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slush to fall in. I wondered what the odds were that the car that ran me down would have metal treads in its snow tires.
    This kind of thing doesn’t happen to a person in Hawaii, I thought sadly.
    And on top of that, I’d left my scarf and mittens in my so-called homeroom.
    “Hi, Holly,” said a familiar voice. “Need a ride home?”
    “Oh, Jamie! Were lovelier words ever uttered! Yes, I do.” It was on the tip of my tongue to say, I didn’t know you could drive yet , but I stopped myself in time. Fleetingly I thought of Lydia accusing me of making eyes at a sixteen-year-old. Well, Lydia wasn’t here. As she liked to say, what she couldn’t see wouldn’t hurt her.
    Jamie even took some of my books. That boy has possibilities, I thought to myself. “Jamie,” I said, “could you possibly wait another moment while I race down to homeroom and get my scarf and mittens?”
    “Sure. Where’s your homeroom?”
    “Mr. Tartrella. Basement detail.”
    “I’ve heard about that place. Never have seen it. Mind if I tag along?”
    “Step right up. The chance of your life. See the famous quarantine room for the forgotten fourteen.”
    Jamie laughed. We clattered down the stairs together, Jamie wisecracking every step of the way. Mr. Tartrella was still in the room, gathering up his attendance and cafeteria papers. Mr. Tartrella is not known for his speedy achievement levels. He’s in charge of our Educational Technology Department (known in my mother’s day as Filmstrips). “Hello, Mr. Tartrella,” I said.
    He looked at me vaguely. After all, when you have all of fourteen kids in your homeroom, and only two of them girls, it isn’t easy to remember their names and faces. “Hunh?” he said nasally.
    Jamie looked gravely at Mr. Tartrella, at the gray ceiling with its exposed bulbs, and at the torn leather on the vaulting horses where Stein and White usually perched. “Mr. Tartrella?” he said.
    “Hunh?”
    “Is this homeroom up to the standards mandated by federal laws?”
    I burst out laughing.
    Mr. Tartrella said, “Hunh?”
    I pulled my mittens on and tossed my scarf around my neck, and Jamie and I left the room. “Does he ever say anything besides hunh ?” said Jamie.
    I reflected. “Well, he’s been known to say naah and yup ,” I told Jamie, “but not often enough to consider them parts of his working vocabulary.”
    Jamie’s turn to double over laughing. He spilled my books all over the basement stairs. If I’d dumped the books, I would have been embarrassed and awkward, trying to gather them all up, and struggling to be graceful while doing it, but Jamie barely noticed. Still laughing, he picked up the books almost as if he’d meant to drop them, and we walked up the stairs. “That homeroom,” he said, “is about as attractive as the inside of a cereal box.”
    I hadn’t done so much laughing in ages. I’d forgotten how wonderful it feels to have your cheeks bunch up from grinning, and your eyes crinkle with chuckling, and your whole body aching in a funny way with so much laughter.
    “Who else is in that homeroom?” he said.
    “ La crème de la crème, ” I told him. “People like Ron White, Ted Zaweicki, Rich Ayers, Hope Martin.”
    We both groaned. It was as much fun groaning as laughing. Jamie opened the door of his car for me, and I thought of Christopher rehearsing and blushed. Jamie drove pretty well. I wondered how long he’d had his license. I liked watching his hands on the wheel. He had large hands, much larger than mine. I found myself wanting to hold them, curl his fingers around mine.
    “What are you doing tonight?” said Jamie.
    “Going to a movie with Kate and Lydia.”
    “Yeah? Which one?”
    I told him. We were almost at my house. “I saw that movie,” he said, sounding surprised. “I thought your father was pretty strict about stuff like that. Didn’t he object to your seeing it? Or doesn’t he know what it’s about?”
    I decided not to incriminate myself