would see “get a vegetable boner” as that day’s homework in his agenda. Jason Burke had surrendered to himself in the game of tic-tac-toe. And the girls in the class? The way the girls were looking at me, you would think that not only did I know what a pickle flip was, I could also do it damn well.
chapter 10
“I’m not going to Yeoman’s party tonight,” Jenny told me that Friday, hopping up on the hallway ledge where I was sitting, finishing my precalculus homework. For some reason, I always put off precalculus homework. Probably out of spite. I hate math—but don’t tell Kate that.
I looked up. Jenny was wearing a skirt held together with safety pins. Were they fake, like the fruit bowls some people put on their tables? Or were they real safety pins? If I unhooked the safety pins, would her skirt fall open? Sometimes I had these involuntarily sexual thoughts about Jenny. Just because she’s always around. And because I’m always having involuntary sexual thoughts.
“What party?” I asked.
“Will Yeoman’s,” Jenny said. “You know, Will Yeoman? That guy who’s a dumber version of Jason Burke?”
“Oh, right,” I said, graphing a squiggly parabola. Then I looked up at Jenny, amused. “He is a dumber Jason Burke.”
Jason Burke was blond and good at sports and pretty smart. Will Yeoman was blond and good at sports, but a little rougher, a little bigger, and clumsier and stupider. Together they looked like a lesson on the evolution of man.
“Will Yeoman’s parents are gone for the weekend,” Jenny told me, pulling her legs up and crossing them on the narrow ledge. “So the party’s in the whole house, not just the basement. Ashley Milano is gonna perform those stripper moves she learned from her pole-dancing lessons, and Will’s creepy uncle is getting beer for the downstairs.”
“That uncle who friended all those girls on Facebook?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“He’ll probably try to come to the party,” I said, remembering that was how else I had heard of Will Yeoman. Will Yeoman’s uncle had “poked” Kayla Bateman on Facebook so much that she tried to get him on To Catch a Predator.
“Anyway, I’m not going.” Jenny crossed her arms emphatically.
I scribbled “Finn Frame, Period Three Precalc” on my homework and closed my binder.
I asked Jenny what she wanted me to ask her: “Why aren’t you going?”
The monologue that burst forth indicated that Jenny was very glad I had asked.
“It’s just dumb girls who complain about how guys bother them, but their complaints are really a thinly disguised boast of how much the guy likes them,” Jenny began. “Like Kayla Bateman will talk about how senior guys throw food down her shirt when they’re out to lunch, as if it’s annoying, but the whole point of her bringing it up is to brag about how the senior guys take her out to lunch and that she has big boobs. I hate when all girls think about is guys.”
This from a girl with a home library of heroines who donned stilettos and low-cut dresses while running to escape mortal danger. Ah, well.
“Is Will, like, inviting people to his party?” I asked.
This placated Jenny. She went on a whole rant about how Will never specifically invited her to his parties, but the Monday after his parties, he’d ask, “Hey, why didn’t you show up, Jenny?”
“So I guess I’m supposed to, like, assume I’m invited,” Jenny said. “Or he’ll be mad that I didn’t go!”
Jenny especially liked this idea, the idea that Will would be upset if she didn’t show up to his party—or that he would notice. From what I’d seen at Pelham Public, people kind of forgot about Jenny. These kids had all known one another since they had baby teeth. They only found interesting those classmates who had undergone big changes since those days—for example, everyone was very interested in Kayla Bateman’s big changes.
But even when she’s super gothed out, Jenny doesn’t stand out like that. Everyone at school has known her—quirky, small, and harmless—since kindergarten. When she wears shirts displaying firey tongues or knives dripping with blood, they just look down at her and say, “Hey, Jenny.”
“Hey, Jenny,” Jason Burke said, stopping by our ledge. “Can I borrow the precalc homework?”
“Yeah, sure! I’m just finishing it now,” Jenny said. She has a poorly concealed crush on Jason Burke, although she always says, “Pelham boys are sooo dumb.”
“Can I bring it to you in homeroom?”
“Great. Thanks so much, Jenny.” And Jason took off at a jog.
Jenny turned