“Hey, there you are!” Ivy called out to me as I came through the door of the pizza place, stunned by the transition from cold to warm. She had snagged a little booth by the window. “Are you okay?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I had to stop over at Miko’s. I would have texted on the way here, but I couldn’t stand to take my gloves off for even a second.”

“No, that’s fine,” Ivy said. “It’s just that you’re, like, never late—I’m used to you being the first to arrive. So you went to Miko’s?”

“I did,” I said with a grin, sliding into the booth and unzipping my coat. “She needed a book for English. And now I’ve finally seen the inside of her house and lived to tell the tale. Her room is so cute. You’d love it. Oh, do we need to order?”

Ivy shook her head, pushing a soda toward me. “Nope—I just figured we were getting the same thing we always get. Small mushroom pizza and 7UP.”

“Argh, I’m becoming all predictable like my mother. She always takes me and Kevin to the same restaurant, and she always orders the exact same thing. I always want to yell, ‘Mom! Live a little!’”

Ivy laughed.

“Well, a mushroom pizza and 7UP is a perfect meal. Why mess with perfect?” she asked. “If you’re becoming predictable, that means I am, too. So listen, did Miko seem okay?”

“She looks tired,” I said. “And I know she’s stressed. She was explaining all the stuff she has to prepare for this audition—it really is a lot.”

“And her dad is really riding her, huh?” Ivy asked.

“He is,” I said. “Honestly, though, she’s pushing herself pretty hard, too. I’ll just be glad when this whole thing is behind her.”

“How long does she have again?”

“A week and a half,” I replied.

“That’s gonna be a long week and a half,” Ivy said. “And that’s around the time we should be making sure all our text is in final. I figure the last official thing we need to do is judge the cover competition. Tally swears up and down she’s already started her piece—the one on collaboration and Drama Club. Mine is done, thank you very much. Two hundred words on collaboration and the classroom. Why learning in a group environment is such an important part of our education—that figuring out how to work with our classmates and teachers will prepare us to work well in different job environments with different kinds of bosses, and how the world would be a different place if we were all homeschooled until college. That kind of thing.”

“Leaving me with what I thought would be the easy one—collaboration with each other,” I said. “Which I need to do without overlapping any of the stuff you covered. It’s supposed to be how we create a support system for each other, not as friends, ’cause everybody has those—but student to student. You know, like how there’s just a kind of understanding that people should have each other’s backs at school because we’re all in it together. Which may end up a partial work of fiction, since I can’t think of ANY instances where there isn’t at least one person stirring the pot instead of making things better. Not that I’m naming PQuits.”

“Ha,” Ivy said. “Well, that’s good. We don’t want to sugarcoat anything. Just don’t leave it to the last minute—you end up making yourself nuts, and me too.”

A bell rang up by the counter, and someone called out, “Scanlon—small mushroom-cheese!”

Ivy stood up, gave a little bow like she’d just won something, and went to the counter to retrieve our pizza.

“See?” she asked as she placed it on the table. “No reason to mess with perfect.”

The pizza smelled delicious. In the same moment I was realizing how hungry I was, my phone chimed—text-message alert. I glanced at it, and all thoughts of food hastily fled.

“Oh boy,” I said.

“What?” Ivy asked. “Paulina, you look like you just saw a ghost. Who’s the text from? Oh my gosh, is it finally Benny?”

I nodded. “Miko convinced me to send him a text asking if everything was okay,” I said, my stomach flipping and my head spinning. It was here, on my phone. Finally. One way or the other, I had to face what was going on in Benny Novak’s mind. I stared at the phone in terror, like someone had just told me it was wired to explode.

Ivy turned both palms to the ceiling and gave me a quizzical look.

“Um, I’ve been telling you to do that for a week,” she said. “Then Miko suggests it, and you do it? Thanks a lot.”

“It was kind of a buildup,” I said hastily. “You telling me to do it all those times, then Miko saying the same thing. It was a collaboration!” I added.

“Uh-huh, right. It was research for 4 Girls,” Ivy said, grinning. “Whatever. The suspense is killing me—are you going to read it?”

I pressed the button to open Benny’s text, read it once, read it again, and shook my head. Really? I took a breath and read it out loud to Ivy.

I’m fine, but I was kind of worried about you too—never heard back from you over Christmas.

“See?” Ivy said. “A misunderstanding!”

“Yeah, but what does he mean he never heard back from me?” I asked. “I thought I was waiting to hear back from him!”

Ivy pointed at the phone. “Ask,” she commanded.

OMG, so confused, sorry! Thought I was waiting to hear from you???

I sent the text, then showed it to Ivy.

“When are you ever going to start listening to me?” Ivy chided. “How many times did I tell you this was all a misunderstanding, my nervous, misguided Anxiety Blob of a best friend?”

“A billion,” I said, staring very hard at my phone as if I could force Benny’s response to appear faster if I just concentrated enough.

“Which was not enough, apparently,” she said. “You needed a billion and ONE.”

“You laid all the groundwork,” I told Ivy. “Miko just pushed me over the edge. She took my phone and said she was making me text him.”

Another chime from my phone.

There was a note with the present—didn’t you see it?

Ivy and I stared at each other.

“Okay, wait, what present?” she asked.

“I have no idea! He never gave me a Christmas present! This is so weird,” I said, typing while I talked.

Even more confused. Don’t have a note or a present . . .

“None of this makes sense,” I said to Ivy. “What do you think?”

Ivy took a bite of pizza and chewed thoughtfully. How can you eat at a moment like this! I wanted to shout.

“Is it possible,” she asked after taking a moment to blot her lips with her napkin, “that he left something and your mom brought it in and forgot about it?”

“No, definitely not,” I replied. “She would never do that. Plus, she knows I’ve been kind of in limbo and wondering what’s going on with Benny.”

“You told her?” Ivy asked.

“I mentioned it,” I said. “I mean, she obviously noticed that I suddenly had no plans with him or anything.”

“And what did she say?”

I sighed. “That I should just ask him what was going on,” I admitted.

“So you were told a billion and two times,” Ivy said. “Hah.”

“Okay, okay,” I mumbled. “So I was an idiot. But you have to admit this is all kind of confusing.”

“What if he left something and Kevin brought it in and lost it?” Ivy suggested.

I shook my head. “No way,” I said. “Once over the summer Kevin brought the mail in and carried it up to his room and totally forgot about it, and there was some important bill there or something and when my mother finally uncovered it in his room, she was really mad. He was, like, basically banned for life from ever opening the mailbox again.”

The phone chimed.

Too weird—I left you a package and note in your mailbox, like, over a week ago! At movies right now with parents, and it’s about to start—will text you when it’s over.

I started laughing. I still didn’t know what had happened, but whatever it was—Benny was not breaking up with me! There was no other girl he liked better! He wasn’t even mad at me! I was so giddy with relief I could hardly text—I kept hitting the wrong keys.

That is weird, but we will solve this mystery! Have fun at the movies!!

“I am so happy.” I beamed. “Benny got me a present!”

“Yeah, but where is it?” Ivy asked. “Call your mom.”

I glanced at the time—she was coming to pick me up at seven, anyway. But it was only six thirty. I hit her contact on the speed dial, and she answered on the first ring.

“Hi, sweetie—are you done already?” she asked.

“Not really, but Mom, I finally heard from Benny, and he said he left me a package and a note in the mailbox over a week ago. But there was no package, right?”

“No, of course not,” my mother told me. “I wouldn’t have forgotten to tell you something like that. So you guys are finally talking—that’s wonderful!”

“I know, but I’m just so confused,” I said. “And he was about to go into a movie, so he couldn’t really talk. But he did definitely say he left something. I guess it’s possible he had the wrong house?”

That seemed unlikely, though. Benny had been to my house more than once—it looked nothing like our neighbor’s.

“Or maybe he didn’t have the wrong house,” my mother said suddenly. “Just the wrong mailbox. I have an idea—I’m going to run and check—I’ll call you right back.”

“Okay!” I said, suddenly understanding what she meant. I hit the “end call” button.

“What?” Ivy asked.

“Well, you know that brick wall that separates our driveway from the Hendersons’? It was built with this little door in it on the end facing the street—it looks like a teeny oven or something. They probably meant for it to be a mailbox, but the mailbox we use is the copper one hanging outside the front door. But once we had a different mailman for a few days, and he kept leaving the mail down there. My mom thinks maybe Benny thought that was our mailbox, too. She just went to check! Oh my gosh, I hope she calls back soon—I am dying!”

Ivy took another huge bite of pizza. “Honestly, I don’t know when your life got so complicated,” she told me. “This is the kind of thing that usually happens to Tally, not you!”

“You’re all beginning to rub off on me,” I said. “Maybe I’ll start taking violin lessons, too.”

“Yeah, and you could audition for the next Drama Club production,” Ivy suggested, giving me a wicked smile.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m already IN a Drama Club production,” I told my friend. “Come on, phone, RING!”

“Take a deep breath and have some pizza,” Ivy said. “The only thing worse than worrying is worrying on an empty stomach.”

My phone rang, saving me from explaining that I couldn’t eat a bite at the moment if my life depended on it.

“Mom?” I said a little breathlessly.

“What’s she saying? Put her on speaker,” Ivy said, talking over the sound of my mother’s voice. I held up one finger.

“Paulie, just put her on speaker,” Ivy said. “Now you’re making me nuts.”

“Really? Really? Okay, thanks!” I said. “Bye!”

Then I beamed at my best friend. “That’s where it was,” I said. “My mom just found it. Mailbox that isn’t a mailbox. There’s a package inside, with a card addressed to me.”

Ivy’s smile matched my own. She stood up. “I’m going to get this pizza wrapped up to go,” she said.

An hour later, I was sitting in my room on my bed, the contents of Benny’s package in my hand. The present itself, beautifully wrapped in red-and-gold paper, was a black velvet box containing a delicate necklace with a tiny heart-shaped charm. Inside the card Benny had created a handmade coupon that said:

THIS COUPON GOOD FOR ONE (1) HOLIDAY DINNER AT THE RESTAURANT OF YOUR CHOICE—CALL ME TO REDEEM THIS VALUABLE OFFER!

No wonder he thought it was strange when I never called, I thought, holding the little necklace up so I could better admire it. A heart-shaped necklace and an offer for a fancy dinner, and for all he knew, I had just ignored them.

I had come such a long way since last year, when I suffered mostly in silence with the knowledge of my crush, rather than risk humiliation by actually trying to get to know Benny.

And after all that, I still picked saying nothing over taking a risk, I scolded myself. I’d come a long way in the confidence department, but I still had a lot of work to do in that department! My friends had been so right—all I had accomplished by putting my head in the sand was to create more confusion between me and Benny, not to mention an agonizing week at school. I couldn’t wait to finally talk to him.

He called me as soon as the movie was out. I tried not to sound as giddy as I felt.

“And you’re totally not the first person to make that mistake,” I reassured Benny. “When the mailman goes on vacation, the guy filling in puts the mail in there sometimes.”

“Still, I am so sorry,” he told me earnestly. “I feel like an idiot—I don’t know why I just didn’t come out and say something when I didn’t hear from you. Instead, I made you wait because I was too nervous to just ask. To be honest, I figured you hated the present, or . . . no offense, but maybe you had started liking somebody else, and the necklace just made everything worse . . .”

At that moment I truly believed Benny Novak was the sweetest guy that had ever lived.

“No, I should have said something to you,” I said. “I’m the one that should feel like an idiot.”

“Okay, I’ll make you a deal,” Benny said. “How about we both agree to forget we feel like idiots!”

“Awesome,” I agreed, beaming. “And honestly, Benny, I love my present. The necklace is beautiful, and I would love to go to a restaurant with you. Though I guess it wouldn’t exactly count as a holiday dinner anymore.”

“Well, we’ll make our own holiday—a new one,” he said. “We’ll call it Benny and Paulina Are Not Idiots Day.”

“Yes, perfect,” I said, laughing. “We’ll have a blast celebrating that.”

And hopefully, I added silently, we will be celebrating it next year, too. And maybe even the year after!