Bonnie was a thin, serious girl from a poor family that lived about half a mile from the school. She was like no other girl Slade had known, kind of like a boy with long hair. She could handle worms and crickets, could cast her own line without getting it hung, and could handle her own fish when she caught them. He had walked up on her fishing on his father's land once while he was hunting squirrels. She had a slick pile of bream on a stringer, laying in the leaves next to her leg, a large plastic cup containing worms and dirt, and an opened coffee tin with hooks, weights and a single red float. They had looked at each other for a long while, Slade surprised to see a girl fishing, and she looking back at him blandly as if he was invading her spot.

"Deddy never let me have a gun," she had told Slade, eyeing his shotgun. "Never let me shoot one either. He said that fishing was okay, but hunting was for the men.

" Though Slade usually went hunting alone or with a couple of very select boys from the tenth grade, boys a couple of years older than he was, he decided there was no reason he couldn't teach Bonnie how to shoot a gun, to meet her at the edge of the road and let her target practice with pine cones.

After school one day in the late fall, a couple of months after he had caught her fishing, he talked Bonnie into meeting him on the road that split his father's land. She showed up wearing her older brother's handed down denims and blue t-shirt, and her own fishing boots. Her long blond hair was pulled back sharply in an orange band.

Slade shuffled out from his spot in the woods, where he was looking for squirrels, to the road to meet her. He smiled, but she didn't return it.

"Okay," he said. "This is a twenty-gauge shotgun, side-by-side double barrel."

"I didn't say I didn't know anything about guns. I just don't know how to shoot them." She swung her pony tail over her shoulder and rolled her eyes.

Slade looked up at her, tossed his own hair back out of his eyes.

"Sorry," he said, "forgot you aren't a girl."

Bonnie ignored him and looked at the gun.

"So," he said, holding the shotgun in both hands, "the first thing to remember about guns is not to point them at anyone."

"I know all this, Slade," she said, rolling her eyes again.

Slade silenced her with an upheld index finger.

"But it is important," he coached, "because I don't want to get shot." Bonnie smiled briefly. "Now, here," he continued, handing her the shotgun. "Hold it real tight against your shoulder like this. Good. Is it real tight? Cause if it's not it'll kick you."

"Kick me?" Bonnie exclaimed, lowering the gun and swinging around so that it was pointed at Slade's stomach. Slade grabbed the barrel and thrust it away from him.

"Now, see?" he said putting his hands on his hips. "I know the gun's unloaded, but you need to get into the habit of pointing that thing at the ground. A good rule is to believe it's always loaded," he said.

"Sorry," she said, tossing her ponytail again.

"Now, it won't kick you so bad if you hold it tight. Watch this." He took the shotgun from her and loaded a round into the chamber. "Watch my shoulder to see how far back it goes when the gun goes off." He pulled the trigger, heard the blast, saw the dirt fly fifteen feet ahead of them. She nodded. "Now you try."

He reloaded, handed it to her, and put her finger on the guard of the first trigger.

"Just point it down the road somewhere and when you're ready, squeeze the trigger," Slade said. "Don't forget to hold it tight to your shoulder." He moved silently a couple feet behind her just in case she lost her balance.

"Sure is heavy," she remarked, her voice muffled as she imitated looked down the sights as Slade had done. "Here goes."

Slade heard the gun go off, saw Bonnie's shoulder jolt simultaneously. He grinned as she lowered the gun and turned, keeping the barrel pointed down.

"You okay?" She looked a little pale.

"Yeah. Not as bad as I thought, really. It's so loud." She handed the gun back to Slade.

"Want to do it again?"

"No, I gotta get home,' she said. "Let's come back tomorrow and try."

"Okay." It wasn't till November that she asked to go hunting with him. Slade agreed hesitantly, and met her at the edge of the woods the following early Saturday morning. "Now, you're not gonna get all crying on me when we kill something, are you?" Slade asked warily, eyeing the girl from under his tousled black hair.

"Of course not," she frowned, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "I killed many chickens before, so I don't mind killin'." Not used to being treated differently than the boys, she stomped off indignantly into the woods, leading the way toward the grove of oaks that they had planned to hunt.

"I don't know," he said under his breath so that she couldn't hear, and shook his head, following her.

He loved the woods. He could smell the cool air signifying the coming of winter, the season for hunting. As they made their way through the brush, they had to push away the thick, bushy foliage, flaming and bursting with varieties of shades, as if someone had randomly chosen colors from a box and colored each leaf with a different crayon.

The woods were Slade's escape from reality. The tiny birds that fluffed up the beds of leaves in search for insects and berries were his only companions. Here in the woods, Slade reigned as king.

Some daring birds darted low across the humans' path only to bomb into a bush on the other side. Slade smiled when he saw them, finding this one of very few small humors in life, wondering where all of the little creatures came from.

The deeper into the woods they snuck, the more subtly darker it became. Slade reached out and touched Bonnie roughly on the arm. She paused, turning silently. He stepped on the path ahead of her and led the rest of the way to the grove of hardwoods. Slade stepped off the path and took another route through the woods through swampy moss and damp leaves. They walked silently and quickly through a large open grove of pines, and then down by the pond that Slade had caught Bonnie fishing.

Finally they approached the oaks that stood at the edge of the O'Connor land, far away from the house. Slade loaded two shells in the chambers of the double barrel, and closed it with a snap.

They moved slowly forward, Bonnie following his lead, and stood at the edge of the grove, tentatively listening and watching for any movement in the trees above them.

Slade heard Bonnie creeping up slowly behind him. He jumped a little as she stepped on a twig. He turned his head and frowned, she shrugged and bit at her lip. Several moments had passed before Slade saw an arched figure of a squirrel bouncing up a limb stealthily towards the rich supply of acorns at the bushy end. He felt his heart beating faster in his chest, and he opened his mouth slightly to breath so that he could hear better.

"Look," he whispered. Bonnie followed where he was looking and smiled tightly with a small nod. Not taking his eyes off the creature clinging to the thick branch high above them, he saw the squirrel sit up, then run to a crotch in the branch. They stood as still as they could and watched.

"Don't watch his face," Slade whispered so slowly that he knew Bonnie would have a hard time understanding him. "Look at his tail, and he won't get spooked."

The furry creature barked a couple of times, flicked his tail, and was joined by another squirrel in a neighboring tree. Slade had to blink hard every once in a while because the squirrel was hard to keep in focus in the dark tree. The squirrel turned from them and bounced a couple of times up the branch again. Slowly, Slade brought the shotgun to his shoulder and, feeling his heart and breath catch with the excitement of the hunt, he aimed quickly and squeezed the trigger. Slade's breath caught in his throat as the explosion from the gun destroyed the silence. He smelled the gun powder burn, felt the pressure on his right shoulder from the kick, felt the clamminess in his hands, the warm metal from the barrel. He heard the silence in the woods afterwards, and sensed the confusion in the creatures. They knew he was there, and he could imagine them streaking off into the underbrush to loose themselves from the horrible sound. He watched as the squirrel dropped head first, plummeting to the ground. He smiled and took the gun down from his shoulder.

"Wait until we go get that one and then you can have the next one," Slade promised. They strode forward, he stiff with achievement to get the squirrel, reloading as they went. Slade felt proud and manly in front of Bonnie even though he refused to think of her as a girl. He nudged the squirrel with the gun barrel to make sure it was dead, then picked it up by the tail, and showed her where the shot went in. "See, in the head. Doesn't mess up the meat.

" She nodded, expressionless.

He turned and pointed at the tree the other two squirrels had been in a moment ago. They had, of course, vanished. Slade leaned toward Bonnie.

"I'm gonna walk around the other side of the tree. You be real still and see if that squirrel doesn't come around on your side. They can't count, so they'll think the only danger to get away from is me." He handed her the shotgun and started off, then turned back. "Keep it pointed up." He grinned. She tossed her pony tail, and looked up into the tree.

Slade gently kicked up a few leaves to distract the little animal. Slade's trained eye saw small bits of bark drifting down from the far branch in a huge crotch of the oak. He looked quickly over at Bonnie, who already had the gun raised. Slade squinted back up into the tree toward the far branch, a branch thicker than he was, jumped a little as he heard the shot go off. Jumped again as he heard the second one go off, saw the body fall. Heard the wood go unnaturally silent. It would be silent for many moments. They looked at each other, he nodded. She moved forward to take the squirrel.

Now he'd see what she was made of. As much as he wanted to, Slade couldn't ignore the fact that Bonnie was a girl. Unconsciously, he had been a little gentler with her, had watched his language around her, and had watched out for her safety. She was a girl, and that was unfortunate, he thought. She would have made a heck of a guy.

Still, it was fun to have someone to teach other that his brother and school friends. She had caught on to shooting faster than any of them. She was smart and quiet, not giddy and goofy like the other girls at school. He hoped he'd never like girls, because Bonnie would probably be the one he would like. And the thought of liking this skinny, stringy girl as anything other than a hunting and fishing partner was a bit sickening. As he walked toward her, she keeping her eye on the place the squirrel fell as he had taught her to do, he watched her stalk through the underbrush and thought that he would definitely not like her if he had to like a girl sometime. He would want a girl like the ones in the magazines her brothers brought out to the woods to show him. They had smooth, plump skin and lots of thick beautiful hair. Bonnie was very plain and very skinny.

"Good," he said as he watched her poke the body with the gun barrel. He picked it up to look at it. "Shot it up a little bit, see?" The brown-gray fur was churned up from where she had shot it in the back near the hindquarters. He ran his hand over the soft fur. It was warm, smooth. He ran it against the fur and watched it plump as it fell back. Soft.

"I forgot to hold it tight to my shoulder," she said. She handed him the shotgun and rubbed her right shoulder.

Kristi Alford Department of Education