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Authors: Wendelin Van Draanen

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BOOK: Confessions of a Serial Kisser
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29

Chemistry Lesson

I
WAS TARDY TO CHEMISTRY
. I guess the bells don't ring very loudly in remote corners of the 300 wing.

Who knew?

But I didn't care. I was preoccupied with my renewed quest and my lunchtime reading. Like a backdrop to my thoughts, one particular passage from
A Crimson Kiss
looped through my mind:

"Delilah." Now that he had found her, the words he'd so painstakingly planned eluded him. And then, like a knife through his heart, Grayson saw that she had been crying. "Delilah...," he whispered again, this time reaching out to trace the path of a remnant tear.

Where were the Graysons of Larkmont High?

Where were the tender lips and fervid hearts?

They had to be somewhere!

"Evangeline," Mr. Kiraly said in his heavy Hungarian accent, "you're tardy." He put a black mark in his grade book. "That's one of three allotted tardies for the semester."

I nodded an acknowledgment.

After he'd finished documenting my infraction, he lifted his dandruff-heavy buzz cut and leveled a gaze at the class. "Clear your desks, people."

I froze. We were having a quiz?

I looked around, but nobody else seemed shocked.

"Number your answer sheets from one to thirty. Number your work as well. I will give partial credit, but not if I cannot find your work!"

My jaw dropped as test packets floated toward me along the row. This was no pop quiz, this was a full-on test! How had I missed knowing about this?

Chemistry is one of my best subjects. Electrons and protons and covalent bonding make total sense to me. I've got Avogadro's number and molar conversions and net ionic equations
down.

But that's because I've studied. That's because I've
tried.
That's because all year I've actually read the chapters and done the section reviews to prepare for tests. Nobody else I know bothers with the section reviews! Why do them if they're not assigned?

But I'd barely skimmed this chapter. I hadn't done any section reviews. I didn't even know we'd completed the chapter!

How could this be?

I took my test packet and passed the rest of them to Roper Harding behind me. "When did he announce a test?" I whispered.

Roper gave me a strange look. "Shhh!" he said in a real worried way, and pointed to the front board.

A banner of yellow chalk stating
CHAPTER TEST THURSDAY
was clearly visible across the top of the board.

"When did he put that up there?" I whispered to Roper, because I was still gripped by denial.

"Shhh!" he answered.

I took in his oversized glasses, oily hair, and acne, and snorted.

He wouldn't know a remnant tear if it splashed him in the zit!

Then I turned around and bombed the test.

30

The Psychology of It All

I
SPENT THE LAST PERIOD OF THE DAY
stunned over what had happened in chemistry. Concentrating on Mr. Stills's lecture in psychology might have been wiser, but I felt I understood the concepts of "sour grapes" and "displaced aggression" well enough, so I tuned him out and obsessed about chemistry.

That is, until Andrew Prescott caught my eye.

"You okay?" he mouthed.

First Paxton and now him? Since when do guys ask if someone's okay? Guys are usually the
cause
of girls not feeling okay, which is why it's counter-anthropological and wholly unnatural for them to ask the question.

Then Andrew Prescott slipped me a note.

Hello?

A
note
?

Curiosity got the better of me. I unfolded it and read
You seem totally bummed
.

I raised an eyebrow in his direction, then scribbled,
I bombed a chemistry test,
and passed the note back.

He smirked and wrote,
Who didn't? It was tough.

You have Kiraly?
I wrote back.
What period?

He started to scribble a reply, but suddenly Mr. Stills was looming above him with his hand out.

Without a word, Mr. Stills read the note, pocketed it, then continued his lecture. Andrew and I exchanged looks, and by the end of class I'd convinced myself that that was the end of it--there'd be no repercussions.

Then the dismissal bell rang.

"Mr. Prescott, Miss Logan...up here, please," Mr. Stills commanded.

We shuffled over to the podium, where he looked directly at me and said, "I take it from your lack of focus today that chemistry is a more important subject to you than psychology?"

From his tone, Mr. Stills obviously had some issues regarding psychology's place in the hierarchy of sciences. And the truth is I did think his course was mostly filler, but psych is one of my few easy A's, and I didn't want him to start sabotaging my grade (subconsciously or otherwise) because he resented the hard sciences. And since I don't like to lie, I avoided his question altogether. "I'm sorry, Mr. Stills. I was just really bummed about my chemistry test last period. Andrew noticed and tried to make me feel better. You understand that, right? It doesn't have anything to do with your class."

He chewed on that a minute, then nodded and said, "School's out--go home. Just don't let it become a habit." But as we were leaving, he chucked the note in the trash and said, "Someday you'll see that all the physics and chemistry and calculus in the world won't serve you as well as an understanding of behavioral psychology."

"Thanks," I said, not feeling at all grateful.

"Sorry I got you in trouble," Andrew said once we were outside.

"Don't sweat it," I said, turning to face him.

And that's when it struck me--Andrew Prescott has lips!

Truly
outstanding
lips.

Even, full, moist...classic, movie-star lips.

And through my mind swept the realization that he'd been sensitive.

And kind.

And those
lips
...

How could I have never noticed those lips?

Suddenly I couldn't resist the magnetic pull of his magnificent mouth.

It tugged me in closer.

And closer.

Until I just gave in and kissed him.

31

Driven

T
HE PROBLEM WITH KISSING
A
NDREW
P
RESCOTT
wasn't that I shocked him. Or that it was obvious after about two seconds that his perfect movie-star lips had probably never kissed a girl before. Or even that once we'd started, he didn't want to stop.

No, the real problem was that Stu Dillard saw us kissing.

"Hippity-
hop,
" he whooped from across the way.

I broke free from Andrew and shouted, "Get a life, Stu!" then took off in the opposite direction.

Andrew chased after me. "Evangeline, wait! Where're you going?"

"Sorry," I said, marching along. "I probably shouldn't have done that. I was just trying to say thanks for...I don't know...caring, I guess."

"But..." He marched along beside me. "At least let me say you're welcome?"

I stopped and looked at him, because how cute was that? But I shook my head and said, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it the way you took it. It was a one-kiss deal."

"But..."

"I've got to go, Andrew. I'll see you tomorrow."

I knew Adrienne was staying after school to work on a newspaper deadline, but instead of going over to Ms. Pickney's classroom to tell her what had happened, I just headed for home. I was feeling a little strange about having kissed Andrew, and I was still totally bummed about my chemistry test.

So I started toward the condo. But after I'd walked about three blocks, a familiar purring motor eased up to the curb beside me.

Brody rolled down the passenger-side window and called, "You want a ride?"

I got in. "Just don't ask me how I am, all right? I might puke."

"Wouldn't want that," he said with a little smile. Then did a textbook Signal-Mirror-Over-Go maneuver back into traffic.

"You are so law-abiding," I grumbled, turning on the radio.

He blushed. "And you're not?"

"No." I slouched. "Well, yeah, I suppose I am." I squirmed. "No, I take that back--I'm not." I squirmed the other way. "Hell, I don't know."

He chuckled. "Well, put your seat belt on. I don't want a ticket." He glanced at me. "Or for you to get hurt."

I snorted as I buckled up. "Planning to crash into something?"

He shrugged. "No, but that doesn't mean I won't."

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the seat, letting the backbeat of the White Stripes massage my nerves. "Just drive, Chevy-man. Just drive."

32

Cool Compression

F
RIDAY MORNING
I
WOKE UP LATE
and had annoyingly puffy eyes. I hate waking up with puffy eyes. Just seeing myself with pink clouds of skin around my eyes wipes me out.

Not that I wasn't wiped out already. I just hadn't been able to sleep. Crummy and confusing kissing aside, I was really upset about chemistry. I'd worked so hard to have a solid Ain that class, and now my grade was, without a doubt, in the B zone. And since Mr. Kiraly doesn't give extra credit, it would be a major struggle to earn back my A.

All those nights studying, all that extra effort, for what?

A lousy B.

Anyway, for puffy eyes, I'm a fan of the herbal cold compress. We keep one at the ready in the fridge, so I sat at the kitchen table and strapped it on, then blindly spooned Frosted Mini-Wheats into my mouth.

This was an easily managed form of before-school multitasking until the phone rang. I jumped, shooting milk and cereal everywhere.

I cursed, whipped off the compress, located the phone, and jabbed the talk button so the ringing wouldn't wake up my mother. "What's up?" I whispered, thinking it was Adrienne. After all, who else would call at such an ungodly hour?

"Evangeline?" my dad's voice said in a hesitant, surprised-to-find-you-at-home fashion. "Shouldn't you be on your way to school?"

"Shouldn't you be minding your own business?" I replied.

"Look. I just wanted to leave a message. Could you tell your mother that something's come up and I can't meet her for breakfast? And that I'm very sorry?"

I hesitated. "Wait. Let me get this straight. You called her up to wake her up to
stand
her up?"

"I'm not standing her up! That's why I'm calling."

"Whatever." I clicked off the phone, plopped into my chair, and slapped the compress back on my face.

Stupid, puffy eyes.

BOOK: Confessions of a Serial Kisser
6.7Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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