“Ah, yes, I have gotten those before.” He smiled, like detention was a pleasant thing. “Sometimes on purpose.”
“Why would you do that?” Ethan looked shocked.
“I nap best in detention,” Lanz explained. “And if I stay after school, I have less time for chores at home. Brilliant, yes?”
Ethan laughed. “I never thought of that. Maybe I’ll give it a try.”
Not a chance, I thought. Ethan didn’t have a rebellious bone in his body, especially when he had to maintain an A average to participate in the Invention Convention.
“Come on, Lanz,” Ethan added. “I can show you where the caf is on the way to class.”
“Wait,” I said to Ethan. “I need to talk—”
“Right.” Ethan slapped his forehead. “I forgot. You started to tell me something? What happened?”
I hesitated. I didn’t want to pour my heart out in front of Lanz. The idea of it made me feel too … exposed, like he’d be drawing his own conclusions about who I was the whole time. Or worse, what if he laughed? That seemed like something he might do.
The bell rang. “Never mind.” My spirits went from bad to abysmal.
Ethan squeezed my hand. “See you later?”
I nodded, but when Lanz glanced down at my hand in Ethan’s, I felt another wave of self-consciousness. What was up with me? I held hands with Ethan at school every day. Why should I do anything different just because someone new was taking notice?
“Ciao, Malie,” Lanz said. There was that grin again.
I stiffened. He was so confident. Too confident.
I watched them move down the hallway, Ethan with his purposeful, I-have-places-to-be walk, Lanz with a crooked saunter. What if they became friends? As I walked to class, I found myself hoping that they wouldn’t. I couldn’t quite explain why, but I didn’t want to see too much of Lanz.
Three hours later, I saw from my spot in the lunch line that Lanz had made himself at home already. I knew Ethan was eating lunch in the science lab, as he always did in the weeks leading up to the Invention Convention. But Lanz hadn’t had any trouble finding people to sit with. Tables full of kids waved him over. And Lanz didn’t choose just one table, the way most kids did. He moved between tables, greeting everyone with his carefree smile. He seemed just as comfortable talking with the soccer team as he was with the chess club, and gauging from the laughter erupting from each table, everyone found him über-entertaining. I tried not to stare, but it was hard not to.
When he glanced up at one point, our eyes locked, and I instantly looked away.
“What a poseur,” I whispered to Tilly, who was studying the sloppy joe on her tray with suspicion. She transferred the sandwich to Andres’s tray, adding to the two there already.
“Who? Lanz?” She hummed a low note, a sign that she was about to call me out on something. “Doesn’t that seem a wee bit harsh? He’s only been here for a half a second.”
I frowned in Lanz’s direction. “Nobody makes friends that fast!”
We paid for our lunches and walked out into the dining area. Tilly set down her lunch tray at our table with a definitive clang. “Mal, you’re having an epically bad day. And I don’t blame you for being totally peeved.”
I nodded, happy for the validation. From the second I’d told Tilly about the ballet news in homeroom, she’d been brainstorming ways for me to keep dancing. Granted, some of her ideas were over the top (i.e., running away to New York City and camping outside the American Ballet Theatre in hopes of meeting Misty Copeland to ask for her help). But I loved her for refusing to accept reality without scouring for every possible solution. Unlike Ethan. When I’d finally managed to tell him about it in between classes, he’d been sympathetic but also matter-of-fact.
“Try to see it from your mom’s point of view,” Ethan had said. “She’s doing the best she can.” I knew that was true. But I wanted him to take my side instead of taking his “reason over emotion” approach. I wanted someone telling me how unfair it was. Tilly was doing exactly that, and then some.
Only right now, when I thought she was going to let me get away with my dig at Lanz, she said, “I know you’ve got ballet angst, but that doesn’t give you a free pass on snarkiness.”
I sank onto the lunch bench, groaning. “You’re right. It’s just … there’s something about him that …” That made my neck prickle? That made me simultaneously want to stare at him and avoid seeing him ever again? “He’s … too much.”
“I think he’s legit,” Andres said between bites of sloppy joe. “His locker’s two down from mine, and he has this Italian chocolate. Perugina? He was giving pieces to everybody in the hallway, just to be nice.”
Tilly smacked Andres’s shoulder playfully. “You think everyone who gives you free food is nice.”
“Hey! It has to be good food.” Andres laughed as Tilly and I rolled our eyes. “I’m only saying that, even with the ballet stuff, you shouldn’t blame the guy for who his mom is.”
“What?” I looked at Andres blankly. “What’s his mom got to do with anything?”
Andres glanced from me to Tilly. “Oh man. You haven’t heard. Soooooo, Lanz’s mom is the new instructor at the Marina Springs Conservatory of Dance.”
I dropped my head to the table. “Of course she is!” Mom had said the new teacher was from overseas. I looked up at my friends in disbelief. “So she’s the reason the tuition doubled!”
“She must be an amazing teacher,” Andres said, then yelped when Tilly elbowed him.
“Not helpful,” she hissed, and he shrugged apologetically.
I stood up with my lunch tray. “I’m not hungry anymore. I’m going to hang in the library until the bell.”
Tilly put out a hand to stop me. “Tell me you’re not going to torture yourself by watching Misty Copeland
