In Zanesville by Jo Ann Beard

completely dormant and didn’t say anything back? What if
     I said something to him and he didn’t say anything back? What if I go in clutching my books and smile and say hi and he is
     sickened and embarrassed? What about when I was a kindergartner and had on my favorite little hat with yarn pigtails and a
     face embroidered on the back, and a sixth-grade boy who I was enchanted with started teasing me by speaking only to my hat?
     What about how I sobbed until he begged me to stop? What if I do something like that again?
    “You don’t have to put your arm in the toilet,” Felicia’s mom says, standing in the doorway. “There’s a brush.”
    “I like to,” I tell her, scrubbing. It’s the only way you can really get in there.
    “Well, it might not even be sanitary,” she says, continuing on her way.
    There are several surefire ways of getting detentions: anything having to do with a fire alarm, destruction of school property,
     tampering with school property, misuse of school property, launching of projectiles, physical aggression, and possession of
     smoking materials. I wouldn’t mind committing any of the crimes, but I can’t bear the idea of being caught for them, after
     all the lecturing and disappointment we inspired getting the detentions we already have.
    A less surefire way would be to skip a class, but we can’t hurt another teacher’s feelings, which rules out everything but
     Special Sports, taught by a traveling teacher, Mr. Pettle, who doesn’t bother learning people’s names from school to school,
     just calls everyone either Bub or Dolly. We don’t care any more about Pettle’s feelings than he cares about ours, but the
     fact is he doesn’t take attendance. Right now Special Sports is medicine ball, a gloomy game where we all lie on our backs
     in a circle and kick an enormous leaden ball back and forth.
    “I’ll talk to you while you hurry,” Felicia says, stepping gingerly across the floor I’m washing to sit on the edge of the
     tub. She shouldn’t be done yet, but she is—one of the reasons you can write your name on every surface in this house.
    “I think we should skip medicine ball and walk around in the halls until somebody catches us,” I suggest, rinsing the toothbrushes
     in hot water.
    “I’m not getting more detentions,” she says testily, “and neither are you. We’re wasting our lives in there.”
    “That one kid likes you!” I say. “
He likes you.
So if you wantto forget it, fine with me.” I’m talking about the black-haired boy who tosses his head like a horse.
    “The blurter?” she says skeptically. “I doubt it.”
    “Well, I don’t! He stares at you all the time.”
    “You’re just saying that because I said the other guy turned around and looked at you when you went by.”
    “Well, was that a lie?”
    “No,” she says.
    “Well, if it wasn’t a lie when you said it to me, why is it a lie when I say it to you?”
    “Because it is,” she says simply.
    She’s right, it’s a lie.
    “What’s his name again?” she asks.
    “Jeff Nelson,” I tell her. “He’s in Dunk’s math class. I guess he’s smart but the teacher hates him because he’ll yell out
     the answer while she’s still writing the problem on the board.”
    “Does Dunk like him?” Felicia asks.
    “She doesn’t like any guys,” I remind her. “But if she did, she probably would because she said he was funny.”
    “
I
like funny guys,” Felicia says, perking up. “Although not too funny.”
    “Too funny stops being funny,” I agree, running a damp rag along the light fixture over the medicine cabinet.
    “He isn’t
that
funny,” she says. “He’s not a clown. Stop dusting the lightbulbs.”
    “Stop getting them dirty,” I say, looking around for the next thing.
    “We didn’t get them dirty, it’s dust,” she says.
    “That’s why I’m dusting,” I say. Next: desliming the bar of soap.
    “Mom,” Felicia hollers. “She’s washing
soap
, tell