FIRST AWAKENING

FICTION

Sharon Anne

S-H-25 FPE

Patrick Malley was never really my friend but there was a time when I came to feel a certain kinship with him. I was just eleven years old then. Patrick, of course, was two years older and already attended Hoerner Junior High School while I was still in elementary school. The Malley's had moved into our town about three years before. They lived in a rambl- ing old two story frame farmhouse at the end of Van Buren street. Our house was five blocks away to the northeast on Lincoln Avenue and we ran with different neighborhood gangs for the most part. Until that year I suppose my only contact with Patrick was up at Warner Park where we sometimes played scrub baseball games with other boys. It was at the park that I first learned his name. Sometime later I began to see him with his sisters at Sunday School but none of the Malleys were in my class.

Patrick had three sisters. Two of them were identical twins. The twins' names were Sharon and Susan. They were finishing up with high school. The third sister, Nancy, was much younger -- about five years old. The older Malley girls were very popular in school perhaps because they were cheerleaders and participated in some of the school plays. I know that my own big sister Ellen was jealous of the Malley twins and of their success and popularity. Sharon and Susan were petite blondes with brown eyes and good figures. They wore their beautiful hair shoul- der length. Their chins were a little strong and the forehead a trifle high- crested but they were the sort of girls you described as being pretty or cute. Like most of the boys in town I found their looks pleasing and I often watched for them at church, anxious for a glimpse of the twins in their Sunday best. Surely they never lacked attention from the boys their own age. I think that is what irritated my sister so much for she was never their equal in looks or popularity. I knew very little about Patricks' mother and father. I think Mr. Malley sold insurance. He seldom

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