No More Dead Dogs Read Online Free PDF Page B

Nose?” I loved these quizzes. Of course, I cheated a little, like the time I fudged the answers so I could have every single thing in common with the national beach volleyball champion. But this time it was mega-important to do an honest job. I had a sneaking suspicion that someone pretty special was about to enter my life.
    Question 1: Do you feel your pulse quicken when you see him? That was a tough one. Every day after classes I ran to rehearsal so fast I was, like, hyperventilating by the time I got to the gym. According to the Aerobic Workout Chart in Coach Wrigley’s office, my heartbeat was the same as a normal person after twenty minutes of calisthenics. Did it get any faster when he showed up? I answered YES AND NO.
    Question 2: Do you think about him constantly? Well, how much counts as constantly? I know for a fact that I thought about him nineteen times today in Spanish class alone. Figure eight periods per day, plus nights. So I probably thought about him, like, two hundred times a day, maybe more. Was that constant enough? I scribbled down SORT OF. They should be a lot more specific about something this important!
    Question 3: Do you find yourself overlooking his faults? Well, that was the stupidest question of all. How could Wallace Wallace have faults?
    Not only did he single-handedly win the championship for the Giants last year, but he was a dramatic genius, too! Maybe even a genius-plus! Because Zack Paris was a regular genius, and Wallace was thinking up much better dialogue for our play. Five minutes didn’t go by in rehearsal without one of the actors calling out, “Hey, Wallace, have you got a better line for…?” or “Can you think of a more realistic way to say…?” And Wallace would always have the perfect answer.
    We were all totally stumped when Leo Samuels, who played Mr. Lamont, didn’t want to say, “We must look deep within our souls to accept this tragedy.” But Wallace barely thought about it for a second before coming up with “Your dog died. Get used to it.”
    “That’s not the same thing at all!” raged Mr. Fogelman.
    But everybody else saw how much better it was, and Mr. Fogelman got sick of being outnumbered with only Nathaniel Spitzner on his side.
    He looked daggers at Wallace. “All right, we’ll try it your way.”
    “I don’t have a way,” Wallace replied honestly. “People asked my opinion, and I gave it.”
    When Wallace cops that confident attitude, it makes me weak in the knees. Teen Dazzle should be asking questions about stuff like that!
    “For someone who doesn’t care diddley-squat for our play,” Nathaniel accused, “you sure seem to have an awful lot to say about it!”
    “Hey.” Wallace stood up. “I’m not even supposed to be here.”
    “Well, if you’d write your paper, you wouldn’t be!” exclaimed the teacher.
    And so on, and so on, blah, blah, blah. Mr. Fogelman just couldn’t see that he’d never get Wallace to write that paper. Which was another thing that was awesome about Wallace. He would stand up to anybody. And being totally gorgeous didn’t hurt either. I’d love to run my hand over that buzz cut of his. I’ll bet it would feel like a very soft brush. A lot of people think nerd when they see a short haircut, but it wasn’t that way at all with Wallace. His hair was more like, if he was in a rock group, the band members would wear really thin ties. Other qualities I liked about him: his voice, his name —other people had two names; he only had one, but you said it twice, kind of like New York, New York, or Bora Bora. Also his posture, how everybody looked up to him, and his shoelaces. Last month, Teen Dazzle did an article called “Learning a Guy’s Secrets from His Clothes.” You can tell a lot from the way someone ties his shoelaces. I’d never get involved with a sloppy-looper, or one of those weird alternative-knot types. But Wallace’s sneakers were simple, neat, and tight. I got goose bumps the first time I