My Story Read Free Page B

meeting in a tent. My “aunt” insisted I come along.
    The tent was jammed. Everybody was listening to the evangelist. He was half singing and half talking about the sinfulness of the world. Suddenly he called on all the sinners in the tent to come up to the altar of God where he stood—and repent.
    I rushed up ahead of everyone else and started telling about my “sin.”
    â€œOn your knees, sister,” he said to me.
    I fell on my knees and began to tell about Mr. Kimmel and how he had molested me in his room. But other “sinners” crowded around me. They also fell on their knees and started wailing about their sins and drowned me out.
    I looked back and saw Mr. Kimmel standing among the nonsinners, praying loudly and devoutly for God to forgive the sins of others.

3
    Â 
it happened
   in math class
    Â 
    At twelve I looked like a girl of seventeen. My body was developed and shapely. But no one knew this but me. I still wore the blue dress and the blouse the orphanage provided. They made me look like an overgrown lummox.
    I had no money. The other girls rode to school in a bus. I had no nickel to pay for the ride. Rain or shine, I walked the two miles from my “aunt’s” home to the school.
    I hated the walk, I hated the school. I had no friends. The pupils seldom talked to me and never wanted me in their games. Nobody ever walked home with me or invited me to visit their homes. This was partly because I came from the poor part of the district where all the Mexicans and Japanese lived. It was also because I couldn’t smile at anyone.
    Once a shoemaker standing in the doorway of his shop stopped me as I was walking to school.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” he asked me.
    â€œNorma,” I said.

    â€œWhat’s your last name?” he asked.
    I wouldn’t give him the name I had—Norma Mortenson—because it wasn’t the name of the man with the slouch hat and the Gable mustache. I didn’t answer.
    â€œYou’re a queer kid,” the shoemaker said. “I watch you pass here every day, and I’ve never seen you smile. You’ll never get anywhere like that.”
    I went on to school, hating the shoemaker.
    In school the pupils often whispered about me and giggled as they stared at me. They called me dumb and made fun of my orphan’s outfit. I didn’t mind being thought dumb. I knew I wasn’t.
    One morning both my white blouses were torn, and I would be late for school if I stopped to fix them. I asked one of my “sisters” in the house if she could loan me something to wear. She was my age but smaller. She loaned me a sweater.
    I arrived at school just as the math class was starting. As I walked to my seat everybody stared at me as if I had suddenly grown two heads, which in a way I had. They were under my tight sweater.
    At recess a half dozen boys crowded around me. They made jokes and kept looking at my sweater as if it were a gold mine. I had known for some time that I had shapely breasts and thought nothing of the fact. The math class, however, was more impressed.
    After school four boys walked home with me, wheeling their bicycles by hand. I was excited but acted as if nothing unusual were happening.
    The next week the shoemaker stopped me again.
    â€œI see you’ve taken my advice,” he said. “You’ll find you get along much better if you smile at folks.”
    I noticed that he, also, looked at my sweater as he talked. I hadn’t given it back to my “sister” yet.
    The school and the day became different after that. Girls who had brothers began inviting me to their homes, and I met their folks, too. And there were always four or five boys hanging around my house. We played games in the street and stood around talking under the trees till suppertime.
    I wasn’t aware of anything sexual in their new liking for me, and there were no sex thoughts in my mind. I