Where the Kissing Never Stops by Ron Koertge Page A

I’m the only resident of this big, ugly hotel, but I didn’t choose it — somebody checked me in while I was unconscious and now I can’t get out.
    Anyway, I came out the side door of the gym and there was Sully. “Hey, let’s go for a ride or something,” he said.
    “I thought you always studied right after school.”
    “I think I need to talk.”
    “Want to go out to my place?”
    “I thought your mom was home until six.”
    “I mean my land.”
    He turned to me abruptly. “Want to know what’s really bothering me?”
    “Sure, I —”
    “I think I like Peggy.”
    “So?”
    “I think she likes me.”
    “The United Nations should have problems like that.”
    “I was over there the other night listening to music when my folks thought I was at the library, and I asked her if she thought I looked like Sideshow Bob.”
    “And?”
    “She said no.”
    “So far so good, unless she likes little weird cartoon clowns.”
    “Walker, it was really nice. I mean, she made something to eat and there was nobody around, but…” He left the sentence sticking out like that. “But when I left, she only kissed me on the forehead.”
    “My aunt does that.”
    “I know, I know. What do you think it means? Does she like me or not? Or does she just like my forehead?”
    “Look,” I said, shaking him by the shoulder like he was asleep. “Just relax. Whatever’s going to happen will happen. You don’t have to do anything.”
    “Do you really think so? I’ve read all about this. I even went back and looked up courtship rituals in my dad’s anthropology books.”
    “Just don’t bring her a mirror and some beads.”
    He turned toward me, his face knotted with concern. “You really think there’s nothing I should do?”
    “Just be yourself. Peggy’s always liked you.”
    “I have to ask somebody. I sure can’t ask my dad. All he wants me to do is study.” Then he frowned. “Let’s get out of here. I can never think in school.”
    “So this is it?” Sully shaded his eyes like a sea captain. “Did you rip up the ground like that?”
    “It’s called plowing.”
    “And then what?”
    “Some fertilizer; limestone, I think Mr. Kramer said. Then turn it over again probably, then we plant something and sit back and wait.”
    “And it grows?”
    “That’s the idea.”
    He looked out at the tractor. “And you know how to drive that?”
    “Sure.”
    “Show me.”
    I fired up the little Farmall, and with Sully holding on to my shoulders we made a round or two.
    “This isn’t bad,” he said as we walked back to the car over the choppy earth.
    “Rachel and I sat out here the other day,” I told him. “It was really nice.”
    “You didn’t… ?”
    “No, but we fooled around a little.”
    “You touched her boobs?”
    “No, Doctor.”
    “God,” he said, twirling around in either enthusiasm or frustration. “Look at these hands. All they know how to do is turn the pages of a book. I’ll probably be in medical school before I touch a real mammary gland, and then it’ll probably be in an operating room. They’ll uncover it, and right in front of everybody I’ll start salivating. Maybe I should just come right out and ask Peggy if I can touch hers.” Then he added hurriedly, “Purely in the interest of science.”
    “I’ll bet that’d be a first even for Peggy.”
    “Don’t rag on Peggy,” he snapped.
    “I didn’t mean —”
    He held both hands up, palms out, hold-up style. “Sorry, I know you didn’t.” Then he exhaled, cheeks puffed out like those pictures of the North Wind. “I’m all screwed up, Walker. I used to think I knew everything. All of a sudden it seems like I don’t know beans.”
    Sully was the first sign of trouble, if I’d been paying attention, but I was like a weatherman who feels a few drops, then goes ahead and forecasts fair and warmer.
    That night my mom came in late from work. She was crying, and when I went to her room, she looked like she’d just run