Tess floated through the doors of the school on Monday, her book bag slung over her shoulder. She said "Good morning" to students she hadn't met and teachers she didn't know, and when she got to her locker, where Jacqui was waiting, she couldn't keep the grin from her face.

"Well?" Jacqui demanded. "You didn't text me back at all yesterday!"

"You sent me six million texts, Jacqui. I think my phone overloaded." Tess fiddled with the combination lock to open her locker door and began to unload her books.

"It did not!"

"Okay, it didn't—my brain did."

Jacqi scoffed. "Come on! I'm dying. How did it go with Isaac?"

"It was great." Tess looked around the locker door and smiled. "Really great."

"What did y'all do after the movie?"

"Nothing. He just took me home—Mom wanted me home by supper time."

"And?" Jacqui raised her eyebrows.

"And what?" Tess gathered her things for her first class, glancing up at the clock on the wall.

"And did he kiss you, or what?"

Startled, Tess shut her locker a little too hard. "What? No. It was just our first date. He was a perfect gentleman the whole time."

"A little peck on the cheek don't mean he ain't a gentleman," Jacqui said. "Tess, you're so cute. So when are you seein' him again?"

Tess hugged her books to her chest and shrugged. "I don't know, but maybe soon. I hope soon. I had a really good time with him, Jacqui."

A new voice broke into their conversation. "Hey, Tess!"

It was Isaac. Tess's heart leapt into her throat. At first, she was afraid Isaac might have overheard her conversation with Jacqui—but, thank goodness, he was halfway across the hall. She waved at him as he wove through the current of students toward them. "Good morning, Isaac."

"Hope you had a good rest of your weekend. Hey." Isaac nodded to Jacqui.

"This is Jacqui," Tess said.

"They stick the new kids close together. Safety in numbers," Jacqui said, gesturing at her locker. "Nice to meet you. Sorry to run, but I gotta get to class." Throwing Tess a grin, Jacqui darted around Isaac and disappeared into the flow of students making their way to their first classes.

As embarrassing as Jacqui's apparent interest in her love life was, Tess could not help but smile. Jacqui was a good friend, showing all the enthusiasm and excitement Tess was too shy to express herself. Tess made a mental note to be just as over-the-top if Jacqui wound up with a crush.

She was drawn back into the moment by Isaac, who gestured with his books. "Walk you to class?"

"Are you sure? It's so far out of your way," Tess joked, beginning to walk toward the Spanish class they shared.

Isaac laughed. "I don't mind, he said. "Hey, I had a really good time Saturday. I mean, I told you then, but I just wanted to remind you."

"I did, too. Thank you for taking me to the movie. It was really good."

"We should hang out again sometime."

"Yeah." Tess tried to keep herself from bouncing as she walked. Play it cool. "Maybe I can treat you to Pizza Guys?"

Isaac opened his mouth in mock surprise. "What? You basically read my mind."

They'd reached the door to the Spanish classroom, where Señora López stood greeting the students who filtered in, the ever-present mug of coffee in one hand. "We can figure it out?" suggested Tess.

"Sure, we can figure it out. Buenos días, Señora," Isaac said, returning their teacher's greeting. He followed Tess into the classroom and sidled to his seat, glancing back at her once and grinning that dimpled grin. Tess's mind was swimming with glee when she took her place at her own desk.

Hours floated by. The trials of conjugation in Spanish, the puzzles of a new unit in Calc, and the endless buzz of voices in the halls during their passing periods hardly drew Tess's notice.

She was happy—really happy—for the first time in as long as she could remember, and she had never felt quite like this before. Her heart leapt each time she thought of Isaac. She hardly wanted to think of anything but her date with him, how he'd been so kind to her, and how he made her feel. The stress of schoolwork had, amazingly, faded into the background.

At lunch, she poked at her serving of an unidentifiable casserole.

"I know you're all wondering: it went really well," Jacqui announced out of the blue. "I am, of course, talking about Tess's date with Isaac, which she totally had on Saturday."

Tess blushed. "Jacqui, seriously?"

"Ooo," said Amy. "What'd you do?"

Smiling at Amy, Tess said, "We went to see the new Thor movie."

"Really? Zack and I went to see that last weekend! Did you—"

But Mackenzie cut Amy off. "I have been wanting to see that movie for ages. Can I just say that Christopher Hemsworth is the hottest famous Chris?"

This elicited some giggles from everyone at the table—everyone except for Tisha, who did not seem to be interested in the conversation. Tess caught Tisha looking at her and, feeling strangely embarrassed, she broke eye contact right away.

"Hey," Zack said, nudging Amy with a wounded look. "Hemsworth? Really?"

She shrugged. "Sorry, babe. Have you seen his hair?"

"Or his everything else?" Jacqui added, popping a slice of mandarin orange into her mouth.

Saved by Mackenzie's deft switch of topics, Tess simply allowed the conversation to follow its new course, nodding in all the right places as everyone debated the merits of each famous Chris they knew.

After lunch was Chem, and then came Lit. Tess plodded through analysis of another chapter of The Scarlet Letter. Although she often had students read, which made Tess sick with nerves, Ms. Keene read the chapter that day; she had a way of lending drama and emotion to the story when she read aloud that almost made it interesting to Tess. When the chapter reading was done, their assignment was to define a list of antiquated vocabulary words using context clues from the book. Tess was so glad she'd be able to use words like abstruse, dearth, and emolument. They'd sure come in handy.

Then the bell rang, and the capstone of the afternoon arrived: Senior English. Tess stayed in her seat, waiting as the rest of her classmates filed in one-by-one. She waived at Jacqui, who waved back with a grin.

When the bell rang again to signal the start of class, Ms. Keene held a stack of papers up above her head.

"All right, class," she called. "Remember these? You're dying to get your research proposals back, I just know it."

She began to make her rounds, passing the graded assignments back to each person. "For the most part, very good work. Some of you have some work to do, but keep in mind that this is the first assignment. We have time to learn. I will request a revised research proposal to be turned in along with your list of sources; if the revision changes your grade substantively, I'll record the second grade. It will demonstrate not only your commitment to academic excellence—" and here Ms. Keene paused good-naturedly to allow for the few chuckles that circulated the room— "But also your understanding of the concepts and ability to integrate the feedback. Make sense?"

Tess had been anxious about her proposal, but her day had been going well, and Ms. Keene's comments were encouraging. As she looked around the class, Tess saw a variety of expressions on the faces of her peers; some were musing over their grades or Ms. Keene's comments, their brows knit, while others were grinning and whispering to one another. Tess couldn't assess whether the reactions were good or bad.

Nevertheless, when Ms. Keene placed Tess's proposal on her desk, face-down, Tess was feeling optimistic. Then she turned the paper over.

There was no grade at the top. Instead, a neat, cursive message in red ink requested, Tess: Please see me after class.