held up our mirrors, Chad was looking straight at us with a smile. Maybe he was just happy today, surely he cannot see through our clever rouse.

The bell rings, it is recess time! Yippie, now we can go outside and play, only you know we are “women” so we have to be mature about it. “Race you to the monkey bars!” Shelly yells. Oh but those days we were innocent and carefree and just beginning to grow into our womanly bodies. So, ya know, we thought we were grown. Until actual grown people showed us that we were not. But that day, we especially wanted to look grown, at least I did. “ Um, ok, but I am not running, I am a lady,” I said, in my plaid dirty pants and my not-so-matching boy shirt. So we decide on a lady walk to the monkey bars instead. But if we had run, we might have missed out on what happened next and we might have really spent our entire lives thinking all was cool and no one knew it was us on the phone. We lady- walked past our crush, when out of the corner of my eye, I see he has fruit in his hand. A banana to be exact. So what? People eat fruit, he is hungry. But then he roars like a lion. He grins at us and makes it like he is offering his banana to us. Only he holds it in a very gross place. Well to us at that time! Forget lady-walking, we both take off running. “Shelly, I think he knows it was us,” I say through my breaths. “ what do we do?” It was too late to act like we didn’t understand the gesture. We knew he knows we know. Busted. We hid behind the monkey bars until the bell rang. Hiding might not be the appropriate word, since he could definitely see us, and did not see to take his eyes off of us huddling in our ‘hiding place” as he and his friends joked and played around. We imagined he was telling them all about the silly conversation we had. Oh my goodness. We would be laughed at by everyone, we thought.

But the rest of the day, no one else approached us. We were too embarrassed to check our makeup in the mirrors that day and we were unnaturally quiet, waiting for the teases to start. Nothing. He never told a soul about us. It became a bit of an inside joke between the three of us, even though we crushed on him too much to ever actually carry on a conversation. He would catch us looking or something and make a lion gesture, or whatever for weeks.

Then when I finally thought it was over, he leaned really hard in his desk toward me and it tipped over. He laying on the floor looking up at me, he says without missing a beat “ I am fruiting for you!”