Fresh Off the Boat by Melissa de La Cruz

Rufi mad?
Last night, Whit, Georgia, Trish, and I met the guys at Baker Beach for a bonfire. We roasted marshmallows and hot dogs, and Claude brought his guitar. I wore my new Esprit T-shirt, but I should have brought my sweater because it was so malamig . The fog suddenly rolled in, and I finally discovered what “goose bumps” are.
Whitney and Claude sat next to each other. Do you think that means anything? I think she might like him, too! What am I going to do? Wouldn’t that suck?
Love,
V

8
Clown-skull Book Covers Rule
    T HE WORST THING about working at the cafeteria after school is the utter lack of sunlight, windows, and any semblance of fresh air. We’re located all the way in the back of the store, and the fluorescent lights make everything look green.
    I hated doing my homework there. The table behind the counter was rickety, and I always had to lay out all my papers unevenly. It was Monday afternoon, and I was totally pitying myself for being stuck inside doing homework when I could be watching Claude at the lacrosse game. So far, I’d only been able to catch one match, thanks to the Spirit bus and Mom giving me the odd afternoon off from the cafeteria.
    Half the semester was over, and I still didn’t know a rhombus from a trapezoid. Claude was no help either. He didn’t even show up to class half the time. We had a midterm coming up in geometry and we were both hopeless.
    Annoyed at a particularly irritating question (How DOES oneprove two triangles are congruent? More important, who really cares?), I picked up The Fountainhead instead. I decided it was my Most Favorite Book of All Time. If they ever remade the movie, I thought Tobey would make an excellent Howard Roark, the suffering architect (who was described as a redhead, but that was a minor point—Tobey could dye his hair, just like he did for Seabiscuit ). I had just gotten to the moment when Dominique, the feisty heiress, declared her love for Howard, when Paul the stock boy walked in, wearing his trademark red baseball cap.
    He came in every afternoon on his break, and I’d gotten used to seeing him around after four o’clock. He usually asked for a Pepsi (sometimes a Kit Kat, too), sat down at a back table, and left after fifteen minutes. He always said “Hey” when he entered and “See ya” when he walked out. The cafeteria was usually deserted when he was there, making us the only two people in it, since most of the employees liked to take their afternoon breaks in the mall, not that I could blame them.
    “Hey…Vi- sen -za.” He smiled, pulling out his headphones on his MP3 player, which was blasting so loudly, I had heard it from across the room.
    “It’s Vi- chen -za, but most people just call me V,” I said in a rush. It’s weird. I don’t even think he’s cute. But I just get all jittery around boys, no matter who they are. It’s not like I like him—I mean, first of all, he’s got those braces, and he’s alwayswearing an ugly Papa Roach or Rancid T-shirt under his ratty Sears uniform shirt.
    “Are you at Mills?” he asked, naming a public school in our area.
    “No, I go to school in the city. Grosvernor. It’s a private school,” I said, somewhat embarrassed and hoping he wouldn’t think I was some kind of snob. I had begged my parents to let me attend the local public school. I craved the anonymity I imagined a big school would bring. It was somewhat difficult to disappear in a class of thirty perfect girls.
    He shook his head. “I guess that explains the uniform. I should have known.”
    I suddenly wished I had changed out of my ugly gray skirt and cranberry blazer.
    “Frosh?”
    “Um-hm.”
    “I’m a sophomore at Hillside.”
    Why is he telling me this? I wondered. Not that I didn’t already know that about him. As far as I could tell, half the junior salesclerks in Cosmetics had crushes on him. Laurie, this loudmouth who worked in Housewares talked about him all the time. Once I realized it was Paul she