Populazzi by Elise Allen

Claudia. She was sure he'd kiss me, too, but she reminded me to be patient if he didn't. Specifically she reminded me "how poor are they that have not patience." I figured it was Shakespeare, since she pronounced it "pay-shee-ence" so it would scan.
    Bina met us at the door with two mugs of Indian tea. It smelled delicious, but there was no chance I was drinking any. I pretended to take a few sips so I wouldn't hurt her feelings.
    "Come on," Archer said. "I have a surprise for you."
    There was something wicked in his voice. I followed Archer downstairs. Before I'd reached the last step, he leaned in close to my ear and said, "Close your eyes."
    My heart started thumping so hard it hurt. Archer took my hand and gently led me down, then a few more steps forward. He gave my hand a little squeeze. It was coming now. The anticipation was brutal. I leaned toward him just a bit, my lips seeking his...
    "Behold the Wall of Degradation!" Archer declared.
    Huh?
    "Open your eyes," he said.
    I did. Archer was standing in front of a huge yellow poster board he'd mounted on the wall by the Ping-Pong table. It was indeed labeled THE WALL OF DEGRADATION , and was split into two columns: ARCHER and CARA . My name had two hash marks under it; his had one: our games from the day before. A circle of Velcro held a pen to the sign.
    "At the moment it's the wall of
my
degradation," Archer said, "but you see there's plenty of room for me to redeem myself."
    Part of me was still waiting for him to kiss me. It took me a minute to shift into this new reality. I'd be lying if I said I wasn' t disappointed, but there was a plus side: the poster was enormous and 99 percent of it was blank. Archer was clearly expecting me to be here for many weeks of Ping-Pong.
    "Let the continued degradation begin." I grinned and grabbed a paddle. Pretty soon I was so involved with the game that I wasn't thinking as much about whether or not Archer wanted to kiss me. I did hope he'd try before I went home, but when he gave me a high-five instead of a handshake, I figured it wasn't happening. I wondered if he'd lost interest overnight. But I'd promised Claudia I'd be patient, so I pushed those thoughts out of my head. I had plenty of breath strips and lip balm—I could wait.
    Wednesday afternoon Archer couldn't concentrate on Ping-Pong at all. We didn't have a single volley; he missed every other shot. I was sure I knew what he was thinking. I wondered how I could get him to admit it.
    "You know I love slaughtering you, but it's not fun when you don't even put up a fight," I said.
    "Sorry. I just keep thinking about auditions."
    Oh. Fall play auditions. Of course. Sitting with Archer and his friends at lunch every day, I'd heard all about them. The play was
Cyrano de Bergerac.
I'd never read it, but the lead was a role Archer had been dying to play for as long as he could remember. All his friends thought he was a shoo-in, but Archer himselfhad seemed pretty philo sophical about the whole thing—until now.
    "Friday after school, right?" I asked.
    Archer nodded.
    "Do you think you're ready?"
    "I think so. We've known all summer this was going to be the show, so it's not like I haven't been practicing, but ... Would you listen to me do it?"
    "Of course!"
    "Great." He raced upstairs to grab a dog-eared copy of the text, then opened it and pointed to a section. "Right here. This is the part I'm going to do. You can follow along and make sure I have the lines right. Just ... picture me with a really big nose."
    "Big nose. Got it."
    Archer stepped back a little, giving himself space, then launched in. "Ah no, young man! That was a trifle short!...'"
    It was a long monologue describing a million ways the "young man" could have better insulted his—Cyrano's—nose. I tried to follow along in the book, but it was impossible; I couldn't take my eyes off Archer. His lines were so funny that I was laughing out loud, but I could also sense his Cyrano was covering a layer