Chapter Three: The Giant That Pulled My Pigtails

One of the best and worst things about living in the country was our very long lane and our very large yard. I can't even begin to count how many times I had to run to the end of that lane to catch the schoolbus that I had seen coming up over the hill. Sometimes, when the weather was very bad, my mom would drive me to the end of the lane to wait for the bus, but most often, I was on my own to catch the bus. Sometimes I still have nightmares that I've missed the bus. In my dream, I'm standing at the storm door in the front room, and I either don't have my schoolbooks together, or I don't have any clothes on, or I don't have my hair brushed, so I miss the bus, even though I see it coming from three driveways down.

And having my hair brushed was a very, very big deal, so I certainly couldn't have gotten on the bus if my hair weren't brushed.

Most times, when I was very young, my mom would brush my long, stubbornly curly hair into two sections and place them as pigtails on either side of the top of my head. I have pictures of this, and it was the only time that my hair looked very cute. Mostly, it was a stubborn mess, a "rat's nest," as my mom would call it, and eventually she cut it so short that everyone thought I was a boy, including the cute older boys that I had crushes on.

On one occasion, when I was in kindergarten, I took that long driveway to the end and got on that big bus full of kids who were all older than I, and found my seat. I don't think I was particularly bratty as a little child (my pictures of me look sweet enough) but something prompted on of the eighth grade boys (who were absolutely GIGANTIC when I was five) to use one of my pigtails as a stress-reliever or source of entertainment or something. I think that I was so intimidated or afraid of losing this older kids' attention that I didn't even tell my parents that my hair was being yanked on every day. Then again, I don't think I told my parents much at all.

But one evening, my mom was taking the pigtails out and noticed that my head was red and swollen, which, believe it or not, was not a normal thing. She finally got it out of me that this big kid...let me see, what was his name...Gary, I think? I can't remember. Anyway, this big kid had been pulling my hair. She didn't say much, as I recall, because what happened the next day was as much of a shock to me as it was to Gary.

I rode home on the bus, as I usually do, and Gary may or may not have pulled my pigtail, as he normally did, and the busdriver, Gib (who was my busdriver from the time I was five until I graduated from high school) made a left turn onto Lovebury Road, as he normally did. But what was very NOT normal was that, when we got to Gary's stop, my mother was there, at the end of Gary's driveway, waiting. Wow, I thought, I wonder why my mom's picking me up here? There was always some wacky thing going on in our house, so I figured it was just another wacky thing. But it turned out that my mom wasn't there for me at all. Well, she was, but she was there for my vengeance. She got on that bus. She pulled Gary out of his seat. She grabbed two fistfulls of Gary's black hair. And she yanked. Hard. And then she stuck her finger in that big kid's face and spoke between gritted teeth. "If you every touch my daughter again, I'll take each of your fingers off with my teeth," or some other dramatic threat. And then she took my hand, pulled me off that bus, and walked me home.

Gary didn't bother my pigtails after that.