It all started when I had to stay the night at Greg G's house.

Greg's mom and my mom were best friends, so Greg and I were forced to spend a lot of time together. Every Sunday after church, our families would go to the restaurant at the Ramada Inn to eat lunch together. Greg and I were always bored during the meal. We'd sit squishing green jell-o through our teeth until our parents dismissed us, at which point we'd go out to the lobby and monopolize the sit-down Centipede game. Sometimes we'd fight over the controls.

Greg and I had a conditional friendship, the condition being that no one in school could ever know about it. The problem? He was a boy, and I was a girl. Neither of us really believed that the other had cooties, but we had to stand behind the party platform anyway. It was just one of those things.

This arrangement came to an abrupt end, however, when my parents went out of town one weekend. I couldn't go with them because I had school, and Greg's mom was more than happy to put me up for the night. From the time I arrived, Winnie the Pooh sleeping bag tucked under my arm, I was uncomfortable. Greg was embarrassed and irritated, and he kept casting withering glances at me, as if we were two baboons and I had intruded on his territory. After dinner and some cookies, Greg's mom showed me his room—there were cowboy boots and lassos on his sheets—and suggested that he give up the bed and sleep on the couch. But Greg threw a temper tantrum, then became all maudlin and sulky, until I said fine, I'd sleep on the couch because I didn't like the cowboy stuff, anyway. (This was a blatant lie. I've always been fascinated with Western stuff. I had a Billy the Kid outfit that was my prized possession until I rode some spinning carnival ride thing and threw up on it. But whatever. If I'd had cowboy sheets, I probably would have guarded them just as jealously as Greg did).

At this point, I would like to remind everyone that grade school can be tough. Not nearly as tough as middle school, but when you're in grade school there's nothing to compare it with so it's about as bad as it can get. You have to step carefully. The social codes in grade school are really just cartoonish representations of adult society, and the kids often don't have any idea what their own rules mean.

The morning after the sleepover, Greg and I got ready and started walking to school. After a few blocks, it occurred to us that the circumstances might be cause for disapproval and ridicule from our peers. So we agreed that Greg would walk on, and I would wait until he was about a block ahead before continuing. But it was too late for discretion. Lamar R., another boy in our class, saw the two of us walking together just before we split up. There was a brief look of astonishment on his face, followed by an expression of unthinkable glee, and then he ran as fast as he could toward the school. By the time I got into the classroom and hung my jacket on the coat room peg, everyone knew our not-so-dirty secret.

"Karen and Greg spent the night!" they shouted. There was riotous laughter. Kids were standing on their chairs, tossing papers in the air. Apparently, the excitement of a scandal had caused our classmates to lose all sense of decorum.

Greg was sitting quietly at his desk, staring hard at one of those Scholastic information sheets about killer bees, but even from across the room I could see how red his face was. As for me, I loudly denounced the claims, bossily calling Lamar a liar until it became obvious that everyone was determined to believe the more sensational story.

"Karen and Greg spent the night!" they shouted again.

"What does that mean?" one of the girls asked, looking puzzled. I was kind of curious, too. Everyone turned to hear what Lamar would say.

Flushed with joy at all the attention he was receiving, Lamar's face broke into a wide grin that I will never forget. "Hanky panky," he said, and nodded knowingly.

Tags: academia, thirdgrade