No boys here

6th grade was an especially difficult year for me.  It was the year that kids starting "going with" each other.  By the end of the first semester, I was sure that every girl had been asked to go with someone except for me.  I was probably wrong about that, but it certainly seemed that way.  You would think that with my cute new hourglass figure, the boys would be beating down my door, but that was not the case at all.  Perhaps they were intimidated.  Perhaps, it was because I was still somewhat awkward and uncoordinated.  Whatever the reason, I was not getting any attention.  Now, in one of my classes, my desk was pushed into the corner on my right side.  Not a great configuration for someone who is right handed.  I had to sit "side-saddle" in my desk just so I could write.  Of course, I often got in trouble for talking to the boy next to me, because I was facing him for half the day.  I wouldn't say that I had a crush on him, but I definitely would have considered him a friend.  Over the Christmas break, I got a phone call.  He said it was the boy next to me in class, and asked me to go with him.  I said yes.  After all, what is a boyfriend but a friend who is a boy?  School didn't start back for a week, and he didn't call back.  I had a strange sinking feeling that something was amiss.  By the time class rolled around on the first day back, I discovered that not only was it a prank, but it wasn't even the boy who had called me.  It was someone else.  You'd better believe that I didn't get in trouble for talking in class for several weeks.  Unfortunately, I still had to sit sideways in my desk facing the boy, and it made life pretty awkward until it all blew over.
On a positive note, I did discover during that year, that with my newly found muscles that I could run pretty fast over short distances.  Several kids in the grade were still faster than me, but I was probably in the top five girl runners, so that gave me a small measure of confidence in some of our gym activities.  I tried to run longer distances, thinking maybe I was a runner like my daddy, but could never build up the stamina for it.