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not quite purple and not quite blue. There is a speck of just-right red on one of his fingers.

    The principal's secretary has the microphone again. The rally is almost over.

    "I'm glad you found me," Noah says.

    "Me too." I want to float, because it's that simple. He's glad I found him. I'm glad I found him.
    We are not afraid to say this. I am so used to hints and mixed messages, saying things that might mean what they sort of sound like they mean. Games and contests, roles and rituals, talking in twelve languages at once so the true words won't be so obvious. I am not used to a plainspoken, honest truth.

    It pretty much blows me away.

    I think Noah recognizes this. He's looking at me with a nifty grin. The other people in our row are standing and jostling now, waiting for us to leave so they can get to the aisle and resume their day. I want time to stop.

    Time doesn't stop.

    "Two sixty-three," Noah tells me.

    "?!???" I reply.

    "My locker number," he explains. "I'll see you after school."

    Now I don't want time to stop. I want it to fast-forward an hour. Noah has become my until.

    As we leave the gym, I can see Kyle shoot me a look. I don't care. Joni and Ted will no doubt be waiting under the bleachers for the full report.

    I can sum it up in one word:

    Joy.

    Hallway Traffic (Complications Ensue)

    Self-esteem can be so exhausting. I want to cut my hair, change my clothes, erase the pimple from the near-tip of my nose, and strengthen my upper-arm definition, all in the next hour.
    But I can't do that, because (a) it's impossible, and (b) if I make any of these changes, Noah will notice that I've changed, and I don't want him to know how into him I am.

    I hope Mr. B can save me. I pray his physics class today will transfix me in such a way that I will forget about what awaits me at the other end. But as Mr. B bounds around the room with anti-gravitational enthusiasm, I just can't join his parade. Two sixty-four has become my new mantra. I roll the number over in my head, hoping it will reveal something to me (other than a locker number). I replay my conversation with Noah, trying to transcribe it into memory since I don't dare write it down in my notebook.

    The hour passes. As soon as the bell rings, I bolt out of my seat. I don't know where locker 264 is, but I'm sure as hell going to find out.

    I plunge into the congested hallway, weaving through the back-slap reunions and locker lunges. I spot locker 435 -- I'm in the wrong corridor entirely.

    "Paul!" a voice yells. There aren't enough Pauls in my school that I can assume the yell is for someone else. Reluctantly I turn around and see Lyssa Ling about to pull my sleeve.

    I already know what she wants. Lyssa Ling doesn't ever talk to me unless she wants me to be on a committee. She's the head of our school's committee on appointing committees, no doubt because she's so good at it.

    "What do you want from me now, Lyssa?" I ask. (She's used to this.) - "The Dowager Dance," she says. "I want you to architect it."

    I am more than a little surprised. The Dowager Dance is a big deal at our school, and architecting it would mean being in charge of all the decorations and music.

    "I thought Dave Davison was architecting it," I say.

    Lyssa sighs. "He was. But then he went all Goth on me."

    "Cool."

    "No. Not cool. We have to give people the freedom to wear something other than black. So are you in or are you out?"

    "Can I have some time to think about it?"

    "Sixteen seconds."

    I count to seventeen and then say, "I'm in."

    Lyssa nods, says something about slipping the budget into my locker tomorrow morning, and walks away.

    I know it's going to be a rather elaborate budget. The dance was created thirty or so years ago after a local dowager left a stipulation in her will that every year the high school would throw a lavish dance in her honor. (Apparently she was quite a swinger in her day.) The only thing we have to do is feature her portrait prominently