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specifically out of this attic, more.

On the way to the restaurant, my grandfather teased me about Craig Harrison until my grandmother gave him those big eyes of hers, a look that usually froze him in place. He told me even the big-shot doctors at the hospital fled from her when she did that to them.

In the back of my mind, I was still unsure about Craig's motives anyway. I was terrified of being deceived and made the object of even more ridicule at school. My new fashionable appearance was bound to create enough chatter as it was; adding Craig's driving me to school would surely make me topic number one on the chatterbox network. Disappearing in the rear of everyone else's thoughts was soon to be impossible.

The following morning, as I stood outside where I normally waited for the school bus, I almost hoped

Craig wouldn't show up, but he appeared just a few seconds after 7:00 a.m. I glanced back at the windows in front of the house and was positive I saw my grandmother sneaking a peek through the curtains as he pulled into the driveway, backed out and right up to me standing on the side of the road.

"Forget the school bus. Your chariot has arrived, madam," he said, and then he leaped out and went around to open the car door for me. He did a silly, sweeping bow and I got in. "You look great," he told me as soon as he got in and started away.

"Thank you."

"So what really made you change? I mean, your clothes, your hair and makeup, if I might be so bold to ask."

"Let's just say it was either this or banishment."

He laughed: `And here I thought it was all to win my heart."

I glanced at him. "You mean your heart is that easily won?"

"Whoa," he said. "I'd better bring in

reinforcements quickly. You're not going to be easy."

"You mean as easy as the others were?" "The others? Another false accusation?"

He pretended to be wounded and then lose control of the car.

I screamed and he laughed.

Then I saw him turn serious.

"You know when you first really caught my attention?" he asked.

"How would I know that? I didn't even know I had."

"It was in English class when Mr. Feldman pushed you to give your interpretation of why Frost repeated the last line in his poem 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening.' You know the line I mean: 'And I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.' Everyone else was saying or would say he repeated it because he wanted to emphasize his responsibilities, but you said because he was insecure about what he had to do. He had to talk himself into it with the repetition. When you added the words 'like most of us,' I went, Wow. This is a girl I'd like to know."

"That was months ago," I said. "What happened since?"

"What can I say? I'm shy."

I looked at him skeptically.

"I am! I'm the basic example of someone who tries to overcompensate to cure his shyness. Besides, as I told you, I did look at you, smile at you, even nod at you, but you looked like you were looking right through me, so I thought, forget it. She's not interested."

Could that be true? I wondered.

"I'm not blaming you. You probably thought I was like the others, just playing with you."

"Maybe that's what you're doing right now," I said, and he pretended to be wounded again, this time coming so close to the right shoulder of the road that I was positive we would go into the ditch.

"Reinforcements! Reinforcements!" he shouted, and I screamed again.

By the time we pulled into the school parking lot and he parked beside another student's car, we were both laughing. That alone stopped some of the girls entering the building. They stared in utter disbelief.

"What'cha doing, catching flies?" Craig asked them as we walked by and saw their mouths still open.