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flattered and insulted.
    “We could pay him back, you know,” I say.
    “Who?”
    “Bubba.”
    She sighs. “No, no, you can’t. You can never get Bubba back. He will only do twice as much back to you. You can’t do anything to him.”
    Sometimes I feel as if I am Cherylanne’s mother. I feel sorry for her in the tender, smiley way. “You just do it wrong,” I say.
    “What do you mean?”
    “You try to do things to him yourself.”
    “Well, what else?”
    “Sit down,” I tell her, indicating our alcove in the backyard bushes. This is where we sit in the heat of the day sometimes, watching life work around us. Cherylanne sits down, sighs. I like when something’s almost lost and you are there to save it. I sit beside her, then ask, “What does Bubba
really
love?”
    Cherylanne frowns. “Janie Atkinson, of course. What do you think?”
    Of course. I hadn’t thought of that, though Ishould have. Bubba’s love for Janie Atkinson nearly wears out his face every time he sees her. The only thing good about Janie, with her smooth heart face and her everyday nylon stockings and her mother driving her back and forth to school like she has a problem, the only thing good about her is that so far she has resisted Bubba’s charms. No other girls have. He has so much ammunition it can be discouraging.
    “Let’s call her,” I tell Cherylanne.
    “Janie? For what?”
    I shrug. “To wreck it.” Sometimes things are just there, just like that. You step out of the shower and see something on your skin. You feel an unwelcome prickle moving along your arm and know that it is a live thing before you look. Here is the knowledge, so easy and mean: find what they love, and wreck it. Simple.
    “What do we say to her?” Cherylanne asks.
    “Something about him, about Bubba. Something disgusting so that every time she sees him, that’s all she’ll think.”
    Cherylanne frowns, bites her lip. She is wearing Love that Mango, the newest shade in her collection. The case has a little fake tip of lipstick on top.“I could tell her that when I was five he stood right in front of me and ate my goldfish—alive.”
    I must be patient. “No, Cherylanne. You don’t say who you are. If she knows it’s you, she’ll think you’re lying.”
    “Well, what, then!” She gets mad fast when she’s not the leader.
    “You just real quick tell Janie something bad about Bubba that doesn’t have you in it. You can make something up. Then you hang up.”
    She looks at me, kind of in wonder. “Like say anything I want?”
    “Yes.” I lean back, pull a drop-shaped leaf from the bush, rub it between my fingers, smell it.
    “I could say …” she stops, blushes.
    “It’s good,” I say. “Tell me.”
    “It’s bad,” she says. “It’s
really
disgusting.”
    “Good!”
    Her eyes narrow. “You know Simon LeBlanc?”
    “Ugh, yes.” Way too big to be in ninth grade. Creepy skin and hair. Hates everything. Wears things that jingle like the clasps on galoshes when he walks. But they’re not galoshes, of course. Not in Texas. Galoshes and Texas don’t match.
    “I heard about this thing he did at a party.” She shivers happily. “It is so disgusting I could puke right now!”
    Oh, the day has turned so interesting.
“What?”
I ask.
    She turns to put her head close to mine, talks quietly and fiercely between her teeth. “Don’t you tell I told you.”
    “I won’t.”
    “Don’t you tell anyone else.”
    “I won’t.”
    She sits back, lips prissy-pursed with anticipation. “Well. There was this party, and of course they were playing spin the bottle.” She widens her eyes, shudders deliciously and long. I want to ask how come Simon got invited, anyway, but that will only make her take longer.
    “So,” she says. “Simon got the bottle, and he said, ‘I can screw this.’” She covers her mouth with her hand, dainty, then pulls it down fast. “And
eeuuuwwww
, he does it!!!”
    “Wait,” I say.
    “Can