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  “Tell you what,” said Lisa, “I feel like climbing some more. How about if you belay for me?”

  “No. I’m done. I’m outta here.”

  “Whatever, Longridge. You are not! I’ll be over there getting your rope ready.”

  “No, really. I’m leaving,” I said. But she wasn’t taking me seriously.

  I didn’t move. Yup, I had decided. It was Derbin for me.

  The sight of Lisa uncoiling that rope though, ponytail swinging...

  Next thing I knew I was holding the belay rope for her. I’ll just help her out for a few minutes, I thought. And then I’ll go.

  Lisa seemed to find holds no problem. She made everything look so easy.

  I let out the rope for her as she went up.

  “Make sure your climber is safe,” Rick had said yesterday. “Watch him or her at all times.” I sure didn’t mind watching Lisa at all times.

  “Thanks, Mike!” Lisa called out. “Way to belay!”

  I leaned back, the rope firm and taut in my hands. I felt like Lisa’s protector. This was a pretty good gig.

  Not that Lisa needed a protector. Her long legs stretched up easily as she climbed to the next ledge. Was she ever flexible.

  Before I knew it though, it was my turn again. Lisa had just rappelled down the twenty-foot rock face and wasn’t fazed at all.

  “Your turn, Road Runner. Tie your knot.”

  Run away. Just go.

  “Just think of it as climbing a tree,” Lisa said, looking hopeful. “You climbed trees when you were a kid, didn’t you?”

  I stared up at the Godzilla rock and took a deep breath.

  I thought of all the trees I had ever climbed.

  And then I got a flash of wide cedar siding and an old gray drainpipe. Right foot on the pipe bolt, left hand on the siding ridge. This was just like the time I climbed in the window of that house in Vernon.

  My right hand found a small crack in the rock. I jammed my fingers in and went a little higher. Foot, foot, hand. Hand, hand, foot.

  “Yay, Mike!”

  Lisa sounded so happy.

  I was ready to get this party started.

  chapter six

  “So, she’s hot?” asked Cam.

  “Totally,” I said.

  “If she’s so hot, why would she like you, dude?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Cam let out a huge watery burp. Right into the phone. He’d always been a classy guy. “Sounds like she’s totally out of your league—Get him! Aw, crap!”

  Cam’s Xbox was blipping and bleeping in the background. I could hear the click of the controller. He was probably sucking at Grand Theft Auto, as usual.

  “Yeah, but—”

  “I so had him! Mike, you should have seen the move I just made. Man! Oh, come on...Hey, guy, I gotta go.”

  It was another of our two-minute conversations.

  Why would she like you, dude? Why was I friends with Cam anyway? He was probably sitting in his basement, his gut hanging out, playing video games all day.

  I went to my room and flopped on my bed with a groan. Cam was such a jerk. He didn’t know that Lisa laughed at my jokes and looked me in the eye. She actually seemed to like being around me. Knowing that I’d see Lisa at Explore every day kind of kept me going.

  But maybe she was too hot for a loser like me. She likes you. No, she doesn’t. She likes you. No, she doesn’t. I should have been pulling petals off a daisy or something.

  No, this was the new Mike. The new Mike had the guts to ask out the girl of his dreams.

  It took a couple days. There were always so many people around. I came close to getting her alone a few times, but someone else would always barge in. Finally I had my chance. Friday before our morning run, I saw Lisa sitting on the grass, lacing up her sneakers. Alone.

  Okay, Mike, go for it. She likes you. For some unknown reason, she likes you. I felt sweat drip down my back and into my shorts. Ugh.

  I tried to act casual. “Hey, Lisa.”

  “Yo, Longridge! What’s shakin’?”

  “Well, uh, I was wondering if you, if you...” What an idiot. I hadn’t even thought of where I wanted to ask her to go. I knew I’d say something dumb.

  Lisa smiled. “What’s up?”

  “Uh, I was wondering if you wanted to go to the Green Room for coffee after school.”

  She pulled her lace tight with a swift tug. “Today? Oh, I have volleyball.”

  Volleyball? She spends all week in Explore, hiking up mountains and learning outdoor survival skills, and she still goes to volleyball on Friday nights?

  “Uh, maybe tomorrow?”

  “We’ve got the big game this weekend. You should come!”

  This girl was a crazy, type-A Wonder Woman. Most weekends I slept until two in the afternoon and then watched TV all day.

  “Yeah, um, okay. Well, how about Monday? For coffee.”

  “Monday?” She looked up for a minute. “Monday...cool! I’ll invite Kayla and Jen.” She turned to the rest of the group over by the tree stump and started to call them over. “Hey, Kayla—”

  This was not going as I had planned. “No! Lisa!” She looked up at me, a little stunned. I sat down on the grass next to her. I was doing this. “Actually, I was hoping that maybe it could just be you and me.”

  “Just you and me,” she repeated. Lisa’s forehead wrinkled up for a second. That was so cute. “Oh. Oh.”

  Lisa looked away, fiddling with the laces on her sneakers. Then she stood up quickly. So did I. “Um...actually, I might have something on Monday night. I’ll have to check my schedule and let you know. I just get so booked up. Sorry, Mike.”

  Mike. She never called me Mike.

  Oh crap, what did I say wrong? Or maybe she did have to check her schedule.

  Lisa took off, racing to catch up with Kayla.

  “So Mr. Longridge. Here we are again.” There were those teeth again too. Unfortunately, right after the run I had my meeting with Lardface. At least she always had candy on her desk. Jolly Ranchers, my favorite. “How was the white-water trip last week?”

  “Pretty good.”

  “Maggie mentioned that you flipped your kayak. Did you get the hang of it after that?”

  “Uh, I guess.”

  “And Rick said that you’re really coming along in orienteering. Can be tricky to read those compasses, can’t it?”

  What, do Rick and Maggie call Lardface every night and give her a blow-by-blow account of Mike Longridge’s Day at Explore? And then he had lunch...it was a stale peanut butter sandwich. And then Mike went to the bathroom. He crumples rather than folds his toilet paper. And then he...

  I wouldn’t be surprised.

  “I hear you’ve been hanging out with Tim. He’s a good guy. Helps out at the pancake breakfast every year.”

  I nodded. Jeez, these people do know everything about everyone. I bet she also knew that I slept with a teddy bear named Tiggy when I was three.

  “Maggie also said that you spend a lot of time with a certain”—Lardface looked down at her notepad—”Lisa Park. How’s that going, Mike?”

  I didn’t say anything. There were some things authority figures didn’t need to know. Also, I was feeling kind of tortured about the whole Lisa-checking-her-schedule thing.

  When I got back to the Explore site, it was our third day of archery practice. I’d come close to a bull’s-eye a couple of times.

  Lisa was standing with Kayla and Jen. They didn’t see me. I ducked behind a tree and pretended to tie my boot.

  “Seriously?” Jen’s squeaky voice.

  “So what did you say?” Kayla. Her voice wasn’t quite so squeaky.

  “I just told him I had to check my schedule.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Well, I had to think fast after I realized he wanted it to be just me and him.”

  “What was he thinking?” Kayla said. “I mean, you’re so totally out of his league. You could have any guy in t
he whole school.”

  “Well, I mean, I like him as a friend.” Lisa buried her face in her hands. “Oh my god, you guys, I’m such an idiot! I led him on, completely.”

  Jen put her arm around Lisa’s shoulders. “Lis, sometimes you’re just way too nice.”

  “I know. My mom says I like to help out the injured birds.”

  “Yeah,” Jen said, “but you don’t realize that when a girl like you talks to a boy like him, of course he’s going to like you as more than a friend.”

  “Why don’t you just tell him you have a boyfriend?”

  “Kay, I don’t want to lie.”

  “Well, that’s the easiest way out of it,” said Kayla.

  “No, I’ll think of something else.”

  They walked away, down the path. Their voices got lost in the trees.

  God. I was such an idiot. She didn’t like me at all. I was just her latest charity case— an injured bird, a complete and utter loser.

  A boy like him. Out of his league. Those girls were worse than Cam.

  My heel dug into the soggy ground. I kicked up a huge hunk of grass, then another. Sometimes destruction could be so satisfying. Worms dangled out the bottom of the dirt chunks. I bet worms don’t have to worry about rejection.

  “Hey, Mike, you coming? We’re heading over to the field.” Tim and Rick walked by with bags full of arrows slung over their shoulders.

  I never wanted to show my face to Lisa or Kayla or Tim or anyone in Explore ever again. But I blindly put one foot in front of the other and made it over to the archery field. I hauled a bunch of arrows out of the bag and grabbed a bow, slamming it into my knee as I yanked at it.

  “Mike, you okay?” Tim asked. “You seem a little out of it.”

  “Yup.”

  Shoot. Try again. Shoot. Try again. Every time, my arrows sailed past the target. They didn’t even come close.

  So Lisa didn’t like me after all. Just as a friend. That’s the worst phrase ever invented.

  I squinted at the target. Pretend the target is every guy that can have Lisa, the quarterback and the track star and all those taller, smarter, cooler guys than me. I hated them all.

  Bull’s-eye.

  chapter seven

  The phone was ringing—and ringing and ringing. I wasn’t going to answer it. I heard some mumbling and a gruff “hello” from the living room.

  I rolled over and looked at the alarm clock. It was 11:22 AM.

  Dad kicked my door open and clunked the phone down near my ear without saying a word. I caught a good whiff as he left. Cigarettes, beer and a bad case of BO. Gotta love how he didn’t even care I wasn’t at school.

  “Yeah?” I mumbled into the phone.

  “Mr. Longridge. You’re not at school today. Are you sick?” It was Lardface, of course. Who else would it be?

  “No.” Darn, why did I say that? “Uh, maybe a bit.”

  “Unless you’re puking your guts out and have a fever of a hundred and one, get your butt down there. You know the rules.”

  Sometimes I wondered if Officer Lardface had been in the army.

  I shoved one leg out of the blankets. No, I couldn’t do it. The thought of going to Explore after the whole “injured birds” scene on Friday actually did make me want to puke.

  I hadn’t left my room all weekend, not even for a run. I kept thinking about Lisa leaping around on the volleyball court. Her team had probably won the game. I imagined her ponytail swinging as she did a perfect serve.

  I’d thought about her all weekend. I bet she hadn’t thought about me.

  She didn’t like me. Well, she liked me “as a friend.” And I still had to look at her every day and mentally drool over her. Now I really had no chance with her. I wondered if there was some way to get her to like me. Like if I suddenly got really good at everything sporty and outdoorsy. No, Mike, don’t be an idiot.

  I groaned. I had to get up. As if I was going to let Lardface come and rip me out of bed again.

  I heard screechy giggling from the living room. Big Lips, Dad’s new “lady friend,” was here. Her name was Angie. She had this giant mouth on a pale face and wore tons of globby red lipstick. Sometimes it was on her teeth. You looked at her and the first thing you thought was big, huge, crazy lips. If Dad and Big Lips were going to be doing their thing all day, I definitely had to get out of there.

  I dragged myself in to Explore just before tracking class. We were learning how to identify wild animals by their paw prints and poop.

  “Hey, Mike, nice to see you. Glad you could make it. I tried calling you this morning, but when you didn’t answer, I had to pass it along the chain of command.” Rick shrugged apologetically and gave me a playful punch on the shoulder. A few of the Granolas gathered around and gave me an are-you-feeling-okay? welcome. Couldn’t a guy just be miserable in peace?

  Lisa didn’t talk to me all afternoon. She, Kayla and Jen walked around glued together like a single-celled organism. What were those things we learned about in science last year? Oh yeah, paramecium. They were a really good-looking paramecium.

  I stood at the back of the group, hood up.

  “You okay?” Good old Tim.

  “Yeah, just not feeling so good.”

  “You still into going up to the hill tomorrow for a little practice?” asked Tim.

  “Oh, uh, yeah.” Tim had offered to show me the ropes before our big five-day backcountry ski trip. Ugh. My guts tossed and turned just thinking about it.

  The next day was wilderness skills. We were going to learn how to make fires using bow drills.

  “In your hands you have everything you need to generate friction, heat and then fire,” Maggie said. I looked at the bow with the rope attached to it. I also had a stick and a board. I was supposed to make fire with a stupid twig and a piece of rotten wood?

  Rick gave us the instructions and said, “Remember, guys, it can take a while to get the fire going. Don’t give up. Just keep trying.”

  I found a spot away from the group. I sat with my back to everyone and tried to figure out how the heck the bow and the stick worked together. A couple of minutes later I heard footsteps crunching toward me. I was pretty sure I knew who it was.

  “Hey, Mike.”

  I didn’t look up. I was starting to get the hang of spinning the stick with the bow to get the burn going. My heart was beating like crazy and I could feel my cheeks going red.

  “Mike, I want to talk to you.” Lisa’s voice didn’t sound all fun and perky like usual. It was deeper, more serious. “Can you look at me for a sec?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Lisa lifted one edge of my hood. “Michael Longridge, are you in there?” She took a deep breath. Whoa, is the great Lisa Park actually feeling nervous? “Look, I’m sorry about Friday. I didn’t know what to do when you asked me out. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. But I’m just not interested in you that way.”

  I kept sawing away with my bow and stick, a little faster.

  “But I really want to be friends.”

  Part of me wanted to chuck the bow drill down and shake Lisa by her pretty little shoulders, have a big freak-out over the unfairness of it all.

  “I think we have a really good friendship,” Lisa said. “I don’t want to mess with that.”

  Actually, you’re too ugly and dumb for a goddess like me, but I still want to torture you by hanging out with you. That’s what she really meant.

  She didn’t know that I’d already heard all of this.

  “Mike, aren’t you going to say something?”

  I thought I might be getting close to getting some smoke with my bow drill. I sawed even harder. I could see the steam of my breath in the cold air.

  “Yup, whatever.”

  “So we’re friends? You’re okay?”

  “I guess.” She still had my hoodie edge lifted up. I didn’t look at her. She sighed and ran back to her paramecium.

  I tried for what felt like five hours to get a fire start
ed. No spark.

  At the end of the day, Rick and Maggie gathered us all together to talk about our big backcountry ski trip the next Friday. Five days in the Cascade Mountains. We got to go up there by helicopter. That part sounded pretty cool. Usually heli-skiing is mucho expensive, but Rick’s brother owns a helicopter so he takes the Explore kids up the mountain every year.

  All I knew about telemark skiing was that it combined two of the worst things known to man: downhill skiing and hiking. I had never been downhill skiing, but I already knew I wouldn’t like it. Telemark skiing was way too much work, in my opinion. You have to ski down these crazy backcountry hills and then hike right back up the hill and do it all over again. Yeah, looked like two tons of fun.

  Rick and Maggie showed us a video that looked like it was from 1982, with a dude in a bright pink ski suit demonstrating all the moves. Unlike regular downhill skiing, in telemark skiing you have to bend your knees one at a time as you go down the hill. I didn’t get it. The Granolas had probably all been skiing and hiking since they were out of diapers—probably when they were in diapers. Once again, I would be left out in the cold. Literally.

  “It’s a good thing you’ve got that ski thing going on tonight,” my dad said when I stopped home after school for my ski stuff. “Me and Angie have been looking forward to a little alone time.” He looked at Big Lips and wiggled his eyebrows in that sick way he does.

  A stack of bills caught my eye as I opened the door: bank, credit cards, phone, hydro, gas. My stomach twisted.

  “Dad!” I called into the living room. “You’re going to pay these, right?” Things were lousy right now, for sure, but I didn’t want to run away from yet another town.

  There was no answer, just the TV and Big Lips’s giggle. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Tim and his older brother were waiting outside. I told him to just pull up and honk. I didn’t want Tim to see the hole I lived in. Tim, Bryce and their crappy 1989 Chevette were the best things I’d seen all day.

  chapter eight

  On day one of the dreaded backcountry ski trip, we sat packed onto the yellow school bus. All around me the Granolas were laughing, telling jokes, crunching trail mix. I just stared out the window, completely freaked out.