Eventually nearly all of the guys got the message and they stopped pestering her for dates. Which I assumed, had been Mary Beth's plan.Another odd thi...g about Mary Beth ... Well don't you think it was odd, a very beautiful young woman who, to all intent and purposes, kept every guy at arm's length no matter how handsome they were? "Bloody odd if you ask me." I thought at the time; but I was to learn otherwise later. Anyway after a few weeks, word was spread around by some of the young wolves in. I pick up my phone and a message reads: ‘I’m coming over in 5. Hope thats OK’ It’s from her. But she never comes over. I take one last drag and put the stub out. Pick up my still steaming mug and bring it inside. I sit down back at my computer, open a blank page, and put fingers to keyboard to record my thoughts. My writing is interrupted- *Knock knock knock* then my phone vibrates in my pocket, sending shivers down my leg. ‘Knock knock knock’ it read. I open the door and there she stands, her. I look in the mirror.Oh no, just like the lips, there is purple everywhere, on my nose, on myeyebrows, way off on the sides of my face too. I have to use more tissueto get the color all back in the right place.I do not see that pink blusher anywhere but that is okay, Mom hardly usesthat at breakfast time anyway, she just puts it on before she goes outthe door.So now I look in the mirror again, and the face looks okay. You do notnotice its small size, now that the colors are there. I push the. By the time he’d camouflaged himself beneath the loam and the layer of leaves, the Southern crystal sun was beginning to glow. The birds in the trees above him ignored him and began their morning twitters and chirps. From the racket the sparrows made as they woke each other up, Rick was beginning to believe there were a couple hundred of the damned things, right over his head, deliberately chirping and twirping as loud as they could in order to keep him from being able to sleep the day.