But Josh and I weren't running. Oh, no. We were strolling. Our joined hands kind of swayed back and forth as if we were about to ask Red Rover to send someone on over.
After a long time, he looked down at the street and said, "I'm sorry."
"For what?" I honestly couldn't think of one thing he'd done wrong. Not one thing.
He jerked his head back toward the diner. "Dillon. He's really not that bad," he said. "We've been having that same conversation since kindergarten. He's big on the talk—not so much on the action."
"So we don't need to go warn the Gallagher Academy, then?" I teased.
"No," he said, smiling. "I think they're safe."
"Yeah," I said, "they probably are." I thought about our walls—our world. "And DeeDee?" I asked and felt my breath catch. "She seems sweet." Sadly, not a lie.
"She is, but"—his hand tightened around mine—"I don't want to talk about DeeDee."
Maybe it was the twinkle lights of the gazebo or the way Josh's hand felt in mine, or perhaps it was the exposure to Dr. Fibs's purple sneezing gas I'd had earlier in the day, but when we stopped walking, everything got really, really whirly, like the whole world was a merry-go-round and Josh and I were standing in the center. There must have been all kinds of centripetal force, because we were getting closer and closer together, and before I knew it, something I'd been dreaming about my whole life was happening. But I'm not going to write about it here, because—seriously— my mother is going to read this! Plus, all kinds of VIPs are probably going to commission this report, and they seriously don't need to hear about my first kiss. (Oh, jeez! I didn't mean to say that….) So, okay, Josh kissed me. I know some of you might want details—like how soft his lips were, and how, as I breathed out, he breathed in and vice versa so that it seemed we were permanently joined at the soul or something…. But I'm not going to tell you those parts. No way. They're private.
But I will say that it was everything it was supposed to be—warm and sweet and very much the beginning of … well…just the beginning.
Chapter Eighteen
Pros and cons of being a girl-genius-slash-spy-in-training-slash-girlfriend of cutest-slash-nicest-slash-sweetest boy in the world:
PRO: ability to tell the boy how you feel in any of fourteen different languages.
CON: boy cannot understand any of the languages (well, except English, of course, but even then he speaks with the highly specialized and often untranslatable "boy" dialect).
PRO: when boy is having trouble with his chemistry project, you can meet him at the library and help him study.
CON: you can't help him too much because it's kind of hard to explain how you're doing PhD-level chemistry in the tenth grade.
PRO: the look on your boyfriend's face when he surprises you with an assortment of cat toys and asks, "Do you think Suzie will like them?"
CON: knowing there is no Suzie, and you can never tell him that.
Three weeks later I was sitting in the Grand Hall, listening to my classmates talk about how they were going to use their Saturday night to catch up on movies (or homework … but mostly movies), when Liz came in and dropped about a dozen textbooks on the table so hard my fork jumped off my plate.
"Are you ready for this?" she said, her voice reverberating with glee. "We've got a little Chang, a little Mulvaney, a lot of Strendesky, some—"
"Liz," I said, really hating what had to come next. "Oh, gee, Liz, I thought you knew…I've got plans with—"
"Josh," she finished for me. She picked up a copy of A Mayan's Guide to Molecular Regeneration that had fallen to the floor and added it to the top of the stack. "This project's due on Wednesday, Cam."
"I know."
"It's thirty percent of our midterm grade."
"I know. I'm gonna work on it…" But I didn't know when. I hadn't thought about it once since Dr. Fibs assigned it three weeks ago—the Monday after my first date with Josh. I was taking life one day, one outfit, one date at a time.
The Grand Hall was starting to empty as some girls went to grab dessert and others headed upstairs or outside. I glanced at my watch and got up. "Look, Josh has got something planned, okay? It's this whole surprise thing he's been talking about and … I think it's a big deal. It'll be okay. I'll do the project tomorrow." That was what I'd said yesterday.
But Liz didn't remind me of that. She just nodded and told me to be careful as I dashed out of the Grand Hall and toward the library, where, if you push against the D-F shelf while pulling on a copy of Downing's Modem Uses for Ancient Weapons, you can slip into my second favorite passageway.
That is, unless Mr. Solomon is in the library.
"Hello, Ms. Morgan," Mr. Solomon said, stopping me in my tracks. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know about any of the secret passageways—especially that one, since it took me two full years to find it—but still it totally freaked me out to turn around and see him standing there.
"And what are you up to this fine evening?" He shoved both hands into his pockets, then leaned forward. "Hot date?"
I'm pretty sure that was Joe Solomon's attempt at male-role-model humor, but it still didn't stop me from making a noise that sounded like hahahahahaha. Yeah. I know. How covert am I?
"Oh, I was just… Um …"
"Hey, kiddo," I heard from behind me. "Were you looking for me?"
The library is probably my favorite room in the mansion. It has a huge stone fireplace in the middle of a two-story circular space that's filled with study tables and big comfy armchairs. Overhead, a second-story balcony overlooks everything, and that's where I saw my mother.