Copyright 1999, 2002, 2003 by Wanda Cunningham. There is no actual sex or transformation in this chapter, but I guess it should be rated R for context. So, nobody under 18 should read this, or whatever is the appropriate age in their community. This story deals with transgenderism in children and may be uncomfortable for some readers.

 

Kelly Girl

by Wanda Cunningham

Chapter 17

"Innocent Mistake"

 

Gregory Lamb used his cell phone with the free weekend minutes to make the call from Venice. He still hadn't been able to get through to the number that had been e-mailed with the photos of the beautiful little girl. The line kept going to voice mail, so he left his number for a call back. He knew from the prefix and exchange that it must be an Orange County cellphone. He hoped he was calling the kid's parents and not some agent.

He took another look at the pictures. What a darling little girl, and the text with the photos said she was actually twelve. Bright blonde hair, big green eyes, a pixie chin and a cupid bow mouth. And something, something that obviously photographed well, a quality of aliveness, of personality. Part of that was the skill of some professional makeup artist, he felt sure, but the inner person had to be real, had to really have that indefinable expressiveness. Photogenic, some would say, or charismatic, or just plain beautiful.

In ten years, heck, in five, she's going to be.... He let that thought trail off. He'd already sent an email back and now a phone message. He decided to let things be; he didn't want to look too eager to meet her. The last thing he wanted was to come off sounding like a child molester.

* * *

Andie waited till she had her car door open before answering the phone. It was hard to manage the door locks with her long nails while juggling a phone. She knew this from experience. She didn't recognized the number the call had come from but it was a Newport Beach exchange. "Hello?" she said.

"Hello," said Amanda from the phone booth near Barbie's apartment. "You don't know me but I'm Barbie's mother, Amanda. We met once or twice I think." Amanda was seriously underestimating the impact of her last performance on Andie's memory.

"Hmm," said Andie. "Let me think? Short woman, bad temper, drinks a lot? Got us all thrown out of Tony Roma's?" Andie sat down and swung her long legs inside the little car. She debated putting the hands-free headset on but decided not to bother.

Amanda sighed and made a face. Rachel, standing beside the phone booth looked at her curiously. "I probably deserved that, I'm afraid that's me. I'm not drinking right now, though." Rachel smiled and winked at her. Amanda made the thumbs-up sign and continued. "Look, I need to get hold of Barbie and she doesn't seem to be home. Would you know where she's working now?"

"I might," Andie admitted. She frowned, sitting in the parking lot behind her hair salon in her baby blue Miata; she wanted to think a moment. Amanda could be bad news, but Andie knew that Barbie at least tried to maintain a relationship with her mother.

"I've got something terribly important to tell her," said Amanda. She absentmindedly tried twisting the armored phone cord in the booth but only succeeded in leaving diagonal scars in her nail polish.

"Maybe you'd better tell me?" Andie suggested. The phone beeped the call waiting signal softly into her ear. I'm getting another call, she thought. Well, I'll just have to get back to them.

* * *

"I'm getting her voice mail again," Barbie complained. "Hello, Andie, it's me. Harry and I are catching the next flight to John Wayne. Okay? We should be back in O.C. by..." she glanced at Harold Mann who held up fingers. "Eight p.m.? Maybe sooner. Call Harry on his cell and tell us where you'll be. Thanks."

Totally unaware of how many male eyes were on her, she handed the cellphone back to Harry and frowned. Half a dozen men in the airport waiting area sighed. She pouted a little and they all caught their breaths. She put a finger in her mouth and they shivered.

Harry, perfectly aware of her audience, grinned at Barbie, "Everything is fine, sugar. Andie is always hard to get hold of."

"I know, I know. It's just that I'm worried about Kelly. You know, this is almost the longest we've been apart in years?" She shook her head for emphasis and turned her wrists this way and that expressively. A man at one of the fast food windows stuck a fork in his soda and stirred it till it foamed.

"She's okay," said Harry.

"He," Barbie reminded Dr. Mann. "I'm sorry I let you go on thinking Kelly was my sister so long; it just seemed hard to explain." She squirmed, put a finger on her lower lip again and giggled nervously. That task had happily gone better than she had expected. One of the security officers put his pen inside his shirt leaving a mark that would baffle him later.

Harry had to turn so he could no longer see the antics of the entranced watchers. Barbie turned too so that they now stood side by side instead of face to face. They both looked out the long windows across the runways toward the distant mountains. He slipped an arm around her waist, appreciating the envious looks that gesture must have gathered. Barbie had always had this effect, but now, expensively dressed, made-up and coiffed, plus his recent surgical enhancements, she could obviously stop air traffic. Well, not literally, he hoped.

"Kelly's such a good kid," Barbie mused. She shifted her weight on the high heels and hip-bumped him. Harry could imagine what that might have looked like and he smiled. "I mean, Andie could probably get him to do things he didn't really want to do, just because he would want to--to please her." She looked up at him; so tiny and vulnerable and beautiful it made his teeth ache. A man could understand obsession after he had fallen in love with a woman like Barbie.

He pulled his own mind back to the subject of Kelly who was definitely Barbie's child and, with Andie's help, almost as much of a heartbreaker as Barbie. Harry reflected that the evidence of his own eyes and the pictures Andie had emailed earlier in the day did make it hard to believe in Kelly's supposed gender. Or would have if he hadn't already begun to trust Barbie. On some things, probably more than he trusted his own wacky sister.

"Kelly's okay," said Harry, avoiding the pronoun. "They've probably gone to some mall to shop."

Barbie nodded. "Earlier, Andie said Triangle Square."

* * *

An odd name for a mall, thought Phil Constable. Cutesy. It certainly hadn't been there the last time he'd been in Orange County, almost thirteen years ago. He swung along the street easily, this end of Harbor Boulevard seemed to have gone upscale a bit from the way he remembered it.

He hoped the mall wouldn't be too tony to have a place someone could get a cheap slice of pizza. There weren't that many eating places this direction on this side of Harbor. But south was the way he wanted to go. He needed to see Barbie again. Maybe for the last time.

The items he had stolen from the veterinary surgery where he had worked added only a little to the weight of the bag of clothing. Phil decided that he'd go to the Bookstar first, get another copy of "The Horse Whisperer" to replace the one he had left on the bus and then go get his pizza. He smiled.

* * *

The kiss startled Kelly. It didn't feel at all like when his mother kissed him. Jimmy's lips felt soft and cool against his but something electric seemed to pass between them. He pulled his head back quickly, his heart pounding. But he didn't feel afraid, exactly.

Jimmy smiled. "You so pretty, Kelly. I just had to try to kiss you."

"Uh," The kiss had been so far outside Kelly's experience or expectations that he couldn't think of any reply at all. A worry surfaced in the confusion. If Jimmy ever found out he had kissed a boy who was only dressed as a girl, he'd probably want to kill me, Kelly thought. "-hic-."

Tommy set a drink down in front of Kelly, "Diet Coke, right? Why you drink that stuff, it tastes awful and you don't need to lose weight?"

Jimmy slid away from Kelly, fractionally, and sat up straight. Kelly felt relieved, maybe no one else had seen what happened. "I just don't like that much -hic- sugar?" he explained. He pulled the paper end off that had been left on the straw and took a long sip, hoping to quell the hiccups. The sodas were a welcome distraction from thinking about the kiss.

"She's sweet enough, already," Jimmy observed and the boys laughed when Kelly blushed.

"Has he been tasting you, chiquita?" Tommy asked. He maneuvered a chair next to Kelly on the other side from Jimmy. "You blushing again, has he?" He glared at his cousin.

"Pizza is here, let's taste that," Jimmy said mildly but with perhaps a trace of smug satisfaction.

Doug placed the pizza slices in the middle of the table and sat across from Kelly. His expression gave very little away about what he might have been thinking but his eyes seemed to twinkle with some private amusement.

Kelly sipped soda again, trying to quell the hiccups and contemplated just jumping up and making a run for it. If I could see well enough to run and not run into someone or fall off the roof, I'd do it, he thought.

All the boys were several inches taller than Kelly and looked more nearly their age. Kelly was aware that he looked much younger and very female but it had begun to feel less threatening to be with them until Tommy had suddenly kissed kim. He knows my name, he knows I'm twelve, how can he not know I'm a boy? Kelly puzzled.

"Cheese for her ladyship," Doug said, pushing one of the paper plates in front of Kelly. "Sausage for the hot dogs," he pushed two more in front of Tommy and Jimmy, "and Supreme, for the complete man."

Tommy and Jimmy glared at him and Kelly giggled. Doug winked and smiled as if they alone shared some secret.

* * *

Andie stared at her cellphone, four messages left while I was on the phone for less than a minute? she wondered. I'll look at them later; Kelly and I need to go pick up her glasses.

Andie didn't worry much about the pronoun but after hours of watching Kelly fall into a girl's role, she had no doubt about the proper way to refer to her soon-to-be niece.

She had told Amanda to meet at Triangle Square to discuss this Phil person but she had already changed her mind. One, it was going to be close, getting to Fashion Island to pick up Kelly's glasses and still leave enough time for proper fitting of three pairs before six o'clock. Two, Amanda hadn't told Andie enough to convince her that exposing Kelly to her grandmother again would be worth it. She seemed deliberately vague about just what Phil's relationship to Barbie had been, and Andie didn't remember Barbie ever mentioning the man's name.

And three, Amanda would go ballistic when she saw how Kelly was dressed. That would almost be worth it to see if it wasn't for how much it would likely hurt Kelly. Amanda knew an astonishing variety of curse words and obscenities, Andie remembered from their slight previous acquaintance.

"What was I thinking?" she asked herself out loud. The woman had sounded genuinely worried and that had touched Andie. Now that she was off the phone, she considered whether the emotion Amanda communicated might have been something else. Amanda said she hadn't been drinking but you can't trust a drunk. Andie nodded to herself, confirming her decision.

Then she backed the car out of the lot, went around the block onto Newport, turned up Harbor and entered the Triangle Square parking garage from the side street that completed the third side. Down the ramp behind the Virgin she went; looking for a parking spot in the Triangle could get difficult but there were three underground levels of parking.

I won't mention Amanda to Kelly; if she catches up to us, we'll deal with it then, Andie decided.

* * *

About the time Andie found a parking spot, Phil crossed the street north of the mall. He paused in front of the cutely named North Face ski shop, wondering where the entrance to the bookstore and food court might be.

Still enjoying the sunshine and sea breeze, he walked along Harbor Boulevard carrying his travel bag and thinking of pizza and books. There had to be an entrance to the mall somewhere.

* * *

Cheryl had proved harder to pry away from the racks of music and videos in the Virgin than Richard had supposed. Pete moaning, "I'm hungry," did little to move her along.

"They're having a sale," she explained. "Buy three CD's, books, or videos for only thirty dollars."

And playing a variation on that theme, Sarah had decamped into the classical music room after exclaiming, "A sale?"

Richard followed Sarah. I think she's jealous of Kelly, he said to himself. He had noticed the sour looks she wore when the subject of Kelly came up. The idea amused him and he smiled while watching the little brunette busy herself with Bach.

"You like classical music?" she asked him.

"Some of it," he admitted. "You know, John Lennon, Roger Daltrey, Elvis."

She made a face at him and he laughed.

The window of the classical music room looked out on the walkways and driveways of the first floor of the mall. Across the pavement, near the entrance to the Bookstar, a short, slender man carrying a travel bag took the escalator toward the rooftop.

* * *

No one noticed Phil except one woman coming down the stairs between the escalators. She admired his bright blue eyes. He looks fit, she thought. He's been to the gym, I bet. I wonder how old he is; it's hard to tell.

She turned and slowed her step but Phil didn't notice her interest and then he was past her on the up escalator. The woman continued down the stairs. He looked like a kind man, she reflected.

* * *

"Andie says she'll meet us at Triangle Square," Amanda told Rachel. She wondered if she should have come clean to Andie about just who Phil was and why Barbie might be afraid of him. It was very difficult to admit just how foolish she might have been in giving out Barbie's home address to her ex-con ex-husband.

Rachel backed the car out of Barbie's parking spot and headed off the Penninsula toward Costa Mesa. Traffic ran thick both directions and they stopped and started at every light all the way to PCH.

"This Andie," asked Rachel, "she's the one with the hardware?"

"Uh huh," said Amanda, chewing her lip because her hands were busy holding on. "She's got piercings all over, eyebrows, lips, tongue. And she talks with a lishp."

Rachel snorted.

"Tall girl, dresses very sexy," Amanda went on. "Kind of punk looking, if you know what I mean?"

"Tough?" asked Rachel. "Mean?"

"No, no. Well, maybe. She looks like a rock musician or groupie," said Amanda. "I wonder if she's into drugs? Probably not, Barbie is death on drugs, I guess because of me."

"You don't...oh, yeah." Rachel realized what Amanda meant. "Yeah, that could do it. Better that than going the other way, huh?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm sort of proud of her for disliking me." Amanda smiled ruefully.

* * *

Phil got to the top of the escalator and took in the scene with wonder and more than a little apprehension. Crowds of people not all dressed alike still made him nervous.

All around him people bustled doing things no one had told them to do. To his left, more people queued up to buy tickets for the last matinee of the afternoon at the multiplex theater. He could smell the buttered popcorn and it reminded him how hungry he was. And the hunger somehow reminded him of why he was in Costa Mesa and what he had planned.

He turned to his right where the rooftop edges were lined with restaurants and fast food places. At the far end, a blues trio jammed their way through a Randy Newman tune. He saw the pizza place, The Upper Crust, on the south side and headed that way. They had indoor seating and a fast-food-style walk-up window as well, he saw. That would be good; he wouldn't have to go inside to eat with a lot of strangers. It was better to be outside, in the free air.

That's when he saw the four kids eating pizza at a table directly in his path.

* * *

Andie took the elevator up from the parking floor; escalators and high heels didn't mix all that well. I ought to take the stairs, she told herself. I'm getting a bit soft around the middle, or I would be if I didn't wear a corset.

She thought of Tony, who had told her to be wearing a corset when he saw her next before his trip to Brawley or wherever it was. Maybe one of the messages is from him, she thought, and tingled a little. Andie, so much in charge of herself and others, found it exhilirating to be bossed around by her macho boyfriend. The thing is, she told herself, with him it's mostly an act. Mostly.

She came out of the elevator right in front of the movie theater; two steps and she could see The Upper Crust. She didn't notice Kelly and the boys immediately because someone was in the way.

* * *

Phil watched the girl and three boys in wonder. Except for curly, bright blonde hair, she looked exactly like Barbie had at that age. The same age she had been when everything in his life had started to go horribly wrong. "Barbie," he whispered.

What he did then had been no part of his original plan. He walked past them as if he hadn't seen them, but listening and watching carefully nonetheless. Nine years in prison and his new uneasiness in crowds made him cautious.

Barbie was just the way he remembered her and she was flirting with the boys. She'd always been a flirt with her long golden lashes flashing and her tinkly voice giggling.

He took a seat where he could keep the four kids in view. His mind whirled, disorganized and untracked. Some part of him noticed the discrepancies; this Barbie looked smaller and younger than even the Barbie he remembered best. And the real Barbie would be in her twenties now, not still a little girl on the edge of being a woman.

His face gave no hint of his internal struggle, nor of the outcome. His blue eyes didn't blink and his lips neither smiled nor frowned. He'd learned that in prison, too.

* * *

Unfamiliar with Newport Beach, Rachel had gone straight across the intersection in front of the McFadden pier thereby continuing on Balboa Avenue and failing to make the turn onto Newport Avenue. Amanda didn't notice until they arrived at the highway.

"That's okay," she reassured Rachel. "Just go straight across PCH onto Superior, we'll come up on Triangle Square from behind." She took out her glasses and put them on to make sure she and her friend didn't get lost again.

"I thought I'd really messed up," said Rachel, relieved.

Amanda laughed, hiding her annoyance at having to wear her hated glasses. "We'll be fine," she said.

* * *

The pizza slices were almost gone, though Kelly had eaten less than half of his. The conversation had wandered from the band jamming in the far corner, ("They ain't too loud." "Yeah, too bad.") to the coming school year. Kelly tried to keep quiet and stay out of the more dangerous parts.

"You gonna be going to our school again this year, Kelly?" asked Doug in apparent innocence.

"I dunno yet, maybe not. If my mom gets married..." He didn't finish that sentence, other worries suddenly remembered.

"I hope you do, chica," said Jimmy.

Tommy laughed at his cousin. "This cabron has got it bad for you, Kelly."

"Shut up." Jimmy couldn't reach Tommy to pop him one without reaching across Kelly.

"Hey," Tommy went on. "She knows you like her. Don't you, Kelly? You like him back?"

"Uh," Kelly said, trying not to look at either of the cousins. How did I get into this? But somehow the idea of the boys actually liking him, for whatever reason seemed infinitely better than how things had been in the past.

"I thought I saw Jimmy kissing you when I was getting the pizza," said Doug. "I guess you do like him?"

"Shut up!" said Jimmy. He didn't try to hit Doug, though, Doug wasn't his cousin.

"Did Jimmy kiss you?" Tommy asked Kelly, suspiciously. "I thought I saw him kiss you, too." He glared at his cousin.

"It was an accident!" Kelly squeaked. Why did I say that, he wondered.

"Yeah, I kissed her, and it wadden no accident." Jimmy announced, smiling at Kelly.

"Now I get to kiss her," said Tommy. He grinned at Kelly.

"Huh?" Kelly said, startled at the idea. "Why?" he asked, almost squeaking again.

"It's only fair," Tommy explained and quickly leaned around and planted one right on Kelly's lips. Kelly gasped.

As soon as Tommy's face was out of the way, Jimmy leaned in and kissed Kelly again; this time Kelly's lips were open and the tip of Jimmy's tongue just touched Kelly's. It felt cold and tasted a little sweet.

"Got to take estupido's kiss off," he explained after the kiss, his face still inches away. Kelly's open hand coming around caught him entirely by surprise and left a red mark on his cheek, exactly the shape of her tiny palm and fingers.

"Ow!" they both cried out at the same time.

Doug laughed so hard, Dr. Pepper came out of his nose.

* * *

The noise on the roof precluded him hearing any conversation less than a shout from further away than about four feet but Phil could see it all. The pretty young girl who looked so much like Barbie, the three brown-skinned boys, and exactly what they were doing.

Phil's unfocussed rage burned inwardly at the kisses. She was leading those boys on and they were trying to take advantage of her. He hadn't really felt angry since prison but the stoicism he had learned there kept his expression calm and unconcerned. He took in the scene from the corner of his eye and seethed that someone would do something like that to Barbie, and that she would let them.

When she slapped the one boy, it didn't make him feel better. The crowd, the wind, the noise and his memories spun around his mind in a vortex of confusion. And in the middle of it, Barbie glowed; her eyes as green as his were blue; her skin, her face, her voice still young and innocent.

* * *

Barbie, the real Barbie, sat down in the windowseat of the Southwest Airlines commuter jet. Dr. Harold Mann sat down beside her, at the moment thinking about how often he had made this particular trip, Las Vegas to Los Angeles or the other way. Barbie's voice brought him back to the present. "My boobies hurt," she said making a face.

"Do you want a pain pill?" he asked.

She shook her head. "That wasn't what I meant to say," she giggled, a bit embarrassed. "No, I meant to say -- I'm still so worried about Kelly, really worried, Harry. And usually I don't worry about him; he's been mostly looking after himself since we moved out of mom's."

Harry patted her reassuringly, "Andie and the boys will take good care of -- Kelly." He couldn't stop thinking of Barbie's child as a little girl and kept stumbling over pronouns. He'd always wanted a daughter and that thought in the present situation amused him, so he smiled.

Barbie smiled back. "I guess you're right."

* * *

"I hurt my hand," Kelly complained, holding the injured hand in the other. Doug and Tommy were still laughing and Jimmy smiled despite the mark Kelly had left on his face.

"What's going on, you little shcamp?" Andie said. She had watched the exchange of kisses and Kelly's surprising swat with amusement but felt she had better step in before things went much further.

Andie's voice startled Kelly almost as much as the first kiss and her own reaction to the third one. "Andie!" squealed Kelly, in mingled terror, embarrassment and relief.

The boys heard it as "Auntie!" and knew the jig was up.

Kelly stood, pushing away from between Jimmy and Tommy and running the three or four steps to Andie's embrace.

The boys hesitated. Depending on what Kelly told her aunt, this could get serious. Doug took the initiative, "We recognized Kelly from school and decided to help her with the packages," he explained with a smile.

They knew Kelly from school, wondered Andie. Was there something she didn't know about going on? "Uh huh," she said. "Packages."

"I didn't...they... You guys!" Kelly, usually quick on his mental feet, had taken several sharp blows to the psyche after more than a day of battering. He didn't know what to say, he didn't know what to do.

So he burst into tears.

* * *

Rachel and Amanda spiraled their way through the mean streets of Costa Mesa, closing in on Triangle Square. The streets weren't really mean, just cross because so many of them met at odd angles.

Amanda tried to look backward. "Was that Nineteenth Street? I think we wanted to turn at 19th?"

"If it was, and we did, I can't, 'cause it's too late now," Rachel pointed out.

"Oh, to heck with it," said Amanda. "Just go on up to Victoria, I know that one is north of the Triangle."

"That I can do. I think."

* * *

Andie held Kelly to her and said, "Now, now, honey, I'm not mad at you and the boysh didn't mean any harm." She glared at the three while keeping her voice as sweet as cream. The one boy with the handprint on his face almost cracked her up, though.

"I didn't know they were going to kiss me!" Kelly wailed. "And I can't ever go back to school, now!" He stopped crying when he realized what he had said out loud.

"Why not?" Tommy asked, sincerely mystified by the apparent non-sequitur.

Jimmy slapped him in the back of the head, "Pendejo! You made her cry!"

Tommy grinned fiecely at his cousin, "Cabron! She slapped you inna face, not me! You got a crush on her and she don't like you! I saw you mooning over her in the playground all last year and you never even talked to her! Now she knows what kinda..." He stopped himself with a glance at Andie. In Tommy's family, using certain words around adult females could get you in serious trouble.

Doug put his head down on the table and pounded Jimmy's thigh with a fist, whooping his laughter. Jimmy almost turned his chair over trying to get away from the unexpected blows. Stumbling backwards, he nearly landed on the table of the pale-haired man with the bright blue eyes. He only avoided that by sitting down hard on the pavement.

Frightened, startled by Tommy's accusations, Doug's hilarity and Jimmy's gymnastics --which he had turned around barely in time to see-- Kelly looked up at Andie and rolled his eyes before breaking into giggles. He rubbed one hand with the other; he'd never hit anyone before in his life and who would have thought that delivering a slap would hurt so much? "I guess it is funny, if you look at it that way," he said out loud.

"Let's get out of here while they short things out," Andie suggested. Kelly nodded agreement, once he figured out that Andie had not been using an electrical metaphor. They gathered the bags of loot from the Gap, one bag containing the little girl dress Kelly had worn to the mall. "We've got to run, guys," Andie told the boys. "Kelly has to pick up her glasses. Don't forget your purse, hon."

Blushing, Kelly took the bright red plastic purse and turned to go. "Goodbye," he said politely. "Thanks for the pizza and soda."

Jimmy picked himself up off the floor, stammering out a goodbye to Kelly. "S-see ya, chiquita!" He scowled in disappointment and looked around him to see if he had upset anyone else. But he didn't see the pale-haired man leave his table and follow the girls.

Doug was still howling his enjoyment of something. "What the heck does he find so funny?" Tommy asked his cousin just before having to catch a fist aimed at his midsection.

Jimmy didn't continue the fight but turned to see if Kelly would look back and wave. Tommy slapped him in the back of the head. "Cabron! You still thinking about her with the wrong head, you stupid cabron pendejo goat!"

* * *

Pete and Richard, through dint of comical moans and whimpers, finally convinced Cheryl and Sarah that the time had come to go upstairs to the food court. Pete made seal noises behind Cheryl at the checkout.

Sarah had actually managed to spend all of her weekly allowance, and more besides, on classical music CD's, most of them operas. I hope Mom will go halfsies with me on these, she thought. She knew better than to show them to her Dad, "Opera, that's like ballet with screaming," he'd say. And Richard is still talking about this Kelly girl.

"She's only twelve," he was saying. "And tiny. But she's beautiful, I just hope Andie hasn't gone overboard with makeup and stuff on her. She doesn't need it."

Was there a twinkle in Richard's eye as he said those things? Sarah wondered.

The clerks rang up Cheryl's more extensive purchases. "When I'm done here, let's go out the front and around by the sidewalk," she said to Pete. "I hate crossing the middle of this place with traffic coming from three directions. And stop that barking!"

* * *

"That was Harbor, you should have turned right!" Amanda exclaimed.

"You didn't say anything," Rachel pointed out.

"I didn't think I had to!" Amanda said. She rubbed a hand over her face, trying to get control back. "But you're right, it's my fault, I was thinking too hard. If you turn when we get to Newport, we can come up on the Triangle from that side."

"How many sides does it have?" Rachel asked.

Amanda peered at her friend curiously to see if she was kidding. Rachel as always, looked completely sober. "Three," Amanda said.

Rachel grinned. "Well, it could have had four. Or maybe seven."

Amanda snorted, feeling exasperated and put upon.

  

  

  

*********************************************
© 2004 by Wanda Cunningham. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, and compilation design) may be printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without the express written consent of StorySite and the copyright holder.