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  Markie’s like a little Dalai Lama to me sometimes, he really is.

  Just then we heard his parents laughing upstairs. Markie and I smiled at each other. I glanced down, surprised to see that we’d somehow covered the cardboard poster with pictures and artwork. It didn’t look amazing, but it looked real.

  Maybe I’d leave well enough alone for now. I glued everything down and propped the poster in the corner of the craft room; Markie’s mom would find it eventually, though from the sound of them laughing, maybe Markie’s folks didn’t need my help.

  “Let’s go to the park,” Markie said.

  “Exercise and activity. Good idea.”

  We walked to the park three blocks over. I know how important it is for kids to get fresh air. Plus that archival-quality glue was giving me a headache.

  Markie ran to the sandbox. I sat on the park bench and thought about all that I’d learned, or not, about guys and girls in the past week. I was deep in thought about why it seemed so complicated to me when everyone else was falling in love as easily as I fall over, when I looked up to see Markie hit a little girl between the shoulder blades with an empty bucket. I jumped off the bench and hustled over.

  “Markie! Say you’re sorry.”

  “But I’m not.”

  “You’re not sorry you hit her with a bucket?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I wanted her to play with me.”

  “That’s not the way to do it.”

  “But look!”

  The little girl handed Markie his bucket and they started building a castle together. Or maybe a dinosaur. Hard to determine the artistic intent of preschoolers.

  “This is Maisie,” he said, pointing a shovel at her.

  “The line-butter from preschool who pinches you?”

  He nodded.

  “And you just hit her with a bucket?”

  He handed Maisie the shovel.

  “But now you’re playing together.”

  “Sure.” I could tell from his voice that Markie was starting to think I was really slow on the uptake.

  They looked content, and they were together. Which was more than I could say about me and Tina.

  The kid had a plan, he worked the plan, he reaped the results. Markie has always had a way of cutting to the heart of the matter for me. I think he might be my spiritual leader. I was going to have to buy him an ice cream cone. It was the least I could do.

  The Scientific Mind Strives to Make Concluding Observations

  he Putnams are very popular people, and I guess fiftieth wedding anniversaries are big deals. On Sunday morning, everyone I’d ever met in my entire life seemed to be eating brunch at Gran and Papi Putnam’s anniversary party.

  It was nice to see everybody, and Gran and Papi were having a blast, but to me the party was like Noah’s ark. Everyone was paired up, two by two. I sat at a corner table in the catering hall, surrounded by swan decorations, eating bacon-wrapped scallops on little toothpicks and observing the romantic behavior around me.

  Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Although I had gotten no closer to Tina, my research and observation had apparently caused people around me to fall in love, or more in love.

  My mother and father sat next to each other at a table near the swan cake with Markie’s parents. My mother removed the strawberries from my father’s plate with an exasperated look and handed him a couple of allergy pills, just in case.

  “You split up?” My dad sounded surprised. He’s never up on the neighborhood gossip. “I didn’t know that. But I’m glad to hear you’re trying to put your problems behind you.”

  They were joined by Auntie Buzz and her date, Jack, from the bank where she’d gotten a business loan.

  Auntie Buzz came over and whispered to me: “What can I say? You got me thinking about my personal life, and I decided it was time to put myself back on the market. All this awesomeness shouldn’t be unavailable.” Although he wasn’t anywhere near as hyper as Buzz, Jack seemed like a nice guy, and I noticed that he’d snagged a coffeepot from one of the waiters for the two of them to share. I tried to picture him as Uncle Number Four.

  Sarah and Doug were helping to pass out hors d’oeuvres. Or rather, Doug was carrying the trays and Sarah was directing him. “Three o’clock, Doug. Sweep around to the three o’clock position with the cheese puffs.” Doug headed toward nine o’clock, but everyone always needs more finger food, so Sarah didn’t jump on his back. Some people are natural-born leaders, and others were meant to follow. Good thing they’d found each other.

  Daniel and his hockey pals had taken over a table with the Welsh girls and the Connor sisters and were comparing ice schedules.

  JonPaul and Sam were laughing and eating crêpes with our buddies Dash and Wheels and the girls from St. Agnes.

  Katie and Connie (who’d been avoiding eye contact with me) and JC were learning to tap-dance from Goober and Betsy. Pretty soon, all five were tapping up a storm in the corner for Gran and Papi, who looked wildly impressed.

  You’re welcome, everybody, I thought, and the tap dance makes up for the fact that I forgot to sign the card with the present my mother bought Gran and Papi. My gifts might be spontaneous and even unintended, but they are quite meaningful.

  Even Markie and Maisie LeBeau were hiding under a banquet table with all the swan balloons they’d collected from around the room. I kept an eye on Markie, but he didn’t seem in danger of slugging her again. Besides, he didn’t have a bucket.

  I tried to be happy for them all, I tried not to be bitter. But it did sting a little that even Markie, who can’t control his bladder a hundred percent of the time, and Buzz, who can’t control what she says a hundred percent of the time, had found someone special.

  I was the only person in the room, maybe in this town, perhaps in the Western Hemisphere, not living happily ever after. Well, Connie and Katie and JC had struck out too, but self-pity isn’t nearly as effective when you have to think of other people, so I tried to ignore them.

  I’d read about scientists being steadfast and self-confident and determined and unwavering. I’d never read about any of them feeling sorry for themselves.

  I needed to do what I always do when I don’t know what else to do: I needed to talk to my parents.

  The Scientific Mind Is No Match for Action

  found them at the chocolate fountain. My dad was eyeing the strawberries, but my mother skewered a piece of angel food cake on a stick and handed it to him. She stabbed a marshmallow, and I made a kabob of banana slices. We stood dipping for a little while. Some families bond over board games or trips, but melted chocolate brings the Spencer family together. We loaded our plates with chocolate-covered stuff on sticks and headed to an empty table.

  “So, what’s on your mind, son?” My dad always surprises me; you get to thinking he’s not the sharpest tack on the board and then he goes all aware and thoughtful on you.

  “Love.”

  “What about it?”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “No one really does. It’s a mystery.”

  “All evidence to the contrary, you mean?” He raised an eyebrow and I explained. “Everyone at this party has a date. Except me.”

  “Did you ask someone?”

  “Well, no. I was too busy.”

  “Too busy doing what?”

  “Creating experiments so that I could learn about love and romance and being part of a couple and what girls want and how guys should act.”

  “Why?”

  “I was examining behavior to gather the subjective and intuitive components of knowledge.”

  “How’d that turn out?”

  “The preliminary results have been, thus far, abysmal.”

  “Sounds to me like you were trying too hard.”

  “I doubt that’s possible. I was trying to apply the rules of science to figuring out what makes girls tick.”
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  “I’d suggest personal inspection at zero altitude.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that to know about a girl, you have to spend time with that girl. You have to pay attention to what’s in front of you; you can’t turn matters of the heart into clinical observations.”

  “Scientific, Dad, not clinical.”

  “Feelings can’t be studied and dissected like a frog, Kevin. You have to open yourself up to what’s going on.”

  “That sounds awful.”

  “What’s awful is if you’re not present in the moment. You can’t observe, you have to engage.”

  “You mean I need to stop thinking so hard about how to talk to Tina and just start talking to Tina?”

  “Your father is a wise man.” Having swiveled her head back and forth, following our conversation, for several minutes, Mom finally spoke up. “And very romantic. You should listen to him. He knows what he’s talking about. He married me, didn’t he?”

  I remembered everything people had been trying to tell me all week. Buzz and Sarah and JonPaul and even Markie—if you boiled down what they had been talking about, they’d been telling me to take it easy. I’d listened, but I hadn’t heard what they’d been saying. Oh, snap! So that was what Mom meant when she said that to Dad. I totally got it now.

  My friends and family are extremely wise people, now that I stop to think about it. They should be, though; they hang around me—it was bound to rub off on them.

  I felt better than I had in a long time.

  The Scientific Mind Is Self-Correcting

  he science book I’d read quoted Francis Bacon: “Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.” I had stacked up a whole lot of errors and even more confusion and was more than ready for some truth. I couldn’t wait to see what happened the next day at school. I was going to put myself in a Tina place as soon as I possibly could. I smiled at the thought of seeing her the next day and went up to the buffet line. Epiphanies always stimulate the appetite.

  Before I got there, though, I saw Katie and Connie. If I was going to get up the nerve to talk to Tina, then I had to face them, too. Talking to girls seemed the only way out of the mess.

  I went over to their table. They both tried to pretend I wasn’t there. They had every right to think I was bad news and ignore my very existence.

  “I’m really sorry, Con, about the date with JC. I messed up and I hurt someone I like without meaning to.”

  She looked surprised. Then pleased. “Oh … thanks. That’s a nice thing to say.”

  “Don’t worry; next time I’ll find you someone better.”

  “That’s okay, Kev; I’m glad it worked out for you and JC, and I guess I figured out I’m not really ready to date yet.”

  “You’re a great friend, you know that?”

  “You too.”

  I already knew that, but it’s always a good thing to hear.

  One down. One to go.

  “Katie.” I turned to face her, even though she was still looking away from me. “I handled our conversation all wrong, just like I did the social studies project and the tutoring service. Friends don’t keep using friends to get what they want.”

  “We’re not friends.”

  “Yeah, we are. At least I think so.”

  I could tell she was thinking hard, but she didn’t know what to say.

  “You didn’t deserve how I treated you. I wanted to ask for your advice because I value your input. But I can see now where you may have read things differently than I intended. It’s my fault, and I’m sorry if I embarrassed you.”

  “You’ve changed. A little,” Katie told me.

  “You have no idea,” I said.

  “You really think of us as friends?”

  “Yeah, I do. And even though you don’t feel that way right now, I hope you’ll come around to it someday.”

  “Don’t hold your breath.” But she smiled, a little, as she said it.

  I finally made a girl smile. Not the right one and not for the reasons I had in mind, but it felt good. I felt good. Finally, progress on the girl front. Maybe things were beginning to fall into place for me.

  I knew enough to leave before I said something stupid and ruined the good thing I’d just done. I was in line with a plate in my hand when I heard:

  “Kevin.”

  I looked up and saw Tina.

  Tina. Here. Standing next to me. Right this very minute. I’m sure it was a trick of my eyes, but it looked like she was standing under a spotlight and, I don’t know, glittering somehow. I sighed. I’d never been so happy to stand next to someone in my entire life.

  “I’ve been trying to get your attention at school for a few days now,” she told me.

  “You have?”

  “I’d been hoping we could come to this party together, since our families know the Putnams. I knew we’d both be here, and I thought it would be fun to come together.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Like a date?”

  “Yeah. You seemed so distracted, though. Is everything all right?” She smiled at me and that tight, weird knot that usually forms in my gut when I’m near her and about to say something stupid or fall over melted away. I smiled back at her.

  “Everything is perfect,” I said.

  Gary Paulsen is the distinguished author of many critically acclaimed books for young people, including three Newbery Honor Books: The Winter Room, Hatchet, and Dogsong. He won the Margaret A. Edwards Award given by the ALA for his lifetime achievement in young adult literature. Among his Random House books are Paintings from the Cave; Flat Broke; Liar, Liar; Masters of Disaster; Woods Runner; Lawn Boy; Lawn Boy Returns; Notes from the Dog; Mudshark; The Legend of Bass Reeves; The Amazing Life of Birds; The Time Hackers; Molly McGinty Has a Really Good Day; The Quilt (a companion to Alida’s Song and The Cookcamp); How Angel Peterson Got His Name; Guts: The True Stories Behind Hatchet and the Brian Books; The Beet Fields; Soldier’s Heart; Brian’s Return, Brian’s Winter, and Brian’s Hunt (companions to Hatchet); Father Water, Mother Woods; and five books about Francis Tucket’s adventures in the Old West. Gary Paulsen has also published fiction and nonfiction for adults. His wife, Ruth Wright Paulsen, is an artist who has illustrated several of his books. He divides his time between his home in Alaska, his ranch in New Mexico, and his sailboat on the Pacific Ocean. You can visit him on the Web at GaryPaulsen.com.

  Gary Paulsen is available for select readings and lectures. To inquire about a possible appearance, please contact the Random House Speakers Bureau at [email protected].

  Other terrific stories about Kevin

  Available in hardcover from

  Wendy Lamb Books

  ISBN 978-0-385-74001-2

  Available in paperback

  from Yearling

  ISBN 978-0-375-86611-1

  Available in hardcover from

  Wendy Lamb Books

  ISBN 978-0-385-74002-9

  Available in paperback

  from Yearling

  ISBN 978-0-375-86612-8