Free Everybody Bugs Out by Leslie Margolis

time I went, my mom made me choose between racing on the go-cart track and hitting at the batting cages, and I chose the go carts, obviously. But for Yumi’s party we didn’t have to choose. We were staying all day, which meant we’d get to do it all.
    Besides being super-excited about the party and hanging out with my friends, I was also glad I’d finally get the opportunity to talk to everyone about Oliver.
    I’d had a crush on him for almost an entire week and I hadn’t told anyone.
    Not even my diary.
    Of course, I don’t tell my diary anything. My mom gave it to me on my tenth birthday and I haven’t written in it since the day I opened it. And even then all I wrote was, “Dear Diary, Today is my birthday and my mom got me this journal.”
    Guess I’ve had a serious case of writer’s block ever since.
    Anyway, I couldn’t talk about Oliver at school because I didn’t want anyone to overhear and spread rumors. The last thing I needed was to be gossiped about at Birchwood Middle School.
    And I still hadn’t figured out whether or not I should bring up my crush in the first place.
    Not before I asked Oliver to the dance.
    If I was going to ask him.
    Of course, that posed yet another problem, because what if I did ask him and he said no? Things might get awkward and we still had to work together for two weeks and six days. And that’s just counting our science fair project. Even if I did manage to survive that weirdness, he’d still be my lab partner until school got out. And that was months away.
    On the other hand, what if Oliver did like me and he was simply too shy to say so? Maybe he’s been dying to ask me to the dance for weeks and hasn’t been able to bring himself to make a move. Not to sound full of myself or completely delusional, because there were some signs.
    At least I think there were. When we first started going to his house to work on our bug project, he asked if I wanted iced tea or lemonade and I said half-and-half. Then, on the second meeting he said, “Half-and-half, right, Annabelle?” And on the third meeting, and every meeting since then, he hasn’t even had to ask. He just pours me a half-and-half automatically.
    Remembering my favorite drink has got to count for something.
    Or maybe I was just looking too hard. Oliver also remembered that Tobias liked lemonade. So maybe Oliver is just a nice guy with a really good memory.
    But even forgetting the drinks, I had other reasons to be suspicious.
    Oliver defended me whenever Tobias made rude comments, and that happened all the time. Of course, any good friend would defend me.
    And I did catch him staring at me yesterday. True, I’d had a spinach calzone for lunch. So it’s entirely possible that I had something green stuck in my teeth and didn’t realize it. Maybe Oliver wanted to say something but decided not to because he didn’t want to embarrass me.
    I checked my teeth when I got home and didn’t see anything. But maybe it had been there at Oliver’s and only got dislodged on my way home. It’s a five-minute drive, which by any calculation is plenty of time for a measly piece of spinach to dislodge and disappear.
    Maybe I just wanted Oliver to stare at me so desperately that I convinced myself he had been when really he was staring at something just over my shoulder, like one of his mom’s watercolors of the sea. They were really pretty. But he could stare at his mom’s paintings anytime. Why do so when I was standing in his way?
    Obviously I felt seriously confused. I needed advice, which is where my friends came in.
    But I didn’t bring Oliver up while we were at the batting cages. Someone was always hitting, and I didn’t want to have to repeat the information twice.
    Plus, the machines were loud and I didn’t want to shout.
    Being in the arcade posed the same problem. And I couldn’t say anything when we were