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Hard to believe how popular I was. At Mt. Ephraim High School where I was in ninth grade that spring. Counted ten, twelve, sixteen, nineteen new friends] Not just boys in my class but popular juniors and seniors, athletes began to notice me, smiled and called me Doll, Doll-girl, Ingrid, In-grie. Word spreads fast, who the good-looking ninth-grade girls are. Asked me on dates, but Momma wouldn't allow it saying I was too young. Tried to get my phone number to call. Whispering, staring. A guy named Artie in jeans, a T-shirt, biker boots running his thumb along the row of ninth-grade lockers prowling the ninth-grade corridor to check Doll-girl out. But it was the popular boys, a better class of boys I sought. I loved it, their attention] That feeling leaves you sick and faint with excitement knowing you're popular] Couldn't get enough of it drifting through school corridors between classes as in a dream smiling Hello] Hi] Hi there] imitating the pretty popular older girls because in truth I had no friends, a horse-faced girl named Bernice who talked about me behind my back saying I had bedbugs, a boy named Jig from Mohawk Street who talked me into kissing him open-mouthed then laughed at me I started to choke and gag and somebody told me he'd written something nasty about INGRID BOONE in all the boys' lavatories at school. But I had certain friends I listed their names in code in my notebook with a star by the special ones and there was a special-special list of boys all hearts. And there was a special list growing longer with each passing day of boys and girls who had insulted me, cut me to the heart, these were marked with a skull and crossbones the way the mystery-detective novels were marked at the public library, on their peeling spines. Marked for Death. But truly I was pretty, and I was popular. Girls in my neighborhood were jealous of me the way their mothers were jealous of my mother with her blond hair, her face and figure and clothes and bronze Cougar. The clothes I wore, funky little tops and poor-boy sweaters and jeans snug in the rear, now I refused to wear most...