Fifteen by Beverly Cleary Page B

student body president type, but he was the kind of boy who would get elected to things—room representative or even president of the Hi-Y. And she was only a girl who wrote “My Experiences as a Babysitter” for Manuscript and didn’t get elected to anything.
    Stan glanced at his watch. “Well, we’d better go, Jane,” he said, “if I’m going to get you home by ten thirty.”
    â€œOh, too bad,” said Marcy, her glance lingering on Stan as if his having to take Jane home spoiled her evening. “Bye now.”
    Stan hurried Jane home so fast there was no chance to talk until they were standing in the dim circle cast by the Purdys’ porch light. “Four seconds to spare,” said Stan, and smiled down at Jane.
    Jane looked at him uncertainly. “I had a wonderful time,” she said hesitantly, and opened the door. Please, Stan, she thought, I like you so much. SayI’ll see you again. “Well…good night, Stan.”
    â€œGood night, Jane,” he answered. “I’ll be seeing you.”
    Jane stepped inside the house and stood looking at Stan under the porch light. A halo of moths circled the bulb over his head. “Well, good night,” she repeated, careful to keep wistfulness and disappointment out of her voice. “I’ll be seeing you” could mean anything. Or nothing.
    â€œGood night, Jane,” he said again, and, turning, started down the steps.
    Jane closed the door behind her. Her date with Stan was over. She had had a good time in a miserable sort of way. She was proud of Stan and to be with him was a pleasure, but she had been so awkward about everything and he had been so assured, as if he were used to taking girls to the movies all the time. She wondered if he had enjoyed the evening at all. That he would be seeing her told her nothing. It could mean Stan planned to ask her for another date, or it could mean he would say, “Hi,” when he happened to run into her on the street.
    Jane switched off the porch light and the lamp her mother had left on in the living room, and looked out the front window into the night. If onlyshe didn’t feel so dreadfully young! She wished so much not to be fifteen—to be old enough to be casual about a boy and to order coffee instead of vanilla ice cream. Fifteen was such an uncomfortable age to be when she liked a boy like Stan, a boy who was trusted with his father’s car sometimes. Well, it was probably all over. Now that Stan had seen how young she was, he could not possibly be interested in another date—not when he was used to Marcy’s crowd.
    Something shadowy moving in the front yard caught Jane’s eye. Puzzled, she peered through the darkness until she was able to separate the moving thing from the shrubs and tree shadows. It was Stan. Stan was still in the front yard! He appeared to be struggling with something in the firethorn bushes on the other side of the steps. The streetlight, obscured by trees, was so dim that she could not see what he was doing. What can he be doing, she wondered, and gasped in disbelief when Stan moved out onto the lawn and she was able to see him more clearly. What she saw could not really be taking place. But there it was. Stan was wheeling a bicycle that he had freed from the thorny shrubs. Now he mounted it and pedaled down the street in the direction of Poppy Lane. Jane stood staringafter him; when he turned the corner she could hear him whistling Love Me on Monday . A bicycle! Stan had ridden a bicycle over to her house.
    When Jane had partially recovered from her astonishment, she suddenly saw the whole evening in an entirely different light. A boy who rode a bicycle to a girl’s house and hid it in the shrubbery while he took her to the movies could not be so sure of himself, after all. Probably he had to be in early too and had bicycled over to save time, and had worried about the Purdys’ seeing him