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"Hey Yeah" Janie blows her nose loudly in some toilet paper to prove it

"You look like hell," Carrie says "Your nose is all red"

"Thank you"

Carrie sits on the couch next to Janie

"Funny…Cabel looks like hell too," she says lightly

"You sure you don’t have so you want to tell me?"

"Pretty sure, yeah"

Carrie pouts Then, she ruffles through her backpack and pulls out a folded piece of paper She tosses it on the coffee table "This is fro, are you?"

Janie looks at Carrie "Ha-ha"

"Well, jeez Whatever it is, it’s got to be a big deal to keep you horade And, sorry to say, you ht look like shit, but I don’t think you’re sick"

"Think what you want," Janie says dully "I think you have to have sex in order to get pregnant, last I heard"

"Aha, so it’s a sex thing!" Carrie shouts triurins "You knohere to find me Sex tips and advice--just holler out the "

Janie holds back an urge to strangle her "Good-bye," she says pointedly

"Okay, okay I can take a hint" She heads to the door and turns back to Janie, a curious expression on her face

"This, by chance, doesn’t have anything to do with Cabel s this weekend, does it?" She blinks rapidly, grinning

"What?"

"He’s sort of a dealer, I guess--or, you know One of those guys orks as a go-between Whatever they’re called So Shay danced with hih I heard he got busted Is that true?"

Janie’s sto to be sick

"No," Janie says slowly, "it doesn’t have anything to do with that" Tears well up in the corners of her eyes and she presses theers

Carrie’s face falls "Oh, shit, Janie You didn’t know"

Janie shakes her head numbly

She doesn’t notice when Carrie leaves

October 19, 2005, 2:45 a with herself She knows she shouldn’t do it But she has nothing to lose

Feeling like a total creep, she gets dressed and slips out of the house Runs softly through the yards,

avoiding the houses with dogs

Sneaks up to Cabel’s house and sits outside his bedrooainst the house and waits The bricks snag her sweatshirt It’s chilly She puts her ets terribly bored

5:01 a like a cri

7:36 aathers her schoolbooks from the coffee table The note is still there, where Carrie left it She hesitates, and then opens it