Free Boy Swap by Kristina Springer Page B

million FarmVille updates on their Wall. I mean, who really cares if you have extra pig slop or you just scored some sweet strawberry bushels? Not me. I click on the Info tab to see what he says about himself.
    “What are you doing?” a voice says.
    I leap back in my seat.
    It’s just Mom.
    “Geez Mom, you scared me,” I say, quickly minimizing the screen. Mom is way anti-Facebook. She thinks if I get a Facebook page, I’ll hook up with an old man who will kidnap me and bring me to another country to be a sex slave. She saw it on a talk show once and you know, things like that happen so often in Rosehill.
    “What are you doing?” she repeats. “Homework?” She tries to nonchalantly see what is on my screen.
    “Kind of,” I reply.
    “Oooh…what are the birds doing?” she says, stepping closer to the bird cage and peering in. Baby and Chris Jr. are flying around the cage in circles, nipping at each other.
    “Looks like they’re fighting,” I say. I glance at my bedroom window and see two brown birds sitting on a tree branch. I bet Chris Jr. was checking them out. He’s just like his two-timing daddy. I glare at him. I hope Baby plucks out all your feathers.
    “Are you seeing Chris tonight?” Mom asks.
    “Uh huh.”
    “He called while you were at the mall getting your haircut. It looks adorable by the way.” She sets a stack of folded jeans down on my bed.
    “Thanks.” I touch my hair. “What did he want?”
    “I’m not sure,” she says, shifting the laundry basket she has on her right hip to the left. “I just told him I’d tell you.”
    “Okay, thanks.”
    She starts to close the door and then peeks in once more. “Are you going to be here for dinner?”
    “Sure,” I say.
    “Good. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.” She closes the door.
    As soon as I’m positive she’s down the hall, I maximize Carter’s Facebook page. There really isn’t a vast amount of information here. He does list his age, school, and bands that he likes. Mostly old bands from the nineties trying to make their comebacks like Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, and Dave Matthews Band. I kinda like Dave Matthews Band, though, so that’s one thing we have in common. There are no pictures of him on his page, just a psychedelic-looking graphic. And he doesn’t have any status posts about what he’s up to. Hmm. Maybe I’ll just scan through his Friends list? We may know some of the same people. I scroll down to the Friends section. I recognize a handful of the names—mostly people from school but no one I know on even an acquaintance level. This really isn’t helping me too much.
    What else can I search on? I hit the back button until I’m back at Google. I think for a few minutes and then enter a new search term.
“[email protected]”
    Yes! Victory! Six pages of hits. I eagerly begin opening links in new windows. Wow…Carter really gets around online. There are a bunch of posts from him on various video game message boards. He seems really interested in Fantasy Football. He’s also into online role-playing. Too bad I totally suck at video games or that could build some common ground for us. Maybe I can learn quickly? I keep scanning the search results and oooh…what’s this? I click on a link for “WWFPOET” at blogworld.com and start reading. Ohmigod, Carter has a blog! Yes! WWFPOET is his handle. It doesn’t say his name anywhere on it but I’m positive it is him. This will totally help me. Now I can really get a feel for who he is.
    His bio says, “I’m a senior Varsity Wrestler at a small high school in Illinois and I love poetry. Mostly British stuff. So that is what I blog about.”
    Wrestling and poetry. Huh. What a combination. And he isn’t kidding. I scroll down to one of his posts from last month and it says:
WWF Saturday Showdown:
Match 1: Buff McBuff vs. Muscle Mayhem
Buff started the match immediately grabbing MM by his injured wrist and throwing him into the ropes. MM came back with