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York?”
    “No, governor,” I corrected. “No! Representative!”
    He laughed. “Whatever you say.”
    If I’d had both feet on the floor at that point I still might’ve wobbled, but as it was, with one foot falling asleep up near my butt, I lurched left, overcorrected, tipped right, and only managed to not fall flat on my face in front of Tyler Moss by whipping around into a drunken-looking pirouette and landing on my back.
    “Interpretive dance of Mayor Morris?”
    “Yeah,” I answered. “Very symbolic.”
    “Definitely,” he said, and smiled that smile again. “See, now I understand the whole Constitution.”
    I closed my eyes, though truly, there was little chance I would fall again, since I was still on the floor trapped like a wannabe Houdini inside my own brown corduroys. I tried to look casual by propping myself up on my elbows. “Don’t you have a class first period?”
    He shrugged and said, “Yeah, plumbing. But I can’t find my plunger. Have you seen it?”
    And then he walked away.

4
    I MANAGED TO KEEP MY little flirt-fest to myself, luckily, because on our way out of school at the end of the day, with my Eleanor Roosevelt quote card tucked into my pocket beside my cell phone, Roxie and I rounded the corner near the gym and practically smacked right into Tyler Moss, who was leaning with his hand on the brick wall, and between him and the wall was Jade, gazing up at him and, I am not even kidding, batting her long eyelashes.
    “Get a room!” Roxie called to them as we strode out the door. If they had bothered to look away from each other, they would’ve seen us looking totally cool and self-possessed, I am sure, despite the fact that I was crumbling inside and carrying a plunger on the outside.
    “He is such a slut,” Roxie said, laughing. Then she ranted as we walked out to the bus about the Fascist and how now she had to come up with a J. K. Rowling costume for tomorrow. I just agreed. The Fascist had been telling Roxie for weeks she couldn’t do Harry. I slipped into the window seat with Roxie beside me and ignored Jade, who looked especially pretty, all flushed, when she got on the bus after us.
    Roxie asked loudly if I wanted to hang out at her pool again. I didn’t think I could handle another afternoon of self-loathing in front of Tyler Moss, especially after watching him and Jade look so cozy, so I made up an excuse about helping Quinn with her science project to get out of going back there.
    I had no idea I was sort of telling the truth.
    When we got home, Gosia told us that we should stay upstairs because Mom and Dad were on their way home to have a meeting with somebody and they’d need privacy in the study. Quinn pulled me upstairs and whispered to me, in her room, “You have to get this part down there.”
    She thrust the baby’s-room part of the baby monitor at me.
    “Me?” I asked.
    “You’re sneakier than I am,” she explained.
    I couldn’t argue with that. I checked the batteries—dead. Quinn yanked open an assortment of flashlights and remotes around her mess of a room until she found functional batteries that fit the monitor and the receiver. We tested it twice.
    “Go!” Quinn whispered urgently.
    Her face was pale, with weird little blotches of red beside her nose and on her neck. So much for Miss Porcelain, I nastily thought on my way down the front staircase in my socks.
    I was halfway through the silent living room when I heard a car pull up. I dashed toward the study and, sensing something nearby, straightened my back against the bookcases. Two seconds later, Gosia peeked in, plucked a microscopic piece of lint off the rug, and disappeared. My heart was thumping hard as I scouted around for a place to stash the monitor.
    The desk was too obvious. The bookcase was probably too far to pick up anything.
    A car door slammed. Then another.
    My phone buzzed. Text from Jade:
    Hey. You don’t still like Ty, do u? R U mad @ me?
    I cursed under my breath.
    No, I