CHAPTER 5.

When my cell phone rings the next morning, I answer it with a relatively clear conscience. I did leave my body last night, but I decided to take the high road to Madagascar instead of the low road to Rei's bedroom.

"Baby lemurs are adorable!" I greet him. "I want one!"

"Madagascar?" he guesses, then sighs. "You're incorrigible."

He has no idea.

Since Seth has gas in his car, he drove to school this morning instead of taking the bus with us, so I don't see him until third period, which is our P.E. Adventure cla.s.s. P.E. is the only cla.s.s I have with Rei. Seth is also in this cla.s.s, as well as my friend, Callie Stavros. I love Callie because she's almost as short as I am and in the ten years I've known her, she's never asked why I don't invite her to my house.

Today, we are finally doing the challenge course, which means we get to climb the rock wall to a platform, jump over to the trapeze, swing over to a balance beam that's suspended about twenty feet in the air, walk across it, then jump off and our belayer lowers us down. How fun is that!

I walk to the locker rooms with Seth. By the time I've switched my jeans for a pair of shorts and get to the gym, Rei is having kittens because Callie won't let him hold my rope.

"Rei, we get graded on our ability to maneuver the course and belay. If you won't let me hold the rope for Anna, how am I supposed to learn this? It's not like I can hold your weight or Seth's." Callie is busy strapping herself into a harness as she talks.

"Well ... but..." Rei isn't comfortable with this at all. "You know you need both hands on the rope at all times."

"G.o.d, Rei," Callie laughs, "don't worry about it!"

Seth snorts. "That'll be the day."

I struggle with my own harness, mostly because the leg loops are too big on me, even when I adjust the straps. Rei comes over and squats down in front of me to make sure I'm putting it on right. "Did you double back your buckle?" he asks as he fiddles with my straps. "Do you want me to hold the rope for you?"

No, I did not double back the buckle and yes, I do want him to hold the rope for me, because I trust him and I know he would never let me fall. But the P.E. teacher a.s.signed Callie as my partner and Rei can't hold my rope forever.

"No, she's right. How are we supposed to learn this if we let you and Seth do all the work? Plus, what's the big deal? You never worried when I did gymnastics."

"I didn't worry as much," he corrects me.

"Are the legs okay on this? They feel kind of big."

"It's as tight as it will go." Rei tugs at the harness leg loops and I am suddenly aware of his hands on my thighs.

"Okay, then, it's good!" I tell him and step back, dangling the carabiner in front of him. "Which doohickey do I attach this to?"

He takes it and clips it on, gives the rope a tug, then gives me a stern look. "You are not Spider-Girl."

"Yes, Anna, you are Spider-Girl!" Callie insists. "Now go climb that wall."

Rei clears his throat. "Helmet?"

"Oh, right. Thanks."

It is much more fun to scale the wall if I ignore all the bickering going on below me. Callie good-naturedly blows off all of Rei's suggestions and Seth just laughs at both of them. My only contribution to the conversation is to yell "Slack!" over my shoulder until I finally reach the platform that hangs twenty feet in the air.

Everyone looks smaller than me from up here. I like it.

"You sure you've got her?" I hear Rei ask Callie for the bazillionth time.

"No, I am totally going to drop her on her head," she tells Rei and then she yells up to me, "Let's go, itsy-bitsy Spider-Girl. Jump!"

I decide not to torment Rei with daredevil antics, so I trapeze over to the beam, walk across, and Callie lowers me safely to the ground in a most unadventurous way.

"Was that fun?" Rei asks as soon as my feet touch the ground.

"Yes!" I unclip the carabiner. "It was awesome! I wish I could take rock climbing lessons."

He sighs. "I was afraid of that."

"Ha. Don't worry. I can't afford it."

After Callie, Rei, Seth and the rest of the cla.s.s have had a chance to maneuver the course, I hang up my harness and we're ready for lunch. "I just need a quick shower," Rei says. "I'll meet you down there."

He hasn't even worked up a sweat during cla.s.s, but since he doesn't give me any c.r.a.p about not showering, I just nod and head down to the cafeteria. By the time I get through the crowded lunch line, Rei is already sitting at the table, his hair tousled and damp.

There is a familiar buzz in the cafeteria, that collective conversation you hear no matter what day it is. I tune everyone but Rei and Seth out and concentrate instead on dissecting a tomato slice with my trusty spork. As I add another slimy seed to the pile, Rei asks Seth to text him about something later, but then there's one of those long silences that makes you look up just to see if they're both still there.

Seth is frantically searching through his backpack.

"What are you looking for?" I ask.

"My cell phone," Seth says. "I remember putting it in my pocket this morning, but now it's not there."

Rei pulls his own cell phone out of his back pocket. "I'll call you."

"Yeah, but I might have left it on vibrate."

"We may still be able to hear it." Rei presses Seth's speed dial and we listen intently to Seth's backpack, but there are a hundred and fifty noisy kids in this cafeteria with us. To make matters worse, two tables over, Taylor Gleason and her friends are laughing so hard they are choking on their own spit.

Seth shakes his head in frustration. "I don't hear it. Maybe I left it in the car."

Rei snaps the cover onto his lunchbox and bites his apple hard between his front teeth, leaving it there while he jimmies the box back into his crowded backpack.

"Let's go," he says through the apple.

The parking lot for juniors is two lots away from the school. The sky is a deep, cloudless blue, and the sun is so hot, I'm glad we left our hoodies in our lockers. Rei and Seth naturally walk faster than me, and I fall several steps behind.

I never really noticed it before, but Seth is a sagger. It's not so hard-core that his pants are ready to fall off, but they are low enough that I can see he's wearing red and green plaid boxers. Festive. Rei's jeans fit him much better; in fact, they make his tush look kind of ...

Oops! Rei turns his head back toward me and I look up just in time. He grins at me, hooks my T-shirt sleeve with two fingers, and pulls me up alongside him. "C'mon, pokey."

We search Seth's car, through a jumble of grease-stained napkins, straw wrappers, empty c.o.ke bottles, petrified french fries, and a tattered copy of Muscle Mustangs and Fast Fords magazine. No phone. I do find an overdue library book under the pa.s.senger seat.

"Hey, I was looking for that!" I hand him the book and he slams the door, shaking his head. "Well, that sucks."

"I'm going to call you again. Maybe we're just missing it." Rei dials, then clicks the switch to speakerphone.

It rings once, twice, then a girl with a singsong voice answers. "h.e.l.looo-ooo."

"Hi!" Rei looks all happy. "Great! You found my friend's phone."

We hear several girls giggling, then silence as they hang up on us. Rei frowns as he snaps his phone shut.

"That's not good. Let's go report it missing at the office."

We head back across the parking lot and into the school. While Seth and Rei go into the office to fill out the paperwork, I wait in the hallway, sizing up every pa.s.sing girl to see who looks guilty.

Seth comes out and stands beside me, looking hopeless.

"My dad's gonna kill me. That's the third phone I've lost since September."

Rei squeezes Seth's shoulder. "Don't worry, we'll get it back. Hey, does that phone have a GPS on it?" This question triggers a long techno babble discussion about electronics and satellites and other stuff I have absolutely no interest in.

While they're talking, Taylor Gleason and her posse sashay by in their impossibly high heels, surrounded by an air of perfume and popularity. Except for Taylor, I've gone to school with these girls since kindergarten. They've never been rude or mean to me, but they must have been born cool and I might as well be invisible to them. As they walk down the hall, I watch them and wonder how many dollars these girls must spend on their trendy clothes, shoes, hair, nails, make-up, jewelry, and designer handbags. It must be thousands.

Uh-oh! Taylor's turned to look at me, so I shift my eyes quick over to Seth and Rei and nod like I totally agree with whatever it is they're talking about. When I sneak a glance back at Taylor, I realize she wasn't even looking at me; she was looking at Seth. Her smug little smile tells me exactly who has Seth's phone.

CHAPTER 6.

I don't tell Seth I think Taylor stole his phone for the simple reason that I've got zilch for evidence. Besides, even after that long conversation with Rei, Seth is still so grouchy, I head off to economics without him. The first thing I notice when I arrive is Taylor's denim miniskirt is so short, her panties are visible now that she's sitting down. Cla.s.sy. As soon as Seth walks in, she flashes him that arrogant smile again, which just cements my suspicion that somewhere in that fancy purse she totes around is Seth's phone. I suppose it would be easy enough for her to get her hands on his phone while we were in P.E. cla.s.s since the school won't allow us to put locks on the lockers, although I've underestimated her level of audacity ... sneaking into the boys' locker room is really bold.

Seth picks a desk far away from Taylor, and he spends most of the cla.s.s cleaning car grease from underneath his fingernails and drumming his pencil against his thigh. As soon as the bell rings, Taylor dawdles by the door, waiting for Seth.

"Are you going to...?" she begins, but he hurtles past her and he's gone, swallowed up by the crowd in the hallway, before she can finish the sentence. She swishes her hair over her shoulder and stares after him like a hunter watching her prey escape.

Lisa winks at me once Taylor's gone. "She doesn't seem to be taking the hint."

"Is it that obvious?"

"Totally!" Teri says.

"I don't get it," I say as I shoulder my backpack. "What does a girl like Taylor see in a guy like Seth?"

"He's hot," Lisa blurts out.

"You think so?" I ask.

"Anna," Teri says, "just about every girl in school thinks so, but you."

"Okay, well, maybe he's not bad looking, but I know Seth better than most. Maybe I just see him a little differently than other girls do."

"Maybe," Lisa agrees. "But you know Rei even better."

"Yeah, so?"

"So in case you haven't noticed," Teri winks at me, "Rei's hot, too."

Lisa and Teri head off to their lockers, leaving me to ponder Rei and Seth's hotness factor and the odds that they will someday abandon me in favor of real girlfriends.

It would be nice if Seth had a girlfriend. I understand he has trust issues because of his mother, but I hope he realizes not every girl is out to hurt him. And I hope he finds a girl who likes his personality and not just his looks, someone who can deflect all that anger and earn his trust, someone who likes sports and fast cars and is willing to share her mystery meat sub with him. Plus if Seth had a girlfriend, he wouldn't monopolize so much of Rei's time.

It would not be nice if Rei had a girlfriend. It's bad enough to be the third wheel when Seth is around, but if Rei started dating someone, where would that leave me? No girl would want me hanging around with them.

I was a little nervous last year when Callie asked Rei to be in the school talent show with her. Callie has an amazing voice. Rei is an amazing guitarist. I babysat for Saya while they practiced over at Rei's house for what seemed like hours. I kept waiting for Callie to declare that she and Rei had perfect harmony, but she never did.

I have so little confidence in my singing voice that I even lip sync the words to "Happy Birthday." I wish I could sing, not so I could be in the talent show, but it would be fun to sing with Rei once in a while. When I finally confessed this to him, he shrugged and squeezed my neck like he does. "We're like yin and yang, Anna," he told me. "I'm the song and you're the dance."

Which made me feel pretty special until I realized it's hard to dance without music.

Rei is waiting for me at my locker.

"So, how do I prove Taylor Gleason has Seth's phone?" I ask him as I swing open the door.

He reaches over my head into my locker and holds my slanting book pile upright so I can fit my economics book in. "Why do you think she has it?"

"Thanks. Because she kept staring at him in the hall and in economics she was smiling this creepy little smile." I turn and demonstrate the creepy little smile for him.

"That is creepy," he agrees.

"And her skirt is so short, I can see her underwear."

"So what you're telling me is you've got nothing."

"Exactly," I yank my Spanish book toward me. "I have absolutely no evidence."

"I have trig with her next."

"Good. Shake her down and get a confession out of her."

"Maybe I'll just try to confirm what you said about her underwear."

I shove his shoulder. "Pervert!"