EPISODE

by WINFIE

I don't like playing with boys, they're rough and they call me names. I don't like school either. I gaze out of the window and think of things that I can't tell anyone. Sometimes I feel lonely. But if I don't tell someone soon I'11 bust.

My brother Tom,--he's twenty-one--buys magazines and keeps them in his room. Some have pictures of girls in them. Sometimes I sneak in there when he's out, and look at them. One day I found a different kind of magazine. On the front was a picture of a pret- ty girl. I like girls better than boys--lots better. I sat and looked through the pages and read a little too. I'm ten and I can read pretty good. The first pages told about the girl on the front and I found out that she wasn't really a girl; she was a man.

It made me feel funny and strange inside but happy too because lots of times I've dreamed of being a girl. I pushed the magazine inside my shirt and ran off to my room as fast as I could. I hid it in a good place. I wanted to read and read it but I knew that Tom would be in for his supper any time so I had to wait.

Funny! He never did ask anybody about the magazine. I wonder- ed why. That night, Mom and Dad and my sister--she's a year older than I am--went to a movie and Tom went out with another guy. That suited me fine. I fished the book out of its hiding place and lay on my tummy on my bed and read it clear through.

Gee, I liked that magazine, 'specially the girl-man whose pic- ture was on the front. He sure looked like a girl; prettier than some Tom knows and he had been like me when he was my age. He had a sister, too.

As I read I felt myself becoming excited. I felt excited all over. Tingly, but more than that, kind of all warm inside. Any- way I liked the feeling.

Then, after I had read again about the pretty girl on the cov- er, I put the magazine under my pillow and did what I sometimes do when nobody's around. I went into my sister Mary's room. I knew just where she kept her pretty clothes. How I wished they were

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