The first lie you remember telling?

Although I probably starting lying at an early age, the first specific lie I remember telling was from age 8 or thereabouts. The ball games I played until then were four square, kick ball, dodgeball, and tether ball.

I was very good at dodgeball, being short, fast, and wiry. The backstop for our neighborhood dodgeball games was the two-car garage door of my family’s house. The neighborhood’s four square games also took place in my family’s driveway, with chalk marks delineating each square. Kick ball was played further down the street, at what we called “the little point.” Somehow I hadn’t yet played softball or baseball. One day there was a softball game in the street, a couple blocks away. I asked if I could play, even though I didn’t know the rules. But I didn’t tell them that. They stuck me in right field. One kid hit a grounder my way. I ran to it and picked it up.

My frame of reference for games in which you threw a ball was dodgeball, in which you throw the ball AT someone. So I threw the ball at the runner on his way from first to second base. Fortunately, I missed him. But one of the other kids saw what I had done and shouted, “Hey, you don’t throw the ball at the runner!” At that point I realized this wasn’t like dodgeball, and I needed to cover my tracks. So I quickly responded, “I know that! I didn’t throw it at him.” But I had thrown it at him. I lied.

That’s my first recollection of an outright lie. What’s yours?