“What’s the rush?” he wanted to know.

  “Uh,” I said. Maybe I hadn’t heard him right. Did he actually want me to stick around? “No rush. I just figured you wanted to be alone. And my dad’s expecting me to call. For a ride home.”

  “I’ll give you a ride home,” Will said, climbing to his feet, and pulling me up with him…so unexpectedly that I sort of started to lose my balance, and wobbled a little on top of the boulder….

  Until Will put out his other hand, grabbing me by the waist to steady me.

  We stood that way for a heartbeat or two, his hand around my waist, the other holding my wrist, our faces just inches apart.

  If someone had seen us, they’d probably thought we were dancing. Two crazy teenagers, dancing on top of a boulder.

  I wonder if they’d have suspected that one of the teenagers—namely, me—wanted to stay in this position forever, memorize every line of that face so close to mine, reach out and stroke that soft dark hair, kiss those lips that were hovering just inches above mine. Was Will thinking the same things? I couldn’t tell, and I was looking right into those fathomless blue eyes. I thought I felt something—something indescribable—pass between us.

  But I must have been wrong, because a second later, Will was saying, “You all right, there, now?” and letting go of my waist and hand.

  “Sure,” I said, laughing nervously. “Sorry.”

  Except that I wasn’t sorry. Especially since both places he’d touched me were tingling, like they’d been scorched…only in a good way.

  We started to climb from the ravine, Will leading the way, politely holding back brambles and giving me a hand up the steeper parts, which were hard to climb in my running shoes. If he noticed how, every time his fingers met mine, sparks seemed to shoot up my arm, he didn’t let on. Instead, he talked about my parents.

  Yeah. My parents.

  “You three are funny together,” was what Will said.

  “We are?”

  This was news to me. I mean, I know my dad looks funny, with his Dork Strap and all. But he hadn’t even been wearing that when Will came over. And my mom’s not particularly humorous-looking. She’s actually pretty attractive. Until she opens her mouth about broad clear brows and all of that.

  “Yeah,” Will said. “The way they teased you about keeping the pool filters so clean. And the way you razzed them back about the snake. That was funny. I could never joke around with my dad like that. All he ever wants to talk to me about is where I’m going to go to school next year.”

  “Oh,” I said, relieved we were off the subject of my parents. “That’s right. You’re graduating in the spring.”

  “Yeah. And my dad wants me to go to the Academy.”

  Which was the local shorthand, I’d learned, for the Naval Academy. Only nobody ever calls it by its full name around here. It’s just “the Academy.”

  I wondered what it would be like to have a dad who was in the military, and, you know, organized. I bet Will’s dad would never make him a sack lunch that included potato salad.

  On the other hand, I bet Will’s dad wouldn’t have just ignored the air hose warning on the inflatable rafts.

  “Well,” I said, wondering how Will would look in one of those white uniforms I saw the middies wearing around town. Pretty good, I guessed. Really good, actually. “It’s an excellent school. One of the hardest to get into in the country, and all.”

  “I know,” Will said, with a shrug, as he held back a particularly thorny branch for me to pass under. “And I’ve got the grades and test scores and everything. But I’m not so sure I want to go into the military, you know? Visit new places. Meet new people. And kill them.”

  “Well,” I said, again. “Yeah. I could see how that could suck. Did you, um, mention that? To your dad?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “And?” I asked, when Will didn’t say anything else. “How’d he take it?”

  Will gave another shrug. “He pretty much freaked.”

  “Oh,” I said. I thought about my own dad. He and Mom were always telling Geoff and me to become professors because professors get summers off and only have to teach a course or two a semester.

  But I would rather eat glass than have to write academic papers all the time like Mom and Dad do. And I tell them so, regularly.

  But they don’t freak when I say it.

  “Well,” I said. “What do you want to do instead?”

  “I don’t know,” Will said. “My dad says Wagner men have always been in the military”—he raised his hands and made quotation marks in the air as he added sarcastically—“making a difference in the world.” Then he dropped his hands. “And I want to make a difference in the world. I really do. But I don’t want to do it by blowing people up.”

  I thought about the little scene I’d witnessed in the hallway that day at school, and the way Will had handled Rick. It seemed to me like he was already making a difference in the world.

  “I can understand that,” I said.

  “Sorry,” Will said with a sudden laugh, running one of his hands through his dark hair. “I shouldn’t complain. My dad wants me to go to one of the best schools in the country, which he’s completely willing to pay for and which I shouldn’t have any trouble getting into. Everyone should have my problems, right?”

  “Well,” I said. “It kind of is a problem, if the only school your dad’s willing to pay for is the one you don’t want to go to…. Especially, you know, if you don’t want to be in the military. Because shooting off guns and stuff seems like a big part of being at the Academy. At least judging by all the noise I hear from the gunnery every day.”

  “Yeah,” Will said. We’d reached the footpath by then. A lady walking a Jack Russell terrier hurried past us, clearly freaked by the fact that we had been in the woods, since she refused to look at either of us as she passed by in her pink jogging suit.

  I glanced at Will to see if he’d noticed, and saw him grinning.

  “Probably thinks we were in there making a sacrifice to Satan,” he said, when the lady had power-walked out of hearing distance.

  “And her dog’s our next victim,” I agreed.

  Will laughed. We emerged from the woods, and headed toward the parking lot and Will’s car. After the darkness of the forest, the last rays of the setting sun seemed especially bright. They seemed to be setting the baseball diamond on fire. There was a hint of smoke in the air, from someone’s barbecue. Crickets, just getting started on their evening serenade, trilled.

  “Listen,” Will said, breaking the companionable silence into which we’d fallen. “What are you doing Saturday night?”

  “Saturday?” I blinked at him. It was true those crickets were loud. But I didn’t think they were loud enough for me to have mistaken the question.

  Because it had sounded…well, it certainly sounded to me as if Will were about to ask me out.

  “I’m having a party,” he went on.

  Or maybe not.

  “A party?” I asked stupidly.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Saturday night. After the game.” I must have looked blank, since he smiled and added, “The football game? Avalon against Broadneck? You’re going, aren’t you?”

  “Oh,” I said. I had never been to a football game in my life. You know that eating glass thing? Yeah, I’d much rather do that than watch a football game.

  Unless, of course, A. William Wagner happened to be playing in it.

  “Sure, I’m going,” I said, wondering frantically what one wears to a football game.

  “Great. Anyway, I’m having a party afterwards,” he said. “At my house. A back-to-school thing. Can you come?”

  I stared at him. I’d never been invited to a party before. Well, not by a boy, anyway. Nancy used to have parties, but no one ever came to them except our other friends, who were all girls. Sometimes at my old school a guy on the men’s track team would have a party and invite everyone on the women’s team. But we’d all just end up standing around while the boys ignored us and hit on whatever cheerleaders had shown up.

  I wondered if Will’s party would be that kind of party, and if so, why he’d bothered singling me out for an invitation.

  “Um,” I said, trying to think up an excuse why I couldn’t go. On the one hand, I desperately wanted to see where Will lived. I wanted to know everything about him.

  On the other hand, I had a pretty good feeling Jennifer Gold would be there. And did I really want to watch Will with another girl? Not so much.

  Will must have sensed my hesitation—sensed it, and misinterpreted it—since he went, “Don’t worry, it won’t be wild, or anything. My parents’ll be there. Come on, you’ll like it. It’s a pool party. You can bring your raft.”

  I couldn’t help smiling at that.

  Or at the friendly fashion in Will elbowed me in the side as he said it.

  Oh yes. I was that far gone that even the guy’s elbow seemed hot.

  “Okay,” I heard myself saying. “I’ll be there. Um, without my raft, though. It has a curfew. It has to be home by nine.”

  He grinned. Then, looking past me, said, “Oh, hey. Want some lemonade?”

  I glanced in the direction he was pointing, and saw that some kids—whose small, somewhat rundown house sat on the edge of the park’s property—had set up a folding table with a large hand-drawn poster hanging from it that said LEMONAID: 25 CENTS.

  “C’mon,” Will said. “I’ll buy you a lemonade.”

  “Whoa,” I joked. “Big spender.”

  He was grinning as we approached the table, which someone had gone to great trouble to decorate with a checkered tablecloth and a small, half-blown garden rose in a vase, along with the inevitable plastic pitcher and collection of Dixie cups. The three kids behind the table, the eldest of whom could only have been nine, perked up at the sight of customers.

  “Wanna buy some lemonade?” they chorused.

  “Is it any good?” Will teased the kids. “I’m not spending a whole quarter on it if it isn’t the best lemonade in town.”

  “It is!” the kids shrieked. “It’s the best! We made it ourselves!”

  “I don’t know,” Will said, feigning skepticism. He looked at me. “What do you think?”

  I shrugged. “Might as well try it.”

  “Try it, try it,” cried the kids. The oldest one said, assuming authority over the situation, “Look, we’ll give you a taste, and if you like it, you can buy a cup.”

  Will appeared to think about this. Then he said, “Okay, deal.”

  The oldest kid poured a small amount of lemonade into a cup, then handed it to Will, who made a big deal out of smelling it first, then swishing it around in his mouth the way wine tasters do.

  The kids ate it up. They were giggling, loving every minute of the show.

  As, I have to admit, was I. Well, how could I not?

  “Nice bouquet,” Will said, after he’d finally swallowed. “Tangy, and not too sweet. A most excellent year for lemonade, obviously. We’ll take two cups.”

  “Two cups!” the kids cried, scrambling to fill them. “They’ll take two cups!”

  When the cups were filled, Will took one and presented it to me with a flourish.

  “Why, thank you,” I said, curtsying back to him.

  “My pleasure,” he said, and reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, drew out a black leather wallet, from which he pulled a five-dollar bill.

  “And you three,” he said to the kids, placing the bill on the table, “can keep the change, if you’ll give me that rose there.”

  The kids stared, goggle-eyed, at the five. The oldest one recovered herself most quickly, and plucked the rose from the vase and thrust it at him.

  “Here,” she said. “Take it.”

  Will did so, with a polite “Thank you.” Then he picked up his cup of lemonade, and turned to go, while behind him, the kids tried to smother their delighted giggles and cries of “Five dollars! That’s more’n we’ve made all day!”

  Grinning, I fell into step beside Will as we headed toward his car. “You know they’re just going to spend that money on candy that’ll rot their teeth,” I informed him.

  “I know,” he said, looking straight ahead, even as he did what he did next. Which was to hand me the rose. “For you.”

  I looked down at the rose—so tiny and pink and perfect—in astonishment.

  “Oh,” I said, suddenly consumed with embarrassment. “I couldn’t. I mean—”

  He turned his head to look at me then, and I saw laughter on his lips.

  But not, strangely, in his eyes. His gaze was strong and steady on mine, the way his voice had been earlier that day, when he’d spoken to Rick. It was clear the time for joking around was done.

  “Elle,” he said. “Just take it.”

  I took it.

  It was the first flower any boy had ever given me.

  Which was why, even after he dropped me off at home and drove away, it was hours before my heart started to beat anything like normally again.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  She left the web, she left the loom,

  She made three paces thro’ the room,

  She saw the water-lily bloom,

  She saw the helmet and the plume,

  She look’d down to Camelot.

  As I studied up on old Arthur for my World Lit project that evening—which wasn’t easy, considering that I’d put Will’s rose in a vase by my bed, and my gaze kept straying over to it every two minutes or so—I found out a few surprising things. Such as the stuff from the musical Camelot—which my mom loves, and has made me listen to ten thousand times—like how King Arthur performed all of these heroic feats, basically bringing his people out of the Dark Ages and defending them against the Saxons and stuff? And how he had this arranged marriage with this princess named Guinevere, and how she eventually ditched him for his favorite knight, Lancelot (who, in turn, ditched Elaine of Astolat, the Lady of Shalott, for Guinevere, causing Elaine to become the subject of my mom’s new book)?

  That stuff probably really happened.

  Except that Lancelot didn’t end up killing Arthur over Guinevere: Arthur’s half brother (or son, according to some translations), Mordred, took care of that. See, Mordred was all jealous of Arthur’s accomplishments, and of him being such a beloved king and all, so he plotted to kill him and take over the throne—even marrying Queen Guinevere himself at some point, according to a few sources….

  The Pendragons were way dysfunctional as far as families go. Jerry Springer would have loved them.

  Wild horses wouldn’t have gotten me to admit this in front of my parents, but the whole Arthur thing was kind of cool. The reason there’ve been so many movies and books and poems and musicals written about King Arthur—not to mention high schools like Avalon named after the mythical island he eventually went to die on—is that his story is a good illustration of the heroic theory of history: that an individual—not an army; not a god; not a superhero; just a regular Joe—can permanently alter the course of world events.

  Which is why, according to another one of my mom’s books, there’s this whole society—I am not making this up—of people who think that Arthur, whose body was sent to the now nonexistent island of Avalon by the Lady of the Lake, is actually asleep, not dead, and is destined to wake again only when he is most needed.

  Seriously. This band of losers calls itself the Order of the Bear, the Bear having been King Arthur’s nickname. They think that Arthur’s going to wake up one day and lead the modern-day world out of the Dark Ages and into a new age of enlightenment, just like he did fifteen hundred years ago. The only thing keeping him from waking, according to the members of the Order of the Bear, are the forces of darkness.

  Um. Okay.

  I tried not to let my skepticism about the existence of forces of darkness show in the outline I wrote for our report for Mr. Morton’s class, though.

  And I definitely didn’t mention to my parents that I was doing a project on King Arthur. Because I knew that in their enthusiasm for the subject matter, they’d start chucking source materials at me until I ran screaming from the house. Some things parents are just better off not knowing.

  Like the track thing. I never bothered mentioning to them that I was worried about making it onto the Avalon High School women’s track team. I was glad I hadn’t, too, when it turned out rumors about the speed of certain freshwomen proved to be greatly exaggerated. I made it onto the team at tryouts the next day with ease.

  Liz was psyched, and high-fived me when the coach read off my name. Although later, while we were waiting for Stacy, another girl on the team who turned out to live nearby and had promised to give us a ride home, Liz warned me about the initiation.

  “It’s just this stupid thing Cathy thought up,” she said. Cathy was apparently the team captain, whom I’d met only briefly. “They’ll come in the middle of the night—well, really about ten—and kidnap you, and take you to Storm Brothers and make you eat a Moose Tracks sundae.”

  Since this sounded like the kind of initiation I might enjoy—no cat food or raw animal parts involved—I wasn’t too alarmed.

  But then Liz said they’d probably do it on Saturday.

  “That’s a problem,” I said. “I’m going to Will Wagner’s pool party after the Broadneck game.”

  Liz just stared at me.

  “YOU got invited to Will Wagner’s pool party?” She sounded completely stunned. Stunned enough that I immediately felt uncomfortable about the whole thing.

  “Well,” I said, “yeah. I mean, he invited me.”

  “When?” Liz asked, still sounding stunned.

  “Yesterday,” I said. “I ran into him running in Anne Arundel Park. Well, I was running. He was sitting—”

  “—on that rock?” Liz shook her head. “Oh my God. I’d heard the rumors, of course. But I didn’t think they were true.”