Free The Boy Book by E. Lockhart Page B

utmost congratulations,
SHAN
     
    I had an appointment with Doctor Z after school. I was supposed to get a ride home with a girl from the team who lives kind of near me, then get the Honda and drive myself.
    But Noel was waiting when I came out. He was sitting on a lime green Vespa, holding an extra helmet. “I went home to pick it up,” he said, handing the helmet to me.
    I put it over my wet hair and got on the scooter. I wrapped my arms around Noel’s waist. His coat was open, and I could feel the muscles of his abdomen through his T-shirt.
    Noel swung the Vespa out of the school parking lot and onto the street.
    I felt like there should be a sound track.
    We went to Pagliacci’s, this pizza place on the Ave in the U District. I got a slice with peppers and olives. Noel got plain. We put hot sprinkles and parmesan and oregano and garlic on our slices and took a booth.
    “Darcy Andrews called me a slut this morning when I ripped up the picture,” I told Noel.
    “What did you call him ?”
    “A pig. Oh, and I might have said his dick was too small to locate even with infrared goggles.”
    Noel barked with laughter. “That part of the story is not circulating. Good for you.”
    “I wish I’d responded to the slut thing, though.”
    “What is there to say?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe ‘I prefer tart’ ?”
    “Tart is nice. It’s a pastry.”
    “Maybe I could reclaim the word slut, ” I said. “Like gay people have reclaimed the word queer, so it’s not a whatever.”
    “Epithet.”
    “Yeah. I could run around with signs. ‘Slutty and Proud!’”
    “Sluts of America Unite!”
    “Exactly.” I took a sip of my pop.
    “Your mom could wear a T-shirt: ‘I’m proud of my slutty kid.’” Noel fished around in his backpack for a pen. “Here, I’ll design you a slut logo.” He found a ballpoint and started to draw on a piece of notebook paper. A sketch of a woman wearing a superhero cape, glasses like mine and a strange pointy bra.
    “I don’t think I ever told you that none of the stuff people say about me is true,” I blurted out.
    “About the boyfriend list?”
    “I was never with all those guys.”
    Noel shook his head. “I wouldn’t care if you were.”
    “But I wasn’t.”
    “Okay.” He shoved some pizza in his mouth.
    “Really, I wasn’t.”
    He was being nice, but I couldn’t tell if he believed me.
    “There’s stuff about Nora up in the boys’ bathroom in Main,” Noel said, when he finished chewing.
    “Like what?”
    “How hot she is, and how no one noticed before. Explicit statements pertaining to jugs. And messages to her, not that she’d ever read them.”
    “Such as?”
    “‘Let the puppies out to play, Van Deusen!’ ‘Share the wealth.’ ‘More than a handful is the way to go.’”
    “Oh God. Poor Nora.”
    “Cabbie’s still got his first set of copies.”
    “I know. But I don’t think she wants us to interfere.”
    “You didn’t talk to her about ripping them up?”
    “No.”
    “We should call her.” He pulled his cell phone out of his coat pocket. 1 “Do you know the number?”
    I did, but I didn’t want to call it. What if she was mad at me for making a scene? “What am I gonna say? We’ve been e-mailing about your hooters?”
    “No. Just have her come meet us for pizza.”
    The thought of doing that was scary.
    “Come on,” continued Noel. “She’s gonna be completely freaked about today. She needs some cheesy goodness in her life.”
    “She’s probably at Cricket’s.” Cricket’s parents were never home.
    “So if she is, she won’t come. But maybe she’s alone with her hooters.” He laughed.
    “I didn’t even think you liked Nora that much,” I said, stalling.
    “I like anyone who doesn’t play by the rules of the Tate Universe.”
    “And you don’t think she does?”
    He thought. “Maybe she used to. We all used to. But I see her alone a lot, is all.”
    I took the phone and punched in Nora’s cell number. She