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  Max decides to step up, more for the attention than out of kindness. “I think Heather needs everyone to listen.”

  The conversations stop, and all eyes turn toward Heather.

  “Girls,” she announces, then pauses and looks at Max, her right eye blinking rapidly. “And boy.”

  Max smiles at her and leans back in the desk like he is the boss of the world. A couple of girls give an obligatory giggle, and I know that only encourages him. Not surprisingly, Heather is one of the gigglers. I do a mental eye roll.

  “Time to get down to business,” Heather continues. “This year’s junior-senior prom is going to be the best Huntsville High School has ever experienced, and it’s all because of you.”

  She pauses like she expects applause, but there is no response. “Okay, this won’t take long. Let’s hear from our committee chairs. Facilities?”

  Jayla speaks up. “Everything is set. We have security and the custodial staff scheduled for the whole night.”

  We all know the “staff” is really just one person. Mr. Thomas is the school custodian who occasionally puts on a name tag that reads “Security” for special events.

  Heather nods. “Music?”

  “I booked a local band called The Barneys,” Max says. “They play a mix of stuff. I think it’ll make everyone happy.”

  The classroom gives enthusiastic oohs and aahs. I’ve heard of The Barneys. I’m impressed. Heather continues with the roll call, and the responses pop up all over the room.

  “Caterers?”

  “Check.”

  “Photographer?”

  “Check.”

  “Videographer?”

  “Check.”

  “Decorations?”

  There is a pause.

  “Decorations? Nikki, wasn’t that you?”

  “Yes, but I need a clarification. Are we going to have a theme or not?” Nikki asks.

  “I thought it was Enchanted Evening?” I ask, trying to help Nikki out and get this meeting moving along. I’m worried I’m going to be late to the library.

  Taylor turns around to stare at me. Behind Taylor’s shoulder, I see Heather take a few breaths to calm herself down. Her eyelids are still fluttering like some kind of ceiling fan, but their pace is slowing. Taylor narrows her ice-blue eyes at me.

  “We don’t want the same old thing,” Heather explains. “It has to be unique.”

  Taylor nods enthusiastically. “Exactly. Even if the theme is familiar, you have to do something new with it.”

  “So Enchanted Evening or not?” Nikki asks.

  “Yes,” Heather says, “but edgy.”

  I’m not sure how edgy an enchanted evening can be, but Nikki nods like she totally gets it.

  “So the color scheme?” Heather prompts. “Purple and black?”

  “I vote for silver and gold,” Nikki says. “The more sparkle, the better.”

  Heather looks around for confirmation, but no one seems to feel passionately about it one way or another.

  Taylor finally says, “Okay with me. Glitter is my favorite color.”

  “So we have a theme and a color scheme. Decorations are able to move full speed ahead,” Heather announces proudly. “Now, we just need someone to be in charge of social media. I’ve posted a few things on the Hornet, but we need way more than that.” She glances around the room. “I’m looking for someone to spice things up and get some real buzz going.”

  Everyone looks at Torrey Grey, who is sitting three rows up and has been quiet the whole meeting. Torrey used to have a super-popular fashion vlog before she moved to our school last fall. She was kind of famous.

  “Sorry, guys. Can’t do it.” Torrey holds up her hands. “I’m taking a break from social media.”

  No one else speaks up.

  Nikki leans over and says to me, “I think you should do it.”

  Startled, I look up at her and shake my head no.

  Absolutely not. No way. No how.

  “You want to be a writer and this is writing stuff,” Nikki whispers. “Online.”

  “That’s not my kind of writing,” I say. But then, in spite of myself, I start to think about it. I do have some ideas. I could post some videos of kids talking about prom. Maybe some Q&As. I could link to some prom fashion YouTube videos. My weird need to plan kicks in with a major jolt.

  Maybe a little social media buzz might be good for me, too. Maybe I don’t need to always be in Nikki’s shadow.

  When I was a kid, I took a pottery class. We made vases and bowls out of wet, heavy clay, then put them in a giant oven to harden. When they came out, I didn’t want anyone to see my creation—a lopsided coffee cup with a wonky handle. It wasn’t that I was scared of people making fun of it. Everyone’s was a little off. But it was because it wasn’t good enough and there was nothing I could do to make it better. It was done. Hard. Finished. When I brought it home, I threw it into the trash can and it shattered into pieces. High school may not be a piece of pottery, but it isn’t finished yet. I still have a chance to make it better.

  “I nominate Linden Wilson,” Nikki says loudly.

  This gets even Taylor’s attention. She stares at Nikki, phone in hand, likes she’s just waking up from a power nap. “You’re kidding, right? Prom is the high school version of New York Fashion Week. It’s a lot of pressure. We can’t have just anyone in charge of publicity.”

  Gee, thanks, Taylor.

  “Linden’s going to be a famous writer one day. She’ll be great at managing all the social media posts,” Nikki says in her nobody’s-going-to-argue-with-me voice.

  Jayla speaks up, with the commanding voice that has served her well as volleyball team captain three years running. “I second the nomination for Linden Wilson to be our publicity chair.”

  I figure she’s supporting me just to annoy Taylor, but I’ll take it. Taylor looks back down at her phone and frowns, tapping away. “I don’t even think I follow her on Instagram.”

  “I am on there,” I say, a little sharply.

  “Anyone opposed to Linden Wilson becoming our prom publicity chair?” Heather asks. I hold my breath, but no one says anything. Heather walks to the board, picks up a marker, and writes my name in block letters under the title of publicity director. I like the way it looks. So official. Maybe sharing my words with the public will be good practice for me, if I do want to become a real author one day. And maybe writing about the prom will inspire me.

  I glance over to catch Nikki grinning at me because she was right and eventually I’m going to have to admit it. Coming to this meeting was a good idea.

  “I accept the nomination,” I say. Then I glance down at my phone. A pop-up message on Instagram informs me that Taylor Reed and Jayla Williams just followed me.

  Welcome, new readers, I think. And I smile down at my cowboy boots.

  The library is the only place where I don’t have to try to fit in. It’s effortless. Not like school, where everything is about trying harder and being better.

  Here, people see me in a different way. Mr. Hooper, a well-dressed elderly man who is usually at the library looking for fashion magazines like Vogue and Marie Claire, refers to me as Texas’s Next Top Model, which I think is hilarious. Maria Lucero, a friendly mom who mostly checks out early readers for her six-year-old twins, once pointed me out to another visitor as the short girl in the skinny jeans and cute shoes. And Mrs. Worthingham, who is usually looking for a book on goats, because she shows prizewinning goats at the Walker County Fair every year, once described me as “the fashionista at the fiction desk.” But she spends a lot of time with goats, so I don’t think she’s much of an expert on style.

  Here, in the library, I am confident and capable. Nobody knows about the average Linden from school.

  Today, I sit cross-legged on the carpet in between the shelves of books, with a mostly empty cart in the aisle beside me. I hear my coworker, Kat Lee, over in the story corner, reading a Pat the Bunny board book to a group of children. Even th
ough I can’t see them, I know they are sitting spellbound as Kat turns the pages and holds them up for everyone to see.

  I’ve known Kat since elementary school, but somewhere in middle school we went different ways and to different crowds. Last year, when Nikki and I hit high school, I landed solidly in the middle tier of the popularity rankings—never hitting the top rung of the elite, but not sinking into the abyss of the unwashed either. Kat is somewhere out in the stratosphere of “I don’t care what anyone thinks about me,” which I greatly admire and secretly wish I could someday learn how to accomplish.

  My journal lies blank at my side. I think of the Marty Speer Literary Prize. The deadline for the scholarship is only a few weeks away. My ticket to a summer in Austin, completely surrounded by all things writing, is rhythmically ticking down in my head … Tick. Tick. Tick.

  I just need to write something to submit. But I haven’t even started anything yet.

  I stretch my arms out to their full length and wiggle all my fingers. Ready. I pick up my favorite black pen and the journal off the carpet.

  Let’s do this thing. Words, don’t fail me now.

  I wait.

  The pen doesn’t move. I usually write on my laptop, but I thought switching to my journal today would help the story ideas come faster.

  It doesn’t.

  I lean back against the bottom shelf of books, my legs straight out in front of me, the pointy toes of my red boots aiming toward the ceiling. I’m in the final row of fiction and there’s never much traffic back here. I take in a deep breath of book smell for inspiration.

  Heaven.

  Still, nothing comes.

  I stare down at my fingers, willing them to start writing, but they just hover over the blank page, frozen and uninspired.

  Is there another word for “uninspired”? I should look it up on my thesaurus—my favorite app on my phone. I firmly believe it is never good to be boxed in by only one word when there are so many to choose from. My thesaurus gives me options. Choices. Selections. Preferences. Alternatives. And even though the thesaurus says those words all mean the same thing, they definitely do not.

  Each word has its own feel. Murky is not the same as dim.

  I tap my pen against the page. Not too long ago, stories just poured out onto the page. I’d write and write, staying up all night or writing through the whole weekend. And when the stories were finished, I sometimes thought they were pretty good.

  Just not good enough to share with anyone.

  And that is the biggest problem with my writing—I don’t want anyone to read it.

  So how on earth am I going to enter this contest?

  My phone buzzes. I look around. It buzzes again, and I pull it out of my back pocket.

  NIKKI: CONGRATS, PUBLICITY DIRECTOR!

  I roll my eyes, look around to make sure no one is watching, then text back.

  ME: CAN’T TALK NOW. WORKING.

  NIKKI: COME OVER AFTER WORK. WE CAN MAKE A PLAN.

  NIKKI: I HAVE CHOCOLATE!!

  I can’t help but smile when I read it. Nikki knows me well. She knows I don’t believe in saving chocolate for the blues. Chocolate is for celebration. Before I can answer, I hear footsteps. I’m caught. Mrs. Longshore, the librarian, hates when we use our phones at work. Shoving the phone into my pocket, I stumble to my feet, kicking my journal underneath the shelf of books.

  But it’s not Mrs. Longshore walking toward me. Instead, it’s a guy from school, Alex Rivera. I know who Alex is because everyone pretty much knows everyone at Huntsville High School, even if they don’t hang out together. Besides, Alex used to take jujitsu classes with my older brother.

  “Can I help you?” I ask as he gets closer. He is looking at me and not the books.

  “Do you work here?” Alex asks.

  I nod.

  “I’m Linden Wilson,” I say, even though he probably knows who I am, too. “And since you’re going to ask sooner or later, I’m not a genius like my brother. Sorry.”

  Alex looks confused. “Who?”

  “Theodore Wilson,” I say. “He’s my brother.”

  He still looked confused, so I say, “Rat.”

  My brother has an unusual, but memorable, nickname. His senior picture was just on the front page of the Huntsville Item last week because he got accepted to all eight Ivy League schools. So it’s no secret that he’s seriously brilliant.

  “Ohhhhh.” Alex smiles when he finally makes the connection. “Yeah, Rat is kind of a genius.” Then he pauses, raising his eyebrows at me. “But … you’re not?”

  I shake my head. “I’m not a lot of things,” I say. I’m not beautiful like Taylor. I’m not confident like Nikki. I’m not strong like my mother. “So, I try harder. Sorry.”

  It’s a joke, but not really. Why am I suddenly opening up to this random guy?

  “You shouldn’t apologize for what you’re not,” he says, pulling a copy of Paul Zindel’s The Pigman off the shelf and flipping through a few pages. When he looks up from the book, he meets my gaze. “So, if you’re not a genius like your brother, what are you?”

  The question takes me by surprise.

  What am I?

  “Can I get back to you on that?” I ask.

  He nods, smiling, and then asks, “Do you guys carry audiobooks?”

  Ah. A normal question. I’m relieved for a minute, but then I stop, “Wait. You don’t get off that easily. What are you?”

  He doesn’t think about that for very long. “I’m a good baseball player … And, ummm … ” He snaps his fingers. “Thanks to years of braces, I have very straight teeth.”

  He gives me an over-exaggerated smile and I can confirm this fact.

  “And I’m a pretty good big brother, even though my little sister has gotten me in trouble more times than I can count.” He laughs. “I was grounded once for a month when I cut her ponytail off. She was six at the time.”

  “How old is she now?”

  “She’ll be fifteen in a couple of weeks,” he says, sliding the book back into the waiting space and turning to face me.

  “I sympathize with your sister. Brothers can be a real pain.”

  Alex shrugs. “So. Was that answer good enough to get me an escorted trip to the audiobooks?”

  “Absolutely.” I retrieve my journal from under the shelf. Alex notices, and gives me a quizzical smile. I try not to blush. Then I lead the way back toward the audiobooks.

  “See, my baseball coach recommended I start running to get in shape for spring baseball season,” Alex explains, falling into step beside me. “But I don’t really like running.”

  “Neither do I,” I say. “Unless I’m running from something.”

  Alex laughs. I remember then that he’s part of the jock crowd. I’m not sure why he’s chatting me up, but I could definitely get used to it.

  “I tried listening to music, and that helped,” Alex goes on as we round the corner. “But I was falling behind on schoolwork. So I was sitting in English yesterday and had this great idea. I don’t have to read To Kill a Mockingbird. I can listen to it,” he tells me. “While I run.”

  “That is a good idea,” I admit.

  I feel someone watching us and my eyes shift. Kat is standing at the circulation desk across the room. She smirks at me and gives me a thumbs-up behind Alex’s back. Instantly, heat inches up my throat, but I act like I don’t see her.

  “All the audiobooks are up by the magazine racks,” I tell Alex, then pull a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird off the shelf. “Here you go.”

  He looks down at it in my hand and then, out of nowhere, he says, “I like your boots.”

  “Thanks,” I say, surprised he noticed.

  “I have a confession to make.” His ears are turning bright red.

  I’m almost afraid to ask. “What?”

  He clears his throat. “I know who you are,” he says. “And I didn’t come to the library just for the audiobooks.”

  I’m not sure I understand wh
ere he’s going with this, but then he says, “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “To me?” I’m stunned. What does he mean?

  Slowly, he says, “I asked Rat where you worked.”

  “You don’t need the book?”

  “Well, I do. I want to listen to the book, but I thought maybe … ” Alex stops and swallows hard. “I could see you, too.”

  I must look as shocked as I feel. Alex … wanted to see me? I’d never even thought he knew who I was. We don’t exactly run in the same circles.

  The truth is, I’ve been sneaking looks at Alex ever since he applied a joint lock to defeat my brother in a jujitsu match last summer. But now I see all of him for the first time. Really see him. He is compact. Not much taller than me, but solid. Thick black hair. Warm brown, almost black, eyes. Brown, smooth skin. It is like he suddenly materializes out of a boy I thought I knew.

  I let out a nervous laugh. The best-kept secret in all of Huntsville High School is looking back at me, and something just clicks into place inside my brain. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to say, but he’s standing there staring at me with those dark brown eyes and his ears are all bright pink, so I say, “That’s nice.”

  Stupid. Stupid. Stupid!

  Alex shifts from one foot to the other, jams his hands into the pockets of his jeans, and his ears get even redder. “I was wondering if you ever go to the baseball games?” Alex asks.

  “No,” I say, but I don’t want to discourage him, so I add, “but I’ve always wanted to.”

  Then Alex says, “How about I buy you a snow cone after my baseball game tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” I say. “I like big spenders.” Then I worry he thinks I’m serious, so I add, “Just kidding,” but he’s already laughing.

  “So, I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asks, taking the audiobook out of my hand.

  I nod.

  Did Alex Rivera just ask me out?

  Oh. My. God.

  Something amazing just happened. To me!