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So when Amber called, I was pretty darn relieved. Because the combination of being told a dozen times
Call me now!
and bloody-fish-hook thoughts and a ton of homework had me ready to run screaming out into the snow.

I snatched up my cell phone. "Hey!"

"Whoa, what's wrong with you?" Amber asked. Because I usually don't sound like a drowning person and she's the rescue boat.

"Nothing. Just school garbage."

"Tell me about it. You know what? They're making me write
all
my English papers. Every single one! Do you know how long
Huckleberry Finn
is? And it's all about guys!"

I couldn't help grinning. "Well, they do make up half the population, you know."

"Yeah, the dumb half ... So anyway, what are you so bummed about?"

"Nothing." Because I didn't think Amber wanted to hear about my college worries considering her issues just finishing high school. Which I worried about too, don't forget, but all this college business kind of overwhelmed the math quiz stuff. "A math quiz."

"They're making me do all my math homework, too! It's like a million problems. You think they'd cut me a little bit of slack."

"Maybe you could tell them that it's against your religion."

Amber laughed. "Yeah. Statistics is an offense to lesbians. What, you didn't know that?"

"No, I didn't. Tell me more..." Listening to Amber while I shoved all the letters back into the shopping bag and shoved the bag and the
TOO FAR AWAY
box into the office and shut the office door, because I'd done enough for a while.

"Hey," she said, interrupting herself, "what are you doing Friday night? After the game?"

"Nothing." Because I never do anything after games except hang out with Amber. I was glad to hear this wasn't going to change just because she wasn't playing anymore.

"There's this band playing in Prophets town, Dale says she can get us in. It's supposed to be really awesome—"

All of a sudden I remembered. "Oh. Wait. I think I'm busy."

"Hey, we could just go to the movies or something if you're not into it."

"No, that's not it." I had a feeling this would be awkward. "I just have this thing I promised to go to."

"What?" she asked immediately.

"You know, a thing. Beaner invited me over."

"Beaner Halstaad?" Amber said, like he had fleas or something. Which he doesn't.

"It's just some thing his parents are doing, for the boys' team. I said I'd go."

"The
boys'
team?"

"Yeah. That is what he plays on, you know."

"Are you going to make out with him?"

"No! Jeez, Amber! He's a
friend,
okay?"

"Yeah, right." She sounded more suspicious than Mom. In fact, Mom wouldn't have been suspicious at all, Beaner and I have been buddies so long.

Amber's never been so hot about me having other friends, especially guy friends. Last summer when she caught Brian and me in the middle of a water fight, she pretty much hit the roof. It was like she'd caught us kissing or something. Although now that I think about it, just a few weeks later Brian and I
were
kissing, every chance we got. So maybe that I-wish-we-were-making-out-instead-of-spraying-each-other feeling was in the air when she caught us that day. Maybe Amber has more of a sense of that sort of thing than I ever gave her credit for.

Actually, maybe she does. Because at that moment I considered Beaner as just a friend, and Mom, as suspicious as she gets sometimes, she'd describe him as just a friend without even missing a beat. But of the three of us, guess who turned out to be right?

I
T WAS HARD TO BELIEVE
I'd been looking forward to hoops season since September, because now that I was actually practicing, well, let's just say it wasn't so much fun. Coach K was putting the screws in me to
show leadership
every single chance I could, and yelling at me whenever I blew it.

"Jess was open!" he'd yell. "D.J., you saw she was open! Tell Brittany to pass!"

I'd nod and not say a word, because if I was brave enough to talk back to Coach K, I'd be brave enough to tell Brittany to pass to Jess. Of
course
I'd seen that Jess was open—you'd have to be blind not to, which I guess means Brittany is blind because she hadn't seen it on her own. And I was even listening for Kari to tell her; that's how tuned in I was. But by the time I worked up the courage to open my mouth, Brittany passed to a freshman and Kayla intercepted and there went the pinnies' possession.

At least Coach K apologized later, if you could call it apologizing, putting his arm around my shoulder and saying he was sorry for yelling but I really needed to take control.
You need to step up,
he said, over and over, until you'd think there was a staircase right in the middle of the court that I just happened to be missing. And I said I'd try. If I stepped up half as much as I kept saying I'd try to, he'd have stopped yelling.

Tuesday afternoon as we were finishing, Coach K making a big deal of the fact that I'd actually managed to tell a freshman to switch defenders with me, this guy walked up. He'd been in the stands awhile and I figured he was just someone's dad come to watch for a bit.

"So what d'you think?" Coach K asked him, patting me on the back like he hadn't spent the last two hours bawling me out.

"Pretty impressive," the guy said. He shook my hand. "Jerry Knudsen. I coach women at Ibsen College."

"Oh. Hi." Ibsen College ... Hey! That was in my pile of envelopes. In fact, now that I thought about it, I'd even read that Jerry Knudsen name.

Coach K explained how he and Jerry were friends from way back and Jerry couldn't wait to see me play.

Jerry Knudsen chuckled. "We're just Division III, you know, so we can't offer any athletic scholarships. But I know the folks in admissions. You keep your grades where they are and I'm sure we can offer you a pretty good package, you know, of financial aid."

He knew my grades? I shot Coach K a look.

"I checked your transcript," Coach said. "You'll be fine." Which was pretty freaky, the thought of him on the computer like that behind my back. Not that I minded, I guess, but still.

"I sure liked what I saw today," Jerry put in.

Coach K patted me again. "Getting this girl to open her mouth ... But we're coming along."

"You'd be an amazing asset to our team." Jerry looked me over, taking in my height and shoulders, probably even the sweat in my hair. "I'll be here Friday night, that's for sure."

"Oh, yeah. The game."

"You bet. And you should check us out too. We're playing Saturday afternoon." He kept shooting the breeze, filling me in on Ibsen and how their season was going—not too well, although he said it in a lot more roundabout way than that—and repeating that I was basically a shoo-in with admissions. Which was nice to hear.

It was especially nice when Win called that night to bug me
again
on my coach calls and I got to tell him I'd already talked to one.

"Oh yeah? What's the school?"

"Ibsen."

"
Ibsen?
There's no way you're going to a place like that."

"He said my grades were fine!"

"D.J., come on! They're like the bottom of D-III. You'd be totally wasted there."

"Well, he didn't think I'd be wasted." "Of course he didn't! You're like a dream come true in a place like that! Get real—"

"I
am
real!" Oh, he made me hot! Only Win could twist this great news into something completely terrible. "He came and saw me, you know!"

Win sighed. "You're setting your sights way too low."

At least in the end Win "agreed"—although you'd think I was asking him to give up a kidney or something, the way he went on—that I could wait to call coaches until after I'd seen Ibsen. And I did my best not to slam the phone down when I hung up.

As least school was getting a little easier, the way it always does after a vacation, even a vacation-thingy as long as mine. I was pretty much caught up on homework—I mean, I was still confused, but that was just normal D.J. Schwenk brain confusion; it wasn't like being away had made me smart or anything. Even lunchtimes were okay because I was eating with Beaner. Which meant sitting with all the b-ball guys, and some girls like Kari who can move between different groups without batting a long black eyelash. Beaner had this game he'd made up, sort of table hockey that you played with a fork, defending your tray. It wasn't really my scene, all that joking and yelling, but it would have been way worse sitting alone. Amber wasn't even coming to lunch these days—she was using that time for class work—so really it was Beaner or nothing.

Which makes Beaner sound like a bad choice, which he wasn't, not at all. I guess I was just really aware of how much space his table was taking up, how much cafeteria
atmosphere.
How I would have been watching them if I'd been alone, and how much other kids already were.

Beaner must have sensed how uncomfortable I was sometimes, because he'd sit next to me and joke around, doing play-by-play on the table hockey.

"So, Miss Schwenk," he'd murmur, using a hot dog bun for a microphone, "I understand you were present at last year's finals when Tyler choked—and look folks, he did it again! Right in the Jell-O! And isn't that gross—he's actually licking it off! Dude! Is it true that his jeans fell down at that event? Describe to the audience just what he was wearing under his jeans. That is, if he was wearing
anything.
There have been rumors, you know."

He didn't really expect me to answer; he just got a kick out of making me laugh.

Plus, a couple days I had lunch, or
almuerzo
I should say, with Mrs. Levoir, to work on Spanish. Which was a completely different experience, you can be sure.

And then came Friday night's game.

We won, don't get me wrong. We were playing Coopesville, which everyone calls Whoopsville, so if we'd lost it would have been a total disaster. And I scored a bunch of points, but I played really badly. Coach K was pushing me
so
hard on the leadership thing, and getting so mad at me when I flubbed it. But no matter how bad it got, he wouldn't sub me out, even when I finally just panicked and started driving in for lay-ups even though I was double-teamed because that was easier than telling four other girls what to do.

And it didn't help, believe me, that Jerry Knudsen was sitting right behind our bench. I could even see the two of them talking, which I'm sure isn't allowed in the gazillion pages of NCAA recruiting rules, although maybe with bottom-of-the-barrel D-III they aren't so picky. Anyway, whenever I looked over, Coach K and Jerry Knudsen were jawing it up.

But here's the weird thing: after the game was over and we were gathering up our stuff, Jerry Knudsen came over with a big smile to tell me how fantastic I'd been.

I shot Coach K an eyeball like,
See?
And Coach agreed that I'd had a couple great plays even if I couldn't even speak—which he didn't say but it was implied.

"You'd be some kind of special for Ibsen, I'll tell you that," Jerry said. "And don't worry about us being too small—"

"I wasn't," I said really fast. Because it hadn't occurred to me for one thing, and even if it had, it was still
college.

"You folks played Madison a few years back, dintcha?" Coach K asked.

Oh yeah. Got a new gym floor out of it too. Seeing as it was a money game and all," he explained to me.

"Wow, Madison. How'd you do?" Because
money game
means a big powerful school pays a little weak one to play them, and the big school almost always wins by a lot. It's really awful sometimes, how badly the little school gets beat.

"Oh, you don't focus on that, you just take your payment and say thanks ... So, you coming tomorrow?"

"I'll try. I need to see that new floor." If he wasn't going to make a big deal out of losing so badly, then neither was I. Besides, it must have been worth it, because gym floors are really expensive.

He laughed. "That's the spirit now. I'll keep an eye out for you. Just tell them at the front desk who you are."

"Do I need a pass or anything, or tickets?"

He laughed again, and shook my hand and left. Which I took to mean that I didn't. Then I went and showered and tried to think about something very different from Ibsen, which was Beaner Halstaad's party.

I've always liked Beaner—I mean, everyone likes him, he's that kind of guy. But we've always had a special kidding-around thing, like the way he jumps on my back. Even after he used that
date
word, though, I didn't think about him as anything but a friend. And then I got to the party and found a bunch of guys out back grilling brats even though it was twenty degrees outside, because that's Wisconsin, you can't keep us from our sausages. They were also sneaking sips from a bottle someone brought, because I guess that's a Wisconsin thing too.

I didn't have much interest in freezing my feet off watching brats grill and guys drink, so I hung around in the living room with some other guys and their parents until Beaner's little sister Abby and her buddy Gabby dragged me away. Abby's actually Beaner's half sister, nine years old and just as skinny and bouncy as he is, and she and Gabby took me up to her bedroom and sat me down in a corner and started playing with my hair even though it's only five inches long, and basically treated me like I was some kind of princess if princesses are six feet tall and all spent from a hoops game.

At one point they started giggling extra crazy, and whispering like they had the world's biggest secret, and finally Abby put her arms around my neck and whispered in my ear with her hot tickly breath, "Beaner likes you!" Then they collapsed on each other.

I blushed, although the room was pretty dark, thank God. "Yeah, he's a good friend."

"He's not a
friend,
" Abby said. "He's your
boyfriend.
"

"No, he's not. Did, um, did he tell you this?"

Which made the two girls almost die, they were giggling so hard. "No!" Abby said. "He just asked me what he should wear tonight" (I guess it's never too early to start going to girls—some girls, anyway—for fashion advice) "and he showed me your picture and asked what I thought."