Story-a-day - Day Twenty

This post is part of a series of short stories.

Day Twenty

Leggy James, they called her. But not for the reason you might imagine. You probably had pictures in your mind of Lana Turner and Betty Grable and her ''million dollar legs.'' And you were probably wrong. Fabienne Brigitte James looked less like a leggy pinup girl and more like a, well, an egg. Somehow, almost beyond explanation, she had the roundest body you'd ever seen. Undeniably egg-shaped, with tiny, stick-pin legs. And with her name about as French as they come, one boy started calling her Le egg. With the other boys in town being about as cultured as a fence post (in other words, they didn't get the French reference), it morphed into Leggy, as the sarcasm, at least, was not lost on them. Now you might imagine a sad, broken girl, crushed by the weight of her name-callers, but again you would be wrong. I can say that Leggy owned her nickname. She wore it proud. When she walked downtown she was Lana Turner. When she sat in the ice cream shop she had million dollar legs. And to be honest, I think this irked the name-callers a little bit. They began to grow restless, and their name calling just didn't seem to be enough anymore. One day when they were tossing a baseball around, they spotted her down the street, walking into the post office. ''Come on!'' the biggest boy whisper-yelled. And the pack of geniuses followed him. They leaned against the fence outside and waited. Before long Leggy came walking out with a package in hand. ''Leggy Jaaaaaames,'' the leader taunted. ''What's up, fellas?'' she swung her hips. ''We was just talkin' and Dewey here was askin' if you've ever been caught poachin'. '' ''Nope, never have,'' she answered. ''Or if you ever get the feelin' that your brain is scrambled.'' She stopped. ''Not particularly. I do have a question for you, though, Mitchell,'' she put up her finger. ''What's that?'' ''When ya bring home your report card, does your old man crack your head on the counter or beatcha sunny side up?'' The whole lot of boys burst into laughter. Mitchell was so taken aback, Leggy just walked away, basking in her comeback glory. Hips swingin' and skirt swishin'.