“Oh my God,” Lana said. “Are you kidding me?”

“Um,” I said. “No.”

“Well, you’re not supposed to tell her the truth,” Lana said, all snotty again.

I didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Your mom. Nobody tells their mom the truth. You tell her you’re spending the night at a girlfriend’s house. Duh.”

Oh.

She meant lie. To my mom. Lana had obviously never met my mom. Nobody lies to my mom. You just can’t. Not about something like that. No way.

So I said, “Look, it’s not like I don’t appreciate being asked, and all, but I really don’t think I can come. Besides, I don’t even drink. . . . ”

Okay, that was another big mistake.

Lana looked at me like I’d just said I’d never watched Party of Five, or something. She went: “You don’t drink?”

I just looked at her. The truth is, at Miragnac I do drink. We drink wine with dinner every night. That’s just what you do in France. You don’t drink it for fun, though. You drink it because it goes with the food. It’s supposed to make the foie gras taste better. I wouldn’t know about that, since I don’t eat foie gras, but I can tell you from experience that wine goes better with goat cheese than Dr Pepper does.

I certainly wouldn’t chug a whole bottle of it, though, not even on a dare. Not even for Josh Richter.

So I just shrugged and went, “No. I try to be respectful of my body and not put a whole lot of toxins into it.”

Lana snorted at that, but across from her—beside me—Josh Richter swallowed the mouthful of burger he was chewing and said, “I can respect that.”

Lana’s mouth dropped open. So, I’m sorry to say, did mine. Josh Richter respected something I had said? Are you kidding me?

But he looked perfectly serious. More than serious. He looked the way he had that day at Bigelows, like he could see into my soul with those electric blue eyes of his. . . .  Like he already had seen into my soul. . . .

I guess Lana didn’t notice her boyfriend looking into my soul, though. Because she said, “God, Josh. You drink more’n anybody else in this whole school.”

Josh turned his head and looked at her with those hypnotic eyes. He said, without smiling, “Well, maybe I should quit, then.”

Lana started laughing. She said, “Oh, right! That’ll happen!”

Josh didn’t laugh, though. He just went on looking at her.

That’s when I started to get the heebie-jeebies. Josh just kept staring at Lana. I was glad he wasn’t staring at me like that; those blue eyes of his are no joke.

I got up real fast and grabbed my tray. Tina, seeing what I was doing, did the same.

“Well,” I said, “bye.”

Then we booked out of there.

On the way to drop off our trays, Tina was like, “What was that all about?” and I said I didn’t know. But I know one thing for sure:

For once, I’m kind of glad I’m not Lana Weinberger.

More Thursday, French

When I went to my locker after lunch to get my books for French, Josh was there. He was sort of leaning on his closed locker door, looking around. When he saw me coming, he straightened up and went, “Hey.”

And then he smiled. A big smile that showed all of his white teeth. His perfectly straight white teeth. I had to look away, those teeth were so perfect and so blindingly white.

I said, “Hey,” back. I was really embarrassed and all, since I had sort of seen him fighting with Lana a few minutes before. I figured he was probably waiting for her, and that the two of them would make up and probably French kiss all over the place, so I tried to work my combination as quickly as possible and get the heck out of there so I wouldn’t have to watch.

But Josh started talking to me. He said, “I really agree with what you said in the caf just now. You know, about respecting your body and everything. I think that’s really, you know, a cool attitude.”

I could feel my face start to burn. It was sort of like I was on fire. I concentrated on not dropping anything as I moved books around in my locker. It’s too bad my hair is so short now. I couldn’t duck my head to hide the fact that I was blushing. “Huh,” I said, real intelligently.

“So,” Josh said, “are you going to the dance with anyone, or not?”

I dropped my Algebra book. It went skittering across the hall. I stooped down to pick it up.

“Um,” I said, by way of answering his question.

I was down on my hands and knees, picking up old worksheets that had slid out of my Algebra book, when I saw these knees covered in gray flannel bend. Then Josh’s face was right next to mine.

“Here,” he said, and handed me my favorite pencil, the one with the feathery pom-pom on the end.

“Thanks,” I said. Then I made the mistake of looking into his too-blue eyes.

“No,” I said, real faintly, because that’s how his eyes made me feel: faint. “I’m not going to the dance with anyone.”

Then the bell rang.

Josh said, “Well, see you.” And then he left.

I am still in shock.

Josh Richter spoke to me. He actually spoke to me. Twice.

For the first time in like a month, I don’t care that I’m flunking Algebra. I don’t care that my mom is dating one of my teachers. I don’t care that I’m the heir to the throne of Genovia. I don’t even care that my best friend and I aren’t speaking.