"Hi."

Sometimes being on the social fringe in high school had its advantages.

"Hi."

I mean, it was way better than being a total outcast.

"Hi."

And I could walk down the hall between classes and say Hi to fifty people in two minutes.

"Hi."

Because lots of people knew me, but most not well enough to say anything more than,

"Hi."

Which gave me plenty of time to observe everyone. Ellyce Larkspur, just for example.

I mean, everyone noticed her beautiful green eyes, light brown curls that always look slightly wind blown and that she wore these loose, flowing clothes.

But. I'd never been distracted by actually talking to her, unless you count Hi as conversation, which I didn't, so I detected something going on under all those loose layers of clothing. Something very in ter est ing. Something that made a certain part of my anatomy snap to attention.

Through intense observation, I realized that Ellyce's slender hips and narrow waist were nicely topped off by small but jutting boobs, or, uh, breasts, or, I mean, whatever the politically correct term is these days. Anyway, it was only through long term scrutiny that I was able to detect that delicious fact through all those layers of clothes. Which I guess was one advantage of people not totally noticing you they wouldn't notice if you're staring.

"Hey, Wes!" Tony Russo slapped my back, which sent my books flying. I mean, he knew I was holding the books in front of me to hide my reaction to seeing Ellyce. We'd all perfected the school book technique back in junior high, when we developed erections that were still in progress even though we were now sophomores. It seemed like it, anyway.

Tony laughed as a couple of my books sailed down the hall. At six feet, four inches, Tony was an ex wrestler who sometimes forgot just how strong he was.

Then there's me. I made a rake look husky. I wore thick, heavy sweaters just to give myself some bulk, but I didn't think that it really helped.

"Sorry, dude!" Tony laughed his big, easy laugh again and helped me grab my books.

Just as Tony handed me my last stray book, Jeff Hughes ran up to us. He wiggled his eyebrows under the black hair that almost covered his dark brown eyes. "Hey, guys, I just overheard "

The bell rang. We ran for art class. Mr. Korman was nice enough, for a teacher, but he reported anyone who was late for class. We all skidded through the doorway and landed at our table just as the bell stopped ringing.

"Just in time, gentlemen." Korman started teaching at Willamette Valley Regional High last year, right out of college, so he was not that much older than any of his students. He had thick glasses and chubby cheeks, kinda like a chipmunk who stuffed his face with nuts and berries.

"It's broiling in here," Tony muttered.

No surprise. The infamous Room Five had no windows and it's own peculiar source of heat some weird appliance with two settings. On and Off. In the winter, it was always either boiling hot or freezing cold.

"Today we'll work on our charcoal sketches," Korman announced.

I groaned. It wasn't that I minded doing charcoal sketches. It was that working with charcoal was a total mess in the unbearable heat of Room Five. For me, anyway.

Thanks to all the budget cuts, I didn't have a metal holder, so I had to wrap my charcoal in a piece of paper or risk looking like a massive smudge by the end of class. Already, I felt my face turning red. My hands started to sweat. My pits worked overtime. Thank God art class was last period. At least I didn't have to go around stinking all day.

I picked up the charcoal and hoped it wouldn't crumble in my fingers. I was doing sketches of my own hands. Gary Irwin, who sat next to me, was doing his hands, too. He stole the idea from me after Korman tore up his first sketch, naked females. The pervert. Gary, that is. Not Korman.

Not that that I, slave to Puberty that I am, didn't go around picturing naked females. But I didn't draw them in art class. I mean, I didn't want to be a pig or a chauvinist or any combination thereof, at least not in public. So, even though I couldn't help how I felt about girls, I could help how I acted. Or try, anyway.

I glanced across the table at Tony and Jeff. Tony was working on a character sketch of Mr. Glenn, our principal. The mass of wiry hair was totally right, but what seriously impressed me was how he captured Glenn's ever shifting eyes. The guy could walk down the hall and spot twenty seven school violations in two minutes.

Jeff was sketching, from memory, a setting from the Japanese Gardens in Portland. His work was so finely detailed I felt as if I could reach out and touch the individual pebbles in the hira–niwa, the level ground garden.

"Nice thumb," Jeff said.

"Thanks." That got our consulting out of the way.

"I overheard Ms. Tenray talking to Cari Keet, Tiffany Miller and you know who."

"Oh?" I tried to look all casual. But I knew who was Ellyce. Just thinking about her made me shiver.

"Yeah." Jeff grinned and rubbed his hand across the back of his head. "I was telling Tony, and he thinks "

"Yes, Mr. Hughes," said Korman, who seemed to have beamed down from the ceiling. "What does Mr. Russo think?"

Silence.

Korman raised one eyebrow. "You can take your seat now, Mr. Hughes."

I looked at the clock. Nineteen more minutes until I could find out what Jeff had to say about Ellyce. I tried to think. Ms. Tenray was an English teacher who also coached the cheerleaders. Ellyce, Cari and Tiffany were all sophomore cheerleaders, new to the squad this year. I tried deductive reasoning, but it went nowhere.

The girls were all in the upper echelon of Unattainables. Jeff, Tony and I were all at the top of our class as far as grades went, but other than that we were merely part of the common masses who watched the Unattainables across a distant gulf.

Only yesterday Tony had said, "You know, we've gotta stop just being horny and work our way up to having an actual conversation with somebody besides each other. Maybe it'll lead to something."

"'Somebody' meaning girls, I assume," I said.

"And 'something' meaning action?" Jeff said. "It sounds good. Any great ideas how we accomplish this miracle?"

Prolonged silence.

I sure didn't have any ideas about how to overcome this particular deficiency. "