Bingo Brown's Guide to Romance by Betsy Byars

steps. At that moment a car had pulled into the driveway. Bingo and Wentworth stopped to watch.
    The backseat of the car had been so filled with girls of assorted ages and sizes that Bingo couldn’t be sure Melissa was one of them. She was. She was the third girl out of the car. Weezie was the fourth. The rest of the girls kept coming, like clowns piling out of a circus car.
    Weezie had seen them and at once threw up her hands for protection. “Don’t look at my hair. It looks awful. Melissa, don’t let them look at my hair. Don’t look!”
    Melissa had gotten between Weezie and the boys on the steps, and they ran into the house.
    It had been so sudden that Bingo and Wentworth continued to stand there, stunned, while the rest of the girls passed by.
    Finally, Bingo had called, “Melissa!”
    And Wentworth had helped with, “Come on out, Melissa, or Bingo’s going to leave.”
    Silence.
    â€œAnd he’s not coming back either.”
    Silence.
    â€œAnd bring the Weez with you, or I’m leaving with him.”
    In a lower voice, Wentworth had said, “Do you think they’re coming out?”
    â€œI don’t know, what do you think?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYou’ve got a sister,” Bingo said finally. “Would she come out?”
    â€œMy sister would never have gone in. Her hair looks like that all the time.”
    Still they had waited. And as Bingo stood there, trapped by desire and confusion, he had made a firm, mature decision. He would never attempt to see Melissa again—ever!
    â€œI’m leaving,” Bingo had said then.
    â€œI’m right behind you.”
    And now, twenty-four hours later, he was ready to skip class and rush through the empty halls in the hope of catching a glimpse of her.
    The class had begun to discuss The Red Badge of Courage. Bingo got out his book.
    Mamie Lou was saying, “You know what I don’t understand, Mr. Rodrigo? You know how everyone is always telling us to write about what we know? Well, Stephen Crane wasn’t writing about what he knew. He never even went to war!”
    Usually Bingo liked to jump in with an opinion, but he had only read chapter one, and it had taken him all evening to read that.
    The trouble was that Bingo had kept coming to sentences so full of meaning that they would send him off on a personal detour. He would read, “The youth was in a little trance of astonishment.” And he would be taken back to Health Supplies, where he, himself, had suffered a little trance of astonishment. And he would relive the little trance in detail.
    He would force himself to read on, but he would come to something like, “He departed feeling vague relief,” and he would be leaving Weezie’s yesterday with his own vague relief.
    He would read about the youth feeling gratitude for the words of his comrade, and he would again hear Wentworth saying, “I’m right behind you.”
    He would read of the youth staring steadfastly at the dark girl while she stared up through the high tree branches at the sky, and he would be staring steadfastly at Melissa, who was staring steadfastly at her shoes.
    â€œWell, El Bingo, the Gringo, is strangely silent today,” Mr. Rodrigo said.
    Bingo glanced up from his book. “I haven’t gotten as far in the book as the rest of the class,” he explained.
    â€œYou’re my fastest reader, Bingo. You’re always leading the pack.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œSo what? It didn’t grab you?”
    â€œIt wasn’t that. I kept … stopping to think.”
    An amused murmur came from some of the gifted and talented who rarely did that themselves.
    Mr. Rodrigo ignored them. “So you were simpático with the main character?”
    Bingo thought about it. “I guess. I kept coming to these sentences that seemed to fit … me.”
    â€œSo, class—no, put your hand down, Mamie