So, me and Coop, we had this plan. And Sarah shrugged and she said she was up for it, why not, which got Coop all excited and leaping ‘bout like he just won something. And the plan was for us to meet up, way after it was dark, and we’d all just sneak out of our beds without our folks knowing, and we’d get on up to the old Walker house. They say it’s haunted that house, but that aint nothing more than grown-ups keeping kids where they can see ‘em.
The Walker house and it aint been lived in for years. All the windows is missing glass and birds fly in and out of the house like it’s theirs now. And the Walkers that once lived there, well, they is all but forgotten, their names on the church stones all scratched and picked at and moss covered.
We was there first, me and Coop, up at the house. He’d brought a torch but he didn’t want no one to see so we was just stretched out on the floor upstairs, laying side by side, and the moonlight falling through one of the windows and falling on me and Coop. He was saying how he really hoped Sarah’d come like she promised she would. And he was saying how she was pretty as kittens and looking at her made him feel funny inside – like he hadn’t eaten and he didn’t want to eat, not ever again. And he asked if I felt like that, too. Coop was in love with Sarah and I got that.
‘Sure I feel it,’ I told him, and I told him true. ‘Like I’m sick and like I’m all hollowed out and a hundred bees circling in my belly and not one of ‘em ever finding a way out.’
Coop said that was it exactly and he said how he wanted so much to kiss her and he asked me what I thought that would be like.
I said it would be like the nearest thing to heaven on this earth and it would hurt to stop and all Coop’s insides fizzing and bee-stung and all Coop’s thoughts spinning fast as dust devils and a feeling like Coop’s feet was not on the ground no more.
I was just making things up. Saying stuff to get Coop all excited. I kissed a girl once before and it was none of those things – it was wet and warm and soft and that’s all it was. Maybe that was cos it wasn’t no one I loved, not like Coop loved Sarah. Maybe kisses was different if they was with someone you loved. And I was saying all those things for Coop and I was saying ‘em for me, too – cos I was imagining what a kiss could be.
We was talking and at the same time listening sharp as pins for Sarah’s feet at the front door, her feet walking crackly over broken glass and brittle dry leaves that had blown in from outside. And Coop was wishing so hard for Sarah to come and praying even and holding his breath when he wasn’t talking; and I was wishing, too, and praying just the same – the same but different. I was praying that Sarah wouldn’t come, so it’d just be me and Coop in the dark of the Walker house, me and Coop just laying on the floor, close enough we was touching, the moonlight on us, and I could feel his warmth against me through his clothes. Just me and Coop talking ‘bout love and what a kiss could be and Coop was meaning what it would be to kiss Sarah and I was meaning what it would be to kiss Coop.
Patricia Ann McNair 
So, me and Coop, we had this plan. And Sarah shrugged and she said she was up for it, why not, which got Coop all excited and leaping ‘bout like he just won something. And the plan was for us to meet up, way after it was dark, and we’d all just sneak out of our beds without our folks knowing, and we’d get on up to the old Walker house. They say it’s haunted that house, but that aint nothing more than grown-ups keeping kids where they can see ‘em.
The Walker house and it aint been lived in for years. All the windows is missing glass and birds fly in and out of the house like it’s theirs now. And the Walkers that once lived there, well, they is all but forgotten, their names on the church stones all scratched and picked at and moss covered.
We was there first, me and Coop, up at the house. He’d brought a torch but he didn’t want no one to see so we was just stretched out on the floor upstairs, laying side by side, and the moonlight falling through one of the windows and falling on me and Coop. He was saying how he really hoped Sarah’d come like she promised she would. And he was saying how she was pretty as kittens and looking at her made him feel funny inside – like he hadn’t eaten and he didn’t want to eat, not ever again. And he asked if I felt like that, too. Coop was in love with Sarah and I got that.
‘Sure I feel it,’ I told him, and I told him true. ‘Like I’m sick and like I’m all hollowed out and a hundred bees circling in my belly and not one of ‘em ever finding a way out.’
Coop said that was it exactly and he said how he wanted so much to kiss her and he asked me what I thought that would be like.
I said it would be like the nearest thing to heaven on this earth and it would hurt to stop and all Coop’s insides fizzing and bee-stung and all Coop’s thoughts spinning fast as dust devils and a feeling like Coop’s feet was not on the ground no more.
I was just making things up. Saying stuff to get Coop all excited. I kissed a girl once before and it was none of those things – it was wet and warm and soft and that’s all it was. Maybe that was cos it wasn’t no one I loved, not like Coop loved Sarah. Maybe kisses was different if they was with someone you loved. And I was saying all those things for Coop and I was saying ‘em for me, too – cos I was imagining what a kiss could be.
We was talking and at the same time listening sharp as pins for Sarah’s feet at the front door, her feet walking crackly over broken glass and brittle dry leaves that had blown in from outside. And Coop was wishing so hard for Sarah to come and praying even and holding his breath when he wasn’t talking; and I was wishing, too, and praying just the same – the same but different. I was praying that Sarah wouldn’t come, so it’d just be me and Coop in the dark of the Walker house, me and Coop just laying on the floor, close enough we was touching, the moonlight on us, and I could feel his warmth against me through his clothes. Just me and Coop talking ‘bout love and what a kiss could be and Coop was meaning what it would be to kiss Sarah and I was meaning what it would be to kiss Coop.