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wheels. Besides that, you were doing great. It’s not a blossoming Japanese cherry bush.” I froze, then pulled my arm away. “It’s some kind of super weed. We have them all over the backyard, too. They smell like feet and get these wicked spikes on them in the summer. You can run it over again if you want.”
    I stared at him in shock. I couldn’t believe he’d done that to me. How was it possible for somebody to be so nice at times and so aggravating at others?
    “Oh man,” he said, catching my look. “You’re mad at me again.” He pulled his hat down over his eyes, then pulled it up a little, peeking out at me, trying to be cute. “You hate me. Again . I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just that, you looked so serious. I had to tease you. Okay. I’m the one who’s an idiot.”
    I didn’t disagree.
    “See you tomorrow,” I said instead, giving him a small, tight smile. We were at T-minus twelve days to my driving test. I needed him, and there was no use being mad all the time, even if he was mostly infuriating. “And, thanks for the lesson,” I added, rather generously I thought. “It wasn’t totally horrible.”
    He nodded. “I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess. And, hey, next time, if you straighten the wheels, you’ll nail it. Then you’ll be, like, the Baryshnikov of backing in.”
    I turned my back so he wouldn’t see me smiling for real and headed toward my house. “Hey, wait,” he said. I stopped, one foot deep in the snowbank between our driveways. “About this panda party. You going with anyone?”
    It either said something about my total lack of interest in dating, or the fact that my nerves were still a little shot from the rare Japanese shrub incident . . . but I didn’t even understand the question. “Depends if I pass my road test. I’m still betting it’s a fifty-fifty chance I’ll fail—no offense to your teaching skills. I might get my mom to drive me.”
    “No. I mean, going with someone . Like, your boyfriend?”
    I actually laughed. “Uh-uh. I mean. No. I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m not going out with anyone. But I’m sure you can bring someone if you want.” I hesitated, knowing that if he showed up with some other girl it would ruin Dina’s entire Valentine’s Day. “But, then again, Dina will probably need a lot of help setting up and everything. If you didn’t bring a date, then maybe you could help out more.”
    “Sure,” he said. “Yeah, no problem. I’m not going out with anyone either. And I’m good at pouring chips into bowls and putting up streamers and stuff.” He leaned down and picked up a mitten full of snow, formed it into a ball, and threw it softly against his grandfather’s garage door. “How come you don’t have a boyfriend?” he asked, reaching down to pick up some more snow. “Is your mom really strict or something?”
    “No.” I wiggled my toes inside my boots to keep them warm. “No, trust me. My mom would love it if I was going out with someone. She thinks I study too much. I don’t date because . . .” I trailed off. I’d known Patrick all of three days. He didn’t need to hear the gory details of the Matt Love heartbreak. “It’s complicated,” I finished. “Or, no. Wait. It’s not complicated at all. Men are pigs.” I realized a second too late that I’d just insulted his entire half of our species. “High school guys, especially. I mean, not all of them. Obviously. But ninety-eight percent.”
    “Is that a scientific fact?” he asked.
    “Pretty much,” I answered.
    “Well, what about the other two percent?”
    “The other two percent are really hard to find.”
    “They do exist though,” he countered.
    “Right,” I said sarcastically, then I stepped out of the snowbank and lifted a branch of the totally smushed, totally not-rare spike-weed with the toe of my boot. “I’ll believe that when I actually meet one.”
    I had Sunday off, so my mom and I spent the day unpacking the last