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his face
back to hers.
    “ My notebook is still in
your car from last night.” She actually purred as she walked her
fingers up his arm. “I need it for my history class. May I have
your keys?
    “ I put the notebook in my
bag this morning, wait here, I'll go got it.” Hillary and I both
watched him walk over to the desk and rifle through his book
bag.
    Abruptly, she coiled back to me.
“You’re so out of your league, girlfriend.” Her voice was low and
her face, tight. “Even if he were to go out with you, it’d be for
one reason and one reason only. Your kind are merely toys for boys
like him.”
    Racking my brain for a witty comeback,
I came up flat and turned back to the thermometer. It now read 315
degrees. Sure, now the dumb mixture heats up fast! We’d missed
every reading in between. I pulled the pan off the burner as Seth
returned with the red notebook. Hillary tucked it under her arm and
blew him a kiss as she left.
    “ It’s ruined.” I slammed the
pot onto the back of the stove, causing the contents to splash
everywhere. “If your airhead girlfriend hadn’t come in and
interrupted us we wouldn’t have failed this cooking lab. Now we’re
going to get an F on the assignment!” For the life of me I couldn’t
figure out why I was letting those two upset me like
this.
    His jaw tightened. “Hillary’s on the
honor roll, so I guess that blows your airhead theory, and she’s
not my girlfriend. Please let Melody know, won’t you?”
    He snagged the candy worksheet, wrote
down the answers, and tossed it back at me, muttering that
something wasn’t working and he needed to make a phone call. He
turned and stormed out the door without saying another word. Mrs.
Gianchi rushed over.
    “ What is the matter with
Seth?” I shrugged my shoulders trying not to look guilty. She
picked up the worksheet and smiled. “He’s such a nice boy and what
wonderful penmanship.”
    Geez, even the adults were bedazzled
by him!
    “ This worksheet looks
correct. Once you’ve cleaned up this mess, you may leave,” she
said, pointing at the candy splattered on the stove. She walked
away leaving me to wallow in my misery. It took me the rest of the
class period to clean up the now hardened mess.
    My mind kept replaying Seth’s angry
words in culinary class on my walk home, and I took offense to his
comment. Melody was the bad guy here, I had never said anything
about him.
    On the other hand, I didn’t stop her
from maligning him or Hillary either, and I did laugh at a few of
her comments. As hard as I tried to appease my guilty conscience, I
still felt terrible. I had been a victim of false rumors before and
even though they were lies, it still hurt. I swore to myself that
the next time Melody started ranting about Seth, I was going to
speak up. My decision helped ease the guilt somewhat, and I picked
up the pace. It was cold.
    I got home and took a long hot shower
to warm up my frigid body. My mom had already ingested her daily
allotment of booze and was passed out on the couch. I thought about
helping her into bed, only the last two times I’d tried, I was
rewarded with some pretty nasty bruises. She was an ornery drunk.
Sometimes it was best to let sleeping dogs lie.

3
     
     
    With a ten-page research
paper for my Mythology class looming over my head, Sunday morning I
got up early and went to the library while my mom slept. I could
have chosen to do ten hours of community service, the alternative Bore offered
those who didn’t want to do a paper, but without a car I didn’t
have that option. He insisted we become mindful of our community.
To quote Bore, ’The needs of our community are not a myth.’ A
pretty good idea, only for me it meant spending more time away from
home since we didn’t have a computer.
    In my rush to leave, I accidentally
pushed my big toe out the end of my worn blue sneaker. “Great!” I
hurriedly tied the ruined shoe and said goodbye to my mother,
mostly out of habit. She was still