Somewhere nearby, someone was crying. Crying or choking on a Jolly Rancher. Cole couldn't be sure which.

He stood up. The library was spa.r.s.ely populated. Greg and Scott were the only people at the computer bank, roosting over the unit Gavin had secretly rigged to bypa.s.s the school's content controls. Cole ditched his work and ducked into the stacks to investigate.

He paused in the dusty poetry aisle. The sound was coming from the other side of the next shelf. Nonfiction, Aer-Bio. Cole padded to the middle of the aisle, slipped out a volume of German verse and pretended to look captivated by the abundance of syllables as he eavesdropped. Through the cracks came the whisper-talk of a familiar voice. Winnie.

Walk away, Cole. He edged closer to the stack, absently turning a page in the book he wasn't looking at. Between the shelf and the top of the books he glimpsed a shifting sliver of Winnie. The swoop of her autumn-colored hair, her nubbin earlobe or the bat of an eyelash. Back when he and Winnie were together she was forever dusting her face, a.s.suming from his constant gaze the presence of an errant lash. Even at the height of their relationship he was too shy to admit he just liked looking at her.

She wasn't the one doing the boo-hooing, but there was an uncharacteristic tremor in her voice. Cole had never seen or heard Winnie cry, not even the day she tried to teach him her backhand and he accidentally backhanded her face. First she corrected his grip. Then she plugged the blood spurting Old Faithfully from her nose. She did not shed a tear when she dumped him for Greg, either. But there, deep in the library, Cole detected something she'd never made him privy to. Something like vulnerability. It unnerved him. What else was there about Winnie he didn't know? What else besides the fact that she DROPPED YOU do you need to know? he could practically hear Gavin ask.

The tears were dribbling out of her best friend, Andrea, a perfect specimen of h.o.m.o dramaticus and known to be mortally in touch with her emotions. Over the course of his relationship with Winnie, he'd had the misfortune to observe her three states of being: crying, scheming, and mocking. As a result, they'd never gotten along. Cole saw no reason to try to change that now, and was half a step away when he distinctly heard Winnie murmur his name.

She's talking about me? She's talking about me!

He aimed his ear at them, straining to listen but catching only snippets from Andrea's half of the conversation. " . . . you don't know how it feels . . . can't let anyone find out . . . especially Cole . . . "

Cole examined the evidence: tears, adversity, and a vow that above all, the subject of the discussion will never be revealed to him. Together the pieces could form only one picture.

Andrea was secretly in love with him.

Except she hated him. And among the few a.s.sumptions Cole felt reasonably confident making about girls included the hunch that one would never, ever express interest in her best friend's ex, especially if they want to remain best friends. Still, he might as well be sure. Because what if she really did like him? More important, would Winnie care?

Cole sidled closer to the stack, squelching the misgiving that there was anything wrong with soaking up a private conversation. If they didn't want to be overheard, they'd text.

Suddenly a voice broke open the vacuum-sealed library air behind him. "Magst du Goethe?" Cole fell forward, startled, groping at the books before him for purchase, only to shove them flapping through the stack right at Andrea and Winnie's feet. They locked eyes on him through the breach. Cole caught sight of himself in their expression and cringed: a perv in training. Andrea hurtled off, wailing. Winnie picked up a fallen book and glanced at the t.i.tle and back at Cole, eyebrows in attack formation.

"German poetry?" Implied if not verbally tacked on was really?

style="text-indent:5%;">Cole worked his guppy mouth for a response, but the answer came from elsewhere. "Ja, danke," said the owner of the voice that had sent him sprawling in the first place. A dark-haired girl was reaching through the gap to pluck the book from Winnie's grasp. "Deutsch Poesie ist mein Favorit. Und Sie?" Winnie merely puffed out a breath and walked away.

Cole blinked at the girl before him. She wore red-and-white-striped knee-high socks, a black skirt, and a yellow cardigan over a shirt that ruffled limply at the neck. Her face was winged with dark eye shadow and her hair pulled into two uneven, rubber-banded pigtails. The overall effect was positively Dr. Seussian. On whether this particular strain was heartwarming Seussian or creepy Seussian he was undecided. Then she spoke again.

"Ich mag Faust, weil sie Satan Funktionen."

Creepy Seussian. Definitely.

"Sorry," Cole said, backing away slowly. "All I caught was 'Satan.'"

He pivoted and took off, leaving Cindy Lou Who-The-Heck-Is-She to Gesundheit by herself.

Cole looked for Winnie but she had vanished along with Andrea. The bell rang and he returned to the study carrel for his things only to find Greg and Scott lying in wait. Cole took care to avoid eye contact, remembering a nature program in which a field biologist urged the audience to never, ever look a primate in the peepers.

>"Something I can do for you guys?"

>Scott shot Greg a look. "Did I or did I not tell you to stay away from Winnie?"

>"You did not. You told me to keep my hands off your stuff. Is that what Winnie is to you? Stuff?"

Greg's nostrils flared and he swung tentatively at Cole's books, as though to send them spilling to the floor. But he lacked commitment; the pile only moved a couple of inches toward the lip of the table. He was miscast in the role of Bully.

" . . . Do you want to give it a second try?" Cole offered.

"You know that jerky little kid in everybody's family?" asked Scott. "The loud cousin who comes over to your house on the holidays and gets his cruddy fingerprints on your comics and breaks your PS3 before he's even walked in the door?"

"How is Wonder Woman these days, Scott?"

"Then he sees your dog. And all the pooch wants to do is sleep. But this kid won't let him. Goes straight for him, chasing him all over the house. And your dog knows he's just a kid. But there's only so much c.r.a.p he can take from a snot-nosed brat who wants to ride him like he's a horse. So you warn him. You tell him to leave the dog alone. How would he like it if you pulled his tail? But this kid doesn't listen. Nothing you say is enough to get through. So when the dog finally sinks his teeth into the little b.u.g.g.e.r's apple cheeks, part of you feels sorry for him 'cause he's gonna have that scar for the rest of his life. But the rest of you is glad. He deserved what he got." Scott swept the table clean. "You're that little kid, Cole. Only n.o.body's gonna feel sorry for you when you get your face bit off."

"I'm confused. In this scenario, is Greg the mutt? Or Winnie? 'Cause I thought she was just stuff."

Greg was perhaps not (yet) a bully, but he was a devoted boyfriend. He leaned in close. "Don't talk about her like that. Don't even think about her. She doesn't think about you."

"The bell rang, guys." The gentle reminder came from Mr. Chetley, the a.s.sistant soccer coach and rookie Web design teacher. No one moved. "Is there a problem?"

"No problem, Mr. Chetley," said Greg, secure that Cole had received his message.

"Gregor, my dad is Mr. Chetley," said the teacher with his bouncing imitation of a Southern California accent. "I told you I'm cool with Chetley. Or even Chet. It's all good! What happened with the books, Cola?"

"Cole's just a little clumsy," said Greg. He and Scott left, Chetley hounding them all the way out the door with an invitation to join his Protest Club. Gavin was president, and so far the organization had yet to protest anything save the administration's rules against protest.

Cole gathered his littered books, aware that he'd pay for getting little work done with little sleep tonight. He didn't care. He was thinking about Winnie, in direct disregard to Greg's instruction. She had to think about him sometimes. Even if only to breathe relief that she'd traded up. There had to be a way to make her think about him more, and in a positive way. Maybe the key was to make her think less about Greg, or to think less of him. What would it take to open her eyes?

Cole was on his way out when he caught sight of the computer over which Greg and Scott had roosted. An idea took shape. He'd be late to Calc, but a five-point deduction on the day would only amount to a .001-percent nudge to his grade for the year, a.s.suming no absences and adjusting for a one-two point differential on pop quizzes. He figured he could weather it.

Cole launched the computer's search engine and examined its recent history. Greg had neglected to empty the cache. The most recent page was a Wikipedia entry. The subject: American serial killers. It took him just a moment to find what he was looking for.

Perhaps most striking is that when selecting victims, Americans tend to adhere to far more rigid criteria than their worldwide counterparts. An American serial killer knows his victim; an international serial killer discovers his victim.

Gavin was right. There in black-and-white pixels was hard evidence of Greg's cheating. Cole printed the page, as well as a dozen of the most recent Web sites Greg and Scott had visited. He left with a ream of paper and the swagger of a private citizen carrying a concealed firearm. He had the gun and the bullet to put an end to Greg and Winnie's relationship. All he had to do now was aim and pull the trigger.

CHAPTER THREE.

PainAuChoCOLEat: You there?

ShesGottaGavIt: regrettably PainAuChoCOLEat: We need to talk.

PainAuChoCOLEat: Come over.

ShesGottaGavIt: cant ShesGottaGavIt: busy PainAuChoCOLEat: Too busy to punctuate?

ShesGottaGavIt: punctuation is for sheep ShesGottaGavIt: in my world the semicolon has slaughtered the commas and periods which is why this sentence might be hard to read ShesGottaGavIt: plus the ? is king?

ShesGottaGavIt: it can go wherever it wants?

ShesGottaGavIt: it?s mad?ness?

PainAuChoCOLEat: Never mind.

ShesGottaGavIt: dont hate ShesGottaGavIt: i didnt make the rules ShesGottaGavIt: sup PainAuChoCOLEat: So I was thinking.

ShesGottaGavIt: you should really stop that ShesGottaGavIt: less thinking more baking PainAuChoCOLEat: FYI I'm trying out a peanut-b.u.t.ter-cup cheesecake tonight.

ShesGottaGavIt: why do you hurt me ShesGottaGavIt: a single peanut could make me explode in flames ShesGottaGavIt: you know this ShesGottaGavIt: your mother tried to kill me PainAuChoCOLEat: That was an accident.

ShesGottaGavIt: she poisoned me with chicken pad thai PainAuChoCOLEat: She didn't know you were allergic to peanuts!

ShesGottaGavIt: i wear a medic alert bracelet ShesGottaGavIt: we both know she wants me out of the way ShesGottaGavIt: before i turn her darling yalie wannabe into a blue devil ShesGottaGavIt: or worse ShesGottaGavIt: a vol PainAuChoCOLEat: Tomorrow I'll make a tart.

PainAuChoCOLEat: Happy?

ShesGottaGavIt: jesus take the wheel ShesGottaGavIt: tarts are not dessert ShesGottaGavIt: tarts are just a stealth delivery system for fruit ShesGottaGavIt: whoever said fruit could be a dessert perpetrated a fraud on countless generations of American schoolchildren ShesGottaGavIt: it is wrong ShesGottaGavIt: it is abuse ShesGottaGavIt: please put rhubarb in my tart ShesGottaGavIt: and no pears ShesGottaGavIt: pears are loser fruit ShesGottaGavIt: the accountants of fruit PainAuChoCOLEat: Check. No pears.

PainAuChoCOLEat: Anyway . . .

PainAuChoCOLEat: Remember in middle school when Lauren Schoenmaker was always whispering to her friends and pointing at you and giggling?

PainAuChoCOLEat: And how we thought she was making fun of you?

ShesGottaGavIt: and I retaliated by spiking her hand lotion with numbing cream ShesGottaGavIt: haha ShesGottaGavIt: she couldnt feel her fingers all day ShesGottaGavIt: she walked around like Frankenstein ShesGottaGavIt: and had to be hand fed PainAuChoCOLEat: Is that something you're proud of?

ShesGottaGavIt: it was my finest hour PainAuChoCOLEat: So you don't regret taking revenge on her?

PainAuChoCOLEat: Even after we found out she was acting that way because she liked you?

ShesGottaGavIt: girls come and go PainAuChoCOLEat: Uhhh . . .

PainAuChoCOLEat: Regarding girls - PainAuChoCOLEat: - and you - PainAuChoCOLEat: - they have to come before they go.

ShesGottaGavIt: this is what youre thinking about ShesGottaGavIt: the girls that got away ShesGottaGavIt: doesnt your mom have you sweating some extra credit since you botched your essay for drick PainAuChoCOLEat: Mom doesn't know about that.

PainAuChoCOLEat: And she's not going to find out.

PainAuChoCOLEat: Thank you for your cooperation.

PainAuChoCOLEat: I have bigger problems.

ShesGottaGavIt: you ran out of flour?

PainAuChoCOLEat: Could be you were right about Greg.

PainAuChoCOLEat: I think he lifted his essay from Wikipedia.

PainAuChoCOLEat: So the question is . . .

PainAuChoCOLEat: Do I pull a Gavin?

ShesGottaGavIt: the answer is ShesGottaGavIt: duh WinWin: Hi PainAuChoCOLEat: No way!

ShesGottaGavIt: yes way ShesGottaGavIt: you have the opportunity to brain Greg ShesGottaGavIt: it is a no brainer PainAuChoCOLEat: That's not what I meant.

PainAuChoCOLEat: Winnie is IMing.

WinWin: h.e.l.lo?

ShesGottaGavIt: STEP AWAY FROM THE KEYBOARD ShesGottaGavIt: do not respond ShesGottaGavIt: let her wonder WinWin: Are you ignoring me now?

ShesGottaGavIt: sit tight ShesGottaGavIt: im coming over ShesGottaGavIt: ill save you ShesGottaGavIt: BLOCK HER ShesGottaGavIt: better idea ShesGottaGavIt: SIGN OFF PainAuChoCOLEat: Hi.

PainAuChoCOLEat: Sorry.PainAuChoCOLEat: Wasn't at my desk.WinWin: Let me guess WinWin: You were in the kitchen WinWin: Baking up a storm PainAuChoCOLEat: Ha.PainAuChoCOLEat: No.PainAuChoCOLEat: (later) WinWin: Do you make those special Rice Krispie treats anymore? The kind with the toffee and the cinnamon?PainAuChoCOLEat: You like those, don't you?WinWin: I cannot lie WinWin: They were/are my favorite PainAuChoCOLEat: I do have some marshmallows lying around.PainAuChoCOLEat: Maybe I'll break out the breakfast cereal.WinWin: You'll never change PainAuChoCOLEat: I guess that makes one of us.PainAuChoCOLEat: So . . .WinWin: So WinWin: German PainAuChoCOLEat: Huh?WinWin: You're piling on the language credits WinWin: Not a bad idea WinWin: But you should take something else WinWin: Only malcontents and medievalists take German WinWin: Like that weird girl PainAuChoCOLEat: Okay.WinWin: You should take Mandarin WinWin: Or Arabic WinWin: Like me WinWin: The admissions officer at Princeton was totally impressed WinWin: She basically told me I'm a lock WinWin: Not that it matters WinWin: I think I've decided on Harvard WinWin: Unless I get a big enough scholarship from Yale WinWin: I think they'll fork it over WinWin: When I get valedictorian WinWin: Still there?PainAuChoCOLEat: Thank you for the advice.PainAuChoCOLEat: I think I'll stick with my plan.PainAuChoCOLEat: Did you just want to give me an update?WinWin: I wanted to talk to you about what happened today WinWin: I didn't mean to be weird PainAuChoCOLEat: How were you weird?WinWin: When I saw you at the library WinWin: Andrea's going through a lot right now PainAuChoCOLEat: Bad hair day?