I told him that—as far as I was concerned—he’s already been successful at that.
I told him I’d rather die than go to school on Monday and face Allie McAndrews. But here it is, third period, and she’s absent.
Maybe Oliver’s right; wishescancome true.
“Does everyone have a frog?” Mrs. Brown says. I glance down at the poor, dead amphibian in front of me. Usually my lab partner is Zach, but he’s taken a conscientious objector position on this lab, due to his veganism, and instead of doing a dissection he is writing an independent paper on growth hormones in dairy cows.
The door opens, and in walks Allie McAndrews, with two black eyes. She looks like a raccoon, and has a crisscrossed strip of tape over the bridge of her nose too. She hands Mrs. Brown a hall pass. “Sorry I’m late,” she says.
“Better late than never,” the teacher says. “Allie, why don’t you pair up with Delilah?”
Allie shoots me the look of death as she takes the stool beside me. “Touch me,” she whispers, “and I will make your life miserable.”
“Now, class, pick up your frog. I want you to measure the posterior appendages…”
I turn to Allie. “Do you… want to go first?”
She glares at me. “I’d rather join Chess Club.”
I joined Chess Club last year. “Okay, then,” I say.Sorry, buddy,I think as I lift the frog into my palm and pick up a ruler.
Allie’s boyfriend, Ryan, drags his stool toward our lab table, even though he is supposed to be working with someone else. “Hey, gorgeous,” he says, grinning at her. “So what do you say you and I get some takeout and download a movie andnotwatch it tonight?”
“I’m not in the mood,” she says, glancing at me. “I have to go home andice.”
“It was an accident,” I tell her. “I didn’t purposely cross five lanes of the pool just to smack you in the face.” Although, I admit, I might have daydreamed about doing just that.
“You’re the only girl in the school who could make two black eyes look hot,” Ryan says.
Allie twines her fingers with his. “You’re just saying that.”
“Cross my heart,” Ryan answers.
“I love you, babe,” Allie says.
Ryan grins. “Love you more.”
I thought there was a good chance I would feel like throwing up during a dissection lab, but I figured it would be because of the frog, not the conversation.
Mrs. Brown winds past our lab table. If she notices that Ryan is now our third partner, she doesn’t comment. “Now, class, I want you to examine the chest area…. What skeletal feature is missing?”
I wait for Allie to pick up the frog to examine it. “You, um, want a turn?” I ask her.
“To smackyouin the face? Breakyourknee?”
“Right, then,” I say, poking at the frog again.
“What kind of takeout should I get?” Ryan asks. “Chinese? Indian? Italian?”
“Ribs,” I announce.
They both look at me with disgust. “Who asked you?” Allie says.
“No… the frog. The skeletal part it’s missing… is ribs.”
She tosses her hair. “Who cares?”
“Gently,” Mrs. Brown warns a boy to my right, who issqueezing his amphibian so tightly that its head is swelling. “Dissection is both an artanda science. Show your frog a little love.”
