Free Teenie by Christopher Grant

his face. I don’t see one pimple anywhere, and the line of his haircut looks like it was done with a ruler and razor blade. Cherise elbows me and gives me a funny face, telling me to stop staring.
    After a little more typing, he says, “Oh, okay. I see what the problem is. It says here that you fell a little short on your community service requirement.”
    I look at Cherise. She shrugs her shoulders because she knows what I’m thinking, that I would’ve been a shoe-in if she didn’t talk me out of volunteering at the hospital last semester. I can still hear her saying,
No one pays attention to that stuff
.
    “I can’t add you directly to the program itself, but I can put you on sort of a waiting list. You’d have to get your average up one point to qualify. You think you could do that?”
    “I can try.”
    “Yes. She can do it.” Cherise looks at me, more than a little annoyed.
    “Okay. I’ve done all I can. It’s up to you now.” He’s smiling.
    “Thank you.”
    “Y’all coming to the game, right?”
    I smile while Cherise responds, “For sure. We’ll be there.”
    “Alright. Excuse me. I gotta get outta here.” He looks atthe clock and says, “Where is this girl with my Red Bull?” as he walks out of the office.
    Cherise takes her hand and starts fanning both of us. “That boy is hot!”
    My feet don’t touch the ground for the rest of the school day. I feel like I’m floating.
The
hottest boy in the entire school kissed me
and
did me a huge favor and put qualifying for that scholarship back in my hands. I always imagined what my first real kiss would feel like. My dreams were nowhere close to the real thing.
    “Teenie, don’t you hear me calling you?”
    “Hmm?”
    “Can you please pass me the forceps?”
    “The what?”
    Garth points to them, and I pass them over. We’re supposed to be dissecting a male bullfrog in bio lab, but I haven’t really been much help. He’s going for extra credit, trying to remove the pituitary gland. I am still thinking about Greg, replaying that beautiful scene again and again in my head. Damn, that boy is fine.
    “Can you hand me the scalpel?” I hand it to him. “The scalpel, please.”
    “I gave it to y—Oh, sorry.” I had passed him a pencil. I take it back and hand him the scalpel. He looks at me funny and shakes his head before getting back to his incision.
    I have got to be the luckiest girl in the world. Normally, the only time good-looking guys talk to me is to get Cherise’s number or my English homework. But now things are different.The best-looking boy in the entire school is after me. Who knows where this could lead. I might be getting a little ahead of myself, but Martine Millons definitely has a nice ring to it.
    “Teenie.”
    “Yes, Garth?” Why does he keep bothering me today?
    “Are you okay?”
    “I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?”
    “Because you’re leaning on the desk and there’s formaldehyde all over it.”
    I jump back and glance down at my jacket. My sleeve is dripping with frog juice.
    “I suggest you put some baking soda on that. Formaldehyde does not agree with that sort of fabric.”
    It takes me almost fifteen minutes to scrub the formalde-funk out of my jacket. By the time I get back from the bathroom, Garth has finished the dissection and cleaned up what was left of the specimen. He even took the time to pack up my book bag.
    “I got the pituitary out. It wasn’t the cleanest cut.”
    “Oh, come on, Garth. I’m sure it was fine.”
    The bell rings, and we walk out into the hallway with the rest of the class.
    “I saw the YSSAP list up.…”
    “I didn’t make it.” Garth’s shoulders sag before I get a chance to say, “I got put on a waiting list. I have to raise my average a point to qualify. I hope I can do it.”
    “I wouldn’t worry so much about raising your average.”
    “I have a math test coming up. If I knew it would be this important, I would’ve started studying for it like a month