Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown Read Online Free PDF

out to run that mile.
    As I skipped across the indoor basketball court and outside to the track, I felt a strange airy sensation between my legs.
    “Oh my God!” Julie Pelagatti shouted as she grabbed me. “Your shorts split,” she whispered, “your shorts split!”
    Oh my God; my shorts split. The one seam on the shorts, which was sewn right in-between my crotch, had split, leaving me with two patches of satin—a white one in the front and a blue one in the back. Even a slight breeze, or less, an errant sneeze, would blow those two patches right up into the air. What was I going to do? I had missed two gym classes already due to fake illnesses I’d come up with. Mrs. Willard, the gym teacher, had said that if we missed more than three classes, she’d fail us immediately.
    I told Julie to go over and ask Mrs. Willard to meet me inside the gym as I kept both sides of my shorts down, being careful not to let my crush, Seth Bonney, know what was going on.
    Luckily, everyone in the class was already outside as I waited for Mrs. Willard to meet me inside.
    “So what is it, Halpern?” the sporty, lean, and tan Mrs. Willard asked me as she entered.
    “Well,” I said, showing her as I lifted both sides, “my shorts split.”
    “Maybe you shouldn’t have eaten so much this winter,” she said with a laugh.
    “Do you think I could skip the mile today?” I asked, suddenly looking at the silver lining. “I don’t have anything else to wear.”
    The burly Mrs. Willard looked down at the clipboard she was holding.
    “Halpern,” she said, “you’ve already missed two classes. If you miss this one, I’m going to have to fail you.”
    So here were my options:
    1. Run the mile in a pair of split shorts and suffer the potentially humiliating consequences.
    2. Stay back in the seventh grade while everyone else went on to the eighth grade and spend the rest of my natural-born days knowing that my life was a year off kilter because I failed gym in the seventh grade.
    3. Sue this fat hater and the Lower Merion School District for millions, get a huge apartment in New York City, and live the rest of my days gloriously and independently wealthy. This was 1982, though, and I was twelve, years before I ever knew that hers was an act of discrimination that could possibly have been punishable by law.
    “It looks like a skirt anyway,” she said. “Now, come on; we’ve got a mile to run.” She put her arm around my back and led me outside.
    “She’s making me run,” I mouthed to Julie Pelagatti.
    Julie crossed herself, kissed her Saint Jude (the patron saint of lost causes) medal, looked at me somberly, and mouthed, “I’ll guard you. ”
    I situated myself in the center of the pack. My plan was to stay within the confines of the crowd, and that way everyone would be too busy and too close to see my shorts.
    As Mrs. Willard screamed “Go,” the kids started jogging. I heaved along, trying to make sure I stayed in-between Julie and Amy Chaikin, both of whom had promised to cover my secret. The problem was that the weight I had gained, in addition to the fact that I had not exercised the entire year, left me huffing and puffing so hard, I was finding it next to impossible to keep up with my shields.
    Back into the pack I went; everyone was passing me by. Stuart Klempner, who was even fatter than I was, passed me. Steven Harper, who only that morning had gotten the cast taken off his broken leg, passed me. Joyce Sullivan, with her scoliosis back brace strapped onto her body, passed me. I was all alone. That is, until Ritchie Jacobs lapped me altogether, and then Amy Braun, and Lisa Kool. All the while, my split Dolphin shorts were waving in the wind, white satin flapping up in the front, blue satin flapping in the back, MY FRIEND WENT TO MIAMI AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT plastered on my rolls of heft.
    I couldn’t take it anymore. I was sure I was about to suffer a massive coronary. Oh, the embarrassment my parents