The Party by Christopher Pike Page B

She had only started at the school. She couldn’t realistically expect the resident fox not to have some sort of girlfriend. Nevertheless, she had spent hours since the football game wondering how she could get his attention. In Mr. Bark’s class just now, Bill hadn’t looked at her once. And she’d worn her shortest skirt.
    Her gloom deepened when her chemistry teacher announced a surprise quiz in the middle of lab. She practically fell off her stool. “He didn’t say anything about a quiz on Friday,” she complained to her lab partner, Maria.
    “Last Monday he warned us to be ready for a quiz at any time,” Maria said, pushing aside their rows of test tubes, getting out a fresh sheet of paper. “You weren’t here. But I wouldn’t worry, it shouldn’t count for much.”
    Jessica worried anyway. To get accepted at Stanford, she had to keep her GPA close to a perfect four. She hadn’t even glanced at the textbook over the weekend.
    The teacher let them stay at their lab desks. He wrote several molecular formulas on the board and asked for their valence values. It appeared no big de^ for the bulk of the class; they went right to it. Jessie sat staring at the board. She’d left her glasses at home again. She could hardly read the formulas.
    What’s a valence value?
    When Jessica finally looked down, she saw that Maria had slipped her a piece of paper with two rows of positive and negative values. Sitting across the gray topped table, Maria nodded.
    “I can’t,” Jessica whispered.
    “Just this once,” Maria whispered back. The teacher wasn’t watching. Jessica scribbled the numbers onto her paper. The teacher collected them s few minutes later. Then he wrote the answers on the board. Maria knew her stuff; they each got a hundred. Jessica thanked her as they returned to the lab.
    “I’ve never cheated before,” she said, embarrassed.
    “But you didn’t know there could be a quiz,” Maria said, adding softly, “Sometimes it’s hard not to lie.”
    “Well, if I can ever make it up to you, let me know.”
    Maria nodded—she didn’t talk a lot—and they continued with their acid base reactions, which made no more sense than they had before the quiz. Jessica swore to herself that she would study chemistry for at least two hours every night until she caught up. She even entertained the idea of asking Michael Olson for a couple of tutorial lessons. She wasn’t getting much out of the teacher; he talked too fast, and seemingly in a foreign language. Michael obviously had a sharp mind. She’d felt rather silly when she’d needed his help at the game with the camera. He had been right about the jamming disappearing when the temperatures evened out. Although she found his intelligence somewhat intimidating, he was easy to talk to. Yet she worried what he thought of her. He would start out friendly enough, and then after a couple of minutes talking to her, he’d be in a hurry to get away.
    He probably thinks I’m an airhead.
    Sara had cooled off by lunch. When Jessica met her near the snack bar, she even laughed about how her election had proved beyond doubt the substandard intelligence of the majority of Tabb’s students. She had not changed her mind about the job.
    Polly joined them midway through break. She had not heard of the election results, and neither Jessica nor Sara brought it up. She had, however, already printed up the party invitations—elegantly lettered orange cards in flowery orange envelopes. Jessica and Sara both agreed the printers had done a fine job. Polly gave them six each.
    “But don’t invite anyone weird,” she warned.
    You’ll have to give one to Russ,” Jessica told Sara.
    She fingered the envelopes uneasily. “I’ll think about it.”
    “Are you talking about Russ Desmond?” Polly asked suddenly.
    “Yes,” Sara said warily.
    Polly giggled. “You can’t invite him. You’re the one who got him kicked off the cross country team. He hates you.”
    Sara didn’t