Gary Paulsen: Liar, Liar

I’d heard about love at first sight, but it sure had never happened to me before. In fact, I wasn’t even certain you could count what was happening right then as love at first sight, because I’d known Tina since preschool and I’d probably seen her every school day for eight or nine years. But I’d clearly never really looked at her before. Or else she’d turned into the prettiest girl in the world since I’d seen her the past Friday.

I ducked inside the Spanish lab to study her through the window in the door.

I started to count the many colors of her hair—butter, honey, wheat, gold—and as I was racking my brain for ways to say blond , I realized that I had what it took to be the world’s greatest boyfriend. I’d never cared about stuff like this before. But I cared then. In fact, I was starting to care so much I was having a hard time standing, because my knees felt weak and rubbery.

She must have felt me staring at her, because she turned and saw me peeking through the window in the door.

I waved casually like I hadn’t just been caught gawking and started to walk toward her to see what it was going to take to get her to be my girlfriend—I am a very goal-oriented guy.

Halfway across the hall, I tripped. No, that’s not right; I actually fell over my own feet, which felt like they were being remote-controlled by a spider monkey during a sleep-deprivation experiment.

“Hey, Kev, you okay?” Tina asked as she watched me peel myself off the seventh grader I’d trampled.

Had her voice always been so … soft? How could I not have noticed that? I must have talked to her a million times.

“Gunh.”

That started out as “Sure, fine,” in my head.

I blinked in surprise. For the first time ever, I couldn’t speak. I’m never at a loss for words, so this was a new sensation.

I swallowed and tried again.

“Ereewah.” My voice cracked. Oh, great! Puberty was hitting now . Here. In front of Tina. Good timing.

She looked at me curiously. I started to sweat. I felt drops, then streams, of perspiration slide down my ribs. I didn’t dare look down—I was sure there was a puddle developing around my shoes. I stood very still so that I didn’t accidentally splash Tina or send stink waves in her direction.

I tried taking a deep breath to get control of myself, but all that happened was a loud gulp, like in a cartoon when the bear eats the picnic basket whole.

Tina studied me. Probably wondering why she’d never realized I was socially retarded and had epic glandular problems. She didn’t edge away nervously, though, or look around for an excuse to leave me standing there making weird noises to myself. Instead, she smiled.

Tina smiled at me.

Before I could tell her how much she had come to mean to me in the past three minutes and that I hoped she’d feel the same way about me—maybe not in the next three minutes, but soon—my arm was nearly yanked out of its socket as JonPaul jerked me down the hall toward the cafeteria. I waved nonchalantly at Tina with my free hand and hoped she wouldn’t notice the sweat stains spreading down my shirt.

“Dude, gotta haul it if you don’t wanna get the crusty leftovers.” JonPaul bobbed and weaved through the crowded hall, unaware that he had ruined my great moment with Tina. I stared over my shoulder at Tina’s right hip, which was all I could see through the crowd.

“You can let go of my arm now,” I finally said after he’d dragged me around a corner. Oh, sure, now I can talk, I thought.

He grunted and dropped my arm, but he picked up the pace. JonPaul is very serious about eating on time.

“Hey, JonPaul. You ever been in love?” I tried to sound matter-of-fact even though JonPaul and I don’t talk about feelings.

“No,” he said. “Girls are germy.”

JonPaul is a germaphobe. The mere thought of girls makes him whip out his hand sanitizer. JonPaul plays football, basketball and baseball and is roughly the size of a half-ton Chevy pickup, but he’s a total wuss about his health. When he was done disinfecting his hands, he pulled a bottle out of his backpack and swallowed a couple of vitamins. Just to be on the safe side.

“Kev”—he jumped out of the way of some girl who might have been about to sneeze—“remember how we talked about how my cardio program will keep me from getting sick?”

JonPaul’s workout was the last thing I wanted to talk about, when I had so much I needed to ask him about Tina. But because I am such a good friend, I mm-hmm ed encouragingly.

“It’s all a waste of time unless I focus on nutritional balance and …” JonPaul kept talking, but I stopped listening. He obviously wasn’t going to be any help at all on the Tina front, and she was all I cared about right then.

I nodded and uh-huh ed through lunch and, although I’m sure we sat with our crew like we do every day—Jay D. and Jay M., Scott Kahney, Greggie Hoffman, Todd Neiderloh, Kurt Sneed, the new kid I don’t really know yet and Sean Sexton—my mind was on Tina. I couldn’t taste a thing, I didn’t hear a word. I just sat there, watching Tina eat a salad.

She was all I could think about all day. I spent every class writing down things I knew about her (she’s got an older brother, she’s on the swim team and she broke her arm in second grade) and questions I wanted to ask her (what’s her favorite food, why does she feel Americans have taken so long to embrace soccer and does the idea of paranormal activity creep her out). It’s a good thing I make such detailed outlines for my research papers, because I knew how to organize my thoughts and start making sense of what I was feeling.

By the time the final bell rang, I was newly aware that Tina sat directly in front of me in language arts, two people over and one behind in science lab, and kitty-corner in the cafeteria. I saw her after fifth period on the sixth step from the bottom in the south stairwell, and after eighth period, when I lurked outside her French class and followed her to the bus line, even though I walk home and don’t take the bus myself.

I didn’t dare try to speak to her again all day, and I wouldn’t until I was sure that real words would come out of my mouth and that they were the best possible words to make her want to go out with me. I’d never had a girlfriend before and I’d never stammered and sweated like that, either, but I wasn’t going to let any of that stop me. Millions of guys had girlfriends; there was no reason I wouldn’t be able to figure it out too.

After school, I paced around my room, trying to come up with the best method to get Tina to notice me—in a good way—when I happened to glance out the window. I saw my four-year-old next-door neighbor, Markie, who I babysit for every week, playing war with his family’s cat. I don’t think the cat knew she was playing war, though: I think she thought she was asleep in the sun. Markie was on his belly, commando-crawling up behind her, ready to pounce when he got close enough. Good soldier, I thought, taking advantage of the element of surprise.

An idea started to form in my head, and I walked over to the shelf of books of military history next to my desk. All that reading was about to come in handy.

I’ll read anything about war; I’m fascinated by the strategies and thinking of great military leaders. My mother always says, “I worry that I’m raising a future warmonger.” But I knew she’d be proud of the way I was going to put all that research to good use.

Okay. Time to think. I sat down, tipped my chair back and started to thumb through the index of one of the books.

Obviously, the best approach to landing Tina as my girlfriend would be to study the way generals plan military maneuvers. I would utilize foresight, bravery, skill, careful timing, reconnaissance missions and the support of staunch allies to show her that I was the best possible boyfriend for her.