Putting on the sweater that Department Store Mom had made for me showed me that maybe I wasn’t the ugliest, most worthless, pathetic creature to ever ooze across the planet. In a way, it got things rolling. After all, I’d walked three days in a row with my mom before school, avoided all sort of sweets and pit stops at the Paradise Palace, and had protein shakes—chocolate flavored, of course—twice a day.

“Diet and exercise, that’s the key, Boo,” said my mom as we finished a mile and a half walk-and-jog mixture around the neighborhood that had started at five-thirty a.m. “Fruits and vegetables, diet and exercise, watch the sugar. That’s the key.”

Though I had probably only lost about two and a half ounces so far, I felt better about myself and wasn’t so ashamed about doing things like getting up in the middle of class and crossing the room to sharpen my pencil. Skinny people never think about stuff like that. But pudgies like me do. All our lives.

“I have to pee,” I said at lunch, sitting at our usual table, far away from the other humanoids.

“You just went,” said Beanpole.

“I know,” I answered, popping a no-calorie, pine-flavored mint into my mouth. “But I’m trying to hydrate, so I’m drinking all this water, and it’s running right through me.”

“Maybe you’ve got a bladder tumor,” offered Beanpole.

I glared.

“What?” she said. “People get bladder tumors all the time.”

“I don’t have a bladder tumor,” I said.

“Maybe you have a urinary tract infection,” Beanpole said.

I glared again.

“What?” she said. “People get urinary tract infections all the time.”

“I don’t have a urinary tract infection,” I said.

“Maybe your kidneys are deformed.”

“Maybe your brain is deformed!” I snapped. “Maybe the stork only delivered half a package to your mom’s house when you were born, and right now there’s a head flying around in the sky without a neck to put it on.” I picked up my stuff. “I’ll see ya tomorrow,” I said. “We can continue working on Poochy then.”

“We’re not meeting today?” asked Beanpole.

“Like, how could you not remember?” answered Q. “Today is Mo’s first after-school meeting with”—Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh—“the Greek god of middle school boys.”

“I never shouldda told you that,” I said, popping another mint into my mouth.

“But you did.”

“But I shouldn’t have.”

“But you did.”

“But I shouldn’t have.”

“But you did,” said Q.

“You’re a doofus,” I replied. “That was a secret.”

“My mom thinks we oughtta keep Poochy a secret,” said Beanpole. “She thinks that since no one really knows what we’re doing right now, we can use the element of surprise to our advantage.”

“My lips are sealed,” I said, picking up my backpack.

“Don’t seal ’em too much,” said Q. “You won’t be able to smoochy-smoochy Logan if you do.” She pretended to wrap a big hug around an imaginary boy and smoochy-smoochy him with tongue and everything.

“Very funny, dorkasaurus,” I said, walking away. “And by the way, this whole sense-of-humor thing you got going on these days, it’s not really working for me. I think I liked you better as a hermit, no personality, a freak-a-zoid.”

“Be sure to tell us when you give him a hickey!” Q replied, making more smoochy-smoochy sounds.

“You’re”—I pretended to be Q and made a loud scuba tank sucking sound—“Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh. FUNNEEEE! Wheeesh-whooosh. Wheeesh-whooosh.” I made the most cross-eyed, exaggerated doofus face I could to go along with my scuba-slurping impersonation.

Then I stopped and froze. My sucking-off-the-scuba-tank sound was so way over the top, and with all of the exaggeration, well…for a sec I thought I had gone too far.

Like way too far.

Then Q laughed.

“You’re a nerd,” she said.

Phew, she wasn’t mad.

“Look who’s talking,” I answered.

“Have a good first date,” she replied.

“It’s not a date,” I said. “It’s business. It’s all business.”

“Yeah, the business of smoochy-smoochy,” she replied.

I walked away, nervous. So nervous. Especially about my breath. I was so concerned about having a mouth that tasted like the butt of Dracula that I had started sucking on breath mints every half hour for the past four days. Today I was up to one breath freshener every eleven minutes. I’d even set my alarm last night to wake up at 2:45 a.m. in order to suck six Tic Tacs. I know that may sound stupid, but when it came to breath and boys, could a girl ever be too concerned?

Logan and I had planned to meet in the library at 3:45. I showed up nineteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds early. Logan showed up fourteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds late. Not that I was keeping track or anything.

“Hi,” I said enthusiastically when he appeared. I gave the H in Hi some extra punch. After sixteen mints, four mouthwash rinses, and two school bathroom tooth brushings (don’t ask what it’s like to scrub your chompers in the Grover Park Middle School girls’ bathroom. One word: boogersinthesink. Gross!), my breath was pine-tree fresh.

“Hey,” he answered, taking a seat. Me, I had three notebooks, four pens, a rainbow assortment of highlighters, and two pages worth of project ideas ready to go before we even began.

Logan hadn’t even brought his backpack.

“Projects are stupid,” he said.

“Yeah-HUHH!” I said blowing a big H his way so that he could get a whiff of the smell-niceness on my breath. I fluttered my eyes.

“And school is stupid,” he said.

“Yeah-HUHH!” I agreed, punctuating the thought with another H full of freshness. My mouth tasted like pine trees, and my breath, I was sure it was going to make him think of mountain ranges and fresh powdered snow and eating perfectly purple, round grapes off my bare neck in a bubbling, hot tub Jacuzzi.

With wild elk in the distance!

I mean, ya gotta have wild elk, right?

“And teachers are stupid too,” he said.

“Yeah-HUHH!” I said. “They sure are-HUHH!”

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Um, sure. Sure-huhh,” I said, slipping in one more pine-flavored H. For the elk, of course.

“I like video games,” he told me. “They’re not stupid.”

“No-huhh,” I responded, sending a wind tunnel his way. “Not stupid at all-huhh.”

“I mean, even the stupid ones aren’t stupid,” he said. “Not stupid like school.”

“Care for a mint-huhh?” I said, reaching into my backpack to offer Logan a taste of enchanted forest. “They’re pine flavored-huhh.”

“Nah, I hate pine,” he said. “Smell of it makes me think of nature and the woods and stuff. I hate the woods. The woods are stupid.”

“O,” I said, careful not to add an H. I quickly put away the mints. “I ate the woods too.”

“You ate the woods?”

“I ... um...” Gulp. Quick, must think, must think. “I ... um…greatly dislike the woods, that’s what I mean.” Though I had practiced in my head quickly, I was pretty sure there were no H sounds in the words greatly dislike.

I searched around for an ashtray to lick or glass of sour milk to suck down to get the stupid pine flavor off my tongue. Gawd, how could I be so idiotic to think he would like the smell of fresh mountain air? I knew I shouldda gone for the odor of malted-milk-ball breath. Just knew it.

My eyes scanned around for something to change the hideously fresh flavor on my tongue to something oatmealy and stale, but there was nothing, nada, zilch.

Of course there wasn’t, I thought to myself. We were in a library. So stupid.

Mental note to self: conversation for the rest of the day would have to be limited to only twenty-five letters in the alphabet. No H sounds.

“So, like, what’s this stupid project on, anyway?” Logan asked.

“Justice,” I said.

“I hate justice,” Logan responded. “Justice is stupid.”

“Too true,” I agreed. “Stupid. Matter of fact, I wish I could pound the face of the person who invented justice.”

“That would be cool,” Logan answered. “Like in a video game.”

“Exactly,” I answered. “Like in a video game.”

Though I really didn’t know what I was talking about, Logan seemed to think what I was saying was cool, so that was good enough for me.

I felt around under my chair. Maybe there was a previously chewed piece of bubble gum stuck underneath that I could still suck some juice out of to get rid of the nasty pine taste in my mouth.

I searched. Nope, nothing.

How come a person could never find a good piece of spit-out gum, the kind with all the teeth wrinkles still in it, when they needed it? Life is just so not fair that way.

“Like maybe we could…oh, this is so cool,” he began. Logan had a small nose, a dimple in his chin, and messed-up sandy brown hair that looked as if he hadn’t combed it since second grade.

So dreamy!

“Like maybe we could do a project on video games,” he offered.

“You mean, like connect justice to video games?” I asked, trying to match his enthusiasm. Actually, it wasn’t that bad of an idea. I mean, it certainly could be done if we spent some time really thinking about it.

“Naw, forget justice. Justice is stupid,” he answered. “Let’s just do a project on video games!”

“Mmm, okay,” I said. “But, um, Mr. Piddles kind of assigned us a justice project.”

“Mr. Piddles is stupid,” replied Logan. “And justice is stupid. And stupid school projects about stupid school subjects like stupid justice are stupid. But video games aren’t stupid. I mean, even the stupid ones aren’t stupid, you know what I mean?”

“Totally,” I said. “I totally know what you mean.”

Um, what are you talking about? I thought.

“Like, not even the stupid ones are stupid,” I added, trying to sound reasonable to him.

“Exactly,” he answered.

A pause set in. The awkward kind that’s silent and filled with knowing someone should talk but not knowing what to say. I reached under the table. Maybe someone had stuck an old butterscotch under there so I could at least rid my breath of this ridiculous freshness.

Nope. Nada. Nothing. Figures, didn’t it?

I scanned the carpet, hoping for something chewable I could scrape up. Chances are it’d be black from people walking on it, but those are the sacrifices of having a crush, right?

“So you got any ideas about this thing, or is this going to be one of those deals where one partner has to do all the work while the other just, like, coasts?” Logan asked. “I mean, no offense, but it seems like I’m the one doing all the deep thinking right now.”

“Um, yeah…no…of course,” I said. “And now that you ask…” I reached into my backpack. Over the past four nights I had prepared three different project proposals for him to see, each with a different theme.

“So my first idea was that we could do a four quadrant justice diorama where...”

“A diarrhea?” he said.

“A diorama,” I answered. “You know, a diorama with like—”

“Diarrhea is funny,” he said, laughing. “Like, maybe we could fart for justice.” Logan started making fart sounds. Loud ones under his arm, wet ones by blowing into his elbow. I think he even really farted too, except I didn’t hear anything. It was an SBD: Silent But Deadly.

Goodness, did it stink.

Once he was done with his farting display—and this went on for like a good five minutes, with me pretending to be hugely entertained the entire time—I started explaining my idea again....

“So, as I was saying.” I pointed to a rough sketch I had done. “We’ve got the four quadrants of justice and we’ll look at how justice is talked about in areas like art, music, books, and movies. I figure we can color code each one in order to—”

“Well, looks like you got a handle on this,” Logan said as he stood up.

“You’re leaving?” I asked, shocked by the idea of it.

“I’m kinda itchin’ to go play some video games,” he answered. “I mean, we’re all good, right?”

“Um, yeah…” I said. “We’re all good. I guess. But we’ll get together tomorrow again and do some more, right?”

“Is that pine I smell?” he asked, sniffing the air.

I quickly covered my mouth. “Um, no. No. I don’t smell anything.”

“The woods are stupid,” he said.

“Yep, stupid. Totally,” I replied.

Logan sniffed again just to be sure. I held in my breath.

“Yeah, tomorrow’s coo…No wait, can’t do tomorrow. I’m already playing video games. But we can do the day after that,” he answered.

“Okay,” I said. “Same time?”

“Yeah,” he replied. “But to be honest, we gotta figure out a way to make these meetings shorter. Not to hurt your feelings or anything, but, well, it kinda felt like, unproductive and disorganized today. I mean, no offense, but my time is sorta valuable.”

“I’ll, um, try to be more efficient for the next meeting,” I told him.

“Would ya? Thanks.” Logan pushed his chair under the table. “Later,” he said.

“Um, later,” I answered.

I watched as he jumped over a chair and zipped out of the library.

I sat there for a moment facing a dilemma. Logan was clearly a wee bit short on the how-sharp-is-my-pencil scale, but he was also hot like a frying pan full of bacon.

Hmm, what was I to do—go for a hot guy with no brains or a brainy guy with no hots?

I thought about it for a moment, but really, it wasn’t much of a choice at all. Girls like me, we always know what the right decision is when it comes to stuff like this. We know it deep in our bones.

We want bacon! Mmmm!

I blame DNA.

My mind drifted into dreamland. Only two more days til I got to see Logan again. And next time, I’d be prepared.

With milk-ball breath!