Miss Taken (23 page)

Kyle pretended he didn’t know what I was
talking about. “Huh?” he said, not meeting my eye.

“I wanted to hear more thrilling tales of
your life on the island.”

“Oh,” he replied with a wave of his hand. “It
wasn’t that interesting, really.”

“Oh, I beg to differ,” I said with formal
solemnity. “Rhode Island is one of those places that most people
only dream of visiting.”

Kyle stopped polishing the microscope. He bit
his lip. “Who told you I was from Rhode Island?” His voice was real
squeaky.

“A little birdie,” I answered, my magic laser
lenses boring holes in his face.

“Well, I am from an island,” he insisted.
“There are islands off the coast, you know.”

“Oh yeah? You crawled out from under one of
those rocks in the harbor?”

He tensed and then shrugged. “Okay, so what’s
the big deal? So I’m not from Fiji. My mom’s from New Zealand.
Sorry if I tried to make myself appear a little more interesting
than I am.”

He tugged at my heart strings a little with
that one, but when I reminded myself that he had triple-timed me
and Diana with Hannah, my heart hardened right back up again. I
nodded.

“I can understand that, I really can. But
going out with three girls in the same night? That was a bit much,
and really, really stupid.”

The arrow hit its mark. Kyle’s eyes went
wide. “How did you find out?” he murmured. I don’t think he knew he
was speaking out loud.

“A little birdie.” Hannah comes up with some
good lines sometimes. “Oh, and, FYI, we’re best friends.” A bit of
an exaggeration, but not by much.

“So to conclude, consider yourself dumped, by
all of us.” With that, I seized the microscope that he had so
carefully polished and smudged it up again.

To finish him off, Hannah got chosen captain
of the dodge ball team. Sometimes it pays to know the person who
has the teacher in her back pocket. Scratch that. It is awesome to
be friends with the person who has every male on the planet in her
back pocket.

She chose Diana and me and I guess I’m sorry
to say that we childishly pummeled Kyle, after making sure he was
picked last by Greg’s team.

When gum-twirling Meliss helped a dazed and
perhaps slightly bruised but still fake-gum-clacking Kyle to his
feet and their fake green eyes met, I thought to myself, now why
did I never put those two together before?

Okay, so it was not perhaps Robin Jane’s
finest moment.

But it felt really good.

One moment that was great and altruistic was
when I walked by the teacher’s lounge and saw M. Waddell and Mrs.
Rochel sitting together and chatting in a most animated fashion. I
saw a plate of sorry-looking health loaf on the table between them
and telltale crumbs on M. Waddell’s shirt. I wondered how long it
would take him to figure out that Mrs. Rochel had nothing to do
with the confectionary delights I had used to get those two
together.

Then again, maybe he wouldn’t figure it out.
People can be pretty blind when it comes to love.

So Diana has sworn off men for a while. We’ll
see how long this lasts.

Hannah of course never needed to. She is
currently dating at least three, none of them in high school.

Ned and I have been out on more dates in the
past two weeks than the previous five months combined. When we got
our report cards, I was astonished to see a solid B-/C+ average.
Ned said he really buckled down in February just to prove to me he
could do it on his own, with only a little bit of help from
Sophie.

“She helped you with English?”

“She’s really smart.”

I am confident that my smile never wavered.
Okay, maybe it wavered a little bit but I’m sure he couldn’t
tell.

And Kyle? He should consider himself lucky
that we have moved on from power tools to varnish.

####

About the author:

Sue Seabury would like to state for the
record that she never behaved like this as a teenager, primarily
due to the fact that she couldn’t get a date.

If you enjoyed this book, please tell your
friends.

In case you missed the blurb at the beginning
of the book, Miss Calculation chronicles Jane’s first foray mixing
love and math.
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/264460

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