Night School by Caroline B. Cooney

if Autumn were to be punished for a day off from their company. “Hi!” she cried gaily.
    They did not smile back.
    “Ned chatted with us this morning,” said Julie. Julie’s green eyes, intensified by green contact lenses, looked opaque and inhuman.
    “Ned told us you and he had pizza together last night,” said Brooke, and Brooke laughed, genuinely amused and pitying. “I mean, really, Autumn. With boys around who have something to offer, like Kevin or Cody, you pick Ned?”
    Now the three burst into a shower of giggles, like spring rain.
    “No wonder you didn’t tell us about your little date.” Danielle shook her head. Her hair didn’t move along with her head. It was so starched, so sprayed, it remained stationary even when Danielle shifted. “I mean, Autumn, Ned is truly the bottom. He’ll never be anything else, either. He doesn’t even have potential.”
    “What is he?” asked Julie. “Your little learning experience?”
    Autumn was hot with shame. She was angry with Ned, pretending that anything had happened besides four kids getting a snack after class. She was angry with Ned for being the low-level pathetic thing they correctly described.
    “You’re not going out with him again, are you? He says you are.” The trill of Julie’s laughter stretched down halls for the entire school to listen in on. “I mean, Autumn. There’s a world out there, and you pick Ned?”
    “I didn’t pick Ned,” said Autumn sharply. “I didn’t do anything with Ned. He was just there. He doesn’t count.”
    “Hi, Mariah!” called Sal, scampering over. She ran like a four-year-old, half hopping, half skipping, all happy.
    Mariah loved her.
    “How was your night class?” Sal asked. There were no capital letters the way Sal said it, it was ordinary, it was nothing, and Mariah repeated that to herself: night class was nothing. “Oh, dumb,” she said breezily, “but nice people. Andrew and Autumn and Ned.”
    “Is Ned nice?” Sal looked pleased with this information. “I always thought he might be, but of course you never have any clues with that kind of person.”
    “And Autumn,” added Mariah quickly, not wanting Sal to ask her what Night Class was about, “is very nice, too.”
    Sal twinkled at her best friend. “And Andrew? I presume Andrew is perfection itself?”
    Mariah blushed and nodded.
    “I’ll bet you don’t even know what the class is about,” teased Sal. “I’ll bet you’re just sitting there feasting your eyes on old Andrew.”
    Mariah nodded, but she felt like a jar with a leak. All her secrets were pouring out. Or maybe she had never had secrets. Maybe when she had her private dialogues with Andrew, her lips had moved, and everybody read her lips and knew she was pretending Andrew was there to answer.
    “Hi, Sal,” said Tommy. “Hi, Mariah. So how was your class, Mariah? What did it turn out to be?”
    “Andrew worship,” said Sal, giggling.
    Tommy’s smile shrugged that off, mere teasing based on nothing. “But is there a textbook? Is there homework? Is there even a subject?”
    Mariah knew that if she gave a single thought to homework, if she allowed the memory of the subject into her head, it would kill the sunshine. The thing was to blockade such a thought. And who was more greatly skilled than Mariah Frederick at blocking thoughts and creating new ones?
    “Class is nothing but preparation for pizza afterward,” said Mariah. “Next week we’re going to carpool, probably have pizza before class, too.”
    What a peaceful smile Tommy had, all comfort and pleasantness. A slow smile, not superior and taunting like Julie-Brooke-Autumn-Danielle, not nervous like Ned, nor bubbly and unbottled like Sal. A guy who knew what his world was and liked it.
    Why have I had a crush only on Andrew? Mariah thought suddenly. Why haven’t I ever even noticed other boys?
    The thought was so disloyal she crushed it immediately.
    But how can it be disloyal to Andrew, she thought, when