Fifteen by Beverly Cleary

girls, boys they didn’t like much, or dates they really liked. It was, Jane felt, a very satisfactory experience.
    Jane was surprised that Stan, who had lived in Woodmont only a month, knew so many people and could call them by name. They couldn’t all have dogs that ate Doggie Diner horsemeat. Stan guided her into the only unoccupied booth, which was toward the front. Jane looked around her at the signs painted on the mirror behind the milk shake machines and remembered that only yesterday she had imagined herself sitting at the counter catching the eye of some strange boy in that mirror. Now she felt sorry for the girls who were sitting together at the counter sipping Cokes and watching the door to see who would come in next. The jukebox began to play Love Me on Monday , and Jane watched its colors turn and shift and thought how much they looked like fruits that boiled in the kettle when her mother made jam. The slow, rolling-boil stage, the cookbooks called it. Jane brushed this irrelevant thought out of her mind. She was wasting precious time that she could spend talking to Stan.
    â€œWhat would you like?” Stan asked, as Mr. Nibley himself appeared to take their order.
    â€œWell, hello there, Janey,” said Mr. Nibley jovially. “Aren’t you out pretty late?”
    Jane smiled weakly. Oh, Mr. Nibley, she thought desperately, don’t . Don’t let Stan know I don’t come in here with boys after the movies all the time. That was the trouble with a town like Woodmont.Everyone in the older part knew everything about everyone else. Mr. Nibley had known her since she had to be lifted onto a stool and he had to lean over to hand her an ice-cream cone. He probably thought she was about eleven years old now.
    As Stan asked for a chocolate shake, Jane found she was too excited to eat. “A dish of vanilla ice cream,” she said at last. Tonight a chocolate Coke float seemed too childish to order.
    â€œWhy, Janey, what’s the matter?” asked Mr. Nibley. “Don’t you like chocolate Coke floats anymore?”
    â€œI don’t feel like one tonight,” Jane said aloud. In her thoughts she was saying, Mr. Nibley, did you have to go and tell Stan what I usually order? And please go away. I want to talk to him.
    â€œSay, Janey, I just happened to think,” Mr. Nibley said. “Do you happen to know what kind of fertilizer your father is using on his begonias this year? I don’t seem to get the same results he does.”
    Fertilizer for begonias! “No, I don’t, Mr. Nibley. I never noticed,” answered Jane. Go away, Mr. Nibley, she thought. Go away .
    But when Mr. Nibley did leave, Jane found she did not know what to say. Talking to Stan when she faced him in the light was much more difficultthan talking while walking beside him in the dusk. She smiled across at Stan, who smiled back at her. Jane glanced down at the initials scratched in the paint on the table and raised her eyes again. How smooth and tan, almost golden, his skin looked. It was funny she had not noticed before that his eyelashes were thick and the crest of the dip in his hair was faded to a light brown. And on his right wrist—a strong-looking wrist—was a silver identification bracelet. Maybe someday…
    â€œYou were having quite a time with Sandra when I first saw you,” Stan remarked.
    Jane laughed. “Perfectly awful. You saved my life. I don’t know what I would have done if she had really dumped that ink all over the carpet.” This was better. Feeling more at ease, Jane told Stan about her experience with Sandra and the fly spray.
    Stan was amused. “Mrs. Norton has just as much trouble with Sandra herself,” he said. “Do you babysit often?”
    â€œOnce or twice a week,” Jane explained. “My friend Julie and I have built up a sort of business.” She did not mind telling this to Stan, because he had a part-time job