The Year of Chasing Dreams by Lurlene McDaniel

continued to be fascinated with him. And since Olivia had a habit of pouring her heart along with every detail of her life into the diaries, Ciana’s fascination with him grew too. From the earliest entries, he was in constant trouble, branded a loner and a troublemaker by teachers and neighbors alike. He’d even been kicked out of Sunday school when he’d said he didn’t believe in God. At age eleven Olivia had been mortified, but as time passed, she wrote of him with an interest that Ciana recognized as a crush.
    However, it had been Eden who’d discovered the first entry about Roy that had sent Ciana on the hunt for others about him. Before she’d left for Australia, she and Eden skimmed the diaries together. One evening Eden had sat up straight and said, “Whoa. You need to read this one.”
    “Read it to me.” They were sitting on the floor, books and papers written in longhand stacked neatly, ordered by dates as much as possible.
    Eden grinned, waggled her eyebrows. “It’s naughty. Sure you want to hear it?”
    “I don’t think Grandmother’s idea of naughty translates to our idea of naughty. Read it.”
    “Dated August 7, 1942,” Eden said. “She was what? Fourteen?”
    “Sounds right.”
    Eden cleared her throat. “ ‘I sneaked off to the swimming hole in Johnson Creek this afternoon. Hot day, school was out and I wanted a cool dip before I had to go home and face chores. No bathing suit—I hate them anyway, and so I stripped down to my undies and jumped right in. If Grandpa Jacob saw me like that he’d tan my hide with a willow switch. Don’t care. Heard yesterday that Joel Bufford got killed in the war, in the Pacific, far away from home. Miz Bufford’s put the gold star decal from the government in her window that tells everyone Joel’s gone. Really sad. Just goes to show you life can be real short, so swimming in my undies didn’t seem too awful.
    “ ‘I was having a fine time in the water when Roy showed up. He announced himself and sat down on the water’s edge and said all kinds of suggestive things to me. (Grandpa calls Roy white trash.) I ignored him best I could, but then he started saying he’d like to come in for a cool dip too.
    “ ‘Then, with no mind or manners to move on, he took my dry clothes, which I’d left on the banks, and said, “If you want them, you have to come take them from me.” I was scared, but I was mad too. Roy knew I couldn’t go home wearing only my panties, so I did the only thing I could do. I crawled right out of that swimming hole and walked right up to him. His eyes were all over me and I bet I turned a hundred shades of red. But … I will only admit this to you, dear diary. Even though I hate him, it excited me to see this look that I can only call
hungry
on his face. It was like he wanted to lay me down right there on the ground. I felt this queer fire flare up inside me;scary, but it made me feel alive and strong, like I held some power over him. But I grabbed my clothes and covered myself as best I could and told him to go away! And then he said, “Next time,” and walked off whistling.
    “ ‘Soon as he was gone, I dressed and hightailed it out of there. I got to our barn and dried off with horse blankets. That night at supper, Mama told me I smelled like a horse and to wash up good before bed. I scrubbed every spot Roy’s eyes had traveled on me with lye soap that burned my skin raw. I hate Roy Soder!’ ”
    Eden leaned into the side of the bed after reading the entry. “I don’t think she hated him at all. I think she was all hot and turned on for him.”
    “Farm kids grow up watching animals doing the deed. Sooner or later, it occurs to you that people must do it the same way,” Ciana said.
    Eden grinned. “Did it make you want to try it?”
    “Not for a long time. First time I saw horses doing it, I was traumatized! Got over it, though,” she added with a sly look.
    “You do it with Jon yet?”
    “No! Not that I