Not after those flyers.

From across the park Dan called, “Hey, you guys!” and waved for us to come over.

Enough people had arrived, and he wanted to start the fair.

CHAPTER 10

The booth went about like I thought it would. Most of the kids tossed —with varying degrees of success—their Jell-O onto the dishes. The littlest kids ate their Jell-O and then cried if I didn’t give them a prize, and Joe’s and David’s friends all made a point of throwing their Jell-O at me and then pretending it was just bad aim. I took their quarters anyway and hoped the kids in Katya’s orphanage appreciated my sacrifice for them.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have another chance to talk to Josh. It was hours until one of Dan’s friends relieved me from my Jell-O toss duties, and by then Josh had finished the pie-eating contest and was busy taking his littlest sister, Abby, around to the booths.

I got an overpriced piece of pizza from the refreshment stand and ate it on a grassy slope by the edge of the park. Logan walked over and sat down beside me just as I finished.

“Hey,” he said, stretching his legs out. “I thought I’d come and talk to you for a while.”

“Oh, why?”

He picked up a grass blade and twirled it in between his fingers. “Oh, you know. Just to see how you’re doing—and to ask you what you think of rap music, pro wrestling, and guys who pierce multiple parts of their body. That sort of thing.”

I took the blade of grass from his fingers and shook it back at him. “It won’t work. I have tremendous willpower, and I’m going to block out everything you say.”

“So tell me, who do you think has more class, Lady Gaga or Kanye West?”

Like I was going to fall for something that obvious. Still shaking the grass at him, I said, “What did you tell Cassidy about me?”

“When?” he asked, as though they’d had several conversations regarding me.

“When you told her that I thought she told Amy my SAT score.”

“That was basically it,” he said.

“Basically what?”

“Basically what I said.”

Was he trying to be difficult, or did guys just not know how to talk about things? I threw the blade of grass at him, and then because it wasn’t enough, I grabbed another handful of grass and threw that at him too.

He said, “Hey!” and brushed the grass off his shirt, which of course was just an invitation for me to throw more at him.

I grabbed another handful. “This isn’t an insult. I’m throwing this grass at you with the utmost respect.”

After I’d christened him with the next batch, he retaliated with a few handfuls himself, and before long we were ripping up large chunks of the landscaping and flinging it at each other. He tried to rub some grass in my face, and I had to grab his hands to stop him. He pushed me over, and we probably would have had a full-blown wrestling match right there in the park if my mother hadn’t suddenly appeared over us.

With a stern frown she looked down at us. “What are you two doing?”

Logan and I both sat up, mumbled apologies to her, and brushed the grass from our clothes. I noticed several people watching us, and I felt myself blush until they turned their attention back to the fair.

After my mom moved away, Logan mouthed to me, “You started it.”

I stuck my tongue out at him, which technically wasn’t an insult, since it involved no words.

He turned away from me, shaking his head; but just to show Logan I hadn’t forgotten the subject at hand, I said, “So what did you tell Cassidy about me?”

He sighed and leaned back with his hands on the grass. “We were just talking, and I told her you thought she was involved with those flyers, and then she told me she hadn’t told anyone your score results, which, if you recall, I told you all along.”

“Right,” I said. Because he might consider it an insult if I called him naive.

He smiled over at me. He had a gorgeous smile. One that always made him look like he was up to something. “It was your fault we were talking anyway, so you shouldn’t be upset.”

“My fault?”

“Yeah. As you know, I haven’t had any luck with Veronica. So when I found out Cassidy wasn’t going to the prom with anybody—well, it just seemed like a good idea to ask her.”

“You asked Cassidy to the prom? Cassidy Woodruff?”

“She didn’t do the flyers.”

Yeah, yeah. He’d already professed her innocence. What I wanted to say was, I thought we were friends. If you needed a date for the prom, why didn’t you ask me instead of my archenemy?

But that was a stupid thing to say. It was a stupid thing to even think. Logan and I at the prom—we’d probably end up wrestling on the punch table. Besides, I wasn’t even sure Logan and I were actually friends. We were more like mutual nemeses.

I wanted to go to the prom with Josh. Josh, who was at this moment . . . I looked around the park until I located him. Josh, who was at this moment talking to Cassidy and Elise outside of the moon jump.

I just couldn’t win.

Cassidy, apparently, could take whatever she wanted from me at will. The student body would probably put her in as a write-in candidate, and she’d win the school election too.

It just wasn’t fair.

“Hey Logan," I said, "someone is moving in on your prom date. You’d better go defend your territory.”

He looked over to where Josh and Cassidy stood talking, but didn’t seem concerned. “I said we were going to the prom together, not getting married.”

“Sure, you say that now. But you’ll probably change your mind later.”

He cocked his head and looked at me with a puzzled expression. I couldn’t explain my last statement to him, so I smiled sweetly at him and changed my mind.

“On second thought, you’d better stay here with me. I feel like I’m on the verge of really, really insulting someone, and you wouldn’t want to miss that.” After all, I didn’t want Cassidy to think she could have Josh and Logan too. Since she was talking to my future prom date, I could sit here and talk to hers.

Logan nodded knowingly at me. “You’re trying that reverse psychology stuff again, aren’t you?” He leaned farther back, in a relaxed sort of way. “It won’t work this time.”

“Good. You’re just too clever for me.”

We sat and talked for the rest of the fair. Logan brought up every terrible topic he could think of, and I survived only by complimenting anyone and anything I felt like insulting.

“Daytime talk show hosts?” he asked.

“Snappy dressers,” I answered.

He laughed a lot, and every time he did, part of me wanted to say, “See, you’re having a good time with me. Why in the world did you ask Cassidy to the prom?” Then I’d want to smack myself for thinking that way.

It was just so ridiculous for me to have these thoughts about Logan when I wanted to be with Josh. And I did want to be with Josh. He was not only tall, dark, and handsome, he was mature and a little mysterious—and his fingernails never had car grease underneath them.

Just to prove my point, I looked over at Logan’s hands.

They were perfectly clean. How odd. When did Logan start taking care of his hands, and why hadn’t I seen it before?

It didn’t matter.

I was absolutely not interested in Logan in a romantic way. The guy had just told me he was going to the prom with Cassidy.

“School lunches?” Logan asked.

“Really, really nutritious,” I said.

He tilted his head back in disbelief and groaned. I noticed that his hair stayed perfectly in place. He had great hair—so thick and wavy.

I wanted to smack myself again.

“Oh, I have it,” Logan said. “The subject you can’t resist insulting. Tell me, Samantha, what do you think about me?”

“Too much.”

“Too much? What’s that supposed to mean?”