Since preschool days, my daughter's Francie's two best friends were Seb and Christian. They called themselves The Three Amigos. When Seb had a birthday party, he invited all his boy buddies -- and Francie. And when Christian had a birthday party, he invited all his boy buddies -- and Francie.

Francie's a beautiful girl, with luxuriant long, black hair and a beautiful smile. But she's also a tomboy, more interested in bowling than braiding her hair, more interested in collecting rocks than in collecting Hello Kitty toys. I've often though of her as being like Scout in 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' a girl running as hard as she could to keep up with the boys. Having three older brothers didn't hurt.

Or help.

Francie's almost ten now, and thought she and Seb and Christian still were friends when we moved away for a brief period this summer and fall, she'd just forged a strong new friendship with a lovely, unusual, funny kid named Zenape. Zen's beautiful and dear, and shares Francie's adventurous spirit. She also introduced Francie to sparkly t-shirts and skirts with irregular hems. If you ask Francie about Zen, she'll say, "Zen's a saint." She means that Zen bridged the gap for her, helping her have fun while avoiding things she still doesn't understand and may never embrace.

At nearly ten, Francie's not yet quite a pre-teen. She's barely a 'tween. She still leaves her tooth under the pillow and watches 'Sponge Bob' instead of MTV. Her CD's are still Disney instead of Britney. And when she entered a new shool, she thought she'd had lots of pals, both boys and girls, to run and play with. She found something very different, and it broke her heart.

Francie didn't understand that, at almost ten, boys and girls polarize. Boys think girls are either "hot" (yes, I've heard 10-year-old boys say that) or YUKKY! Girls thinks boys are giggle fodder, have "crushes," gather in the playground to decide if all of them (except the ones they leave out) will wear the same color shirts the next day.

Naturally, they didn't take to Francie. Francie didn't get it.

And then she did get it, smack in the chops. Her lunch money was stolen. Her desk was defaced. Kids sent her notes encouraging her to go back where she came from.

When she read her book report, one girl gave a signal; and all the girls in "circle time" turned their backs on her. Believing that kids need to work things out themselves, her teacher didn't intervene. And while I share that philosphy, and Francie does need to learn that boys and girls start to become different from each other at ten, and even more different at eleven and twelve, I hate that it had to happen that way, in public, over something about which she was pround. It left her confused and sad. She'd been a little girl who believed what her mom told her, that girls and boys are mostly the same except for some few details, and that they could be friends. She expected that, because I told her it was the way it was.

I believed that the world would be different for my daughters than it was for me. I believed that roles wouldn't be so set in stone, and that raising Francie to think that Girls Rule, as well as boys, would make it true.

But it isn't true.

Francie cried the first night. The second night, she wrote a journal entry about how it wasn't fair to tell stories and sing songs about how everybody's way was a very fine way, but then not let that be true in real life. She wanted to read it aloud. A wiser friend, a girl who doesn't dislike Francie (though she dared not show it in front of the popular girls) advised against the reading. It would just make people be meaner, she said. And so, Francie stayed silent, another thing girls weren't supposed to have to accept in the here and now, only in the then and there, where I grew up.

Maybe only the songs and stories have changed, but not the hearts and minds.

I don't blame parents for wanting their girls to be happy and fit in, to be invited to the birthday parties and sleepovers. I want that for Francie, too. Seeing her pain, and hating myself, I even encouraged Francie to curl her hair once in a while, and wear a barrette. But Francie objected. She said school wasn't the same as going to a party or to the theater, and dressing up wasn't necessary, and her customary casual ponytail was quite good enough. And it was she, not I, who was correct.

Abruptly, before middle school even began, she found out that girls such as she is, and I was -- girls who want to clean an unfortunate squirrel's skeleton with bleach and study it, instead of pretending to faint at the sight, who like their shirts baggy and their jeans with lots of pockets and a minimum of glitter -- are going to be by-gosh outcasts.

Until maybe they're senators.

Jackie Mitchard