RACHEL VATER
âthe smartest, savviest, and most loyal agent in the
whole entire universe. I'm thrilled (and still amazed) you picked me for your team.

WENDY LOGGIA
âEditor Extra-Extra-Extraordinaire. Sherry and I
are eternally grateful for your brilliance. And your thoroughness, enthusiasm, and humor. You so
rock!

DENNY'S CHICKS
âKelly Hayes, Kathy Krevat, and Sandy
Levinâthe best critique group a girl could ever wish for. Seriously. I couldn't have done
it without you.

MTW
âa unique online group of supersupportive girly-whirly writers
with pots of noodles.

OTHER TERRIFIC PEOPLE
âDetective Sergeant Joe Bulkowski,
who knows lots of police stuff and is willing to share; the Unfamous Nieces, especially psychic
babysitter Stef; Carlene Dater, for her critiques and coffee breaks; Judy Duarte, for her guidance and
great advice; and Mr. Peter Magee, my phenomenally inspirational high school English teacher.

MY SISTERS
âSusan Cox and Sheilagh Scott, who are always up for
a l-o-n-g phone call and who know dangerously too much about me to be left off this list.

MY FAMILY
âStan, Stephen, Drew, and Claireâfor believing
even when it meant more fast food and less clean laundry. And especially to Mark, who's
always willing to calculate odds, drive kids, and discuss plot in the middle of the night. Thanks for
putting up with me, guys.

Yikes.

I slam my hand down on the paper.

Sucking in a deep breath, I peek under my palm.

Yikes again.

A fat red F shimmers before my eyes, its wide arms swaying, mocking me, calling me
lame names.

“How'd you do, Sherry?” the always-gets-an-A nerd behind me
asks.

Scrunching my paper into a ball, I say, “Just peachy.” Then I stand and
swing my backpack over my shoulder. “I know more about genetics than I could ever use in
this lifetime.” Even with an F, I figure this is true.

Nerd asks, “What'd you get on the essay question?”

There was an essay question? It's so time to blow this formaldehyde stink hole.
I shuffle down the aisle, the backs of my flip-flops slap-slapping my heels. As I pass the wastepaper
basket, I drop my test in.

Then I give a mighty shove to the heavy metal classroom door. With a groan, it swings
open onto the breezeway and fresh Phoenix air.

Thud
.

“Ow!” a male voice says.

Uh-oh. That doesn't sound good.

I look behind the door.

Ack. Major tragedy. I just door-whacked Josh Morton, the coolest, cutest eighth grader
at Saguaro Middle School. In Arizona. Quite possibly in the entire Southwest. I've only been
nonstop crazy about Josh since September, when I spotted him in a very small Speedo at a water polo
game.

Hunched over and leaning against the stucco wall, he's holding a hand against
his nose and groaning.

“I'm sorry, really sorry, really,” I babble. “I just flunked
a test and was kind of taking out my frustration on the door.”

“Yeah?” He gives me a slight smileâwell, more like a big
grimace. Then, with a gorgeous shoulder, he gestures toward the door. “Science?”

“Yeah.” I shrug. “Like that's even useful.”

“I hear you.” Behind his hand, Josh sniffs.

“You okay? Can I do anything?” I can't believe I attacked Josh
Morton with a door. I can't believe I, a seventh grader, am finally talking to him. Nervously
twirling a few strands of hair around my index finger, I add, “I feel horrible.”

“I'm okay.” He straightens, nodding. “I'm
okay.”

I take a deep breath and inhale a chlorine + soap scent. I love, love, love it. I absolutely
must have some of this Eau de Josh for my locker.

“Sherry, right?” He raises dark eyebrows over deep blue eyes.

“Yup, yup, yup.” I sound like the flags at the front of the school,
fwap
ping in the wind against the pole.

“I'm Josh Morton.”

Believe me, I so know who you are. “Hi.”

I can't come up with anything else to say, but at least I look good in my jeans
and my new long-sleeved, open-neck T-shirt that perfectly matches my lavender eye shadow.

He removes his hand from his nose. Then he wrinkles it like an adorable little bunny
sniffing the air for lettuce or carrots.

This is the closest I've ever stood to Josh and, therefore, the first time I notice
the sprinkling of freckles across his nose. I squint. Yes, if connected carefully, they'd spell out
my initials.

“Is something wrong?” He's staring at me.

“Not at all.”

Last month's
Seventeen
listed twenty suggestions for memorable first
meetings with a potential boyfriend. Nowhere did they mention a brutal door-whacking encounter, but it
seems to be working. I'll write a letter to the editor so they can add it as method number
twenty-one.

Suddenly Josh clamps a hand firmly over his nose. With his free hand, he hauls his
backpack up from the sidewalk. “Gotta go.” Without even a glance at me, he's
off and running.

I watch his shaggy hair bounce against the collar of his black Death by Stereo T-shirt,
which rides up to reveal the grooviest plaid boxers above sagging jeans. Sigh. There's
something about a guy who sags.

Then I see a dotted trail of blood in Josh's wake. Oh no. I follow the spatters
to the nurse's office and stop outside the entrance. My stomach sinks like the
Titanic
.

I crushed the nose of the guy I've been crushing on for six months.

In my living
room later that afternoon, I'm nestled
in a beanbag chair, scarfing down a Hot Pocket. It's a pretty peaceful moment, with my
eight-year-old brother, Sam, gone for practice at the ball field and my dad still at work.

Then I hear the garage door open.

Seconds later, Dad strides in, shoulders back. He has a big smile on his face.
“Sherry, we need to talk.”

Ack. What's he doing home early? What do we need to talk about? He
couldn't know about the sucky science test. No way the online grades are already posted. And
he wouldn't be smiling.

Dad pops CÃ©line Dion, his fave lame singer, in the CD player, then sits across
from me in his La-Z-Boy.

Ack. Eek. “What is it?”

He doesn't answer right away, just keeps grinning wide like a frog.

“Dad! Dad! Are you okay?” Then it hits me. “You won the
Powerball! You're giving me a no-limit Visa card and a Corvette with a DVD player for when I
can drive in three years. And you'll finally pay for me to get highlights!”

“Sherry”âmy name comes out all distorted because of his
stretched-out froggy lipsâ“Paula and I are getting married. On Saturday.”

It's like he dumped smelly swamp water over my head. And my Visa card, cool
Corvette and foxy highlights.

“Saturday!” I screech. “As in the day after tomorrow? You said
it would be this summer at the earliest.” And I'd been counting on him coming to his
senses by then.

“I know, pumpkin. But, well, there's an unbelievable Internet special for
Hawaii,” Dad says, “and, like you, Paula has next week off for spring break. So we
decided to move things up a bit. I'll tell Sam tonight.”

I bury my head in my hands.

Paula, aka The Ruler, is a math teacher at school who really lives up to her nickname.
She looks like a rulerâtall and skinny with ramrod-straight posture. And she's a major
control freak. I mean, she hands out detentions like candy, and don't even try taking a cell
phone into her class. Not to mention her annoying habit of constantly contacting the parents of
struggling students. Which is how she hooked up with my dad.

I shudder to think she'll actually be part of my family. She already has too
much influence over my dad. Which means she already has too much influence over my life. Basically,
The Ruler loves rules. Rules about how many minutes I should read each evening, which TV shows I
can watch, how much screen time I get, how much phone time I get, who I can hang out with, when I
can get a MySpace. It's frustrating and nauseating and wrong.

And now full-on stepmotherhood is only two days away.

Dad's droning on and on about wedding plans and Internet specials and Hawaii
and San Diego and me.

Say what? I lift my head and tune back in to discover he wants to banish me to my
great-aunt Margaret's in San Diego, while he and The Ruler hit Kauai's beaches.

I stand. “I'm not going to San Diego.” I zap him with a
don't-mess-with-me look. “I have plans for spring break, important plans, plans that
were planned eons ago.”

“Sherryâ”

“You are not ruining my life. I”âand I jab my thumb into my
chestâ“can do that all on my own.”

You know how you have a private place where you go when you just can't
take the world anymore? A place where you can shove an entire Fruit Roll-Up in your mouth all at once
without embarrassment? A place where you expect to be totally alone? My place is the ornamental pear
tree in our backyard. My mom planted it when I was born.

So here I am, at dusk, lying on my stomach on a bumpy branch, staring down at a
turtle-shaped sandbox and crying my eyes out. I can't believe Dad is getting remarried. On
Saturday. To The Ruler. My life is totally ruined.

My spring break is totally ruined too. My spring-break plans have been in place for
months: spend time with my girlfriends, shop at the mall, eat junk food, and sleep till noon. Very
important stuff.

And even more important is my BBSRP (Brilliant But Simple Romance Plan), which
goes like this: I spend time at Video World; Josh and I hook up; I wow him with my video-game skills,
my conversation, my clothes, my makeup; he falls for me; he's a great kisser; we become one
of those hip middle school couples everyone admires. Finally, he asks me to the Eighth Grade
Graduation Dance, and I pick out the perfect dress from Sequins, an ultracool store in the mall.

Although, after this morning's door incident, the plan may need some
tweaking.

Naturally, my bratty little brother gets to stay in Phoenix with Grandma Baldwin, who
always says she can only handle one of us at a time. And it's never me. Like I'm
trouble? Puh-leeze.

My grandmother seriously needs to learn about forgiveness. And a sprinkling of Prozac
on her scrambled Egg Beaters wouldn't hurt either. So I was involved in a little incident with
her darling parakeet? It happened way in the past.

When I was ten, Grandpa Baldwin had a humongous heart attack, causing him to drive
off the highway and smash into a giant saguaro cactus. Grandpa, a nonbeliever when it came to a
low-fat diet and seat belts, died immediately upon impact, but Grandma, safely buckled, was totally
unharmed. Right after the crash, a bazillion birds rose up from the surrounding cacti and thorny trees,
screeching and flapping their wings. Like a big, noisy bird blanket, they covered the car. Grandma sat
statue still, positive Grandpa's spirit was choosing one of the whacked-out birds as its new
home. Can you say crazy? She also believes in ghosts and aura combing.

Since then, Grandma's backyard has been crammed with bird feeders and
birdhouses. Also, she used to own an annoying pet parakeet named Soul. They'd chill together
in the kitchen for cozy chats about the afterlife. The last time I slept over at Grandma's, Soul
followed me to the bathroom, where he began pecking on the window. Anyone could see he wanted
out for a little fly. Unfortunately, Soul chose to hang with the neighbor's cat, and the rest is a
messy story of feathers and guts on Grandma's driveway. And, for the record, I still say it was
a complete coincidence that all this took place after Grandma sent me to bed early for mouthing
off.

Anyway, my BBSRP will never, ever become reality if I'm exiled to San Diego.
Arms wrapped around the tree branch, I cry till I run out of tears, hiccup a little, then get mad. I sit up,
cross my arms and lean against the trunk. Then I swear. Every cussword I've ever heard flies
out of my mouth. Great release. I highly recommend itâexcept, make sure you're truly
alone.

Stomping my foot on the branch, I let loose a particularly offensive string of
words.

“Sherlock Holmes Baldwin!” a voice says.

I freeze. Despite the eighty-degree weather, goose bumps pop up all over my arms and
legs. Slowly, slowly, I look around for the owner of that familiar voice. Nobody.

“I did not raise you to use that kind of language.”

“Mom?” I squeak. I catch a faint whiff of coffee, my supercop
mother's favorite beverage. This can't be happening.

“Mom?”

Silence.

“Mom?” It can't be her. Can it?

“Just a minute.” The voice is impatient. “I'm having
trouble landing.”

This is weird. Mega weird. And mega freaky-deaky.

Because my mother? She was killed in the line of duty a year and a half ago.