Free Into the Wild Nerd Yonder by Julie Halpern Page A

she won’t pay any attention to me. Plus, it’s really hard to look sweet with a buzz cut and runny eyeliner.
    “Please.” Char squeezes my hand. Her mystical kindness makes me think that maybe it will be okay. Maybe even fun. And I do have a new skirt I’d like to debut.
    “I guess I’ll go. But why don’t you just get Van to drive? He seems to love driving everyone around.”
    “We can’t ask Van. It’s his party. He’s got, like, guests and shit to worry about,” Bizza says as she ties and buckles her boots.
    Guests and shit. How
could
I be so naive? “Okay. We’ll come get you around eight, I guess.” I say “around” just to give myself a little bit of power. I’ll make sure we’re at least ten minutes late. Ha!
    “You’re the best, Jess,” Bizza calls absently as she and Char leave.
    Barrett walks into my room and mimics, “You’re the best, Jess.”
    “Shut up. You’re still driving us to the party, you know.”
    “Why should I drive you to the party? I’m not even going. They should ask their boy toy.” Barrett studies his reflection in my dresser mirror.
    “He has ‘guests and shit’ to worry about,” I mock Bizza with a dead-eyed imitation. “Besides, you have to go! I don’t want to be alone with those two goobs.”
    “No can do. I have my very first official date with Chloe tonight.” He brushes his mohawk out of his eyes and tries to flatten it against the side of his head.
    “Chloe Romano?” I ask, still in denial that my brother is hot for a popular chick.
    “Must you ask me that every time I say her name?” He is obviously deliberating some hair decision.
    “What are you doing next? Blue? Purple? Pink?”
    “I was thinking more like gone.”
    “Like, all gone?”
    “Yep.”
    “Like, Mom-will-shit-a-brick gone?”
    “Yeah, well, it isn’t Mom who has to deal with the upkeep. And the cost of hair dye. And the time it takes for me to get ready in the morning if I want the ’hawk to stand up perfectly straight.”
    I used to think it was so cool and brave for Barrett to have a Mohawk when no one else at school did. Now that Bizza took it one step further, I don’t think it’s quite as cool. “It’s just hair,” I say. “Do what you want.”
    I stand next to him and look at us together in the mirror. Barrett’s evolving hair and my straight brown hair. Sometimes I wish I could be as brave as Barrett (and, I hate to admit, Bizza). But most of the time, I think my straight brown sitting-at-the-shoulders, same-as-it’s-been-for-the-past-five-years hair is perfect for me. If only everything else could stay the same.

 
     

chapter 14
    GETTING READY FOR THE PARTY AT Van’s is bittersweet. In the past, just the thought of going to Van’s house made me tingly—being so near to everything he touched, the possibility of seeing his used laundry somewhere (although, he probably doesn’t have much laundry if he always wears the same clothes), and my über-fantasy of him taking me up to his bedroom. Now I have to worry about the possibility of him taking someone else up to his room. I’m not an idiot. I know Van has been with a million girls, but they’ve all just been anonymous punk chicks with whom I have zero connection. Now the chance that the girl going to his bedroom is my oldest and (gag) dearest friend seems all too real. I can only hope that way back in Bizza’s pea brain, she has a spark of recognition that I like Van. I’d say something, but I’m scared that she actually does know and she’d use some of her magical Bizza wiles to make me feel like somehow I’m in the wrong. The most I can hope for is that at the right moment, the memory will magically snap her out of her hoochie state and she’ll run down the stairs, away from his lusty lair, and back to her best friend where she belongs.
    Yeah, and maybe I’ll shave my head today.
    My party skirt looks as cute as I thought it would. I found some iridescent reflective fabric, perfect for an alien