I couldn’t believe my ears, but there it was, out in the open, and we all heard it. If you’ve seen the movie, A Christmas Story, with you’ll-shoot-your-eye-out Ralphie, then you know there’s no getting around a triple-dog dare. Harold had no choice but to follow through, no matter the consequence.

This was the early 60’s. A lot had changed since the 50’s, but some things were too important to be cast aside. The triple-dog dare was one of them. It was last of day of school, a half-day. Everyone was in the hallway, waiting for the busses to arrive. The teachers had abandoned their posts, retreating to the relative safety of the teacher’s lounge. We were too excited about the end of school and the onset of summer vacation to get into any trouble. Or so they thought.

The dare started out innocently. A lingering stare, unnoticed by all but one. A half-joking comment, why don’t you go over there and kiss her. It escalated quickly. The final dare, blurted out, then swiftly followed by a look of complete surprise on the face of the one who said it. Harold wasn’t looking at us. He was watching her, talking with her friends, with her back turned towards us, unaware of what was about to happen.

Without taking his eyes off her, he walked over and stood silently behind her. Her friends stopped talking to peer around her. She turned to face Harold, smiling. In retrospect, I believe he planned the whole thing, at least the dare. What followed next could never be planned. The sheer boldness, the audacity, the daring, it was sure to go down in middle school history.

Camille was six inches taller than Harold, something sure to make Harold’s attempted kiss that much more awkward. His next move was right out of a James Bond movie. He threw his arms around her and, instead of kissing her, leaned her to the side with his face directly over hers. He held her there, eye to eye, with no further movement for what seemed like minutes. The noise of our classmates diminished substantially. All eyes turned to Harold and Camille. They were the subject of all conversation.

Camille was the prettiest girl in our class. As far as we knew, she’d never been kissed. Harold’s face moved closer to hers, slowly, much too slowly. All conversation stopped. No one moved. All eyes were on them. Harold’s lips were inches from hers when he closed his eyes. Moments later the unthinkable happened, the unimaginable, the unbelievable. It did happen. Everyone saw it.

There is a fact regarding the triple-dog dare not widely known among the general population,. Those of us who take our dares seriously know the triple-dog dare requires an accompanying triple-level bet. Level one is the part the novice usually takes into account, Harold would chicken out. He would be disgraced beyond measure if this occurred. He knew that. The second level was that she would stop him, push him away, slap him. This would be considered an acceptable attempt to fulfill the dare. The third level was that he would succeed in kissing her, and then get slapped. That was the outcome I bet on.

This endeavor, this dare, was meaningful on a grand scale. You see, this was the eighth grade. It was our last chance, our last hope. Next year we’d be freshmen in high school or, as the seniors liked to say, fresh meat. We had a whole year of torment and humiliation to look forward to. This was the circle of life, a cycle of mistreatment of young boys entering into the final phase of their schooling, a cycle that would surely continue for untold future generations.

Adding insult to injury, the older boys, our tormentors, would also steal our female classmates, the pretty ones anyway leaving us the rejects. It sounds cruel, but how could we compete. The girls were developing into young women while we, the boys, continued forward looking like little boys. Not only were our schoolmates abusing us, nature herself taunted us, setting our hormones ablaze in bodies that mothers looked upon as children still in need of a babysitter. The absolute unfairness was overwhelming. These were our girls, we grew up with them, only to watch them abandon us.

Then, right before our eyes, hope sprang forth. Hope with the name Harold, holding within his manly embrace a lovely girl named Camille. As his lips were about to touch hers, Camille closed her eyes. My mouth fell open. I think I drooled. Not only was Harold kissing Camille, Camille was kissing Harold. Her girlfriends looked upon this scene wide-eyed, with hands covering their mouths. Had Camille disgraced herself? Would this one act of passion ruin her reputation and abolish her standing as the most well-liked girl in the class? I didn’t know. I didn’t care.

We watched as they pressed their lips together. This was not your grandmother’s peck on the lips. This was real. They held their embrace as we watched them moving gently, ever so slowly, closer to the floor. Then they crashed. Harold was unable to hold her. They hit the floor, lip against lip. Harold rose with a grand smile and blood oozing from a cut on his lip. Camille rose with the help of her friends. Her lip also bled.

“That’s something she’s never going to forget,” I said.

“Me either,” said Harold. “That was my first kiss.”