Umm, okay.
You’re not going to believe this. I’m not even sure I believe it myself.
It’s Sweetheart Dance time at my school. Do you know what that means? It’s February and the gym gets transformed into a red, white, and pink lovey-dovey romance-a-torium.
It’s gross.
Totally sickening.
But do you know who’s not gross?
Mary Cunningham.
And do you know what’s not sickening?
I’m pretty sure she’s into me.
Well, maybe not into me.
But she doesn’t ignore me. And she does talk to me. She even sat down by me at lunch in the cafeteria a couple of days ago.
I’m not making that up. It wasn’t a dream. It definitely happened.
I was there.
You remember who she is, right? Mary?
How can I put this?
Umm.
She’s cute.
There. I said it. As long as she doesn’t find out I think that, everything’s cool.
So don’t tell her.
She also likes cats. And I don’t mean she just has a cat for a pet. She actually has two. But I don’t mean she just has two cats either.
What I mean is Mary is crazy about cats. You know, obsessed. She has cats all over the place. On folders, book covers, pencils, sweaters, everything.
This combination—Mary being, you know, cute combined with her cat obsession—made me want to write the first Stick Cat story.
I usually write Stick Dog stories in my English class, but then the whole suddenly-I’m-noticing-Mary thing happened. That’s when I wrote a Stick Cat story to get her attention.
And I got it—her attention.
She liked that first story about Stick Cat and his best friend, Edith, a lot. In that story, they went on a rescue mission to save Mr. Music.
Mary liked the second story even more. In that one, Stick Cat and Edith helped Hazel, an old woman who made bagels.
And now, just today, she sat down next to me at lunch.
I know, right?
Unbelievable.
This is what happened.
First, she opened her lunchbox. Guess what? It had a cat on it. Shocking, right?
She unwrapped her PB&J and said, “Did you hear about the Sweetheart Dance?”
After almost gagging on a gulp of chocolate milk, I answered, “I saw the posters in the hallway.”
Mary, after deciding that my milk drinking did not, in fact, demand the Heimlich maneuver, added, “It’s where the girls ask the boys instead of the other way around.”
When she said this, I made the brilliant decision to not eat or drink anything for the rest of lunch. This, I knew, would keep my choking to death to a minimum.
Do you know what an “awkward silence” is?
It’s what happens when there’s a totally obvious subject between two people who are both thinking the same thing—but neither one of them has the courage to say anything.
That kind of silence happened today at the lunch table with me and Mary. She took a few nibbles of her PB&J. And I continued to not eat and not choke in a very macho and natural way.
Mary finally broke the silence.
She asked, “Are you working on another Stick Cat story?”
This was a brilliant move on her part. She had brought up the whole Sweetheart Dance subject but hadn’t asked me or anything.
Not yet.
“I’m thinking about writing another one.”
“Can I be the first to read it?”
I nodded.
Mary smiled.
And I was totally thankful for three things.
1. Mary sat by me at lunch today.
2. I didn’t choke to death.
3. English class was right after lunch.
