“Girls,” I said, rolling my eyes. I looked back at Ally and her mom again. They were heading toward the faculty entrance around the corner. Shannen and Faith hadn’t seen them yet.

“You coming?” Shannen asked.

“I’ll catch up.”

They exchanged another look—always needing to check the other’s reaction to everything—and then kept walking. I jogged around the corner to the front of the school, sticking close to the building, and was waiting against the outer wall when Ally and her mom got to the stairs. I clutched the strap on my backpack and waited for Ally to see me. When she did she almost tripped, then looked away. I knew it. She hated me now. The girl I couldn’t stop thinking about hated my guts. I took a few steps toward her so she couldn’t ignore me.

“Hey,” I said.

Both she and her mom paused. “Hello,” her mother said.

“Hi, Mrs. Ryan. I’m Jake Graydon,” I said. Whenever I was around parents, my manners kicked right in. “Ally and I met the other day at—”

“A party,” Ally interrupted.

I looked at her, confused.

“You went to a party?” Ally’s mother said. “When?”

“Last night. Just for a little while. It’s a long story,” Ally said.

“You went out to a party and didn’t tell me?” her mother asked.

Great. Now I’d gotten her in trouble. This was not going well.

“Mom!” Ally said through her teeth.

“Where was this party?” her mother asked, hand on hip.

“At Connor Shale’s,” I said, trying to help.

Ally’s mother’s face lit up, and I felt momentarily satisfied. Until I saw the look of death Ally shot me. What? What had I done now?

“You went to Connor’s house? How is he? How’s his mom?” Mrs. Ryan asked.

“Mom, aren’t we going to be late?” Ally said pointedly.

Ally’s mother sighed, but she seemed happy, still. “Yes, I suppose we are. Nice meeting you, Jake.”

They started to walk inside through the faculty doors. Which, I guess, meant Ally’s mom was faculty. That would explain the spiral-bound teacher’s ledger thing she had under her arm. That must suck. Having your mom work at your school.

“Actually, could I just speak to Ally for a sec?” I asked. Her mom seemed both surprised and somehow impressed that I wasn’t giving up. “It’ll only be a second, I swear.”

Ally heaved a sigh. “I’ll be right in, Mom.”

“Okay,” her mother said. Then she shot me a suspicious look. “But if I don’t see you in the office in five minutes I’m sending out a search party.”

Funny. I kind of liked her mom.

“So, Jake Graydon, huh?” Ally said. “Nice to meet you, I guess.”

Suddenly I felt nervous. I never felt nervous around girls. Except Shannen sometimes. And that was for an entirely different reason—because half the time I was with her we were doing stuff that could get us in trouble. “Yeah, so last night kind of sucked,” I said with a smile.

“You were there? Could have fooled me.”

She reached around me for the door, and I had to sort of sidestep to block her way. I hesitated for a second. Where had that move come from? I didn’t think I’d ever tried to block a girl from walking away in my life. But, then, she’d caught me off guard. I’d been expecting her to laugh and blush and say, “Don’t worry about it.” That was what most girls would have done.

“Look, I wanted to say something, but what could I say? I don’t know what happened between you guys before I moved here.”

She looked me dead in the eye. Another thing most girls didn’t do. We both knew it was a cop-out. I’d been up all night thinking about all the things I could have said or done. Told Faith to back off. Cracked a joke. Just gotten Ally out of there. All night I’d been pissed that I hadn’t done those things. And now I felt a surge of anger over being called on it. It was bad enough that I was pissed at myself, but who was she to be mad at me?

“What? I barely even know you,” I said. “I mean, all I do know is that you used to live in my house and you used to be friends with my friends, yet somehow I’m responsible for defending you?”

Ally paused. She looked at her feet and laughed. “You’re right.”

I blinked. Stood up straighter. “I am?”

“Of course you are,” she said, lifting her face. “I’ve never needed a knight in shining armor before and I don’t need one now.”

“Okay. So can we just—”

“And you’re right about something else,” she said.

I paused, annoyed at being cut off. “What?”

“We don’t know each other. And I think we should keep it that way.”

Then she turned and strode inside, letting the door slam in my face.

For a long moment, I couldn’t even move. Girls didn’t walk away from me. Ever. I couldn’t believe she wouldn’t let me apologize. What was she, too good for me or something? A pair of teachers approached, clutching their Starbucks coffee cups, and I turned on my heel and stormed back across the grass toward the junior/senior entrance. Fine. Whatever. Let her be a bitch about it if she wanted to. We’d pretend we’d never even met each other. It would make everything a whole lot easier, anyway.

ally

The activities board was exactly as I remembered it: a huge magnetic wipe-board right outside the principal’s office, papered with sign-up sheets for the various clubs and activities synonymous with the beginning of the school year. Fall drama tryouts (Faith’s name was already scrawled across the top of the list), the Acorn (student news website), Interact Club, SADD, the Green Team, Hiking Club, and on and on. I yanked a pen from my messenger bag and scribbled my name on the Backslappers list, trying not to look at the other names jotted above it. Chloe Appleby, Shannen Moore, Faith Kirkpatrick, and a dozen other familiar Crestie names.

I was not going to let them intimidate me out of doing what I wanted to do, and I’d loved being a backslapper my freshman year. I underlined my name, capped my pen, and turned around.

“Um, no.”

Faith was standing right there, completely overdressed for school in a black minidress. Walking up behind her were Shannen and Chloe. Shannen looked at the list and balked.

“Backslappers? Really, Ally?” she said with a frown. “Wouldn’t you be more comfortable doing something with your people?”

My face burned at what she thought was an insult. “I’ll be fine, thanks. And since when do I have people?”

“We’re just thinking of your happiness,” Chloe said, lifting her shoulders. “Backslappers is a Crestie club.”

“And you,” Faith said, scrunching her nose, “are no longer a Crestie.”

“They’re right,” Shannen said with a faux-sympathetic sigh. “Backslappers could get . . . awkward for you.”

“There’s no rule that only people who live on the crest can join Backslappers,” I said, hoping they didn’t notice that my knees were shaking.

“There doesn’t have to be a rule. We don’t want you there,” Faith said bitchily. I was starting to wonder if she ever said anything unbitchily anymore. Didn’t she remember that I was the one who had taken her under my wing? If it wasn’t for me, she wouldn’t even be friends with Shannen and Chloe, yet now she was the one trying harder than any of them to make sure I was left out. The irony was painful.

“Whatever. I’m bored with this conversation,” Shannen said, putting her hands on Faith’s slim shoulders and steering her away. “Let’s leave the Norm alone.”

I bristled at her use of the nickname. That was going to get old fast. As they walked away, Chloe shot me a look that I couldn’t read in all my annoyance, embarrassment, and general sadness. I followed them at a safe distance into the caf.

All day I had suspected that people were watching me and whispering behind my back, and the cafeteria confirmed it. It was hard to explain away the gaping stares when they were coming at me from all angles at once. Keeping my chin up and avoiding direct eye contact with anyone, I moved quickly through the food line and paused at the door to the outdoor courtyard. It was sunny and gorgeous out and I longed to sit at one of the picnic tables under the shade of the thick maple trees, but the courtyard was Crestie territory. The Norms pretty much kept to the indoor cafeteria, except for the brave few who occasionally ventured to the tables near the garbage cans, along the periphery.