Volume 1, No. 1

The Plague / Hooper ... 12 

my driveway. In a flash of dashing manhood (as much as a nine-year-old boy can have, that is), Ricky leapt off his bike, told me to hold it for him, and bent down to fix my chain. What neither of us was prepared for was the brush of one set of fingers against the other as he handed me his bike.
In that moment, I could not look at Ricky Brighton -- the same lecherous Ricky Brighton who had bugged me all year by touching the things on my desk. I knew he had felt the touch too because the chain kept slipping through his sweaty hands.
He swore in his best manly voice each time he lost his grip on the slithery thing. Neither one of us looked up when I finally handed him back his bike. We both had that instant kind of sunburn that runs from your chest up to your scalp when fingers accidentally touch. Although both of us had it, although both of us felt it, although both