I thought about it as I walked to class, and with each step my spirits rose. Chelsea was right. There were hundreds of cute ways to ask Josh to the prom, and guys didn’t turn down cute invitations, did they? Besides, if I gave him a Candygram, I wouldn’t have to face him while I asked him out. Definitely a plus.

Throughout the day I thought of various ideas I’d heard about over the years. I finally decided to buy bags of Mounds, Big Hunks, bubble gum, and Starbursts. I would spread them on his bedroom floor and tape some to a note that read, “It would be Mounds of fun to go to the prom with a Big Hunk like you. I’m Bursting to know your answer. Don’t blow it, and give me a call.” Then I’d leave my name and phone number.

The hard part would be arranging a time when I could go to his house to set up the invitation. I didn’t want to call his mother and ask permission to come into the house to leave the invitation, but what choice did I have? I absolutely wasn’t going to ask Elise to let me in.

Besides, maybe his mother would become my ally in the affair. I could almost see her telling him, “You’re not going to turn down Samantha, are you? She’s such a nice girl and went to all of that work . . .”

I called her when I got home from school, explained the situation, and asked when Josh would be gone so I could come over.

“He’ll be at the store until seven tonight,” she said. “The rest of us will be in and out all evening. Elise will be at drama practice . . .”

She said more, but my mind stopped on the Elise at drama practice part. It was perfect timing. Elise wouldn’t be around to harass me while I spread candy on the floor.

Mrs. Bensen ended her statement with, “so someone should be here to let you in, but if not, I’ll leave the door unlocked. Josh’s room is the first door on the left, at the top of the stairs.”

“Um . . . your dog?”

“I’ll make sure he’s in the backyard so he doesn’t bother you.” She sounded distracted while she said all this, as though her mind had already shifted to the upcoming plans for the evening, so I worried she might forget about this little detail. Then instead of a cute prom invitation, Josh would find my mangled corpse on his floor.

But that night as I walked up to the Bensons’ front door, gripping my bags of candy in case I needed to use them as a weapon, I heard Goliath barking in the backyard. Josh’s mom had remembered.

No one answered the bell, so I self-consciously opened the door and made my way to Josh’s bedroom. It was strange standing alone in his room, looking at the memorabilia on his dresser and seeing the hamper with his clothes. It all seemed so intimate. So personal. I put my stuff down on his bed and resisted the urge to open his drawers to see what he kept in there.

Tape. I needed to tape the note somewhere. The dresser mirror? The closet door? If I opened his closet, I could run my fingers across the shirts he’d be wearing all next week.

I ripped off a piece of tape and stuck it on the back of my note. I needed to do this a nd leave fast. I’d only spent a few minutes in Josh’s room, and already I was thinking like a stalker. Besides, what would I do if someone came home and found me inside of Josh’s closet caressing his Tshirts?

I pressed the note on the floor and taped candy onto it. Then I popped a Starburst into my mouth while I decided how to arrange the rest of the candy on the floor.

A heart? Too mushy. Scattered haphazardly? Too boring. An arrow would work. I got down on my hands and knees and formed the candy into the tip of an arrow pointing at the note, then I scooted backward, creating a tail. It was a long tail because I’d bought so much candy, and by the time I’d finished, it stretched out of Josh’s room into the hallway.

Oh, well. It sort of looked like it was supposed to do that—as though I’d been planning to give him a clue about what was coming even before he reached his bedroom.

I picked up my things and, feeling a bit like I was Goldilocks, hurried out before any bears could catch me.

For the rest of the evening, while I tried to do my homework, I listened for my phone to ring.

7:15 Certainly he was home by now. Why hadn’t he called?

7:30 Maybe he hadn’t gone upstairs to his room yet. Maybe he was one of those guys who liked to come home, eat, and unwind in front of the TV.

7:45 Okay. Maybe he was still in front of the TV, but wasn’t anybody else home yet? Hadn’t anyone noticed my candy arrow and called down, “Hey Josh, you might want to come upstairs and check this out.”

8:00 Maybe Elise had come home and done something diabolical to my invitation.

I wouldn’t put it past her.

8:15 Maybe he wasn’t calling because he just didn’t want to go to the prom with me.

8:30 He was probably now rehearsing his speech about how he’d decided to become a monk and had thus given up dating.

8:45 Josh hated me and wasn’t even going to give me the benefit of a poorly thought out and obviously transparent excuse. I would never hear from him again.

At 9:00 the doorbell rang, and Mom called out, “Samantha, there’s someone here to see you.”

I padded down the stairs and found Josh waiting by the front door. His hair was tousled, as though he’d been running his fingers through it (or trying to rip it out?), and he wore a beleaguered expression. (He was having a hard time coming up with even a transparent excuse?)

“Hi, Samantha,” he said slowly.

“Hi, Josh.” I gripped the edge of the banister. If it couldn’t be painless, I hoped it would at least be quick.

“Sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you. I had to take my dog to the vet.”

Of course, why hadn’t I thought of that before? Usually, when a guy doesn’t call you at 7:00 P.M., it’s because he’s taking his dog to the vet. Those are the vet’s busiest hours.

And then a horrible thought slammed into me. In my mind I could suddenly see my candy arrow on Josh’s floor and Goliath loping toward it. All of that candy—and put so con-veniently at dog level. “Um, why did you have to take your dog to the vet?”

“Well, he sort of ate your invitation.”

“He ate it? All of it?”

“Not your note, but it was kind of hard to read after he threw up on it.”

“He threw up on it?” I suddenly had a flashback to Frisky in Brad’s car. Another animal had vomited on my love life— and this time it was my fault. Why hadn’t I just chosen the underwear invitation instead?

“Chocolate is pretty hard on a dog’s system,” Josh said tiredly. “And those little plastic wrappers don’t help.”

“He ate the wrappers too?” It was a stupid question. What had I expected—that Goliath had sat down and unwrapped each piece with his paws? “I am so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. My mom was the one who let him inside, and she knew about the candy on the floor. She just didn’t think Goliath was stupid enough to eat it.” His eyes got a faraway look. “Although you’d think she’d have known better after last year, when he ate Abby’s entire Polly Pocket village.”

“Goliath ate a village?”

“It was made up of miniature marshmallows glued to cardboard. We never did recover Polly. The vet said she would come out of Goliath eventually, but there are some things you just don’t want to search through.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said again. “Is Goliath going to be all right?”

“Yeah. Although you don’t want to be around a ninety-pound dog on a sugar high.”

“I’m so sorry.” And then because the three times I’d already said it didn’t seem like enough—“I’m really sorry.”

The faraway look faded from Josh's eyes, and he seemed to remember he was standing in my house. “About your note. I couldn’t actually read it, but my mom said it was from you.

What did it say?”

Which meant I was going to have to ask him to the prom face-to-face anyway. I swallowed hard and tried to say the words as if they formed any other sentence. “The note said, ‘It would be Mounds of fun to go to the prom with a Big Hunk like you. I’m Bursting to know your answer. Don’t blow it and give me a call.’ ” And although it had been cute when written in Candygram form, it sounded really stupid when you said it out loud.