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you want to dance?”
    â€œUm …”
    â€œMy name is Sarah.”
    â€œI’m Robby. I’ve never been to a dance before.”
    â€œMe, neither. Do you want to dance?”
    â€œOkay.”
    This wasn’t going the way Robby’s parents had said it should go. Sarah had asked Robby to dance, not the other way around. But maybe it didn’t matter. Sarah put one arm on Robby’s shoulder and the other on his waist and he found that he didn’t mind at all. He looked into her eyes, and she looked back at him, and they smiled at each other.
    They began to dance. They danced four dances in a row and then they took a break for punch with glowing ice cubes in it. After that, they sat at a small table and Sarah said that she had graduated from high school the year before.
    â€œMe, too!” said Robby. “From Camden Falls Central High School.”
    â€œI went to Kingston High. I have a job,” added Sarah. “I work in the cafeteria. At my old school.”
    â€œI work at a store,” said Robby.
    He had about a million other questions to ask Sarah, such as what TV shows she liked to watch and whether her parents had said she could have an iPod, but Sarah said, “Let’s dance again.”
    So they did. They danced and danced and had some more refreshments.
    Robby could hardly believe it when the director of Mountain View stepped into the center of the room and announced that the dance was over. “Oh, no,” said Robby. “We have to go.”
    â€œWill you call me?” asked Sarah. “I’ll give you my phone number.”
    â€œOkay. I’ll give you mine.”
    Later, when Robby was sitting in the car with his mother and they were pulling out of the parking lot, he fingered the slip of paper in his pocket and remembered Sarah’s face as she’d said, “Bye, Robby. We’ll talk soon, okay?”
    Robby planned to call Sarah that very night. He would say “Thank you” and “I had fun” and “I hope we can see each other again soon.” Maybe he would even buy Sarah a present the next time he was working at Sincerely Yours. He wondered what he should get for his very first girlfriend.

“What kind of changes?” Olivia asked as she and her parents and brothers sat around the dinner table one evening.
    It was Friday night and lights were on in most of the Row Houses. Two doors away, Robby Edwards was whistling up the front walk with his mother, saying, “My first girlfriend, Mom!” At the other end of the row, the Morris kids were trying to convince their parents that they should go out for dinner. Couldn’t they
please
go to the mall and eat at McDonald’s? Next door, Flora, Ruby, and Min were in the kitchen. Min was stirring something on the stove, and Flora and Ruby had turned their backs on each other.
    â€œNot big changes, honey,” Olivia’s mother replied.
    â€œIs the store in trouble?” Olivia wanted to know. Please don’t let Sincerely Yours be in trouble, she thought. It hasn’t even been open for a year. We haven’t given it a chance.
    â€œIt isn’t in any immediate danger,” Mr. Walter told her.
    â€œThe Nelsons might have to close the diner,” Olivia’s brother Jack spoke up. “Spencer said so.”
    â€œWell, we do not have to close Sincerely Yours,” said Mrs. Walter.
    â€œYou said you have to make some changes, though,” Olivia reminded her.
    â€œThat’s true. We need to think very carefully about our overhead —”
    â€œOh,” groaned Henry. “Not
overhead
. Don’t use business words. I never understand what you’re talking about when you use business words.”
    â€œAll right. We need to be very careful about the money we have to spend in order to run the store. That’s all. Tighten the store’s belt a little,” said Mr. Walter.
    â€œHow do you tighten its