Note: this is 100% fiction.

“Girls aren’t welcome here. It’s boys only. Get lost.” That’s what my brother, Jacob, said when I tried to join one of his baseball games. I didn’t feel humiliation until my other brothers – Jeremiah, Joseph, Jessie, and Jim – started laughing and pointing fingers along with their group of friends.

I remember running home that day and broke down in a fit of tears, hoping my mother would sympathize. Instead, she said, “Quit your whining, Jackie, and buck up.” Buck up? What does that even mean?

Eyes still full of tears, I ran out of the house toward the woods, sobbing all the way there. I was a girl among 5 boys. Am I not the child my mother was after? After all, I’m the 6th, a girl, and dead last in the line-up. Why doesn’t she treat me like one? Why did she say things like “Buck up”?

I didn’t stop running until I reached my tree. My tree – the one whose trunk got split right down the middle, forming a small cave at the base. Arms wrapped around my knees, I sat in the shelter of the cave, and cried until there was no more tears flowing from my eyes.

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