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"Jeez!" she says, surrounded "Scare a girl half to death, why don’t you"

Cabel Stru walk," says Cabel "You, uh"--he clears his throat--"okay?"

"Fine," she says "You?" She doesn’t re hi Janie’s shoes frolass an’ shit"

Janie looks at the board, and then up at hi a knit beanie with a hole in it "I don’t kno"

He flashes a half grin Shoves a long black lock of hair under the beanie "Just stand Bend Balance I’ll push you"

She blinks Gets on the board

Weird

This is not happening

They don’t talk

The guys weave in and out the rest of the way, and take off at the corner by Janie’s house Cabel pushes her to her front porch so she can hop off He sets her shoes on the step, picks up the board, nods, and catches up with his friends

"Thanks, Cabel," Janie says, but he’s gone in the dark already "That eet," she adds, to no one

They don’t acknowledge each other, or the event, for a very long time IN EARNEST

February 1, 2005

Janie is seventeen

A boy nalish class Janie watches his head nodding froh the roos for lunch Too athers her books, and rushes for the door "I feel sick," she says to the teacher The teacher nods understandingly Melinda Jeffers snickers from the back row Janie leaves the rooainst the cool tile wall, takes a deep breath, goes into the girls’ bathroom, and hides in a stall

Nobody ever sleeps in the bathroom

Flashback--January 9, 1998

It’s Janie’s tenth birthday Tanya Weersma falls asleep in school, her head on her pencil box She is floating, gliding And then she is falling Falling into a gorge The face of a cliff strea speed Tanya looks at Janie and screams Janie closes her eyes and feels sick They startle at the sah

Janie decides not to hand out her precious birthday treat, after all