VIIIGROWING OLDER MEANT learning about dating and boys and their complicated ideas about how to act around girls. One of the things I learned about early on was to stay away from the weird ones, who were always trying to grab you where you didn't want to be grabbed.
It was all just another test, like at school. Most tests were stupid. I would get bored about three-quarters through and start fooling around with the rest of the answers. Only one teacher figured it out. She would watch me, and told my parents what I was doing. Because I would figure out what 80% of the total questions were and count down to where that last question was. Then I'd answer all of those right. After that, I could answer the rest of them anyway I wanted. As long as I passed, my parents didn't care. Sometimes they
