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their scorn. I had always adored girls. The loss of their companionship and esteem now hurt me deeply. I would never feel more alone. In the halls between classes, no one walked with me anymore. Disembodied voices called, "Yoo-hoo, pinky," in falsetto. As I passed by, I caught parts of whispered sentences, mostly from the girls. you mean a training bra?" "... what's a potting shed?" you say his own gar- terbelt?" On the upstairs, I head two junior girls whom I knew and who were on the step behind me, say, "Do you think he's wearing them right now?" "I sure do," was the reply. "And I'll bet they're just dahrl- ing, too." And they giggled. They hadn't bothered to whisper. I pretended I hadn't heard, but they knew better, and so they were satisfied.

The girls were by far the meanest of all the student body, a fact that surprised me since I had thought they were supposed to be sugar and spice and everything nice. Maybe that comes later, after the teen years. The beginning of each class was marked by the appearance of people's heads in the doorway scanning the class. Someone out in the hall would say, "Third desk, fourth row." Girls would step into the room, locate me and stare, and withdraw giggling down the hall. I think a lot of boys were showing me to their girl friends. By the day's end, even the sophomores and freshmen knew who I was.

The day finally ended, but I knew the next day would be just as painful and shaming, and it was, and so was every day for the remain- ing two years at Washburn High. In the days to come, I often found lingerie ads place on my desk in various classrooms. Sometimes I'd find a single nylon stocking pressed in the pages of a textbook. Once at the end of a day there was an outsized brassiere hanging from my locker. Of course I made the gossip column in the school paper that first week. The item was:

What junior boy(?)'s favorite theme song is "There'll Be Some Changes Made"? We know, and so do yoo-hoo!

I made the column about twenty times before I graduated. It tagg- ed me with the nickname, "Pinky," and eventually even the teachers were calling me that.

A curious thing happened during the second or third week. I happened to be the first to arrive at an English class one day. In the book rack beneath my desk, I found a gift box with an envelope at-