Be an Angel when You Can

When I was about twelve I tagged along with my best friend and my younger sister to the park one day because a bunch of kids in my younger sister's class were getting together to greet a new student in their class. My buddy and I mostly tossed a football around, or raced each other to see who could swing the highest while all the other kids, who were a year younger than us, played touch football and flirted awkwardly the way preteens sometimes do. At some point one of the girls in the group decided they should all come over to her house to swim. My pal, Greg, and I stayed behind. The new girl didn't have a swimsuit with her, so two of the other girls, popular girls in my sister's class, offered her theirs and told her to change in the bathroom at the park and they'd wait for her and walk with her over to their friend's house. Well, they ditched her. We didn't even notice it happening until she came out of the restroom and they were gone. I will never in my life forget the look on that young girl's face when she realized what had happened. She began to cry, wondering what it was about her that made them not just exclude her, but do it cruelly. My friend and I tried to comfort her, but the damage had been done. We went to a payphone with her and called her mother to come and get her, and we waited with her at the park. We told jokes, tried to cheer her up. Greg had a pool at his house, and even though he was incredibly shy and rarely spoke to people at school, he mentioned it would be great for her to come over one of the days that my sister and I came, and I heartily agreed and told her she could just walk home with us from school, any day. By the time her mother finally arrived the girl was happier, consoled. She felt certain she could count on our invitation as being solid. She started to walk to her car but then she spun around and walked back toward us, throwing her arms around us.