Suddenly Slow

It wasn’t long after we’d started Grade 7 that our in-class parties took a horrifying turn.
     Till then, they had been mostly innocent affairs, all chips and cookies and an afternoon off, but suddenly they were all about dancing . . . slow dancing . . . with girls.
     It was as if the entire female half of the class had made a secret agreement with Mrs. Applebaum to allow them to humiliate the boys. Maybe one day we’d get what we wanted, but in Room 26, the girls still ran the show. They chose the music—mostly slow—and they decided who danced with whom.