Tallulah stands beside the Teapot looking bored—very bored. Her hair is piled on her head and dotted with pale yellow ribbons. She is stunning in a flowing yellow sundress that screams “Hollywood starlet.” I hate her. And I hate that she seems to have no feelings toward me one way or the other. She obviously doesn’t see me as a threat, and really, why would she?
“Dude, I heard about what happened,” Jake says to Tallulah. “How’s your appendix?”
She raises one eyebrow. “Fine. How’s your spleen?”
She doesn’t see me as a threat—but if my swaps go according to plan, she will.
Down in the front circle a black Lexus pulls up and Chelsey climbs out. “Gotta go,” I say. “I need to check in with Chelsey about a—about a cheer.”
“See you in biology,” calls the Teapot.
“I’ll look for you later,” Jake calls after me.
Chelsey grabs my elbow and leads me to a less frequented entrance on the other side of the building. She slips on a pair of sunglasses, then holds up her hand and speaks behind it to make it unmistakably obvious that we are being sneaky. “Do you have the p-a-p-e-r-s?” she hisses.
“Y-e-s.” I point to my book bag. “But first, this.” I hand her the contract. She wipes at a smear on the paper and smells her fingertips.
“Deodorant,” I say apologetically.
She pulls a pencil from her bag and drags the eraser end of it across the page from left to right beneath each line as she reads, mouthing the words as the pencil passes beneath them. “You need to add a few rules.”
I grab a pen from my bag.
“Number one, no questions about my family, my pets or about what I like and don’t like.”
I scribble onto the paper. “Check.”
“Number two. No looking below here.” With her finger she draws an imaginary line below her chin.
“No eyeballs below the neckline,” I say as I write.
“Number three. No eye contact.”
I start to write, then stop. “That’s a little over the top. I mean, if he can’t look at your chest and he can’t look at your eyes, where is he supposed to look?”
She shrugs. “That’s his problem.”
“How about ‘no excessive eye contact.’”
Chelsey considers.
I clarify. “It’ll be a deal breaker if he can’t even look at you when he talks.”
“Okay. But no touching! If he touches me, fingers will be broken.” She snaps the pencil in two.
“No touching.” I add the line and throw on a pile of exclamation marks. Chelsey signs in purple ink on the dotted line. I swap her the printout of the Hamlet paper for the signed contract.
“The Tempest paper?” she says.
“You get that one after the date.”
She considers, with pursed lips, then nods. “Fair enough. Tell him seven o’clock, the Friday night before the homecoming game—my boyfriend will be going to bed super early. I’ll be at Café Zoka in Kirkland.” She looks at me over the top of her sunglasses. “I’ll be the blonde in dark glasses.”
In biology, I find Swordhands waiting by the snake tank. “Did you get it?” he asks.
I open my bag and nod toward its contents. He looks around, then reaches in and grabs the contract. He scans it. “What does ‘excessive eye contact’ mean?”
“She gets nervous when people stare at her.”
He nods. “Got it.” His teeth clench into a tight, nervous smile as he folds the contract in thirds and sticks it in his back pocket. “I can’t believe I’m going on a date with Chelsey Oppenheimer!”
I give him the details about time and place, and the swap is on.
At the front of the classroom, Coach Avery grins and rubs his hands together. “I hope you all remembered your dancing shoes.”
Dancing shoes? I really should have read the lab!
At my new lab table I find the Teapot and Megan—who I’ve decided is not an albino, but is just ghostly pale—discussing homecoming. I explain that Swordhands and I swapped lab groups because he wanted to work with Cat Woman. The Teapot welcomes me like a long-lost cousin and assures me that the fourth lab partner, Adam, will be fine with it.
“Oh, I didn’t know Adam was in this group,” I’m a little embarrassed to find myself saying.
“Yeah, but he’ll be a little late,” she says. “Poor Tallulah has an owie on her arm and needed help carrying her books to class, and Adam is helping her out. Is that cute or what?”
Yeah. Really cute. She seemed to be managing her books just fine when I saw her twenty minutes ago.
Up at the front of the room a small line of people wait to ask Coach Avery questions. The Teapot and Megan resume the conversation they were having when I arrived.
“So, anyway, like I was sayin’, I’m dyin’ to go to the homecoming dance,” sighs the Teapot. “But a dance without a date? It just doesn’t seem right.”
Megan nods toward Adam’s empty seat. “I wonder if Adam is going.”
The Teapot glances at the doorway, then leans in conspiratorially. “At chess club he told my friend Little Nate that dances aren’t his kind of thing, and that even if they were, the girl he’d want to go with isn’t available.”
She draws out the word available, pronouncing each syllable like it is its own word. My heart picks up its pace. Could it be me? Maybe?
“I wonder who she is,” says Megan.
I flush. It is a struggle not to appear overeager.
The Teapot raises a lone eyebrow. “Well, I can’t say for sure, but I do know that Tallulah’s got to go to her cousin’s wedding down in Portland that weekend, making her about as unavailable as they come. What about you, Nora?” she asks. “You’re a cheerleader. I’ll bet you could go to the homecoming dance with any guy you want.”
I wipe a hand across my conditioner-slick hair. “Maybe not.”
“People, settle in, we need to get the video started,” says the coach.
We’re watching a video?
The Teapot is giddy. “Y’all, this is gonna be the best lab of the year.” She repositions the faux diamond hair clip that keeps a swath of curls off her forehead. “Megan, who are you gonna mate with first?”
Wait. What? I really, REALLY should have read the lab.
Megan nods toward a buff Asian guy two tables away. “I think I’ll mate with Takumi first. What about you?”
The Teapot laughs. “I’m not gonna be picky.”
I look from Megan to the Teapot. “What are you two talking about?”
Megan pulls back her head. “Didn’t you read the lab?”
“I didn’t have time—”
“Sorry I’m late!” We all look up as Adam rushes into the room and apologizes to the coach. His hair sticks out at crazy angles. The bike helmet tethered to his backpack swings from its straps as he walks. Girls around the room greet him as he passes by, turning in their seats, waving.
“Hi, Adam.”
“Howzit going, Adam?”
“I get to mate with you first, Adam.”
Seriously. Do these people have no shame?
Adam smiles shyly and waves back at them. Finally he reaches our table. He spots me, then looks around the room checking to see whether it is me or him who is in the wrong place. “Nora? Are you in our lab group now?”
I chew my lower lip. This could be the moment where he demands to know what’s going on, why I keep showing up everywhere. But instead, he has saved his best smile for me. It’s like a little slice of the sun found its way into his body and is sending out beams of warmth from his lips, his eyes, his skin.
“She swapped seats with Greg,” Megan explains. We all glance at Swordhands’s new table. Sherrie is giving him crap about having touched her backpack with his foot.
The look in Adam’s eyes tells me that he approves of the swap. In fact, I could swear that he is looking at me almost like I am edible. But is that how he looks at Tallulah, too? Or on the edibility scale, is she ice cream an
d am I just the sprinkles?
“Everybody should have their lab worksheets in front of them,” Coach explains. “You should have filled out the hypothesis last night, and you’ll complete the rest of the sheet as we go through the lab.”
Megan feels compelled to point out to Adam that I didn’t have time to read the lab or complete the hypothesis section. The Teapot pats my hand. She has dimples where knuckles should be. “Cheerleadin’ is a busy life. Isn’t that right?”
I can almost see my reflection in the shiny black tabletop as I avoid the eyes of my tablemates. “Like you wouldn’t believe,” I say.
Crap! Switching into Adam’s class was supposed to be about letting him see that Nora Fulbright has a subtle yet highly developed brainy side. I should be touting my clever hypothesis. I should have read the lab ahead of time so I could be wearing dance shoes, or blue tennis shoes, or whatever else it is I should have done to be prepared. Adam doesn’t know I was busy obsessing over chess puzzles. He probably thinks I was busy fluffing my pom-poms, ironing my pleats or making out with football players in the end zone.
Coach Avery blows his whistle. “People, quiet down and watch so you can learn the steps.” He turns out the lights and projects a video onto the whiteboard. The scene opens with a bunch of blue-footed boobies from the Galapagos Islands. It features a male and a female bird. The male does his mating dance, stepping from side to side, lifting one pale blue foot and then the other. The female bird is unimpressed. Another male approaches with a more energized version of the same dance. The female cocks her head, blinks her eyes. She looks—intrigued.
Coach Avery, his back to us, mimics the steps. In the near darkness Adam leans in close. His breath tickles my ear before I even register that he’s speaking to me. I freeze. “Don’t worry about not reading the lab,” he whispers. “It’ll all make sense as we go along. And you can fill in the hypothesis afterward—it’s pretty easy.”
I turn to ask a question and am stopped when I find him still facing me. His nose inches from my nose, his eyes looking directly into mine, his lips. Oh, his lips! The breath I pull in is almost a gasp. I struggle to remember my question. “But what do boobies have to do with anything?”
Adam smells freshly laundered. Oh my god. Did I really just say the word boobies out loud? Being this close in a room this dark with a bunch of sex-crazed birds dancing around on the screen, I have to turn my face away from him. What if I lost control and stroked his cheek, pushed my fingers through his hair or gently planted my mouth on just his lower lip the way the elf hottie tenderly kisses Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings movie that Phil made me watch seven times.
“Avery is just having fun,” he whispers. “The lab is about how natural selection can change the ways that certain genetic traits occur in a population.”
In the video, boobies come and go as Adam explains that Coach Avery is going to give each of us four little slips of paper. Two of the slips have a small letter a on them and two have a capital A. The little a’s and big A’s represent certain genetic traits. We’re going to randomly hook up with other people in the class and “mate” with them, meaning that we hold our slips of paper behind our backs and, without looking, pull one out. Our partner does the same thing. The combination of our little a or big A with our partner’s little a or big A describes the genetic makeup of our baby. We’re going to keep track of all the “babies” and see whether there is a trend in their genetic makeup. The whole dancing-bird thing is just a goofy way to get everyone psyched up for the lab.
I can’t believe that I am here, in the dark, with Adam Hood whispering to me about making babies.
The video ends and Coach Avery says, “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got!” He plays some lame nineties dance tune and distributes the little slips of paper. The laughter in the room is crazy and loud as everyone bobs, boobylike, from one foot to the other. The Teapot hams it up, big-time. Megan is almost balletlike, hopping daintily from one foot to the other as she makes her way toward Takumi. Adam’s dance is adorable. There is nothing like watching a six-foot-something guy plod from foot to foot like a giant toddler taking his clumsy first steps. He looks more flushed now than when he first arrived in class.
“I’m not big on dancing,” he says apologetically.
“Think of it as practice for the homecoming dance,” Coach Avery says as he passes by.
Adam looks away.
Then, the music abruptly stops. “Everybody mate!” calls out Coach.
The classroom is a frenzy of people laughing, making obscene comments and swapping big and little a’s. Before I know it’s happened, a girl, the one who asked Adam to be with her first, grabs his arm. “Let’s do it!”
“Um, okay.” Adam throws me an apologetic look and fumbles in his back pocket for his big and little a’s.
I mate with a random stranger, and when the music resumes, Adam is yanked off in another direction by a girl from the next table over. There is no shortage of girls waiting to swap DNA with him, and in the end, I have six different partners and none of them are Adam.
There in the almost dark, while blue-footed boobies danced across the video screen, did he feel it, too? The sense of being pulled by each other’s gravity? Did he have to sit on his hand to keep from brushing the back of his hand against my cheek? Did his heart bruise itself trying to pound its way out of his chest?
Or is it just me?
As I drift down the hall to my next class, I replay Adam’s words: I’m not big on dancing. Was he telling me that dances in general, and homecoming dances specifically, are not his thing? Does he sense my longing and is trying to let me down easy? Maybe the Teapot is right, and if Adam can’t go to the dance with Tallulah, he’s not going.
He was so sweet to me in class. He said not to worry. He explained the lab. But the truth makes my insides clench. That’s just who he is. He’s sweet to everyone. He helped me because he feels sorry for me. Dumb Nora Fulbright, who didn’t even read the lab ahead of time.
Nora (stomp, clap)
Is so lame (stomp, clap)
Her brain’s defective (stomp, clap)
What a shame (stomp, clap)
Adam Hood (stomp, clap)
Needs someone smarter (stomp, clap)
Which means that Nora (stomp, clap)
Will just try harder (stomp, clap)
(hand roll) Go, Nora! (single fist punch)
Okay. I wasn’t prepared for biology, but in history, I will shine. At two o’clock this morning I reread everything there was to read about New World beginnings, which covers pretty much everything from the dinosaurs to La Salle’s French expedition down the Mississippi River. I took copious notes. When Ms. Harrington asks questions about last night’s reading, my hand will be the first one in the air. Hold on to your seat, Adam Hood, Nora Fulbright is about to fly!
I spend lunch squirreled away in the library reading my history notes one last time, and conveniently putting off any conversation with Jake. Now, I take my front-row seat beside Highlights and hand her a manila folder containing Phil’s paper. “Thanks so much for letting me borrow your notes,” I say, perhaps a little louder than necessary. “They really helped a lot.”
She shoves the folder into her book bag. “Always happy to help a fellow female.”
The swap is nearly complete.
Adam comes in and Highlights calls him over. “That was a crazy biology lab, wasn’t it?” he asks, focusing only on me. “I’m sorry we never got to, you know, mate.”
Highlights holds up her hands. “Too much information!”
The look on Adam’s face is a cross between a grimace and a smile.
“You were right,” I say. “It made total sense once we started, and the hypothesis section was ridiculously easy. Thanks for helping me out.”
“My pleasure,” he says.
Highlights clears her throat noisily. “Hey, I hope you don’t mind, Adam, but I forgot I’d promised Jolene that I’d partner with her on the biography project.
Are you okay swapping partners?”
“No problem. Who will I be working with?” He stands and looks around the room.
I slowly raise my hand.
“Really?” Adam Hood wears “baffled” better than anyone I know.
Highlights looks from Adam to me, then back to Adam. “Is that okay?” she asks.
“Oh, sure. It’s just kind of a funny coincidence,” he says. “Nora got switched to my lab table in biology, and now we’re biography partners.” He half smiles at me. “Weird, huh?”
“Weird,” I manage to squeak out.
Highlights hums the Twilight Zone theme song. “It’s almost like someone is trying to get you two together,” she says.
I laugh too loud.
Adam bows. “It will be a pleasure working with you, Major General Arnold.”
I salute him. “Indeed, Mr. Washington.”
I pull out my notes. I am ready to impress—to make up for having been totally unprepared in biology. The bell rings. Ms. Harrington jots tonight’s reading assignment on the whiteboard, then poses a question. “Class, for the last four sessions we’ve discussed what the textbook says about the beginnings of the New World. Let’s wrap up the discussion today with some thoughts about what the textbook—”
My hand shoots into the air. I am willing to take the risk of behaving slightly pupal. I can answer anything about the reading. Anything. Watch this, Adam!
“Um, how about letting me finish my thought, Nora.”
I nod and lower my arm.
“Let’s share some thoughts about what the textbook might not be telling us about this topic.” She sweeps her hand toward me. “Nora?”
I hesitate. “Wait. What? You want to know what the textbook didn’t tell us?”
She pauses. “Ah! You missed the first day of class. We talked about how the textbook provides a good understanding of commonly held beliefs about history. But more important for AP students, in my opinion, is to have an understanding about the truths that have been left out, and to delve into an exploration about why, in textbooks, our history is often whitewashed.”
If a vampire were to swoop into the room and sink his fangs into my throat, he would go away hungry, because every drop of blood in my body has rushed to my face. “Oh.”
How (Not) to Find a Boyfriend Page 14