But maybe I could get out of it somehow. Maybe I could be like, “Oh, wait, that guy? Oh, yeah. That’s Tommy Sullivan. I thought you meant thatother guy….”

Yeah. Okay. Probably not. I was screwed.

But until Sidney figured it out, I was just going to go with it. Because I had way too much other stuff to worry about than the fact that my best friend thought I would french some guy I barely knew on the hood of his car in a parking lot.

Like, for instance, what I was going to do about Tommy.

Because there was no way I was going to let him get away with this. He couldn’t just waltz back into my life and destroy it because of something I’d done to himfour years ago, when we were both still basically children and couldn’t, technically, be held responsible for our actions. Nuh-uh. No way. Not going to happen.

Only how was I going to stop him?

That’s what I was asking myself as Sidney and I got beautified over at Spa-by-the-Sea (which should have been called Spa-by-the-Sound because that’s what it overlooked, but whatever). Mrs. van der Hoff had given us both gift certificates for pre-pageant full-body massages, sunless tanning, non-extraction facials (she didn’t want us to be discolored for the big event), manicures, pedicures, makeup application, and hair styling. Which was super nice of her.

It would have been even nicer of Mrs. van der Hoff if she hadn’t insisted on coming along with us and commenting on everything we did. (“Are you sure you want a French manicure, Sid? You know how tacky they can look if you don’t get a thin enough line.” “Should you really wear your hair down, Katie? It would be so pretty up, with just a few tendrils curling down, here and there.”)

Still, it was nice she took an interest. Not that my own mother doesn’t. She’s just busy with her job, something Sidney’s mom, who doesn’t work, doesn’t have to worry about.

And I have to admit, her presence kept Sidney from asking me uncomfortable questions, such as, “So what’s the guy from the parking lot’s name?” and “When are you going to see him again?” and “Does Hottie McHot-a-Lot know you’ve got a boyfriend? Who’s on the football team? And not just any football team, but theQuahogs?”

It wasn’t because Sidney shied away from embarrassing me in front of her mother. She simply couldn’t get a word in edgewise. The only time Sidney’s mom stopped talking was when I was under the hair dryer — and that’s just because I couldn’t hear her with all the hot air blowing around me. I used the opportunity to decide what I was going to do about Tommy. Which was…avoid him. I had to. I had no choice. Clearly I couldn’t be in his presence and not throw myself at him.

And now that I’d actually tasted the sweet nectar that is Tommy Sullivan’s kisses (ew…but it’s true), I knew it was going to beextra hard to resist him.

But I was just going to have to gird my loins (um, literally) and do it. Because I hadway too much at stake.

So I would just do everything I possibly could not to be in his presence. If he called my cell, I wouldn’t pick up. (Thank God I’d never given him my number anyway.) If he called at home, I’d tell whoever picked up to tell him I was in the shower. If I ran into him on the street, I’d turn and go the other way. If I ran into him at the Gull ’n Gulp, I’d make Shaniqua take his table. If I bumped into him anywhere else, I’d either hide or leave.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if he ended up in any of my classes at school. Steadfastly ignore him, I guess.

And maybe…just maybe…if I did all that, and worddid get out that I’d been seen making out with him (because Sidney was going to put it together one of these days — she wasn’tthat stupid), I could just deny it. I could say that Sidney must have inhaled too many fumes from her spray-on nail polish dryer and was seeing things.

It could work. I may be a liar. But my pants don’t necessarily HAVE to be on fire.

Becoming pageant-ready takes a long time. I didn’t get home until late afternoon — just an hour before I had to show up at Eastport Park — by which time my brother had apparently also just gotten home from Quahog tryouts. As I walked into the house — my hair up (Mrs. van der Hoff won), my tan perfect, my finger- and toenails pearly pink and professionally filed, my makeup immaculately applied — Liam was telling Mom and Dad, who were home from the office and sitting at the kitchen counter, listening to him with rapt attention, “So then Coach Hayes had us do a shuttle run, and I made it in thirty-two seconds, and then he had us do a forty-yard dash, and my time was five point nine seconds, and then we had to run a mile, and I don’t know what my time was on that, but it must have been good, because—”

That’s when everyone finally noticed I had walked into the room, and they turned to me with big smiles on their faces. I knew the smiles weren’t because I looked so good. I wasn’t even in my pageant dress. Yet.

“Well, hi, honey,” Mom said.

“Katie, Katie, guess what?” Liam could barely contain his excitement.

“Um,” I said, pretending like I had no idea what he was about to say. “They found asbestos in the school, and we’re not going to have to go on Monday after all?”

“No,” Liam said. “I made the junior varsity team! I’m a Quahog!”

I screamed politely to show my excitement for him, and then the two of us jumped around the kitchen (me being careful not to jump so hard that my updo fell down), while Mom and Dad beamed at us.

“This calls for a celebration!” Dad declared. “We’re all going to Pizza Hut!”

Mom smacked him. “Steve! You know we can’t! Katie has her Quahog Princess pageant tonight!”

“I know,” Dad said, grinning. “I was kidding. But we could still go after. For a double celebration, when she wins.”

“I won’t win,” I said, at the same time Mom said, “Why would we go to Pizza Hut when they’re having the Taste of Eastport in the park tonight?”

Meanwhile, Liam was going, “Wow, Katie, if you win tonight, then we’llboth be Quahogs.”

“Yeah,” I said, trying not to think about how quahogs make me gag. “Great!”

“You should’ve heard Coach Hayes’s speech — you know, to the new junior varsity team, after all the losers went home—”

“Hey,” I said, not smiling anymore. “They aren’t losers, just because they didn’t make the team. They just didn’t make the team.”

“Um, hello,” Liam said sarcastically. “That is the definition of loser. So Coach Hayes, he goes, ‘Today is the first day of your new lives…not as ordinary citizens of Eastport. But as Quahogs. As a Quahog, you will find that new doors are open to you…doors that were never open to you as ordinary schmos—’”

“Schmos?”I raised my eyebrows. “He called people who aren’t Quahogs schmos?”

I don’t know why I was so insulted. I don’t even know what a schmo is.

“May I finish?” Liam asked. “So then he goes, ‘And as Quahogs you have a tradition to live up to. A tradition of greatness. There are people out there who will try to tear you down, just because they’re jealous of your greatness—’”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted, with a glance at my parents. “Are you guys listening to this?”

“The Quahogsare the top-ranked team in the state,” Mom said. “Maybe even the country.”

“Yeah, butjealous of your greatness?” I shook my head. “Comeon.”

“See?” Liam glared at me. “Coach Hayes was right. You’re already jealous of my greatness, and I’ve only been a Quahog for an hour.”

“I’m not jealous,” I informed him. “And you aren’t great. And if you say that again, I’llshow you just how not great you are.”

Liam took a single step toward me, forcing me to have to lift my chin up — wayup — in order to look him in the eye.

“Oh, yeah?” he demanded, looking down at me. “You and what army?”

It’s so weird how much he’s grown in such a short period of time. At this time last year, I’d easily been able to lift him up and throw him into the yacht club pool. Not to hurt him, or anything. Just to show him who was boss.

I couldn’t help wondering who was boss now. It still had to be me. I mean, I’m the oldest.

“Ha ha,” I said sarcastically. “That’s so original. Coach Hayes obviously didn’t pick you for your brains.”

“Hey, now,” Dad said mildly. He’d already wandered out to the family room, just off the kitchen, picked up the remote control, and was flipping around, trying to find the golf game.

“Coach Hayes warned us about people like you,” Liam said condescendingly. “He said the elitists in society would try to make out like just because we’re athletically gifted, we must be mentally deficient.”

I burst out laughing. “Oh my God,” I said.

“Katie,” Mom said absently, as she checked the messages on the answering machine — most of which seemed to be from Tiffanys and Brittanys, asking for Liam to call them back. “Stop picking on your brother.”

“But it’s like he’s in a cult, or something,” I said. “I mean,elitists in society? Just who is that supposed to be? The people in this town who don’t think just because you’re a Quahog, you should get extra-special treatment? I mean, beyond the corner booth at the Gull ’n Gulp?”

“I know exactly what you’re talking about, Katie,” Liam said, narrowing his eyes down at me. “Or should I say,who you’re talking about. And Coach Hayes had something to say abouthim, too.”

“Him, who?” I demanded. Even though I knew perfectly well.

“Tommy Sullivan, that’s who,” Liam boomed down at me. Ever since his voice changed, he likes making it sound deeper than it actually is. On the few occasions he’s ever actually home to pick up the phone when one of the Tiffanys or Brittanys calls, he lowers his voice even more, saying, “Hello?” in a tone so deep, he sounds like freaking James Earl Jones. “Coach Hayes said some people in Eastport would be so jealous of our greatness, they’d even stoop to making up lies about us—”