The choir class incident wasn’t the first time we, as boys,
dealt with the womanly phenomena known as “the period”. Of course, for boys, it
was an ever-evolving encyclopedia of conjecture and speculation on what could
possibly be going on down in the mystic jungles of the female netherworld.
A year earlier, the first girl to get her period was Laurie
McKenna. Laurie was the tallest and most well-built of all the girls in our
fifth grade class. She stood about a half-foot taller than all the boys. In
fact, she was so tall that one day when my babysitter, was taking me to school,
she asked whether Laurie was a student or a teacher.
“She’s a student.”
“Did she get held back?”
“Nope.”
“Oh.”
And that was the extent of the conversation. So, it was
really no surprise when Laurie was the first girl in our class to get her
period. The real surprise was that she announced it to her friends at a slumber
party. By the time recess came around late on Monday morning, everyone had
heard the gossip. Everyone, of course, except me.
As usual, I hung around at the kickball diamond with Bryan
Barrett and Andy Harmon during lunch. It was a large dirt patch that had been
worn as big as an actual baseball field. The dimensions were easily the same as
those of a Major League infield, if not a little bigger.
We sat on the grassy mound just behind home plate, waiting
for our turn at-bat.
“Did you hear about Laurie?”
“You mean Laurie McKenna?”
Bryan nodded.
“Yeah,” said Andy, “I heard about it in Reading class.”
“About what?” I said.
“Everyone’s been making such a big deal.”
“Talking about what? What’s a big deal.”
“Yeah,” said Andy with a shrug, “every girl’s gonna get the
curse sooner or later.”
The curse – what a peculiar turn of phrase that was. Still,
I wasn’t quite sure how or when Laurie had been cursed and who cursed her.
“She’s cursed?”
Bryan nodded, “you don’t know what it is, do you?”
“Yeah, sure, I know.”
“What is it then?”
“I know what it is. Why don’t you tell me what it is if you
know everything.”
“I don’t have to tell, I already know.”
“She said she has to
keep track of them now,” said Andy.
“You think she has a book where she keeps track? You know,
one dot a month…”
“Oh, Lauren got her period.”
“Now you’ve got it,” said Bryan.
“I knew it all along.”
“Yeah, right.”
“”No, really, I mean…everybody knows Lauren got her curse.”
Andy rolled his eyes, “Well, whatever you say, Jake.”
That incident rolled quickly into a similar yet different incident
just about a year later.
“Lauren missed her period…” Kristy Elmore whispered across
the aisle of seats in Miss Ladner’s English class. She was talking to Mandy
Callahan, who sat right in front of her, but Bryan Barrett and I heard every
word. During our next period, we had lunch. We, of course, made sure to tell
our friends so they could tell all their friends so everyone in school would
know by the time everyone returned to their normal classes.
“So,” said Andy Harmon with a chuckle, “Who would’ve figured
Lauren McKenna would miss her period at ten years old? Who do you think got her
pregnant?”
Bryan and I both shrugged.
“I bet it was Marcus Webber. He’s always trying to put his
joystick in any girl that passes by.”
“Yeah,” I said, “but he doesn’t hang around with the sixth
grade girls. He’s always out with the 8th and 9th graders
at the Junior High.”
“I thought he was dating some girl from High School,”’ said
Bryan.
“Eh, who knows.”
“How do you think she knows she missed her period?” asked
Andy.
“She just counts from the day she had her last period,”
replied Bryan, “They get ‘em like once a month. I heard it was like the cycles
of moon.”
“So, they get them whenever there’s a full moon?”
“Nah, just once a month. You can also tell because it’s when
they wear pants.”
“What?”
“Yeah, it’s how they do it.”
“How do you suppose they keep track? Do you think they have
a little notepad where they write down the dates and put little dots beside
it?”
Bryan and I started laughing.
“What?”
“You know, to keep track of things.”
“You gotta be kidding.”
Andy shrugged, “it could happen.”
“That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard,” said
Bryan.
“It’d be convenient,” said Andy, “You put it in your purse
and if you can’t remember when you had your last period, you just look in your
period book and ‘Voila!’ all your questions are answered.”
Bryan and I put our hands on our hips and stood there,
thinking for a good long moment. Andy had a point. It was pretty practical, and
what boy wouldn’t grab blindly at the fact that being practical would be the
way to go with your menstrual cycle.
Then again – we were talking about girls – and the word
‘practical’ was probably nowhere to be found in a girl’s dictionary.
Within the week, all these matters were resolved when Lauren
got her first drops of salvation – her period had come and gone and her worries
would have to wait another day. In the meantime, the boy who put the scare into
her never did come to light. Then again, Lauren was a girl. Maybe there was no
boy involved. Maybe, just maybe, she was worried about something somehow
related to Immaculate Conception.
Stranger things have happened.
.
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