The rest of my week was spent fretting over how I would ask her to the homecoming dance. I spent every waking minute devising ideas. Perhaps I’d do one of those grand displays where I propose in front of the whole school? No, I’d certainly make a fool of myself. Take her out to McDonald’s and pay the waiter to write ‘Hoco with me?’ on her burger in ketchup? No, she might not even see it. I could invite her over to my house and have my mother make a special cake, though it’d probably end up with some kind of bologna in it. Even my calmer ideas, like taking her to the park, had some kind of downfall. What if she fell into the lake? Scraped her knee before I could ask?
Before I knew it, it was Thursday evening, and tickets would be going off sale the next day. I needed a confirmation before tomorrow, but alas, I still had no plan of how I’d ask her, and Almanzo was beginning to give me a tough time about it. My head was still throbbing from where he’d socked me earlier that day.
“You idiot!” He’d practically snarled at me when he found I still hadn’t asked. “What are you doing?”
“I’m just trying to make it perfect!”
That was when he’d slapped me across the back of the skull, hard enough to make my brain shake.
“You really are dumb, aren’t you? It’s not the proposal that matters; it’s the dance itself! Sure, you shouldn’t ruin it by breaking a leg or anything, but I can assure you that any girl would rather have an extravagant time at the dance than an over-the-top proposal. If I don’t see my sister come squealing through the front door later tonight, I’ll have you jumped, understand?”
Though I wanted to be convinced he was only bluffing, I knew he could crush me if he wished. Not only could his own muscular body easily destroy mine, but he had other friends who could help him, like Julian and Matthew. If I didn’t get this over with, I’d be a lonely sack of bones sitting in an alleyway.
With his threat fresh in mind, I went to find Birdie that evening. Usually, she could be found waiting around after her math class or helping out the Spanish teacher with grading papers. Today, she was in neither classroom, and I was certain I looked like a bumbling fool asking for her. I spent five minutes just roaming the halls, poking my head in every class she had, but she evaded my grasp. Had she gone home early?
Finally, once I decided she couldn’t be anywhere in the school, I found her sitting under Leto and I’s tree, a book in her lap as she read. A white sweater, pure as the snow and fluffy as eiderdown, hung off her shoulders and stopped mid-thigh, where a pair of light-blue jeans took its place. Brown boots brushed against the leaves as she twiddled her feet. Rushing over, my muscles gave their own sighs of relief. Not only would I not be jumped, but perhaps I wouldn’t be alone at the dance either. As I approached, for a split second, I could’ve sworn I saw a head of bouncy blonde hair behind the trunk, though it disappeared within an instant.
Hearing my feet crunch against the leaves, her eyes lifted to meet mine. “Oh, Caspian, it’s you!” She set her book down on a clear patch of grass, gesturing for me to sit beside her. “I thought you’d gone home already.”
“I was searching for you.” I sat down beside her with a huff, my lungs glad for the rest. I hadn’t realized that running around the school took that much out of me. “What are you doing out here?”
“Well, I figured that I’d relax a little before I went home. Almanzo has had his two cronies over every night to practice for basketball season and play video games, so our house has been pretty loud. I can’t get a moment’s peace when those two idiots are rummaging through the cabinets and shouting at the television. Even worse, our parents are out of town, so they can be as loud as they want.” She shuffled her feet with an irritable grumble, strands of hair falling in front of her face. “But that’s beside the point. What did you need me for?”
