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door.
    “Any of you want noodles?” Mr. Graham called. By that time I was at the bottom of the stairs. Brynn’s tinklinglaughter floated out of his apartment. I was embarrassed to bolt without saying good-bye, but I had to get out of there.
    I felt better once I got outside. It had become one of those completely great evenings, when everything was purplish dark with long shadows and pink clouds out to the west. The faint smell of the sea let you know that the sky went on forever that way.
    Mark Elliott was walking across the lawn toward Hadley House, his sports gear slung over his shoulder. He saw me and smiled. He was like the Cheshire Cat in the twilight with that mouth full of white, even teeth.
    I tripped. I guess the good news is, I didn’t eat it right there in front of the cutest guy in school. I just took a huge, swooping, pinwheeling-arm stumble before I caught myself. The not-so-great news was that I heard him laugh.
    “You a tennis fan?” he asked, as he got closer. I didn’t know what to say to that. Did I like tennis? Yeah, right. I liked tennis shorts . I liked Mark Elliott in tennis shorts.
    “I’m friends with Brynn.” I kind of said it to see what he thought about Brynn, like if he got all goofy in his face when I mentioned her. He kept walking toward me. It was hard to think with the guy getting so close. Less than three feet now. He slowed down. A foot and a half. Then he was right there.
    He smelled good. Salty. I know that probably sounds gross, but the way the guy smelled was like heaven. And he was so close. I didn’t feel like my right self. I had an insane urge to lean over and … I dunno. Lick the sweat off Mark Elliott’s neck, right by his collarbone. It was shocking to think that. Shocking and super-uber fantastically unbelievably gross. It wasn’t even a kiss, was the thing. It was madness to think of something like that. Insane licking madness. I bit down on my tongue.
    I’d heard that the juniors who took biology had to dissect things. If you chose a frog, you had to pith the frog first. That meant you jammed a stick in its head and swirled its brain until it stopped twitching. I felt like I was getting pithed by Mark Elliott.
    He was still right there. Just smiling and smelling good and waiting for me to say something. Hysteria bubbled. I had a crazy idea that I might run away screaming. That’s the cool way to impress guys, I hear.
    Instead, I thought about what my friends would do. Nora would be totally calm and self-assured. Brynn would say something flirty, maybe reach over and touch him. And Jessie … Well, I’d do the opposite of what I thought Jessie would do.
    I took a deep breath. I moved closer. I flashed a smile. Mark Elliott smiled a little wider and said, “Hey, you want to …”
    Then I said the first coherent thought that came into my brain. “I’ve got to go.”
    Mark Elliott’s grin evaporated. He stepped back, adjusting the weight of all the equipment on his shoulder. He had been about to say something. To me. What? I didn’t know. My face was on fire. I was pithed, all right.
    So I did the only thing I could think of. I waved at him and walked off. And that’s not even the whole embarrassing truth. The worst was I actually kind of ran away. Like this shoulders-clenched-trying-to-walk-in-overdrive-jog run. I couldn’t bear having all these crazy thoughts with my heart beating way too fast. When I glanced back, he was gone.
    The rest of the walk was the best sort of torture. I played everything back in my head. After about twenty repetitions, it morphed into something like an off-Broadway song, with all the lyrics dedicated to what a loser I was. It had a ripping chorus about how “omigod-omigod, Mark Elliott actually spoke to me!” I hummed it under my breath the whole way back.
    I headed around the outside of Kelser, toward Noraand Jessie’s patio door. It was in my mind to tell them both what an idiot I’d just made of myself in front of Mark