Of course, she didn't have any boobs yet, or even any hair around her panty line to trim. But someday she would, she knew, and Lisa was going to wear one of those black slippery dresses, too, like Posh Spice, all the time, even when she went to the grocery store to buy pork chops and baby formulae for her baby, which if it was a boy would be named Roger and if it was a girl would be named Alexandra.

Lisa contemplated the several white-chalk squares on the sidewalk, and carefully tossed the stone in her hand to number 5, where it landed expertly right in the middle. She took a deep breath, and stopped her hand as it strayed toward her white-cotten Barbie panties inside her denim jumper, where a day of running around in the heat with only being allowed two popcicles had given her tiny rash from chafing. But you couldn't scratch yourself down there unless you were in the bathroom, because you might attract perverts.

She took a deep breath, licked her lips and tasted the coppery blood-like tastes of her chapped lips, because she'd been licking them so much lately, and hopped. Left foot one, right foot two, both feet three four, left foot five- she paused and balanced perfectly, like Dominique Marceanuae in the Olympics, and very carefully bent over to retrieve the rock, her right leg stuck out straight for balance. Her chewed fingernails scraped the sidewalk, grasped the rock, and-

"I see London, I see France, I see Lisa's." her friend Mandy began to sing.

"Mandy!" Lisa stood up straight, smoothed her jumper down around her legs and her scruffed knees. "Don't say that!" Lisa put her hands on her hips, still standing on one leg, and looked around them at their neighborhood. "You're gonna attract rapists!"

Mandy's eyes grew wide beneath her long skinny blond hair, which always hung in her face except on picture day at school. "What are those?"

Lisa's jaw dropped. She rolled her yes. "Huh! Mandy! Those are grown men who try to have sex with you!"

"Oh my god, no!" Mandy said. She screwed up her face, wrinkling her face and frowning her teeth out. "Eeeewww."

Gloria, who was littler than them but only by six months so it was okay, said, "What's sex?"

"You don't know what sex is?" Mandy asked.

Gloria bowed her head. "No."

"It's when a man and a woman takes of their clothes and kiss each other while laying under the covers," Gloria explained. Someday she wanted to be a teacher, or a doctor, or a Lieutenant like her aunt.

"No it's not, Gloria." Lisa said, hopping back carefully to the one, holding her jumper to her sides. "Listen," and she whispered: "It's when a man lays on top of a woman, and then he wriggles around, and then he pees on her tummy!"

Shock, horror, real fear. "That's so gross!" Gloria said.

"Yeah, Mandy, so don't advertise my panties around the whole neighborhood, okay?"

This time it was Mandy who hung her head. "Okay. I'm sorry. But how do you-"

"My brother peed on my foot once, in the bathtub," Gloria offered suddenly, her eyes wide. "But he's just a little baby so it doesn't count, right?"

Lisa set her mouth in a firm line and looked to one side, thinking about it. "Noo. I don't think so. But-"

"That's not how it really works, you guys" A voice said from behind them. They twirled around. It was Susan.

She used to be Susie, but then she got her period, and they sort of stopped playing with her. She always walked around with library books clutched to her chest, and had a bruised expression behind her eyeglasses on her round, puffy face. "That's not how it works at all."

It was Gloria who put her hands on her hips this time. "Oh yeah? How does it work then?" she challenged.

Susan put out her chin. "The man has a peeenis, and he puts it in the woman's vagiiina." She frowned at them.

Their eyes grew wide. They already knew what a vagina was- they had health class with Nurse Wilson.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Mandy said.

"And it's not called pee, it's called seeeeman." Susan swallowed a few times, and blinked at them slowly.

"Right," Lisa said, quick to agree with the older girl. "So don't shout 'I see London' or it'll get some man all crazy and he'll take me back to his house and make me drink wine and eat cheese, just like on Melrose, and I don't like wine, cause it tastes groddy."

"How come you know so much about sex?" Mandy asked Susan. "Because I got my period," Susan said with a stuck-up expression, and walked off, with her head down.

The three watched her go. "You know what?" Gloria said after a little bit, "I saw her at church last Sunday, and she was wearing actual real pantyhose."

"Are you sure they weren't knee-highs?" Lisa asked. "My mom lets me wear those sometimes."

"Nope, cause she had on a dress that went above her knees, and I could see the pantyhose wrinkling behind her knees when she stood up for 'The Angels Are Made of Light.'"

Mandy rolled her eyes. "Oh man, I can't wait 'till I get my period."

Lisa shook her head and held out the rock. "I can. Who's turn is it?"