The Book - E Lockhart

“You’re always busy these days,” I say, and it comes out pitiful and whiny.

“That’s life, Gretchen,” snaps Katya. “I’ve got responsibilities. I’ll call you later.”

She’s out the door. My only friend, really.

I can’t count Shane, even though we said we’d be friends after last October.

We’re not, obviously.

Not friends.

Just people who groped each other for a few weeks at the start of this year, when he was new and sat in front of me in math. One day, he wrote me a note about this nose picker sitting in the front,

and we wrote notes back and forth about boogers,

which led to notes back and forth about other stuff,

and he ate lunch with me and Katya,

and put funny sketches in my locker,

and we were friends. I thought.

But one day Shane walked out of school with me when classes were over,

and got on the subway with me,

and went home with me, without me even asking him.

He kissed me as soon as we got in the door. We made out on the couch, when my parents weren’t home,

and watched TV on the couch together when they were.

After that, we made out in the hallways of Ma-Ha,

by the boat pond in Central Park,

on the corner by the subway stop, and in the back of a movie theater.

People saw us. And he was my boyfriend. For a little.

Now, he’s just someone whose mouth I stuck my tongue in,

someone whose spit got all over me and I didn’t mind at the time.

Now, he’s an alien being,

just like all the rest of those Art Rat boys—

or even more than the rest.

It goes to show that if you only have two friends in a whole godforsaken poseur high school, you shouldn’t start up kissing one of them, because three weeks later he’ll say he doesn’t feel that way,

whatever way that was,

didn’t feel like drooling on me anymore, I guess is what it meant—

and he’ll say, “Hey, it was fun and all, but let’s cool it now, yeah?”

and “You know we’ll always be friends, right? Excellent. Let’s hang out sometime, Gretchen, that would be great,”

only not with kissing,

and not with it meaning anything,

and then, when it comes down to it, never actually hanging out,

and never being friends again, unless people ask and then we both say:

“Yeah, we had a thing going for a few weeks there, but then we both decided we would just be friends.”

Only he’s the one who decided.

And we’re not friends, not anymore.

Now he’s got the Art Rats and goes out with Jazmin, and little Gretchen Yee isn’t worth his time, like she was when he was new in school and lonely.

Hell.

I’ll get my stupid slice of pizza by myself, then.

ALSO BY e. lockhart

The Boyfriend List

Fly on the Wall

Published by Delacorte Press an imprint of Random House Children’s Books a division of Random House, Inc.

New York

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2006 by E. Lockhart

All rights reserved.

Delacorte Press and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/teens

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this work as follows:

Lockhart, E.

The boy book: a study of habits and behaviors, plus techniques for taming them / E. Lockhart.

p. cm.

Companion to the author’s The boyfriend list.

Summary: A high school junior continues her quest for relevant data on the male species, while enjoying her freedom as a newly licensed driver and examining her friendship with a clean-living vegetarian classmate.

eISBN: 978-0-375-84880-3

[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Friendship—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.L79757Boy 2006

[Fic]—dc22 2006004601

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v1.0

Table of Contents

E Lockhart The Boy Book (Ruby Oliver 2)

Title Page

Dedication

1. The Care and Ownership of Boobs

2. Rules for Dating in a Small School

3. Your Business is Our Business: A Pledge

4. What to Wear When You Might Be Fooling Around

5. Scamming: Our Brief and Irregular History

6. Levels of Boyfriends

7. Neanderthals on the Telephone: Or, How to Converse

8. Boy-Speak: Introduction to a Foreign Language

9. Clever Comebacks to Catcalls

10. Why You Want the Guy You Can’t Have: Inadequate Analysis of a Disturbing Psychologica

11. The Kaptain Is In

12. Why Girls Are Better than Boys

13. The Girl Book: A Disorganized Notebook of Thoughts, with No Particular Purpose, Writt

Acknowledgments

Preview of Fly on the Wall

Also by E. Lockhart

Copyright

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