chapter 1 06

Unavoidably dangerous, as it turns out. The minute I walked into Mrs. Yelson's secondgrade classroom, I was dead meat. “Bryce!” Juli squeals. “You're here.” Then she charges across the room and tackles me.

Mrs. Yelson tried to explain this attack away as a “welcome hug,” but man, that was no hug. That was a front-line, take-'em-down tackle. And even though I shook her off, it was too late. I was branded for life. Everyone jeered, “Where's your girl friend, Bryce?” “Are you married yet, Bryce?” And then when she chased me around at recess and tried to lay kisses on me, the whole school started singing, “Bryce and Juli sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G…”

My first year in town was a disaster.

Third grade wasn't much better. She was still hot on my trail every time I turned around. Same with fourth. But then in fifth grade I took action.

It started out slow — one of those Nah-that's-not-right ideas you get and forget. But the more I played with the idea, the more I thought, What better way to ward Juli off? What better way to say to her, “Juli, you are not my type”?

And so, my friend, I hatched the plan.

I asked Shelly Stalls out.

To fully appreciate the brilliance of this, you have to understand that Juli hates Shelly Stalls. She always has, though it beats me why. Shelly's nice and she's friendly and she's got a lot of hair. What's not to like? But Juli hated her, and I was going to make this little gem of knowledge the solution to my problem.

What I was thinking was that Shelly would eat lunch at our table and maybe walk around a little with me. That way, anytime Juli was around, all I'd have to do was hang a little closer to Shelly and things would just naturally take care of themselves. What happened, though, is that Shelly took things way too seriously. She went around telling everybody — including Juli — that we were in love.