Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love by Maryrose Wood

from the floor, her eyes still closed.
    “Sorry, Ms. B,” I say. Jess has been getting kind of loud.
    “French,” says Ms. B slowly. We wait for the rest. “Cruller,” she finishes thoughtfully.
    Ms. B’s hand pauses in the air long enough to take a cruller from Kat, who’s sitting closest. “But get this,” continues Jess, choosing the last Boston cream and holding it delicately between two fingers. “She SINGS.”
    “Sings what?” asks Kat, her interest piqued by the conversation’s sudden veer toward the topic of music.
    “All kinds of stuff. During lunch, Deej and these two other girls—one of them was named Shelly, I think—they went into the corner of the parking lot—which is where they have recess, by the way, between the CARS!—and they sang. In harmony! They were just having fun, but Deej is really good.”
    “Did they mind you listening?” I ask. Having Jess follow me around scribbling notes in her All-Knowing Binder would be a little trying, and she’s my pal and littermate. I’m afraid to imagine how Deej and her friends felt about it.
    “You could say that,” says Jess brightly. I notice for the first time that both of Jess’s knees are scraped, but before I can ask about it the door of the math room opens, thus permitting (insert Strutting HottieBoy Music here)—
    The Entrance of Dawgs!
    But it’s only Randall. He’s our next Search for X interview, purely by the luck of the draw. I don’t expect that Randall will have anything illuminating to say about the workings of passion, but he’s Matthew’s friend and he’s on our list, so here he is.
    To be fair, there’s no single aspect of Randall that’s off-putting in any way (ha ha, couldn’t resist!). He has good posture, I’ll give him that. In his extra-Poundicular life, Randall trains and competes in some martial arts discipline or other. Supposedly, he whups ass. It’s kind of hard to picture.
    “Hey,” he says, spotting us. Nope, Randall does not sound like he even remotely has ass-whupping capabilities. “Hey, Ms. Blank.”
    Ms. Blank’s air-doodling briefly takes the form of a wave. Randall slides into an empty seat at our table. He lifts the lid of the donut box and peers inside.
    “Have one,” I offer.
    But Randall quickly shakes his head. “I don’t think my sensei would consider this ‘eating to win,’ ” he says.
    “I consider it ‘eating to eat,’ ” I riposte. (A riposte is a snappy comeback. How like the French to invent a word that means snappy comeback.)
    Randall does not offer a riposte to my riposte, nor does he even look at me. Instead, he blushes a faint shade of pink and turns to Kat. “How’s the practicing going?” he asks.
    It’s not unusual for Dawgs to get Tunnel-KatVision when we’re all hanging out together. Kat does nothing to encourage this, which only makes it more obvious. But outwardly speaking, Kat is on the tall and skinny side of the spectrum, and has this kind of Russian look to her, since her parents are both Russian (her mother, in fact, still lives in Moscow, a source of much sadness to our lonelyKitten Kat!). She has broad cheekbones and nearly almond-shaped, golden-brown eyes, with a swishy mane of straight, buttery-blond hair that she lets hang in her face most of the time. Total effect: chilled teen supermodel with a twist of mystery, and Dawgs do love a Secretive Kat!
    “Practicing’s fine,” she says inaudibly. Randall nods. They both seem satisfied with this conversation. I wonder, fleetingly, if Randall and Kat would make a good, if largely silent, couple. Can X be summoned in this way? Or does it have to show up on its own?
    “Well! I FINALLY feel like I have a handle on those polynomials,” announces Jess as she pulls her frizzy hair into a knot on top of her head and turns to me. “NOW we can help with your science project!”
    At this, Randall looks even paler than usual. “Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that— Um, where’s Matthew?”
    I