Confessions of a Not It Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

sports. Like, are you supposed to ask what the score was, or is that bad in case they only won by a little bit? "I guess you must be pretty psyched."
    "Actually, I kind of wish the season would end already." He popped a pretzel in his mouth. "Last season I was really into playing, but now--I don't know. I'm kind of over it." This is good. He's opening up about his feelings. Encourage more of the same.
    I racked my brain for a sports-related question.
    "Was your team in Seattle good?" He was wearing a Lawrence Academy sweatshirt and a pair of Lawrence Academy shorts. When he'd leaned over to pour my
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    water, I'd noticed he smelled really good again, not like shampoo, but like outside, like fall. His hair was all messy, and there was some dirt on his cheek.
    "It was all right." He smiled his slow smile at me. "How was your nap? You were pretty out of it, there." He reached over and kind of tousled my hair.
    Miraculously, I did not respond to his touch by fainting. "Yeah, well." Was that all I could come up with? Yeah, well. YEAH, WELL? This was not the witty banter required to supplement my casual, outdoorsy look.
    "Don't feel too bad--I've had the same problem with calculus myself." Josh got up and went over to the counter. "You want some pretzels?" He took another handful.
    "No thanks." I could just see myself trying to talk and spraying him with a mouthful of pretzel crumbs.
    He brought the water pitcher over to the table and refilled his glass. "So," he said, sitting back down, this time across the table from me, "here we are."
    I nodded. "Yup, here we are." This was not witty banter--it was an echo.
    "What's the deal with Richie's party next Saturday," he asked finally. "Are you going?"
    "Yeah, I'll probably go." We looked at each other across the table. His eyes were enormous, and they were very dark green. Please please please please understand that I am not just deaf-mute-pseudo-nature-girl. Please.
    He smiled at me. "I'll probably go, too."
    Here it was. Our big scene.
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    josh: (Reaching across the table and taking Jan's hand in his.) I'll probably go because I love you, Jan.
    (They stare meaningfully into each other's eyes and then--)
    "Hello? Anybody home?" It was Sarah. Josh looked up as she came into the kitchen.
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    CHAPTER FOUR
    I wasn't exactly devastated when Sarah called me on Monday and said that Margaret, her regular sitter, had mono. Actually, whatever the opposite of devastated is, I was that. Sarah must have gone on for about a hundred hours saying if I ever did have a free Friday or Saturday night, she wanted me to know she was dying to hire me. I told her I could baby-sit again next Friday and she practically had a stroke thanking me.
    I kept thinking of Friday as a date with Josh, even though Rebecca was kind enough to remind me about ten million times that baby-sitting a six-year-old is not the same as having a date with the six-year-old's seventeen-year-old brother.
    "Can I just point out that less than a month ago you didn't even notice Josh?" We were sitting on the broken-down sofa in the corner of the student lounge, which was empty except for us and some freshmen huddled together way on the other side of the room. Every once in a while one of them would look nervously in our direction, like at any second we might invoke some secret senior privilege and order them to leave immediately. Little did they know: we seniors are far too busy tormenting ourselves to bother humiliating underclassmen.
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    "I noticed him a month ago," I said, avoiding looking at her.
    "Yeah, you noticed him enough to think he was a loser."
    "I know. I know." Just thinking about having said that made me drop my head onto my knees in humiliation. "I can't explain it."
    "Don't feel bad," said Rebecca, patting me on the back. "You're just a fool in love."
    I still had my head against my knees. "Why is this happening to me? Why can't I go back to the simple days of my youth when I liked Tom and everything was so