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weeks after, she had carried a one-dollar bill in her sweater pocket, taking it out regularly to admire the founding father’s dignified gaze and impressive pompadour.
    â€œIs there a cure for spring fever?” Emma-Jean said.
    Her mother shook her head.
    Emma-Jean sighed.
    â€œWould you like my advice?” her mother said.
    â€œI always want your advice.”
    â€œWhether or not you decide to ask Will to the dance, enjoy the experience. Because here’s the big difference between being in love and having a crush: Love endures, but a crush doesn’t. A crush comes on suddenly and then poof—it’s gone.”
    â€œLike hives?” Emma-Jean said, recalling the time she had developed a rash after consuming a large quantity of shrimp.
    Her mother smiled slightly and brushed a piece of hair from Emma-Jean’s forehead.
    â€œI’d say it’s more like a dream,” her mother said.
    Emma-Jean looked closely at her mother. Though she was younger than the mothers of most of Emma-Jean’s peers, her eyes crackled with the wisdom of a tribal elder. Emma-Jean knew she could have confidence in her mother’s diagnosis: that these feelings for Will were part of a temporary condition. They would subside on their own, without outside intervention.
    And in the meantime, perhaps Emma-Jean would find a way to enjoy the experience.

Chapter 10
    S earching for a secret admirer in the seventh-grade wing was like tracking a great horned owl in the Connecticut woods. Both were skittish creatures, prone to flight. At no time could Emma-Jean allow the secret admirer to detect that somebody was on his trail.
    She had come to school with the names of all of the seventh-grade boys written in her notebook. Throughout the morning, she observed the boys in her classes, noting R or L next to their names as they wrote in their notebooks and lab journals and calculated the volumes of irregular polygons.
    The boys with whom she did not share classes posed a bigger challenge. She could not easily observe them in the act of writing, nor could she simply approach them in the hallway and bluntly ask if they were left-handed, which could arouse suspicion. It was thus necessary to devise a clever ruse, a strategy for obtaining the needed information without signaling her motives.
    â€œI am working on a survey,” she explained to the boys when she stopped them at their lockers or outside the boys’ room. “I am investigating the statistical probability of left-handedness among adolescent boys.”
    Of course the boys did not question the notion that Emma-Jean would be working on such an important-sounding research project. They readily provided her with the information she requested. A few also laughed heartily. This pleased her, as it wasn’t often that she had the opportunity to spread mirth through the seventh-grade wing. She was happy to contribute to the positive morale in the school.
    Her work went so smoothly that this phase of the project was complete before lunch. There were nine left-handed boys in the seventh grade. None of them had bandages or visible wounds on their right index finger, and while this would make Emma-Jean’s job more difficult, she was relieved that the author’s wound had apparently healed. Emma-Jean’s friends were waiting for her at their table, and before she could even pull out her chair, they were barraging her with questions.
    â€œWhy were you talking to those boys after math?” asked Michele.
    â€œI bet you know exactly who it is!” Valerie exclaimed, bouncing in her chair.
    â€œYou found him, didn’t you?” said Colleen.
    Emma-Jean sat down and took out her thermos. “I have not yet completed my investigation,” she said.
    â€œI told you she wouldn’t know,” Kaitlin said, shaking her head at Valerie.
    â€œBut you have some idea, Emma-Jean,” Valerie said, eyeing Kaitlin with annoyance.