Lindsay's Surprise Crush (2 page)

What is going on with everybody?
Lindsay wondered as she emerged from the stall and regarded herself in the mirror.
She
hadn't changed over the summer. Same old light-brown, medium-length hair. Still pretty but not superglam or anything. Unlike a lot of the other girls at school, she didn't obsess over the latest fashions and what labels were cool, and she didn't really bother with makeup except for a little lip gloss and, when she went out, a little mom-approved mascara. She was popular but not in the superpopular group.

Had everyone lost their minds? This was
Nick
they were talking about! The kid she'd played at the playground with since they were babies. The kid she'd played War and Spit and I Doubt It with, the kid she'd gone trick-or-treating with, the kid who weirdly didn't like ketchup, but who ate pretty much anything else you put in front of him. Then again . . . well, then again Nick did look pretty good. And she kept getting a funny feeling about him. What was going on?

As she walked into the noisy cafeteria, she decided to find Nick and make everything normal again. After all, just because the rest of the school had gone crazy didn't mean she had! He was still the same old Nick, and she
had so much to tell him about her summer. She wanted to hear all about his baseball and his soccer camps, and whether or not he got to go to that Triple-A baseball game that he'd been so psyched about.

As she stood with her tray, scanning the sea of kids, she spotted him at a center table. He was surrounded by eighth graders, both boys and girls, most of them on the soccer team. There was an empty seat next to him, but after she started to head over, she stopped. Most likely he was saving it for Cassidy. Nick didn't seem to be looking for her. She suddenly felt self-conscious. Was Nick ignoring her? She didn't even try to catch his eye as she walked past with her tray. Luckily, several of her friends were looking for her. Sasha stood up and waved her arms from across the cafeteria, like she was landing a plane. Lindsay wended her way through the crowds of kids and plunked her tray down between Rosie and Sasha.

“Where were you?” said Sasha, batting her playfully on the arm. “We thought you'd never show, and we've been saving you this seat!”

“Ms. Trumbull is over there, making the seating charts,” said Rosie, pointing. “We have to stay in the
same lunch seats for the first week while she learns all our names.”

Hearing that she had to stay in the same seat made Lindsay feel even more dejected. Now she wouldn't be able to sit with Nick even if he
wanted
to change tables or make room for her. She liked her other friends, of course, but she missed Nick.
This must be what childhood friends of pop stars feel like,
she thought glumly as she pushed her green beans around her tray. They must feel similarly lonely and abandoned when their friend becomes a celebrity overnight.

“There's Cassidy,” said Sasha.

Lindsay looked up. Cassidy was carrying her tray over to Nick's table. Lindsay watched her shove her tray into the empty space next to Nick. Yep, he'd obviously saved the seat for her.

She stared at Cassidy, who seemed oblivious to everyone but Nick. She had a habit of tilting her chin up and shaking her hair back from her face, which on anyone else would have looked dumb and self-conscious, but which on Cassidy just looked, well, cool. Lindsay sighed.

She looked around the rest of the cafeteria. There
was Claudia, the Mexican exchange student who was in her homeroom. She was sitting at a table with a bunch of kids Lindsay didn't know, and Lindsay had the feeling Claudia didn't really know them either. She didn't seem to be participating in the conversation.

Things could be worse
, Lindsay thought. She could be in a strange country where they spoke a different language.

After school, she waited by her locker for a few minutes after the last bell had rung, hoping Nick might pass by. Last year, they had often met up on days when they carpooled home. She knew he had soccer practice, but he might, just might, stop by, even for a second. He didn't.

She'd waited just long enough to miss her bus. “Thanks a lot,
Nicky
,” she grumbled under her breath as she stepped outside and discovered it had begun to rain.

She sighed and called her mom. This was not a good start to the year.

THERE WASN'T MUCH HOMEWORK THAT NIGHT,
it being the first day of school. Even after Linsday had done her math take-home quiz, memorized her Spanish dialogue, and practiced her piano for nearly a whole hour without being asked, she had plenty of time to socialize online with her friends.

The chat scene was a flurry of news about new kids, new teachers, and which boys had changed over the summer—with Nick, of course, being the star. Lindsay sat back in her desk chair and stared at the picture on her bulletin board. It was a photo of her and Nick as five-year-olds, all dressed up for trick-or-treating. Nick was dressed as a knight, Lindsay as a sparkly pink princess. Why did things suddenly have to be so awkward between them? Okay, so he had become cute. More than cute. He was totally gorgeous. She kept thinking about his smile, and
the newly defined muscles of his shoulders, and his new deep voice, like warm honey.

“Stop it!” she said out loud. “Have you gone crazy too? This is Nick!” She vowed that tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow she'd go to homeroom and sit down next to him and talk to him like old times, and everything would be fine.

To prove to herself that all was normal, she texted him.

So are we going to work on our All About Me projects this weekend or what?

She waited. No answer. Her annoyance came flooding back. What was his problem? Why had he suddenly decided to stop answering her texts? Fine.
If he's going to be stuck-up
, she decided,
I won't talk to him either. Not unless he makes the first move.

The next morning Lindsay got to homeroom early, but Nick didn't show up until just before the second bell rang. Mr. Bates made everyone sit in the same seats they'd been in the day before.

“I'll never learn all your names if you're not in the
same seats,” he said. “In fact, would everyone please wear the same clothes every day for the next two weeks?”

Lindsay smiled. Maybe Mr. Bates wasn't going to be as bad as she'd thought. At least he had a sense of humor.

Mr. Bates asked Nadia Melek to read off the morning announcements, and then there was a sign-up sheet for anyone wanting to audition for the school musical. Lindsay hesitated for a moment and then passed the sheet right along. There was a small part of her that would love to try out. Sometimes she wished she were more sporty, or more willing to do stuff in public, like acting. It would be nice to have a hobby that everyone knew about and an automatic group to belong to at school. It was hard not being a jock and also not being in the theater crowd. There was nothing to make her really stand out. Barely anyone even knew she played piano, let alone that she was actually pretty good. She hadn't even played in front of Nick for over two years. It was a combination of being a little shy about it, and also worrying that kids would think it was dorky. Her older brother, Matthew, was
really
talented: He was an actor-singer and also amazing at piano. He was the one that people requested to play at family gatherings and stuff. Matthew was a superstar, and now so was her old
best friend. And Lindsay was still just Lindsay.

When homeroom was over, she didn't even look in Nick's direction, and just trudged off toward math class, quickly wiping away an angry tear. What did she care if they were drifting apart? He didn't care . . . why should she?

She spent most of the day alternating between fuming at Nick and swallowing down a huge lump in her throat. By the time the final bell rang, her upset had turned to anger again. Fine. He'd changed. Whatever. She had to move on.

After her last class let out, she hustled through the crowds of kids in the hallway toward her locker to grab her Spanish and social studies books. As she worked her way against the current of rushing kids, she saw someone standing right in front of her locker.

It was Nick.

SUDDENLY LINDSAY WASN'T ANGRY ANYMORE.
She was . . . well, what was she? Scared? Nervous? Lindsay's heart began thumping. Her palms felt wet and her mouth went dry. This was the kind of thing she had read about in books but had never felt before in real life. She felt like she was on a roller coaster. She calmed herself and took a deep breath.

“Hey,” she said, trying to make her voice sound casual.

“Hey,” he replied. “So how about that All About Me project, huh? Like we don't get enough homework—whoever heard of homeroom homework?”

“Yeah,” she said, smiling and nodding a tiny bit.

Pause. She tried to think of something to say. But she couldn't think of a single thing.

“Did you have the chicken patty at lunch?” Nick asked.

“The what? Oh! No, I, um, didn't. I had the veggie burger. It was gross.”

“Yeah. Looked pretty gross.”

There was another awkward silence between them, even though the hallway was still full of sounds and activity—chattering kids, slamming lockers, and rolling backpacks.

She willed herself to come up with something,
anything
to say, feeling her face grow hot. “So, um, I have the same locker I had last year. The one that sticks. Want to see?”
Oh. That's brilliant conversation,
she told herself disgustedly. Well, now that she'd started down this scintillating path, she had to follow through and show him how the door still stuck. She almost forgot her combination in her awkward shyness, but finally she remembered and spun it around.

“Need help?” he asked, and without waiting for an answer he stepped up to her locker.

“That's okay, I'm used to it,” she said, also reaching toward the locker handle.

Their hands brushed.

A bolt of electricity zoomed through her.

Nick's hand was on the handle first, and with a quick
movement he'd jerked it open easily. He smiled down at her.

“Thanks,” she said, grabbing her two books and slamming the door again. “Guess all those new muscles of yours have made you stronger.”

Horror filled her to her very core. Why had she just said that? She wondered if it was possible to die on the spot. She leaned against the closed bank of lockers, hoping a hole might somehow suddenly open up and swallow her.

Nick stared down at his large sneakers. The tips of his ears turned red. They'd always done that when he was embarrassed. And she was the one who had caused it this time! Awkward!

“Well, guess I should hustle,” he mumbled. “I was supposed to be on the field, like, five minutes ago.”

She had to rally. Had to make this okay. She called to him as he headed off down the now-much-less-crowded hallway. “Hey!” she said.

He half-turned.

“So do you want to work on these dumb projects together this weekend?”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I have a big tournament on Saturday. And I think you're getting roped into the annual
apple-picking fun.” With a little grin, he loped away down the hall.

Lindsay started to smile back and then caught herself. Why had she
yelled
out to him in the hallway like that? Several kids' heads had turned to look at her curiously when she'd called to him. Clearly they knew who
he
was, but she was just a random seventh-grade girl, asking the studly jock Nick Lopez to hang out with her over the weekend.

She made her way to the school's front doorway. Today was her day to get a ride home. Every Tuesday her mom taught a weekly group piano lesson at the elementary school just across the parking lot.

“Hi, honey,” said her mom as Lindsay dumped her heavy backpack into the backseat and then opened the front door and slunk into the car. “How was school?”