Boris might as well face it: he's as good as forgotten.

I wonder how the Drs Moscovitz are going to feel when Lilly introduces them to Jangbu. I am fairly sure my dad wouldn't let me date a guy who'd graduated from high school already. Except Michael, of course. But he doesn't count, because I've known him for so long.

Uh-oh. Something is happening. Boris has lifted his head from his desk. He is gazing at Lilly with eyes that remind me of hotly blazing coals ... if I had ever seen hotly blazing coals, which I haven't, because coal fires are forbidden within the city limits of Manhattan due to anti-smog regulations. But whatever. He is gazing at her with the same kind of fixed concentration he used to stare at his picture of world-class violinist and role model, Joshua Bell. He's opening his mouth. He's about to say something. WHY AM I THE ONLY PERSON IN THIS CLASS WHO IS PAYING THE SLIGHTEST BIT OF ATTENTION TO WHAT IS GOING ON?









Monday, May 5, Nurse's Office


Oh, my God, that was so dramatic, I can barely write. Seriously. I have never seen so much blood.

I am almost surely destined for some kind of career in the medical sciences, however, because I didn't feel like fainting. Not even once. In fact, except for Michael and maybe Lars, I think I am the only person in the room to have kept my head. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that, being a writer, I am a natural observer of all human interactions, and I saw what was coming before anyone . . . maybe even Boris. The nurse even said that if it hadn't been for my quick intervention, Boris might have lost a lot more blood. Ha! How's that for princess-like behaviour, Grandmere? I saved a guy's life!

Well, OK, maybe not his life, but whatever, Boris might have passed out or something if it hadn't been for me. I can't even imagine what caused him to freak out like that. Well, yes, I guess I can. I think the silence in the G and T room caused Boris

to go momentarily mental. Seriously. I can totally see how it would, since it was bugging me, as well.

Anyway, what happened was, we were all just sitting there, minding our own business - well, except for me, of course, since I was watching Boris - when all of a sudden he stood up and went, 'Lilly, I can't take this any more! You can't do this to me! You've got to give me a chance to prove my undying devotion!'

Or at least it was something like that. It's kind of hard to remember, given what happened next.

I do remember how Lilly replied, however. She was actually somewhat kind. You could tell she felt a little bit bad about her behaviour towards Boris at my party. She went, in a nice voice, 'Boris, seriously, I am so sorry, especially about the way it happened. But the truth is, when a love like mine for Jangbu takes hold, there's no stopping it. You can't hold back New York baseball fans when the Yankees win the World Series. You can't hold back New York shoppers when Century Twenty-One has a sale. You can't hold back the floodwaters in the F train subway tunnels when it pours. Similarly, you can't hold back love like the kind I feel for Jangbu. I am so, so sorry about it, but seriously, there's nothing I can do. I love him.'

These words, gently as they were spoken - and even I, Lilly's severest critic, with the possible exception of her brother, will admit they were spoken gently - seemed to hit Boris like a fist. He shuddered all over. Next thing I knew, he'd picked up the giant globe next to him - which really was a feat of some athleticism, as that globe weighs a ton. In fact, the reason it's in the G and T room is that it's so heavy, nobody can get it to spin any more, so the administration, rather than throwing it away, must have figured, well, just stick it in the classroom with the nerds, they'll take anything ... after all, they're nerds.

So there was Boris - hypoglycaemic, asthmatic, deviated-septum and allergy-prone Boris - holding this big heavy globe over his head, as if he were Adas or He-Man or the Rock or somebody.

'Lilly,' he said in a strangled, very un-Borislike voice - I should probably point out that by this time everyone in the room was paying attention: I mean, Michael had taken off his headphones and was looking at Boris very intentiy, and even the quiet guy who is supposed to be working on this new kind of superglue diat sticks to objects but not to human skin (so you won't have that stuck-together-finger Problem any more after gluing up the sole of your shoe) was totally aware of what was happening around him for once.

'If you don't take me back,' Boris said, breathing hard -that globe had to weigh fifty pounds at least, and he was holding it OVER HIS HEAD - 'I will drop this globe on my head.'

Everyone sort of inhaled at the same time. I think I can safely say that there was no doubt in anybody's mind that Boris meant what he said. He was totally going to drop that globe on his head. Seeing it written down, it looks kind of funny - I mean,

really, who DOES things like that? Threatens to drop a globe on his head?

But this WAS Gifted and Talented class. I mean, geniuses are ALWAYS doing weird stuff like dropping globes on their heads. I bet there are geniuses out there who have dropped weirder stuff than globes on their heads. Like cinder blocks and cats and stuff. Just to see what would happen.

I mean, come on. They're geniuses.

Because Boris is a genius, and so is Lilly, she reacted to his threat the way only another genius would. A normal girl, like me, would have gone, 'No, Boris! Put the globe down, Boris! Let's talk, Boris!'

But Lilly, being a genius, and having a genius's curiosity about what would happen if Boris did drop the globe on his head -

and maybe because she wanted to see if she really did have enough power over him to make him do it - just went, in a disgusted voice, 'Go ahead. See if I care.'

And that's when it happened. You could tell Boris had second thoughts - like it finally sunk into his love-addled brain that dropping a fifty-pound globe on his head probably wasn't the best way to handle the situation.

But just as he was about to put the globe down, it slipped - maybe accidentally. Or maybe on purpose. What the Drs Moscovitz call a self-fulfilling prophecy, like when you say, 'Oh, I don't want that to happen,' and then because you said that and you're thinking about it so much, you accidentally-on-purpose make it happen - and Boris dropped the globe on his head.

The globe made this sickening hollow thunking sound as it hit Boris's skull - the same noise that eggplant made as it hit the pavement that time I dropped it out of Lilly's sixteenth-storey bedroom window - before the whole thing bounced off Boris's head and went crashing to the floor.

And then Boris clapped his hands to his scalp and started staggering around, upsetting the sticky-glue guy, who seemed to be afraid Boris would crash into him and mess up his notes.

It was kind of interesting to see how everyone reacted. Lilly put both hands to her cheeks and just stood there, pale as ... well, death. Michael swore and started towards Boris. Lars ran from the room, yelling, 'Mrs Hill! Mrs Hill!'

And I - not even really aware of what I was doing - stood up, whipped off my school sweater, strode up to Boris and yelled, 'Sit down!' since he was running all around like a chicken with its head cut off. Not that I have ever seen a chicken with its head recently cut off - I hope never to see this in my lifetime.

But you get what I mean.

Boris, to my very great surprise, did what I said. He sank down at the nearest desk, shivering like Rommel during a thunderstorm. Then I said, in the same commanding voice that didn't seem to belong to me, 'Move your hands!'

And Boris moved his hands off his head.

That's when I stuck my wadded up sweater over the small hole in Boris's head, to stop the bleeding, just like I saw a vet do

on Animal Precinct when Officer Anne Marie Lucas brought in a pit bull that had been shot.

After that, all hell - excuse me, but it is true - broke loose.

• Lilly started crying in great big baby sobs, which I haven't seen her do since we were in second grade and I accidentally-on-purpose shoved a spatula down her throat while we were frosting birthday cupcakes to hand out to the class, because she was eating all the frosting and I was afraid there wouldn't be enough to cover all the cupcakes.

• The guy with the glue ran out of the room.

• Mrs Hill came running into the room, followed by Lars and about half the faculty, who'd apparently all been in the Teachers' Lounge doing nothing, as the teachers at Albert Einstein High School are wont to do.

• Michael was bent over Boris going, in a calm, soothing voice I am pretty sure he learned from his parents, who often get calls in the middle of the night from patients of theirs who have gone off their medication for whatever reason and are threatening to drive up and down the Merrick Parkway in a clown suit, 'It's going to be all right. Boris, you're going to be all right. Just take a deep breath. Good. Now take another one. Deep, even breaths. Good. You're going to be fine. You're going to be just fine.'

And I just kept standing there with my sweater pressed to the top of Boris's head, while the globe, having apparently come unstuck thanks to the fall - or perhaps the lubrication from Boris's blood - spun lazily around, eventually coming to rest with the country of Ecuador most prominent.

One of the teachers went and got the nurse, who made me move my sweater a little so that she could see Boris's wound. Then she hastily made me press the sweater back down. Then she said to Boris in the same calming voice Michael was using, 'Come along, young man. Let's go to my office.'