It was lunch recess on the first day of school and Joey Morelli had a problem.  He was a second grader who liked a Kindergartener.  That just did not happen.  Kindergartners were babies; everyone knew that.  But here he was staring at the prettiest girl he’d ever seen, except for Marsha Brady.  He’d seen her before.  Her family lived in the Burg and went to the same church as his.  She had big blue eyes and long dark curls that fell around her little face.  She looked like one of the dolls his sister had on her bookshelf.

She was little, but spunky.  He watched as she bet Carl Costanza that she could run to the water fountain faster than he could.  Girls couldn’t beat boys; it was like, a law or something.  But they lined up on the kick-ball court and Eddie Gazarra yelled “Go”.  He smiled as he saw Carl get ahead of her, but then she tripped on her shoelace and fell. 

He strolled over to where she sat on the asphalt frowning at her shoe. 

“Stupid shoelace,” she grumbled.  When his shadow fell over her she looked up and her eyes grew wide.

Joey watched as she stumbled to her feet and took a giant step back from him.  “H-Hi,” she stammered. 

“Hiya, cupcake.”

She narrowed her eyes a little and said, “My name’s not cupcake.  It’s Stephanie.”

“I know.  But I like cupcakes.”  He tugged on one of her curls as he walked by and went back to the lunchroom.  She watched him for a moment.  Her mother said that Joey Morelli was a bad boy, but he didn’t seem so bad at all.  It wasn’t the first time her mom was wrong about something.  Just last week she said that eating too many fudge brownies would make her look like the Pillsbury Doughboy.  But she ate nearly the whole pan and she still looked the same. 

She saw her new best friend Mary Lou on the monkey bars and went over to play.

*~*~*~*~*

Joey walked into the lunch room and up to the counter.  He’d already had lunch, but he knew if he smiled really nice at Mrs. Westlake she’d give him an extra carton of chocolate milk and if he asked about her dog, Puddles, she’d give him a cookie too. 

Chocolate milk and a cookie in hand, Joey turned to go back to the playground but Joyce Barnhardt was standing right behind him.

“Hi Joey,” said Joyce coyly, her protruding front teeth making her lisp.  “Can I share your cookie?”

He frowned at her.  “No, I don’t want to share with you.  Besides you had five extra cookies at lunch.”  He walked around her and went back out to the playground and looked around.  Stephanie was sitting on the small wall that surrounded the jungle gym while another girl talked non-stop. 

He walked over and sat down on the other side of Stephanie.  Both girls turned to look at him with wide eyes. 

“Wow.  You’re Joey Morelli,” the other little girl gasped.  “You’re a second-grader.”

“Yeah.”  He held out the cookie to Stephanie.  “Want some?”

“OK.” She broke off a small piece.  Her mom must be wrong.  Joey gave her part of his cookie, he must really be nice. She broke her piece in half and handed part to Mary Lou. 

They sat and watched the other kids play while they ate the cookie.  Joey watched Stephanie out of the corner of his eye, gulped down his milk and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

The bell rang for them to line up to go back to their classrooms.  “T-Thanks for the cookie, Joey,” Stephanie said.

He gave her a little punch on the arm.  “No sweat, cupcake.  See ya around.” 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Joyce Barnhardt stood by the lunchroom door and watched as Joey Morelli shared his cookie with a stupid Kindergartner!  Her eyes narrowed as she watched the little girl with the long dark curls skip into line with her class.