head. “He’s from Washington. We smoked pot together and—”
“Wait a minute.” I hold up my hands. “Pot?”
“My sister Carmen told me about it. She says it relaxes you before sex.”
Carmen is three years older than The Mouse and the most proper girl you’ve ever seen. She wears pantyhose in the summer. “What does Carmen have to do with you and Danny? Carmen smokes pot? Carmen has sex?”
“Listen, Bradley. Even smart people get to have sex.”
“Meaning we should be having sex.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Huh? I pull The Mouse’s calculus book away from her and bang it shut. “Listen, Mouse. What are you talking about? Did you have sex?”
“Yup,” she says, nodding, as if it’s no big deal.
“How can you have sex and I haven’t? You’re supposed to be a nerd. You’re supposed to be inventing the cure for cancer, not doing it in the backseat of some car filled with marijuana smoke.”
“We did it in his parents’ basement,” The Mouse says, taking her book back.
“You did?” I try to imagine The Mouse naked on some guy’s cot in a damp basement. I can’t picture it. “How was it?”
“The basement?”
“The sex,” I nearly scream, trying to bring The Mouse back down to earth.
“Oh, that. It was good. Really fun. But it’s the kind of thing you have to work at. You don’t just start doing it. You have to experiment.”
“Really?” I narrow my eyes in suspicion. I’m not sure how to take this news. All summer, while I was writing some stupid story to get into that stupid writing program, The Mouse was losing her virginity. “How did you even figure out how to do it in the first place?”
“I read a book. My sister told me everyone should read an instructional manual before they do it so they know what to expect. Otherwise it might be a big disappointment.”
I squint, adding a sex book to my image of The Mouse and this Danny person getting it on in his parents’ basement. “Do you think you’re going to…continue?”
“Oh, yes,” The Mouse says. “He’s going to Yale, like me.” She smiles and goes back to her calculus book, as if it’s all settled.
“Hmph.” I fold my arms. But I suppose it makes sense. The Mouse is so organized, she would have her romantic life figured out by the time she’s eighteen.
While I have nothing figured out at all.
“I don’t know how I’m going to get through this year,” Maggie says. She takes out a pack of cigarettes, which she stole from her mother, and lights up.
“Uh-huh,” I say, distracted. I’m still shocked The Mouse is having sex. What if everyone is having sex?
Crap. I absentmindedly pick up a copy of The Nutmeg. The headline screams: yogurt served in cafeteria. I roll my eyes and shove it aside. With the exception of the handful of kids who actually work on The Nutmeg, no one reads it. But someone left it on the old picnic table inside the ancient dairy barn that sits just outside school property. The table’s been here forever, scratched with the initials of lovers, the years of graduating classes, and general sentiments toward Castlebury High, such as “Castlebury sucks.” The teachers never come out here, so it’s also the unofficial smoking area.
“At least we get yogurt this year,” I say, for no particular reason. What if I never have sex? What if I die in a car accident before I have the chance to do it?
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Maggie asks.
Uh-oh. Up next: the dreaded body discussion. Maggie will say she thinks she’s fat, and I’ll say I think I look like a boy. Maggie will say she wishes she looked like me and I’ll say I wish I looked like her. And it won’t make a bit of difference, because two minutes later, we’ll both be sitting here in our same bodies, except we’ll have managed to make ourselves feel bad over something we can’t change.
Like not getting into the damn New School.
What if some guy wants to have sex with me and I’m too scared to go through with it?
Sure enough, Maggie says, “Do I look fat? I do look fat, don’t I? I feel fat.”
“Maggie. You’re not fat.” Guys have been drooling over Maggie since she was thirteen, a fact that she seems determined to ignore.
I look away. Behind her, in the dark recesses at the far end of the barn, the glowing tip of a cigarette moves up and down. “Someone’s in here,” I hiss.
“Who?” She spins around as Peter Arnold comes out of the shadows.
Peter is the second-smartest boy in our class and kind of a jerk. He used to be a chubby-faced short kid with pasty skin, but it appears something happened to Peter over the summer. He grew.
And apparently took up smoking.
Peter is good friends with The Mouse, but I don’t really know him. When it comes to relationships, we’re all like little planets with our own solar system of friends. Unwritten law states that the solar systems rarely intersect—until now.
“Mind if I join you?” he asks.
“Actually, we do. We’re having girl talk here.” I don’t know why I’m like this with boys, especially boys like Peter. Bad habit, I guess. Worse than smoking. But I don’t want boring old Peter to ruin our conversation.
“No. We don’t mind.” Maggie kicks me under the table.
“By the way, I don’t think you’re fat,” Peter says.
I smirk, trying to catch Maggie’s eye, but she’s not looking at me. She’s looking at Peter. So I look at Peter too. His hair is longer and he’s shed most of his zits, but there’s something else about him.
Confidence.
Jeez. First The Mouse and now Peter. Is everyone going to be different this year?
Maggie and Peter keep ignoring me, so I pick up the paper and pretend to read. This gets Peter’s attention.
“What do you think of The Nutmeg?” he asks.
“Drivel,” I say.
“Thanks,” he says. “I’m the editor.”
Nice. Now I’ve done it again.
“If you’re so smart, why don’t you try writing
