It was right about then that something whizzed by us so fast, it was only a khaki blur, followed by the faintest trace of slightly familiar-smelling men's cologne. I looked around and saw that the blur had been Dopey. He was holding Michael Meducci in a headlock while Scott Turner shoved a finger in his face and snarled, "You’re writing that essay for me, Meducci. Got that? A thousand words on Gettysburg by tomorrow morning. And don't forget to doublespace it."

I don't know what came over me. Sometimes I am simply seized by impulses over which I have not the slightest control.

But suddenly I'd shoved my books at Gina and stalked over to where my stepbrother stood. A second later I held a pinchful of the short hairs at the back of his neck.

"Let him go," I said, twisting the tiny hairs hard. This method of torture, I'd discovered recently, was much more effective than my former technique of punching Dopey in the gut. He had, over the past few weeks, greatly built up the muscles in his abdominal wall, undoubtedly as a defense against just this sort of occasion.

The only way he could keep me from grabbing him by the short hairs, however, was to shave his head, and this had apparently not occurred to him.

Dopey, opening his mouth to let out a wail, released Michael right away. Michael staggered away, scurrying to pick up the books he'd dropped.

"Suze," Dopey cried, "let go of me!"

"Yeah," Scott said. "This doesn't concern you, Simon."

"Oh, yes, it does," I said. "Everything that happens at this school concerns me. Want to know why?"

Dopey already knew the answer. I had drilled it into him on several previous occasions.

"Because you're the vice president," he said.

"Now let me freakin' go, or I swear I'll tell Dad - "

I let him go, but only because Sister Ernestine showed up. The novice had apparently run for her. It's become official Mission Academy policy to send for backup whenever fights break out between Dopey and me.

"Is there a problem, Miss Simon?"

Sister Ernestine, the vice principal, is a very large woman, who wears an enormous cross between her equally sizeable breasts. She has an uncanny ability to evoke terror wherever she goes, merely by frowning. It is a talent I admire and hope to emulate someday.

"No, Sister," I said.

Sister Ernestine turned her attention toward Dopey. "Mr. Ackerman? Problem?"

Sullenly, Dopey massaged the back of his neck. "No, Sister," he said.

"Good," Sister Ernestine said. "I'm glad the two of you are finally getting along so nicely. Such sibling affection is an inspiration to us all. Now hurry along to class, please."

I turned and joined Cee Cee and Gina, who'd stood watching the whole thing.

"Jesus, Simon," Gina said with disgust as we headed into the bio lab. "No wonder the guys around here don't like you."

CHAPTER 5

"Girl," Gina said. "That is so you."

Cee Cee looked down at the outfit Gina had talked her into purchasing, then had goaded Cee Cee into putting on for our inspection.

"I don't know," she said, dubiously.

"It's you," Gina said, again. "I'm telling you. It's so you. Tell her, Suze."

"It's pretty flicking," I said truthfully. Gina had the touch. She had turned Cee Cee from fashion challenged to fashion plate.

"But you won't be able to wear it to school," I couldn't help pointing out. "It's too short." I'd learned the hard way that the Mission Academy's dress code, while fairly lenient, did not condone miniskirts under any circumstances. And I highly doubted Sister Ernestine would approve of Cee Cee's new, navel-revealing faux-fur-trimmed sweater, either.

"Where am I going to wear it, then?" Cee Cee wanted to know.

"Church," I answered with a shrug.

Cee Cee gave me a very sarcastic look. I said, "Oh, all right. Well, you can definitely wear it to the Coffee Clutch. And to parties."

Cee Cee's gaze, behind the violet lenses of her glasses, was tolerant. "I don't get invited to parties, Suze," she reminded me.

"You can always wear it to my house," Adam offered helpfully. The startled look Cee Cee threw him pretty much assured me that however much she'd spent on the outfit - and it had to have cost several months' allowance, at least - it had been worth it: Cee Cee had had a secret crush on Adam McTavish for as long as I'd known her, and probably much longer than that.

"All right, Simon," Gina said, lowering herself into one of the hard plastic chairs that littered the food court. "What were you up to while I was coordinating Ms. Webb's spring wardrobe?"

I held up my bag from Music Town. "I bought a CD," I said lamely.

Gina, appalled, echoed, "A what?"

"A CD." I hadn't even wanted to buy one, but sent out into the wilds of the mall with instructions to return with a new purchase, I had panicked, and headed into the first store I saw.

"You know malls give me sensory overload," I said, by way of explanation.

Gina shook her head at me, her copper curls swaying. "You can't really get mad at her," she said to Adam. "She's just so cute."

Adam shifted his attention from Cee Cee's sassy new outfit to me. "Yeah," he said. "She is." Then his gaze slipped past me, and his eyes widened. "But here come some people I'm not sure will agree."

I turned my head and saw Sleepy and Dopey sauntering toward us. The mall was like Dopey's second home, but what Sleepy was doing here, I could not imagine. All of his free time, between school and delivering pizzas - he was saving up for a Camaro - was usually spent surfing. Or sleeping.

Then he slumped down into a chair near Gina's, and said, in a voice I'd never heard him use before, "Hey, I heard you were here."

Suddenly all became clear.

"Hey," I said to Cee Cee, who was still gazing rapturously in Adam's direction. She was trying to figure out, I could tell, just what precisely he'd meant when he'd said she could wear her new outfit to his house. Had he been sexually harassing her - as she clearly hoped - or merely making conversation?

"Yeah?" Cee Cee asked. She didn't even bother to turn her head in my direction.

I grimaced. I could see I was all alone on this one.

"You got your mom's present yet?" I demanded.

Cee Cee said, faintly, "No."

"Good." I dropped my CD into her lap. "Hang onto this. I'll go get her Oprah's latest pick of the month. How about that?"

"That sounds great," Cee Cee said, still without so much as a glance at me, although she did wave a twenty in the air.

Rolling my eyes, I snatched the bill, then stomped off before I burst a blood vessel from screaming as hard as I could. You'd have screamed, too, if you'd seen what I had as I left the food court, which was Dopey trying desperately to squeeze a chair in between Sleepy and Gina.

I don't get it. I really don't. I mean, I know I probably come off as insensitive and maybe even a little weird, what with the mediator thing, but deep down, I am really a caring person. I am very fair minded and intelligent, and sometimes I'm even funny. And I know I'm not a dog. I mean, I fully blow-dry my hair every morning, and I have been told on more than one occasion (okay, by my mom, but it still counts) that my eyes are like emeralds. So what gives? How come Gina has two guys vying for her attention, while I can't even get one? I mean, even dead guys don't seem to like me so much, and I don't think they have a whole lot of options.

I was still mulling over this in the bookstore as I stood in line for the cashier, the book for Cee Cee's mother in my hands. That was when something brushed my shoulder. I turned around and found myself staring at Michael Meducci.

"Um," he said. He was holding a book on computer programming. He looked, in the fluorescent lights of the bookstore, pastier than ever. "Hi." He touched his glasses nervously, as if to assure himself they were still there. "I thought that was you."

I said, "Hi, Michael," and moved up a space in the line.

Michael moved up with me. "Oh," he said. "You know my name." He sounded pleased.

I didn't point out that up until that day, I hadn't. I just said, "Yeah," and smiled.

Maybe the smile was a mistake. Because Michael stepped a little closer, and gushed, "I just wanted to say thanks. You know. For what you did to your, um, stepbrother today. You know. To make him let me go."

"Yeah," I said again. "Well, don't worry about it."

"No, I mean it. Nobody has ever done anything like that for me - I mean, before you came to school at the Mission, no one ever stood up to Brad Ackerman. He got away with everything. With murder, practically."

"Well," I said. "Not anymore."

"No," Michael said with a nervous laugh. "No, not anymore."

The person ahead of me stepped up to the cashier, and I moved into her place. Michael moved, too, only he went a little too far, and ended up colliding with me. He said, "Oh, I'm sorry," and backed up.

"That's okay," I said. I began to wish, even if it had meant risking a brain hemorrhage, that I'd stayed with Gina.

"Your hair," Michael said in a soft voice, "smells really good."

Oh, my God. I thought I was going to have an aneurism right there in line. Your hair smells really good? Your hair smells really good? Who did he think he was? James Bond? You don't tell someone their hair smells good. Not in a mall.

Fortunately, the cashier yelled, "Next," and I hurried up to pay for my purchase, thinking that by the time I turned around again, Michael would be gone.

Wrong. So wrong.

Not only was he still there, but it turned out he already owned the book on computer programming - he was just carrying it around - so he didn't even have to make a stop at the cashier's counter … which was where I'd planned on ditching him.