Minerva Clark Goes to the Dogs by Karen Karbo Page B

Kevin to “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” which is so lame and sappy, but I didn’t care. Even though everyone was sweaty from dancing, he still smelled like soap and chlorine, like all swimmers do. Then I thought about how he kissed me outside in the parking lot before Mark Clark showed up to pick up Hannah and me. It was cold outside, and the wind was coming in off the river. What I tried hard not to think about was that Kevin had been late to the dance, so late that I thought he wasn’t going to make it. He apologized as soon as he arrived, said he’d just broken up with his girlfriend and she hadn’t taken it very well. I didn’t like thinking he’d just had a girlfriend three hours before he was kissing me. He didn’t tell me the girlfriend’s name, and I didn’t ask.
    Then, suddenly, it was 8:00 A.M. and the sun was blasting through my curtainless windows. Mark Clark was standing in the doorway telling me it was time to get up. It was already warm in my room. Summer was here, and it seemed, suddenly, as if mine was going to be as cursed as the Hope diamond.

5
    Basic electronics was held downtown in a building near Portland State University, in the middle of a grove of tall glass office buildings and more importantly, half a block from MAX. Mark Clark said he would drop me off, but that I could take MAX home. The day was dark-glasses bright, so different from yesterday it was as if the days of late June weren’t even in the same season. I wore a pair of Bermudas, a T-shirt with tiny yellow and pink flowers, and my turquoise Chuck Taylors.
    The classroom for basic electronics didn’t have any windows. A white board ran along the front, and a name was written on it in big blue letters: Mr. Lawndale. This was obviously the teacher, who was standing at the front of the room behind a long, tall table with a bunch of electronic equipment on it, colorful wires, meters, gauges,and I don’t know what all. It looked as if a toaster had exploded up there.
    As we wandered in he said, “Find a workbench and sit down, please, please sit down.”
    Our workbenches were long desks of pale wood that sat three people each. A long, low cubby that held a collection of electronic equipment studded with fancy dials and meters rose up on one side. The classroom filled up slowly.
    There were thirteen boys and two girls. The other girl besides me was one of those girls who boys paid attention to, even though if you looked at each of her features they were nothing special. In the Chelsea de Guzman mode, she was skinny and had long dark blond hair, round blue eyes, and a snub nose. She wore extra low-rise jeans and an oversized newsboy hat that engulfed her head. Like most of us, she might as well have been wearing a sign that said: I AM HERE AGAINST MY WILL. She sat down at the workbench in front of me and started text-messaging someone.
    The teacher, Mr. Lawndale, wore a red and blue plaid shirt that already had dark sweat rings in the armpits. He was talking to some mom at the front of the room. He had his hand on one hip and kept shoving his glasses up on his nose with the other. The mom was explaining something, and Mr. Lawndale frowned. Then he said, a little too loud: “Look, if your kiddoesn’t want to be here, I don’t want him here either. I don’t need it, I simply don’t need it!”
    Aren’t teachers supposed to be happy and full of love for their profession on the first day of class?
    I traded glances with the boy sitting next to me. He must have been having the same sort of thought. He was a little taller than me, with long dark bangs that hung in his eyes and freckles all over his nose. When Mr. Lawndale took roll call, shouting out our first and last names, I learned his name was Bryce Duncan. If I didn’t already think Kevin was the cutest boy I knew, I might think that way about Bryce Duncan.
    Mr. Lawndale stood behind the exploded toaster