The Mall - Megan McCafferty Page 0,31

almost relaxed for a second until I realized that he might be laughing at me and not with me. Had he heard the rumor about me and Slade? Was he two seconds away from calling me Toothy?

“Do you need another German translation?” he asked.

“No,” I replied curtly.

“I know some conversational Japanese too,” he said. “From my grandma.”

“No,” I repeated. “I’m fine.”

“Oh,” he said. “Because I saw you in the foreign language section.”

So I supposed it was a good sign that Sam Goody had noticed me but hadn’t approached me with a toothy taunt. And since we were talking, I figured I might as well make use of him as a possible resource. It’s not like I had any better options.

“Is Silva Mundi German?” I asked.

“No.” He ran a hand through his pompadour. Sam Goody definitely used more hair product than I did. “It sounds … Spanish maybe?”

“It’s definitely not Spanish. I thought it might be Portuguese but…”

And then I stopped myself because why did I have to explain myself to Sam Goody? I craned my neck to get a look at the cover of the thick book in his lap.

“What are you reading, anyway?”

With zero subtlety, Sam Goody pulled the book away and shoved it under the army surplus satchel at his side.

“It’s okay, a lot of guys read Playboy for the articles,” I teased. “You don’t have to be embarrassed.”

Where was this coming from? Why was I still talking to this person? I would’ve walked away if he hadn’t decided to show me the hidden book. Life Beyond the Ivy League: 50 Schools That Will Make You Rethink College.

“I didn’t take German to wallow in Sturm und Drang,” Sam Goody explained. “My parents expected me to work in finance. And Deutsche Bank is primed to become a global powerhouse in the wake of communism’s collapse.”

As a maker and appreciator of plans, that sure sounded like a solid one to me. Far better than mine because it didn’t depend on anyone else but himself.

“Well.” A hint of envy crept into my voice. “You have it all figured out.”

“Oh sure, it was the perfect plan.” Sam Goody laced his fingers and cradled the back of his head. “There was only one problem. I hated Wharton and everything to do with finance.”

The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania was pretty much the hardest undergraduate business program to get into in the world. Their students got hooked up with the cushiest summer internships at the top Wall Street firms. So why was Sam Goody wasting his summer working for minimum wage at the mall?

“I didn’t take German for Goethe. I took it to please my parents.” He knocked the book’s cover with his knuckles. “Now that I’m a college dropout, I wish I’d taken Latin, which would’ve been more worthwhile from a liberal arts perspective…”

I couldn’t quit Odyssey of the Mind-ing. My brain edited out all the information that wasn’t relevant to my quest. I raced back over to the foreign language dictionaries to confirm my suspicion.

“Latin!” I exclaimed, grabbing a Latin volume from the shelf. “That’s it!”

Silva Mundi = Wood World

Wood World was the only store at the mall devoted to the boner arts. Ha! Get it? Gotcha! Just joshing! Wood World sold quality woodcrafts but whee! That’s how giddy I felt—giddy enough to come up with a dumb dick joke with no one to share it with.

Well, one person to share it with.

“Thanks for the tip!” I shouted at Sam Goody.

He was definitely not the person I had in mind.

16

BIMBO DRESS

I was high from the thrill of solving the unsolvable. I did not get the hero’s welcome I had hoped for.

“Drea! I got the next clue! Silva Mundi! Is Latin! For Wood World!”

“Oh,” Drea said distractedly. “Awesome.”

She blatantly looked behind me, not at me.

“Jeez,” I said. “I thought you’d be thrilled that I’m back in with the treasure hunt.”

“I am.” She placed her hands on my shoulders and gave me a little push. “It’s just…”

“Look.” I firmly planted my feet because she needed to hear this. “I’m sorry I was so hard to deal with the other day. You may be used to being the one put through the rumor mill, but I’m not. I mean, the whole mall was gossiping about my terrible blowjob on the same morning I found out my parents’ marriage is over. It was just too much for me to handle, and I took it out on you…”

Drea pressed her hands to my mouth to shut