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around, doubtlessly searching for a certain football player. Her eyes shifted to a spot two inches above my left shoulder as she reached into her green leather briefcase and pulled out a chewed-up Bic pen. “Iforgot to give this back to you after I borrowed it three weeks ago. I thought you might need it for your lab.”
    â€œThanks … I guess.” I gingerly took the mangled pen from her. “Well, I have to head inside. You should probably get going too.”
    Judith nodded, looking as though she wished she could followed me into bio. She stood there as I walked through the door, and then she leaned so far over the threshold to wave good-bye that for a moment I thought she might actually fall into the classroom.
    When she finally left, I tossed the pen into the garbage and shook my head. Adam and his friends were sitting in the back, so I slid into a desk in the front row, as far away from them as possible, and didn’t look up from my notebook until after class had started. Our teacher, Mr. Phelps, announced we were doing a new project—it was time to grow baby frogs from tadpoles and observe them at all stages of life. It was going to take more than a month, and our final logbooks would be worth a third of our grade. And because my life wasn’t complicated enough already, Mr. Phelps thought it would be super fun to assign us new lab partners and pair me with—yep, you guessed it—Adam.
    Lucky me.
    I worked on keeping my face expressionless as Adam and I walked to our new lab table in the back of the room. I noticed that he’d combed his hair since I last saw him, and at that moment I decided to also place myself under the No Adam Rule, but in a No Being Friends with Adam way. I would do everything in my power to keep our conversation professional—frogs, bio, that was it. Judith’s using the gross pen as an excuse to see Adam reinforced just how much she and Meredith needed to stick to the No Adam Rule. And I couldn’t exactly ask them to keep away from Adam only to become friends with him myself, right?
    â€œHey—I never asked how your English quiz went,” Adam said as he sat down on one of the circular metal stools at our station.
    â€œIt went okay, I think.” I didn’t want to be totally rude, so I gave him a tight smile. “Thanks again for taking me through that ending.”
    â€œNo problem.” He put his elbow a couple inches away from mine on the black Formica tabletop. “I love a good story.”
    I dropped my arm into my lap. What was the matter with him? I cleared my throat and made myself sound as no-nonsense and scientific as possible.
    â€œSo, frogs.
Rana catesbeiana
,” I said briskly.
    â€œRana cat-a-what?” Adam’s lips curved into asmile as he gave me a confused look from across the counter.
    â€œ
Rana catesbeiana
.” I tapped a page in our textbook. “That’s the scientific name for the American bullfrog.”
    Adam nodded slowly, staring at me like I was crazy. Which was probably a good thing in terms of the NAR, especially if it scared him off a little.
    I was thankful when Mr. Phelps came over and placed a jar filled with dirty water on our table. Inside, a little tadpole was squirming around, flipping its tails and bumping its head against the glass.
    â€œLook at that.” Adam leaned forward to examine the tadpole as Mr. Phelps moved onto the table behind us. “Our boy. What should we name him? Kermit?”
    â€œToo obvious.” I picked up the jar and squinted at the little guy. He was slimy but cute, with big buggy eyes and the stumpy beginnings of back legs. “Why don’t we call him Bogie?”
    â€œAs in Humphrey Bogart? That’s great. I love old movies.”
    â€œYou do?” I stared at Adam in surprise. I love old movies almost as much as I love ice cream.
    â€œOf course. I loved Bogie in
The Petrified Forest
. You ever see that one?”
    I