why actual books with pages are necessary for research. They are.” Her attention returns to the rest of us. “Other questions?”
It’s the usual. Footnotes? Bibliography? Cover page? The Danish foreign exchange student asks, “Ms. Pallas, this project counts for exactly what percentage of the final grade?”
Another arm shoots into the air, and I find myself staring at it, the way the short sleeve of the tight black T-shirt shows off the mound of the bicep and the little tufts of dark hair on the knuckles.
“Question, Brendon?” Ms. Pallas addresses the arm.
This immediately raises a question I have for myself: What did I ever see in him?
Brendon might not have a nickname like his friends, but he’s still part of that surf crowd—Pox, Gnat, Rat Boy, Bubonic, collectively known as the Plagues. I order my mind to make a comprehensive outline of all the things I can’t stand about Brendon. For example, number one: He’s too cute. Yes, a guy can be too cute. It makes him stuck-up. Number two: He actually dated one of the Double Ds. Ick. His girlfriends are so predictable and his taste is so bad. Plus you know that he knows that he’s got those eye crinkles and the effect they have on girls. I don’t like the way he hardly ever smiles. He thinks he’s too cool to smile. He’s moody. I don’t like moody. And I don’t like the way his friends make fun of Raymond and anyone else who’s different. I don’t like the way the girls in his crowd lie on the beach sunbathing and pretend to be too scared to try surfing. Who you hang out with says everything about you.
Brendon’s arm shoots into the air again.
I don’t want to look at that arm. But I do.
I don’t want to feel my stomach flip. It flips. That arm is not sexy. I repeat to myself: not sexy.
I don’t want to think about how, whenever Brendon passes me in the hall, I’m hit with the smell of pine and ocean. I don’t want to think about his curly dark hair that corkscrews over his eyes. I don’t care that his back is broad and his waist is narrow. I don’t want to wonder if, just maybe, his coolness is really shyness. I don’t want to think about how his face sometimes takes on a whole different expression. I’ve seen flashes of it when he doesn’t think anyone is looking. His usual cool surfer-dude aloofness gets replaced by something else, a quiet intensity that makes me wonder if there’s an entire other Brendon locked away inside of him.
Stop thinking about him. Weren’t you embarrassed enough? I shake myself out of the reverie.
Inside the classroom, there’s a lot of noise as project teams start coming together. Chairs squeak. A group of girls laugh. The echo of high fives. Given free choice, we’re all totally predictable. Team Meg and Raymond, of course. We only need to move our chairs a little closer together. The Double Ds team up with their redheaded mutual best friend. The earnest Danish foreign exchange student sits with the president of the Future Leaders of America club. There’s Pox with the usual Plagues, Brendon in the middle of them. He and Rat Boy share a fist bump. I force myself to look away.
Across the room, I notice that Ambrosia’s followers have formed a semicircle around her. No surprise there, either. They are making a big fuss about her hair, which today is pulled back tight ballerina-style, the bun circled by a garland that has the shine and luminescence of real pearls. Then Ambrosia says something that puts them into a state of hysterical cackling. Only her expression remains flat, the sole sign of life a slow lifting of her left eyebrow that’s been plucked into a high, perfect arch. She shakes her head in a way that clearly means: I wasn’t joking. I’m serious.
The laughing stops like someone pulled the plug on them. One girl lets her jaw drop and it hangs open in a fly-catching pose. I can see right into her mouth, even her retainer. The others turn in the same direction, toward me, and all those eyes make my stomach jump. Their expressions are exaggerated, like they’re mimicking the Greek theater masks in our textbook. A mouth in a perfect O of shock. The wide-eyed look of surprise. The tense, squeezed brow of tragedy.
But it’s not me they’re looking at. Thank goodness. Their focus passes through me and