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She saw him after seventh hour in a place she’d never seen hi a micro-scope down the hall on the third floor It was at least twice as nice as seeing him somewhere she expected hi lunch to tell her that Eleanor was co over His counselor let hiood in a crisis, so all Park had to do was iency)

‘I just wanted to tell you that Eleanor is co over after school,’ he told his ht’

‘Fine,’ histhat she was okay with it ‘Is she staying for dinner?’

‘I don’t know,’ Park said ‘Probably not’

His hed

‘You have to be nice to her, you know’

‘I’m nice to everybody,’ his mom said ‘You know that’

He could tell Eleanor was nervous on the bus

She was quiet, and she kept running her bottoo white, so that you could see that her lips had freckles, too

Park tried to get her to talk about Watchmen; they’d just read the fourth chapter ‘What do you think of the pirate story?’ he asked

‘What pirate story?’

‘You know, there’s that character who’s always reading a comic book about pirates, the story within the story, the pirate story’

‘I always skip that part,’ she said

‘You skip it?’

‘It’s boring Blah, blah, blah – pirates! – blah, blah, blah’

‘Nothing Alan Moore writes can be blah-blah-blahed,’ Park said sole to think you shouldn’t have started reading comics with a book that coenre,’ he said

‘All I’enre’

The bus stopped near Eleanor’s house She looked at hiht?’

Eleanor shrugged again

They got off at his stop, along with Steve and Tina and most of the people who sat at the back of the bus All the back-of-the-bus kids hung out in Steve’s garage when he wasn’t at work, even in winter

Park and Eleanor trailed behind them

‘I’m sorry I look so stupid today,’ she said

‘You look like you always do,’ he said Her bag was hanging at the end of her arm He tried to take it, but she pulled away

‘I always look stupid?’

‘That’s not what I meant …’

‘It’s what you said,’ she ht now Like, anytime but now She could be mad at him for no reason all day toirl feel special,’ Eleanor said

‘I’ve never pretended to know anything about girls,’ he answered

‘That’s not what I heard,’ she said ‘I heard you were allowed to have girl- zzz in your room

…’

‘They were there,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t learn anything’

They both stopped on his porch He took her bag fro down the walk, like she ht bolt

‘I meant that you don’t look any different than you usually look,’ he said softly, just in case hison the other side of the door ‘And you always look nice’

‘I never look nice,’ she said Like he was an idiot

‘I like the way you look,’ he said It caument than a co, too

‘Fine then, you look like a hobo’

‘A hobo?’ Her eyes lit

‘Yeah, a gypsy hobo,’ he said ‘You look like you just joined the cast of Godspell’

‘I don’t even knohat that is’

‘It’s terrible’

She stepped closer to him ‘I look like a hobo?’

‘Worse,’ he said ‘Like a sad hobo clown’

‘And you like it?’

‘I love it’

As soon as he said it, she broke into a s broke inside of hiood thing that Park’sabout kissing hiood idea – Eleanor didn’t know the first thing about kissing

Of course, she’d watched a million kisses on TV (thank you, Fonzie), but TV never showed you the mechanics of it If Eleanor tried to kiss Park, it would be like a real-life version of so their faces together

Besides, if Park’s , aard kiss, she’d hate Eleanor even more

Park’s mom did hate her, you could tell Orher firstborn son right in her own living room

Eleanor followed Park in and sat down She tried to look extra polite When his reat, thank you’ Hissoht out cookies, then left them alone

Park seemed so happy Eleanor tried to con-centrate on how nice it was to be with hi too ether

It was the little things about Park’s house that really freaked her out Like all the glass grapes hanging fro And the curtains that matched the sofa that matched the little doily-napkins under the larow up in a house as nice and boring as this one

– but Park was the suy she’d ever met, and this was his home planet

Eleanor wanted to feel superior to Park’sabout how nice it must be to live in a house like this one With your own room And your own parents And six different kinds of cookies in the cupboard

Park

Eleanor was right She never looked nice She looked like art, and art wasn’t supposed to look nice; it was supposed tonext to him on the couch made Park feel like someone had opened ain the middle of the room Like someone had replaced all the air in the room with brand new, im-proved air (noith twice the freshness)

EleanorEven when they were just sitting on the couch

She wouldn’t let him hold her hand, not in his house, and she wouldn’t stay for dinner But she agreed to come back tomorrow – if his parents said it was okay, which they did

Hison the charhbors, but she wasn’t being rude either And if she wanted to hide in the kitchen every tiative

Eleanor caain on Thursday afternoon and Friday And on Saturday, while they were playing Nintendo with Josh, his dad asked her to stay for dinner