The Crazy Things Girls Do for Love

knows the answer or not, and loudly agreeing with everything Cody says. Oh, I think so, too, she says. At the end of English, she risks broken bones again, frantic to be the person behind Cody as he leaves the room. She is always strolling through the corridor when he goes to his locker in the morning. She is always in the main hall when he leaves in the afternoon. If it weren’t for the fact that she gets a ride every day from Mrs Shepl after school, she’d be tempted to follow him home.

And does Cody notice all her efforts? Does he not. Any other boy would be flattered. Pleased with himself. Any other boy would go straight to the seat she’d saved for him every day, not just when there’s nowhere else to sit. Any other boy would lean close to compare notes. Borrow a pen. Compliment her. Tease her to find out if she has a steady boyfriend. Beg her for a date.

But Cody, of course, is not just any boy. Which is both a point in his favour and an obvious drawback, because he could only notice Sicilee less if she were invisible. Or someone else. Some dull, dumpy girl with limp hair and no dress sense. Sure, he smiles back when Sicilee smiles at him; he nods when they pass in the hallway; he talks to her when she strikes up a conversation. But he smiles and nods at and talks to a lot of people (including people Sicilee didn’t know were in the school before she saw him smiling and nodding at and talking to them). Sicilee stifles another sigh. That first glimpse of Cody, crossing the main hall with his schedule in his hand, was the last time she’s ever seen him alone.

Sicilee can’t figure out what’s going wrong. What can the problem be? Sure, her mouth is a little small and her laugh has been unfavourably compared to the distress call of a young seagull, but, those small imperfections aside, she is hands down the prettiest, most popular and most desirable girl in the entire school. Everyone knows that.

“He’s probably just so used to looking at himself in the mirror that he doesn’t notice when somebody else is gorgeous,” suggested Kristin when Sicilee was trying to solve the mystery.

“But I’m used to looking at me,” argued Sicilee, “and I notice him.”

Now, the other girls move on to where they’ll have lunch at the mall next Saturday. The hamburger bar’s getting kind of passé. Ditto the taqueria. The pizzeria is out for the moment because Loretta is back on her diet. Kristin doesn’t like Chinese food. Ash won’t go to the deli since the time they gave her tuna instead of chicken salad. Loretta says they could always go to that new vegetarian place, and they all laugh.

Sicilee laughs, too, but inside she is closer to tears. So this is what it’s like to be in love, she thinks as she watches Cody clap Clemens on the shoulder like they’re old, old friends. Obsessed. Fixated. Riddled with doubt and despair. It drives her totally crazy that he shows no interest in her. It drives her even crazier that she cares.

On the other side of the room, the oblivious object of Sicilee’s affections suddenly pushes back his chair and gets to his feet. He starts strolling towards the back of the room. He must need something from the kitchen.

A piece of cutlery clatters to the floor.

“Don’t you think so, Sicilee?” asks Loretta.

“Yeah,” says Ash. “What do you think?”

“I’ll be right back,” says Sicilee. “I need a clean fork.”

Chapter Nine Sicilee isn’t the only one who is unhappy about being ignored

Maya is late for lunch. She texts Alice as she scurries to the cafeteria. IS HE THR? ON MY WY. Maya has been late a lot in the past week. She has been late for each of her classes at least once. Late for homeroom every day. Late for school this morning. Late picking up her little sister from her cello lesson on Wednesday. So late for her appointment with the dentist last Thursday that she missed it.

“But you don’t understand – it wasn’t my fault,” she told her mother during their discussion of where she’d been when she was supposed to be in Mr Barley’s waiting room.

“Oh, really? And whose fault was it?” Mrs Baraberra sounded genuinely curious.

“Ms Kimodo’s,” said Maya. “If she hadn’t given us that assignment, I wouldn’t have had to race over to the library like that, would I?”

This excuse came under the heading of Necessary Lies. Obviously, there was no way Maya could explain to her mother that she is under the control of forces far greater than herself – so great that they could stop the moon in its orbit and drop every star from the sky, never mind make her miss her six-month check-up. Her mother is a practical woman who alphabetizes her canned goods and checks the spare tyre in her car at least once a month. Passion is as foreign a language to her as Norwegian. If Maya told her mother that she’s the Plaything of Destiny, a Victim of Love, her mother would think she’s taking drugs. Even though that would have been the truth, of course: love has Maya by the heart. The realization hit her as she and Alice trudged home on Thursday afternoon. Naturally, Maya has had crushes before, but she’s never felt like this. She thinks about Cody Lightfoot all the time. She turns into a bowl of hot fudge sauce every time she gets near him. If she even thinks she sees him, she feels as though she’s just been pushed out of a plane. This isn’t just a passing infatuation. This is l-o-v-e, love.

Which, in something of a history-making event, gives Maya and Sicilee two things in common. Being in love and being ignored.

The debacle on Thursday was, of course, not Maya’s first attempt to snare Cody Lightfoot’s attention. It took her two days to piece together his schedule. His locker is near Mallory’s. Shelby has English across the hall from Cody’s class. Jason is in his gym class and Shayla in history. Maya’s lab partner, Daisy, sits behind him in Cantonese. Daisy’s boyfriend Theo is in his homeroom. Brion has media studies with him, and Finn has maths. This information has allowed Maya to plot where Cody Lightfoot will be at the beginning or end of almost every period, and to be there, too. If Maya could be in two places at once, Cody wouldn’t be able to go anywhere but the toilet without tripping over her.

Which, of course, explains why she’s always late. Late for classes and homeroom because she’s upstairs when she should be downstairs, in the east wing when she should be in the west.

Not that any of this running around has done Maya any good so far. She lingers with Theo at his homeroom door every morning – and Cody nods at Theo, and slips inside. She stands with Daisy outside the Cantonese classroom – and Cody gives Daisy one of his blind-that-girl smiles, and sails right in. She hovers in the English corridor, but she always winds up talking to Shelby, watching Cody drift past with a girl on each side like a ship being escorted into harbour by tugboats. She has sidled up to both Brion and Jason when they were talking to Cody, grinning like a salesman, and Cody has finished what he was saying and walked away. On Friday, Cody suddenly appeared in the doorway of the art room, but it was to the boy next to Maya that he said, “I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for Mr Zin.” And twice a day she goes with Mallory to her locker, but the only time Cody’s so much as glanced at her was when she accidentally hit him with her book bag.

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked Alice.

Alice says she shouldn’t take it personally. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” said Alice. “For the love of God, he hasn’t been here a week yet. You have to cut him a little slack.”

“He talked to you,” snapped Maya.

“He asked me what time the library closes,” sighed Alice. “If you’d been there, he would’ve asked you.”

“Maybe,” grumped Maya.

But if something isn’t wrong with her, then something isn’t right.

“Like what?” asked Alice.

Like maybe he likes girlier girls. Or shorter girls. Or taller girls. Or girls who are really thin. Or girls who look cuddly. Or girls who have curly hair. Or blonde hair. Or hair so black it’s almost blue. Girls who listen to commercial radio. Girls who look as though they’ve never seen a foreign film in their lives.

“Maybe he isn’t into girls at all,” said Alice.

“Oh, right.” Maya laughed. “You haven’t noticed that he’s almost always got at least two girls trailing after him?”

“Well then, maybe he’s just shy,” said Alice.

“I repeat my original question,” said Maya.