"Never mind the trees," Janie said impatiently. "We may be a little late. Hurry up."
"Hurry up what?" Laura asked. Janie had changed something wicked, Laura was thinking. She was getting so impatient and preoccupied! Could it be this club that was such a bad influence on her friend? If that was the case, maybe Laura should think twice about joining, even if it did have important guys like Mack Toohey and Peter DePow in it!
"Climb up," Janie ordered, and for the first time, Laura noticed the rope ladder that was only partially visible, lying folded on a low limb. She took it down.
"You go first," she said to Janie. "Why me? I never been here before."
The truth was that Janie Farragut had no idea what they would find at the top of the ladder. She never knew for sure, and she wanted to climb up behind her friend so that Laura could not run away if she didn't like what she saw.
"It's the rules of my initiation," Janie told Laura. "I have to be polite and let you go first," she explained lamely.
Laura snorted. She looked at her friend with a laugh in her blue eyes. Imagine Janie having to be polite! Well, maybe there was something to being polite when you were sitting around waiting for your turn at bat and it might not come because some dumb kid on your team was a lousy player and would sure as hell strike out. Then there were times when you got mad at the umpire and had to be sure you didn't start a fist fight and get put out of the game. Maybe practicing politeness was supposed to stop things like that. Oh, well. She started to climb the rope ladder. She tried to master the climb so she wouldn't look awkward, but it was hard getting the rungs of the ladder to stay away from the tree trunk so she could manage a good foot hold, at least very fast. By the time she reached the top, she could not help feeling embarrassed and her face was hot, probably red. Maybe no one would notice.
No one even looked at her when she reached the top. There were two boys, Mack Toohey with his dark curly hair and brown eyes. Boy, you had to watch out for that guy on the ice. She wanted to greet him, but was confused by his lack of attention. He and another boy with carrot red hair and a lot more freckles than Janie had were busy talking about something. So she turned self-consciously and looked back down the ladder.
"You coming, Janie?" she asked so the stupid boys wouldn't think she had to depend on them to say hello. She would show them she had plenty of other interests, the least of which was saying hello to a couple of guys, especially stuck-ups like Mack and whoever he was talking to. Maybe it was Peter DePow. That would explain why he was so stuck-up.
When Janie finally came up, the first thing they did was get introduced. Then Laura softened. After all, the boys were very likely as self-conscious as she was. Either that or it was just another rule of politeness not to talk to someone until you were introduced. Laura didn't know much about that. Still, Mack knew her, she thought, even though they had never really talked to each other.
The next thing they did was play cards, and the first thing she knew, she was learning how to play poker. She wanted to ask about the club, but as far as she knew this was kind of a meeting and maybe this was what you did at meetings. That wasn't too bad. But she would really like to know about the sports. Yet, Janie had said that until after the initiation, she would not be told very much at all and that it would be useless to ask questions.
One of the surprising things that happened though was how Pete DePow, for that's who the redhead turned out to be, seemed to deliberately keep his leg pressed against hers under the card table. Laura had never had anything like that happen to her before, and at first she was uncomfortable. But Pete smiled at her very warmly, and finally she began to tingle until she reached the point where she didn't want him to take his leg away. It was very strange. And very nice. In fact, he was a terrific guy, she decided. If only he would get around to the sports things, too, everything would be perfect.
By the time Mack Toohey and Janie had disappeared down the rope ladder, Laura even forgot to wonder where they were going and why. Pete DePow had her complete attention. He was very impressive and sounded just like a movie star when he spoke. Every word sounded smooth as the note of a song. She could not imagine what it was he found so attractive about her. She began to suspect that maybe there really was no club and that Pete had simply asked Janie or Mack or whoever it was he knew to introduce him to Laura. She wanted very much to ask him if he had seen her somewhere before and where that could be, but she somehow couldn't get the words out of her constricted throat. Just think of Pete DePow being interested in Laura Cutter. If it had been any other boy she knew who had shown this kind of romantic interest, she would have scoffed. She'd rather play baseball any day!
"I hear you like to play baseball," he finally said after the others had left. He asked her if she wouldn't like to sit down on the big pillows on the floor in the corner of the large tree house. Automatically she agreed to move to the pillow even though it meant losing contact with his knee. However, when they were on the pillows, he put his arm around her and pressed his leg the length of hers.
"I… uh… I like a good game," she said uncertainly.
"Yeah, Janie says you're very good," he said, looking into her blue eyes intently. His eyes were a lovely gray green, she saw. He was squeezing her a little and she was sure her face must be flushing by now. She felt hot and her heart was beating like a trip-hammer. "We play baseball," he said, smiling as though baseball were just a little difficult to think about right now.
"That's what I thought," she said, but she was having trouble caring, too. Why?
"We have a little initiation," he whispered. "And for you, part of that's getting to know the coach. That's me. Okay?" What did he mean?
And then abruptly, as she tried to nod her head 'yes', he put his arms completely around her and drew her tight against him. First he kissed her just gently, softly, but then he kissed her harder and she felt her lips being opened. Oh, she had heard of this kind of kiss. It was supposed to be when you really liked someone a lot. Could it be that Pete DePow liked her that much? She could not help herself and she opened her lips almost eagerly to accept his probing wet tongue. Their tongues met and tasted one another, exchanging an incredible kiss. Pete's hands were restless on her back and shoulders now, moving back and forth, up and down, around and over her little white button-down blouse.
Laura Cutter felt something very new. It was an almost overwhelming surge of desire at this nearness to a boy, especially Pete, the intoxicating boy odor in a relationship that she had never before known. His kisses were eliciting a full and total response inside the would-be ball player, and when his moving hands gradually worked their way around to lightly entering the front of her blouse, the buttons seeming to pop out of the button holes as if he willed them to, and lightly caressed the beginning mounds of her new tits, she didn't know whether this was the time to stop him or not. Her mother had said something about not letting a boy go too far, but what did that mean? And the closeness she felt to this new friend right now seemed to transcend any parental warning or concern.
And so Pete began to caress her newly ripening titties in earnest then as his eager tongue probed wetly in and out of her opened mouth. Gosh, his gentle touch felt so good on her! Unaware of her own response, she wrapped her fingers in his carrot-red curls, kissing him even more passionately, and then his fingers had dipped inside her undershirt, which her mother insisted she wear if she wouldn't wear a brassiere. The contact of his hand on her naked flesh thrilled the twelve year old more than she could ever have imagined. Oh, she had overheard a lot of talk among certain girls around school, and she had always pretended that she wasn't listening. Now she was glad she had. She suspected that it was less frightening to know that these strange and thrilling sensations were common to others. Before she knew it, she was allowing him to unbutton her blouse and to slip the garment down over her shoulders. And then his deft fingers had worked her undershirt up under her arm pits so that she felt a cool rush of air against her now-erect nipples as her still firm, not yet very large tits were fully exposed to Pete's hungry gaze.