CHAPTER 1

Sharley wasn't my best friend forever. That's just because Sharley wouldn't have the chance at forever. None of us do, of course, but Sharley left me at an age when it had never occurred to us that we might not have a forever.

To be honest about it, I didn't even always like Sharley. Maybe that's the way it is with friends. Maybe the liking isn't the most essential part of being friends.

Maybe it's the sticking by. Maybe it's the impression of yourself you get through your friend's eyes.

Or maybe it's all the little lessons you learn. Because when it came to lessons, Sharley definitely considered herself to be the teacher and all others to be the students.

Sharley's mom could best explain her name. Dorothy Brown said she wanted to name her daughter Charlene, after an Uncle Charles, but she didn't want people to call her baby girl Charley. She wanted them to call her Sharley. So she spelled her name Sharlene.

Good thing, too, because no sooner was Sharley named Sharlene Brown than the public would discover that comic strip character Charlie Brown. Not that people didn't notice the similarity of Sharley Brown to Charlie Brown. Oh, yeah, they noticed all right. It was sort of like naming your son Sue, like in that Johnny Cash song. Sharley learned to defend her name right away.

At first, it was very endearing. Dorothy (Dot, as her friends called her) taught Sharley to put her finger to her lips in a sh! gesture. After emphasizing the beginning of her name by leaning from the waist into her finger, she would add the rest. "My name is Shhh-arley."

Since I was the same age, I thought that was the only way to say Sharley's name. Mom had to retrain me by holding my finger down and having me say "Sharley" without it.

As Sharley grew older and Charlie Brown became more and more famous, the "Shhh-arley" method lost its effectiveness. Sharley began to implement her patented arm-twist-and-offer method. "If you have a quarter," she'd say in a low, confident voice from behind a grimacing child, "you can call me Charlie Brown. Otherwise, it's Sharley."

Since most kids in rural Iowa in the mid-fifties didn't have their own money, Sharley never got a single quarter back from her offer. But she was well able to persuade most kids to call her Sharley Brown. If she'd just untwist their arms, they were happy to do so.

Sharley's success, of course, was limited by the size of the child. But Sharley was naturally very good at adapting to those situations in which the other child was bigger. "See that guy over there?" She'd toss her head in the direction of any older boy or a man. "He's my brother/father. He doesn't like it when people call me Charlie Brown." Here, she would take a half-step closer with the intimation, "He likes it much better when people call me by my real name, Sharley." She would plaster a fake, sweet smile on her face and wait for the inevitable, "Sorry, Sharley."

Then along came that tuna commercial in which they said, "Sorry, Charlie." So, Sharley's work was cut out for her because of her name. And many community kids remained confused about just who Sharley's brother and father were.

Sharley and I were both born in 1952, in the same county in midwest Iowa. Sharley's family was not like mine at all. She had a three-part family. Sharley had two brothers and a sister who were grown up and out on their own. That was Part One. Part Two consisted of two brothers who were three and five years older than Sharley. Sharley and her little sister, Cindy, were Part Three, the tail-enders of their immediate family history.

Sharley's oldest brother, David, was married. That experience alone had educated Sharley far beyond my own life experiences.

We had gone to David and Paula's shivaree, a noisy neighborhood celebration, hosted by the wealthiest family in the neighborhood, the Rushes. Mr. and Mrs. Rush weren't turn-up-their-noses rich. They just enjoyed sharing their higher land-baron income by doing nice things for other people.

Sharley had sidled up to me to whisper that Paula had a bun in the oven. She could see by the puzzled look on my face that I hadn't a clue what that meant. I hadn't yet learned to feign knowledge, and I was only recently beginning to be embarrassed by any lack of information.

"They had to get married!" she hissed at me as my face flushed in realization.

Sure enough. Since David and Paula had eloped and robbed the neighborhood of a wedding, the party participants had rounded up the red-faced newlyweds to perform a mock shotgun wedding. The symbolic, unloaded shotgun confirmed Sharley's insight: Paula surely must have a baby on the way. The embarrassment was softened when each family produced a gift for the couple to unwrap while everyone looked on. There were no secrets in our neighborhood, especially with the party-line telephone system.

In comparison to Sharley's family, my family was more of a small cluster. Okay, maybe it was more like a sandwich, and I was the filling. I was sandwiched between an older brother and a younger brother. I also still had both sets of grandparents. I loved my grammies and grampies.

Sharley hadn't really known any of her grandparents. They had all died before she was old enough to remember them much. Sharley and I just couldn't connect on the grammie and grampie ground. She couldn't understand what a kid could see in spending time with old people.

Frank Brown changed jobs a lot, so the Browns moved often. Once, the Brown family lived clear over in another county. It took forever to get to their house, and it had been so long since Sharley and I had seen each other that we were shy during our first visit. But that didn't last long.

More often than not, the Browns were our rural area neighbors, dodging around the countryside from one rental house and farm site to another. That meant that if we were persuasive enough, we could have play-and-stay-overs. Since the gift of persuasion seemed to favor Sharley, we were often able to do so.

CHAPTER 2

"Curl your toes under real tight, and walk on the outsides of your feet," Sharley coached. She was standing like one of those pink yard flamingos, cooling one foot and waiting for me to catch up.

"Come on!" She turned impatiently and continued to hotfoot down the hill.

I was just making it over the top. The only thing that kept me going was being able to bite the inside of my cheeks and say loudly, inside my head, Ow, ow, ow! each time I took a step.

"I'm comin'!" I yelled at the back of Sharley's faded purple blouse, already halfway down that long hill.

She stopped again and turned to observe my progress. She teetered on one foot as she cooled the other on the side of her tanned knee. "Like I said," she reminded with her finger-shaking voice.

I had been relieved when Sharley had topped the hill. I had jumped onto the cool roadside grass and picked my way quickly to the top. But now Sharley was watching. I had to stay on that coarse, ragged gravel.

"What a wimp!" Sharley had said when I told her I never went barefoot. I had a really good reason: my parents wouldn't let me. They were always afraid of the tetanus that ill-fated horses and lambs had contracted during the history of our small Iowa farm. I could have taken time to describe to Sharley the lockjawed pile of dead, newly docked lambs I'd seen outside the sheep pen, but she had already passed her opinion of me.

I had taken my shoes and socks off, and Sharley had wrinkled her nose at my tender white feet. Sharley had stood there, hands on her hips, supported by leathery-brown callused feet, much like what I imagined the bottom side of a hobbit's foot to be.

"Shoes are a pain in the summer. you need to toughen those feet up. A couple times on road gravel always helps. I do this every spring."

I had carefully tucked my Clorox-whitened anklets into my brown play oxfords and then immediately yearned for their comfort as Sharley pulled me onto the Browns' driveway.

"We'll go over to the Rushes'. Just over the hill and back. The county just unloaded some new rock. That'll get your feet started on summer." Sharley had nodded in agreement with herself.

"New rock?" I had mouthed to Sharley's back as she led off. Somehow, it was easier to talk to Sharley's back.

New rock was always huge and sharp. Mom even feared for our car tires when the gravel trucks unloaded on the roadbeds in the spring. And my feet sure weren't made of rubber.

I had picked my way out onto the sizzling road rock, picturing the fellow I'd seen on television once who'd walked on glass. Or was it hot coals? What was that saying — mind over matter? Maybe I should switch to thinking of Jesus walking on the water.

"Walk on the outsides. Or on tiptoes." Sharley had demonstrated. "That's how I start."

How I wished I had started rock walking when Sharley had, when the rock was old and small and rounded and sunken into the roadbed. I had glanced longingly back at my then tiny shoes.

Sharley had gotten halfway up the hill. "Walk fast!" Her words had hung in the mid-June heat between us.

I had counted down inside my head, One, two, three, four, fi —. It was my practice to jump into anything I was counting toward before I finished saying five.

I had tried my outsides. Then my tiptoes. each lasted for about a half-dozen painful steps. Ow, ow, ow!

By then, Sharley had disappeared over the hilltop, and I cheated by taking the grass the rest of the way up.

A cattle truck roared up behind me. I leaped into the tall ditch grass, hoping for no broken glass, burrs, mud, or snakes. Thick, choking rock dust trailed the truck as it swerved menacingly past me on the narrow road. The speed, swerving, and lack of thrown rock from the wheels told me it was an empty truck, on its way to pick up some farmer's poor, unsuspecting livestock for a terrifying trip to the auction house.

I rushed downhill on the roadside grass, under cover of the heavy, gray cloud.

Below me, Sharley was breathing into the neck of her blouse and wildly waving the dust away with her free arm. Wherever there was sweat on Sharley, the rock dust had stuck, even to her clothes. I was sure I looked the same. Grit crunched between my teeth. I spit into the ditch, and Sharley laughed.

Sharley spit, too. Only farther, and more times. "Too bad the Rushes aren't home. I need a drink." She hung her tongue out under her slightly bucked teeth.

I held my dust-coated arms away from my once clean clothes. "I feel like a cake pan before you put the cake in."

"Only this isn't flour." Sharley had a gray smear across her cheek and into her caramel tangle of hair, where she had swiped the spit from her mouth. "How're the feet?"

I proudly lifted one and then the other for Sharley's inspection. They were even dirtier than the rest of me.

"Is that grass stain?" Sharley bent closer.

I slapped my foot down. "The truck ... I took the ditch."

"Drivin' wa-a-a-y too fast," Sharley agreed.

We turned at the sound of another vehicle coming from the opposite direction.

Sharley frowned. It was her dad in his rattletrap pickup. Different parts were different colors, and most were rusty. The 1961 license plate was by far the newest part on that pickup.

He stuck his nearly white hair out the window, blowing smoke from a stubby cigarette. "Saw you girls take off. That was some darned dangerous drivin' by that truck driver." He trailed off in favor of a puff on his ciggy. "Climb in the back, girls. I'll give you a ride home."

I thankfully scrambled up over the scorching tailgate and stepped onto a weathered board.

But Sharley waved him off. "I'm walkin'. I'll stay way over to the side."

"Okay, then. you keep an eye out. There's only one Sharley Jane." Frank pulled his head back into the pickup.

Sharley's relationship with her parents was much different than the relationship I had with my own. I would never make a suggestion alternate to Dad's. A look and a word, that's all we got. And we knew better than to argue. I suspected that was why the stay-overs were eighty percent at Sharley's house and twenty percent at ours.

Spoiled. That was the single adjective Mom and Dad most often used to describe Sharley. Sometimes they added a second adjective: rotten.

As Frank's pickup sputtered away, I sat on the board and gripped the dull purple side panel. Sharley slowly shook her head at me. "you'll never get tough feet that way," she yelled.

Sharley picked up pieces of the fresh gravel and began to chuck them as high as she could. As distance and the hill grew between us, I could see those rocks flying into the air. It was Sharley's way of showing me she was still there, even if I couldn't see her anymore.

I thanked Frank Brown for the ride back to the farmhouse and hobbled to the pump to rinse off the rock dust. Then I let the forceful stream of cool water echo refreshingly into the hollow of my cheek.

I picked up my shoes and socks and sat on the end of the open porch to put them back on.

Sharley was coming down the driveway, blowing on a blade of grass to make it screech. I hadn't quite mastered that trick. "Show me how?" I called.

"Promise not to go ridin' off in the middle?"

I grinned and slightly hung my head in the direction of my feet. That seemed to work for Sharley when she was in trouble with someone else.

Sharley pointed down the driveway on her way to the pump. "We'll need road grass," she directed. "I'm gettin' a drink."

CHAPTER 3

"Hey!" My older brother, John, had gotten up from the supper table to refill his water glass. He was a year ahead of me in school and almost everything else. "you were born sixteen months apart," Mom liked to emphasize.

My folks, my little brother Sam, and I were still chowing down on fresh fried chicken and new potatoes and peas. Sam was gnawing on a crisp, golden chicken leg that fit his four-year-old grip perfectly.

Ox — our part-collie part-ox, as Dad put it — barked lazily from the stoop, with his bulk jammed against the chipped, red wooden screen door.

"Hey!" John repeated. "There's a car out there! Who is that?"

We all scrambled for a place at the screen door.

"What color is that?" Sam asked. "It's called baby blue," I answered.

"Look at all that chrome," Mom said. "It's shiny as a mirror!"

"Might as well have picked it off a lemon tree," Dad muttered. "That's one of them edsels. Bet Frank Brown got himself a real bargain with that one!" Frank was noted in the community for his frequent and creative car trading.

"That's the Browns!" I said. "Move, Ox!" We took turns squeezing through the badly bowing screen door until a stern word from Dad made Ox decide to get up and help greet the guests.

"Come for a ride, fellas!" Frank was eager to share a ride in his newly acquired rig. First, the men all rode to the end of our half-mile driveway and back. Then it was the women's turn.

Sharley's mom had never gotten a driver's license, so Frank stayed behind the wheel. We piled into the deep, light-colored seats: grownups in front, kids in back.

"Now we have both a pickup and a car," Sharley said.

"Yes, we're a two-vehicle family," Dot Brown said from the front, waving away the smoke from Frank's cigarette. "I don't know how on earth we'll keep the inside of this thing clean, living on a farm," she fussed.

"It's even better than your car," Sharley blurted out to me.

"Sharley Jane!" Dot warned sharply.

I knew what Sharley meant. She had begun to be embarrassed to ride in the "pickup of many colors," as she called it. We smiled at each other in the backseat.

Sharley leaned to whisper in my ear. "It's even almost better than the Rushes'." The Rushes bought a new car almost every year, as soon as the crops came in.

"Sharley Jane!" piped little Cindy Brown. She'd been absorbed until then with a pale green worm that was inching along the back window frame. "Mom, Sharley's tellin' secrets!"

"Sharley! Mind your manners!" Dot turned a frown to the backseat.

We smiled at each other again. Then Sharley crazily rolled her eyes, and we both began to giggle.

"Kate!" This time it was my own mom who turned to frown.

"It's a green worm," I said quickly. "In the back window!"

"Inside or out?" Frank asked calmly.

"Outside!" we three girls chorused.

"He's a-hangin' on," Cindy chirped. Then everybody began to giggle.

The boys had already taken off by the time we got back to the house. Now it was up to me to try to come up with some form of entertainment to measure up to that car ride.

"Why don't you ever play dolls with Sharley?" Mom had asked once.

"Sharley keeps her dolls outside," I had answered. "I saw one in a mud puddle. She didn't have any clothes on, and her legs were off. Another one was in a tree with no head and one arm gone."