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terrifying topics for another hour before her parents forced her to unplug—the “Internet curfew,” Anna called it. She wished me sweet dreams, as always, and sweet dreams I had.
    â€¢ • •
    If I were physically capable of skipping, I would have skipped into school the next day. Not only had I managed to restrain myself at breakfast—just two eggs over easy, a couple sausage patties, and a glass of OJ—but I had also woken up right at the end of one of those sweet dreams. And I mean
sweet
.
    Sans the ability to skip, I whistled my way from the parking lot to my locker, poking my head into the band room on theway. My whistle shifted to one high-pitched tone, one low—a catcall. The shrill notes startled the Professor. He pulled up from a box of records and spun on his heel so fast, he had to catch himself on a music stand to keep from falling.
    â€œLooking good there, Professor!”
    â€œButter! You scared the sh—You caught me off guard. That is some serious lung power. It’s a shame you don’t put it to better use.”
    â€œHey, I play every night.”
    â€œFor whom? The crickets outside your window?”
    â€œTouché.” I winked and turned to leave.
    â€œButter, wait! I want to talk about next semester!”
    â€œI know you do, Professor,” I tossed back over my shoulder. “Why do you think I’m walking away?” Then, just to show him I didn’t mean any offense, I whistled a few bars from one of his favorite Dizzy Gillespie tunes in farewell.
    The whistling lasted all the way to comp.
    It was much easier to focus in first period without Anna fidgeting. She sat perfectly still, each hair on her head hanging stick-straight, like fine strings of glass. Instead of crossing her legs, she tucked them under her lap in a serene yoga pose. The position hiked up her tiny shorts so high on one thigh, I could almost see—
    â€œAhem.” The sound of the teacher’s fake cough at my side snapped me out of my daydream. Maybe it wasn’t so easy to concentrate after all.
    â€œCan you repeat the question?” I asked, embarrassed for the second day in a row.
    â€œI simply asked if you were paying attention,” she snapped. “And thank you. You answered.”
    I would have shrunk down in my desk-built-for-two if there had been any room, but I was already wedged in tight as it was.
    As the teacher swayed up the aisle, my eyes drifted back to Anna and caught a burst of bright blue, like sea glass. She was looking right at me! Actually, everyone was probably looking at me, but next to that pair of crystal-clear blue eyes, all the other sets disappeared. I couldn’t help myself. I smiled.
My
Anna would have smiled back, would have probably even giggled and shared my embarrassing moment with me. But this Anna didn’t know me, so when I smiled, the best I got in return was a confused tug of one corner of her mouth before she turned forward again to pay attention to the lesson.
    The teacher addressed me once more from the front of the classroom. “And please stop whistling.” I hadn’t even realized I was making noise, but sure enough, my lips were in a pucker. I stopped abruptly and didn’t start again for the rest of the day.
    This was fine, because there would be nothing else to whistle about anyway.

Chapter 5
    It all went down in the cafeteria, just like in my nightmares.
    I started the lunch hour as usual, at the long table in the back with my soft-sided cooler and my privacy. Halfway through my cold beef sandwich, everything went wrong.
    I had been watching Anna out of the corner of my eye, at her usual table with Jeanie and their circle of girls, when I noticed movement from their end of the cafeteria. It was Anna, standing up and wrapping her hair into a bun that she held together with a pencil. Something was wrong. She nearly stabbed her own scalp three times trying to jab the pencil through