How (Not) to Find a Boyfriend

by Allyson Valentine

  “Um, I needed to take AP biology. I had to switch some other things around to get it.”

  “AP biology? That’s nuts. Don’t you need to be a junior or a senior or something to take that class? And don’t you need to take normal biology first?”

  I nod. “I know. It stinks. It’s all because of my mom. She’s making me take it. She hasn’t given up on me going to some top-notch school like Phil did.” I practiced that line all the way to school, and fear that’s exactly how it sounds.

  Krista wilts. She strokes my wrist and looks at me like I’m an injured kitten. “You poor baby! That’ll be really hard. Your mom needs to get that you can make your own choices.”

  Oh, the irony.

  When the bell rings, Krista calls after me, “Meet me by the doors at lunchtime. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

  I am such a rat. And in true rat form, I totally forget what a rat I am as I walk into AP biology and spot Adam in the third row, all the way across the room. He’s immersed in a book—it’s another chess book. He moves his finger through the air up, then at a diagonal. Mental chess. I’ve seen it before when Dad worked out moves while driving—never a good idea.

  Adam’s fresh-from-the-shower hair lies flat on his head, and I can tell that even without hair he would be hot, in a bald-guy way. As he studies the book, he nods, slowly, a pencil clamped between his teeth. I want him to study me the way he studies that book.

  “Well, look who’s here.” Coach Avery, who teaches AP biology when he isn’t out on the football field, greets me as I enter the classroom. He hardly looks like himself without the Cutthroats cap, and wearing a white lab coat that hangs just below his knees. While I’m sure he’s got on shorts underneath it, the look—lab coat, bare legs and sneakers without socks—is slightly creepy. “I hardly recognized you without your pom-poms,” he says. “What can I do for you?”

  I hand him the slip of paper Ms. Ostweiler gave me and sneak a glance at Adam. “I’ve transferred into your class.”

  Adam looks up at the sound of my voice. I feign surprise at seeing him. His surprise, on the other hand, is genuine. The pencil falls from his mouth and bounces on the floor. He looks behind me, as if checking to see whether I’m alone. I have taken great care to wear a sophisticated, but very cute, A-line skirt and a conservative silk blouse that say, “I am smarter than you think I am.”

  I waggle my fingers at Adam. His smile is tentative, confused. He scrambles for the fallen pencil. Coach Avery gives me some paperwork to hand back at the end of class, and I make my way toward Adam.

  “So, really? You’re switching into this class?” he asks, the pencil now tucked behind his ear. A wisp of hair traces the outline of his cheek, the curve of his jaw. The tiniest vestige of whisker stubble is visible above his lip and along the sides of his chin.

  I shrug. “I was in regular biology, but you know how it goes, it was a little ‘been there, done that.’”

  His brow furrows. “Um, sure. Well, I’m glad we have a class together.”

  He doesn’t know the half of it.

  “Avery is a good teacher,” he continues. “I think you’ll like it.”

  I breathe in his air. “I think I will, too.”

  His gaze wanders from my eyes to my toes and back again. “That’s a really cute, um”—he is basket-of-bunnies adorable when he’s flustered!—“a really cute outfit.”

  He noticed! I smile and am working on a pithy reply when, from out of nowhere, the Teapot bounds toward us in a purple tracksuit, clutching a can of Diet Dr. Pepper.

  “Hey, y’all were fantastic at Saturday’s game!” She mimics our singsong, two-note battle cry, “Go-oooooo, Cutthroats, Be-eeeat the Lions.” She laughs, sending her curls into spasms. She holds her hand out to Adam for a fist bump. He obliges. “Seriously,” she drawls, “I know every one of y’all’s cheers.” She downs the soda and tosses the can a good ten feet into the recycle bin. Nothing but net. “I noticed that you were not at the game.” She scolds Adam with a finger wag. “Where’s your school spirit, young man?”

  Adam offers no explanation.

  Crowd avoidance?

  Dumb cheerleader avoidance?

  The bell rings. Coach Avery blows his whistle. “People, find your seats.”

  All of the seats anywhere near Adam are already taken. What did I expect? It’s been a week—people have already figured out where they’re sitting, and I’ll just have to pick through the leftovers. But how can I have intelligent conversations with Adam if I am not even sitting near him? Searching for a seat, I notice that, aside from Adam and the Teapot, I don’t know anyone in this class except for the third-string kicker from the football team. While I will certainly not revert to my larval smarty-pants self, I can safely raise my hand from time to time and answer questions when called on, and my PQ will take virtually no hits. Instead, I will impress upon Adam that Nora Fulbright is in the game.

  I grab a seat a few rows from the back. Inches away, on the shiny black section of countertop that juts out and serves as a lab table, a large white rodent sits on its haunches in a glass tank, nibbling a chunk of carrot. The rat stares at me with pensive pink eyes. I scootch my chair a few inches away. I love biology. I tolerate insects. I am not big on rodents or reptiles.

  “Let’s get settled in, please.” Coach Avery moves front and center. People pull laptop computers or spiral notebooks out of their backpacks. I open my notebook to a blank page and glance around at the classroom décor. Hanging from the ceiling, a construction paper DNA strand runs all the way around the room. Up at the front there’s a trough-sized sink with three faucets, two soap dispensers, and instructions in five languages about how to wash your hands. Posters presumably made by last year’s students hang on the walls: MAN’S EFFECT ON WATER QUALITY; PLANT SURVIVAL IN DIFFERENT BIOMES; and TAP WATER: SAFE OR SERIAL KILLER? The ceiling crawls with smoke detectors.

  “We have a new student,” announces the coach. “Nora can cheer us up if class gets a little too boring.” The class is split between amused chuckles and groans. “Check my website for assignments, Nora. There’s a lot of reading you’ve already missed. Speaking of reading, any questions from last night’s assignment?”

  He responds to a couple of quick questions, then wanders to the window and looks out at the football field. He turns to face us, rubbing his hands together like he’s trying to make fire. “Okay, I got it. Let’s put this play into action. So. The quarterback is standing at the ten-yard line poised to throw the ball to his wide receiver.” He draws back his arm, holding an imaginary football. “As he releases the ball”—Coach pauses for dramatic effect—“he farts.”

  Someone in the back row provides a sound effect. Coach Avery ignores him and goes on. “Within a few seconds, the center, who is closest to the quarterback, smells the distinct odor of methane.”

  Coach then makes eye contact with me. I have no idea where this is going but have the distinct feeling I’m not going to like it.

  “Moments later, Miss Fulbright, who is several yards away—”

  “Falls off her pedestal!” someone shouts from the back of the room.

  “Nice underpants,” yells another guy. The class erupts in laughter. So much for Krista’s argument that no one would remember my fall at that first game.

  Coach Avery winces and throws me an apologetic look. “All right, all right. Enough of that. Like I was saying. The quarterback farts, the center smells it immediately, and several seconds later cheerleaders on the sidelines plug their noses. Class, what biological principle is at work here?”

  There is a rapid-fire exchange of remarks.

  “Quarterbacks shouldn’t eat beans before a football game,” calls out a guy I’ve seen carrying around a sack of fencing gear. I’m pretty sure he’s friends with Mitchell.

  “Cheerleaders don’t like the smell of farts,” yells someone else.

  “Cheerleaders don’t like anything but football players and other cheerleaders,” says a girl a c
ouple of rows in front of me. She turns, and flashes me a catlike smile. Meow.

  All eyes are on me, and there is so much blood rushing to my face that my eyebrows throb.

  Coach Avery holds up a hand and raises his voice. “Excuse me! This is AP biology. If we can’t talk about bodily functions without acting like a bunch of seven-year-olds, then we need to rethink whether we’re ready for this class.”

  Hello? I don’t think you could use the word fart at a retirement home without asking for trouble. What was he thinking? And why bring me into it?

  He repeats his original question. “What biological principle is at work?”

  I go right into my head. What I need to do is call out the right answer, defuse the situation, and immediately establish mental dominance, but I’m too flustered to think straight. I know that I know this. Think, Nora! While I didn’t get a chance to study this weekend, I read the entire book over the summer and this was in there. A correct answer will get me started on the right foot to show Adam that I am an AP kind of girl.

  A girl in the front row raises her hand and simultaneously calls out the answer. “Ooh! Ooh! Diffusion.”

  That larva beat me to it!

  Coach thanks her and goes on to describe diffusion as the natural movement of molecules from places where they’re in higher concentration to places where they’re less concentrated. Diffusion, he explains, can take place through solids, in liquids, and of course, in gases, e.g., farts. He moves from diffusion into an overview of osmosis. While I’m already familiar with the terms and the concepts, he takes it to a level of detail, and talks so fast, that pretty soon I’m scrambling to take notes.

  Before I know it, twenty minutes have flown by and Coach has us call off numbers one through eight, asking us to sit at lab tables with the people who share our number. Wait, they’ve not yet assigned lab tables? Crap! What are the chances Adam and I will have the same number? Well, duh, one in eight.

  “Six,” says Adam.

  As people count off around the classroom, I race through the numbers to figure out whether we’ll be in the same group. The guy next to me says, “Seven,” and I let out a defeated sigh.

  “Eight.”

  With thirty-one people in the class, and me being an eight, I wind up at a table with just three people, and, yes, one of them is the girl with whiskers and claws and an abysmal opinion of cheerleaders. We hardly speak as we set up an experiment with beakers, plastic bags, and liquids with higher and lower concentrations of solutions.

  Adam sits at a table of four. The Teapot is across the table from him. They’re with a girl who just might be an albino, and the fencer. If I can’t sit beside Adam in class, I at least want to be at his lab table. That’s where all the conversation happens. I want long lab hours debating the finer points of enzyme catalysis. I want to sit side by side and explore mitosis and meiosis.

  Cat Woman pretty much runs our lab, talking over everything I try to say. She makes a few more snotty comments:

  “Here, you’d better let me pour that. You don’t want to mess up your nails.”

  and

  “I guess you probably thought AP stood for Advanced Popularity.”

  Meanwhile, the guy we’re paired up with may as well not have a tongue for all he contributes to the conversation. I have got to find a way to switch tables. I look over at Adam’s group and begin to formulate a plan.

  By the time the bell rings, my plan is fully evolved. People jump from their seats and race for the door. Adam, who is instantly flanked by a couple of girls, seeks me out with his eyes and waves before leaving.

  I hurry to the coach’s desk, drop off my paperwork, then sidle up to the fencer. “Hey, got a minute?”

  He looks around to see who my question was intended for, then points to himself. “Me?” His hands are bladelike—unusually long and thin. If he’s ever unarmed during a fencing match, he’ll still do fine.

  “Yes, you.” I smile and nod.

  He brushes his bangs off to the side. “Um, okay.”

  The classroom is empty except for Coach Avery, who appears to be giving a pep talk to the rat. I keep my voice low.

  “I’m having a really hard time at my lab table and I was wondering if maybe you would switch groups with me.”

  His eyes narrow. “What kind of hard time?”

  I’ve got it all worked out. “Well, the guy at my table is quiet, but I get the distinct feeling he’s crushing on me, and it makes it really hard for me to focus. He’s totally not my type, and I don’t want to hurt him, you know?”

  It’s Swordhands’s chance to be chivalrous. My knight in shining armor. He’s a fencer, for crying out loud—they eat that stuff up, right?

  Swordhands looks over at my lab group’s empty table. “You mean Frank?”

  I nod. “I think that was his name.” In fact, I know that was his name. It was the one word he uttered during the entire lab, in response to my question, “What’s your name?”

  Swordhands leans in. His breath reeks of coffee. “Frank is the president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance. He brought a guy to the sophomore dance last year.”

  Inwardly, I wince.

  Swordhands slices his hands into his front pockets. “What’s really going on?”

  I glance over at Coach Avery, who’s carried the rat to the back of the room where I notice, for the first time, another tank. This one contains a snake that could make a snack out of Copernicus. Swordhands waits for an answer.

  “Okay. The truth. I don’t think Sherrie (aka Cat Woman) likes me.”

  “Sherrie is a bitch,” he says. “She doesn’t like anyone. Everyone knows it. And I don’t want to work with her any more than you do. Look, I’ve gotta go.”

  “Wait!” I grab Swordhands’s shirt. “I just, I really want to sit at that table.”

  A slow smile spreads over his face. “Ah! I get it. You want to sit with Adam.”

  A twinge of paralysis creeps into my cheeks. “Um.”

  “You’re so full of crap,” he says. “Mitch is a friend of mine. He told me about how he showed you Adam’s schedule. And about your date. So. How badly do you want to sit with Adam?”

  Really? A date with Swordhands, too? I believe the word my mother would use is trollop. “Okay. I’ll go out with you. But just once. Someplace public, preferably far away from here.”

  Swordhands laughs. “Get over yourself. No offense, but I don’t want to go out with you.”

  I hear a scraping sound, and turn. Coach has removed the lid from the snake’s cage and is dangling the rat into the tank by its tail. My stomach lurches.

  “I want a date with Chelsey,” says Swordhands. “Make that happen and I’ll swap tables with you.”

  The cheek paralysis spreads to my lips. It takes a moment to make them work.

  “Chelsey? Head cheerleader Chelsey?”

  He nods. “Yep.”

  He’s a fencer, but I was not counting on this mental parrying. There is no way I can make that swap happen. But if I don’t, then the swap with Mitch will have been completely pointless.

  “I don’t see how I could—”

  He throws up his hands. “All right. Never mind.”

  I have to let this go. I can’t get Chelsey involved in this craziness. But on their own, my hands reach out and grab him before he turns to leave. Have I no shame? “Okay! I can make it happen.”

  “Really?” he asks me.

  Really? I ask myself the same question.

  “How are you going to pull it off?” he asks.

  I have no idea. I swallow before answering. “Chelsey and I are really good friends. I know she’ll help me out.”

  He’s impressed. “I figured there was no way. I mean, I thought she had a boyfriend.”

  Boyfriend, as in the starting quarterback. “I think they’re having some trouble.” Which is true—trouble tearing away from each other during long between-class lip-locks.

  “Okay,” he says, with a distinct note of skepticism in
his voice. “You’re on. But I want a written contract.”

  The bell rings.

  A written contract?

  “Don’t you kids have another class to get to?” asks the coach, still back by the snake tank. All at once the boa flings itself at the rat, then coils around it.

  “We were just leaving,” says Swordhands. I grab his hand and shake it.

  “You’re on,” I say. And as I turn to leave, I hear a muffled squeal from the snake tank.

  “Ain’t easy being a rat,” says Coach Avery.

  He’s got that right.

  Nine

  AT LUNCHTIME, PEOPLE FLOOD in and out of the commons as I wait for Krista near the double doors. Not that I could eat anything. Thoughts of rat—broiled, fried, or swallowed whole—keep me from feeling hungry. And as much as I want to see Krista, it gnaws on me that I lied to her and made my mom sound like a bitch.

  I text Krista. No reply. I wait five seconds and try again. Nothing. Meanwhile, Chelsey sashays by, arm in arm with her boyfriend. “We’ll save you a spot at the table,” she calls over her shoulder.

  “Thanks.” What could I possibly do to make it worth her while to go out with Swordhands?

  “Hey, Nora!” Jake’s voice booms as he makes his way into the commons. His entourage of ninth- and tenth-grade girls shoots me dirty looks.

  “See you at the table?” he asks.

  I give him a quiet thumbs-up.

  He replies with a double thumbs-up, the tips of his index fingers touching to form a goal post. “Field goal!”

  His entourage giggles.

  “Nora!” Krista navigates the crowd at high speed like it’s a human obstacle course. She reaches me with her hand hidden behind her back and her cheeks flushed. “I was worried I’d miss you. There was a huge line at the school store.” She pulls her hand from behind her back with a flourish and hands me a giant bag of Skittles. “All morning I’ve been thinking about how awful it must be for you being forced to take such a hard class.”

  I try to hand her back the candy. “You really shouldn’t have.”

  Really!

  “What are friends for? Come on. Let’s grab lunch. Dex told me Jake was hoping to catch up with you.”