Some Kind of Wonderful by J. Minter Page A

for a few minutes so I could figure out what was making me feel so unsettled
     about Meredith.
    I collapsed on an empty sand bar and watched the waves foam across the shoreline. It was weird. I was practically witnessing
     Meredith blossom into cool. It was something I'd wanted to happen for months—but the thing that I hated to admit was . . .
     I always thought that I'd have more to do with it.
    I'd tried to coax Meredith out of her shell a thousand times, but as it turned out, she didn't even need my help. In fact,
     Meredith didn't need to come out of her shell at all; she just needed to make a necklace out of one. I couldn't understand
     how she was suddenly a smash success at this party. I mean, she was great and all, but in more of a Stuyvesant-great kind
     of way.
    "Um, excuse me?" I looked up to see that a guy had approached me. I sat up straight and smiled at him. He was kind of cute.
    "Yes?"
    "You're, uh, I think you're sitting on my girlfriend's poncho." He pointed at the sand where I noticed I was sitting on a
     woven navy poncho.
    "Oh," I said. "Sorry." I handed it to him so he could return it to whichever poncho girl was his girlfriend.
    When he started to walk away, I felt more alone than ever. What was I doing out here pouting by myself? I stood up and took
     a few deep breaths before following the couple back toward the party. As I walked behind them, I, um, accidentally eavesdropped
     on their conversation.
    "We have to wait till the party dies down," the girl was saying. "Kennedy doesn't want a mass exodus. There's only room for
     ten of us in the kayaks."
    "When do you think that's going to be?" her boyfriend asked. "It's already almost midnight."
    She shrugged. "Whenever TZ says the party's over, the party's over. It's always more fun when it's just the late-night crew
     hanging out anyway."
    "Totally. Remember last year with the—"
    But I couldn't hear the rest of their story because they both exploded into laughter. It was the kind of laughter that felt
     so good to do yourself—but felt so bad to hear from the outside.
    Or maybe I was just primed to feel sorry for myself. I had never felt so uncool. I'd been so sure that I needed a vacation,
     but who could call this a relaxing getaway? Definitely not me . . .

Chapter 10
    AND THEN THERE WS ONE
    D uring my short stint as SBB's landlord this past fall, she used to stumble down the stairs after a night out and bemoan her
     extreme exhaustion while I was getting ready for school.
    "If it sucks this much in the morning," I asked her one morning when the moaning was particularly woeful, "then why don't
     you party a little less?"
    She looked at me like I was a newborn puppy and staggered over to pinch my cheek. "Honey, it hurts so good. Everybody loves to say, Oh, I'm never staying out till sunrise again, la la la. But really, feeling like crap the next morning is the best reminder that you had yourself a kick-ass time the night before."
    I looked at her warily as she buttoned my cardigan in the foyer.
    "Someday you'll understand," she said. "But no rush—you're still a kid!" She bopped me on the head, which she had to stand
     on her tiptoes to do, and sent me off to school.
    Fast forward to the present: it was Tuesday, our second morning in Nevis, and the nausea I woke up with was definitely not a sign of a good time had the night before. I'd gotten too much sleep, and I still felt sick about pretty much everything
     going on in my life.
    All I wanted was my own bed back at my own house, with a few kisses from Noodles and possibly an order of pancakes from EJ's.
    Then again, I was dying to know what had become of Meredith and Judith. I felt uncharacteristically out of the loop. Last
     night, after I'd overheard Kennedy's plans for the exclusive late-night kayaking expedition, I'd fled the party to avoid being
     shunned all over again. I locked myself in my room and pumped up the most depressing music playlist on my iPod.
    Now it was nine in the