Luke found himself face-to-face with Susie Wine.

“Hi, Luke,” she repeated as if Luke had not heard her the first time, which wasn’t true.

Luke had heard her; he was just surprised that the most popular girl in school would care to speak to him. She never had before. Luke always seemed to be surrounded by girls at school, just not Susie and her groupies. The truth was most of the time it was just girls who spoke to him—Luke didn’t do much talking back. Mostly, he listened and nodded his head at them from time to time. But the girls from the most popular group never came near him. Now he was face-to-face with their fearless leader.

“Hi, Susie,” Luke responded.

Luke neither liked nor disliked Susie. There was a reason she was most popular. She was an amazing combination of pretty, direct, playful, and possessed with perfect timing when it came to being rude.

Each of the girls with Susie said in succession, “Hi, Luke,” as if attendance in class was being taken. Luke nodded his head and smiled. They all seemed so happy to see him. It was all more than odd, which made Luke wonder what was going on.

“You shouldn’t pay attention to Ralph and his male challenge groupies!” Susie announced. She was talking about the boys who were tossing stones at him.

“Ralph is a bootie brain!” a voice from behind the girls announced.

The girls turned, and Luke glanced over to see his one true friend, Buddy Sanders, arriving on the scene.

Susie squinted her eyes and smiled an evil smile as she inquired, “ Buddieeee! It’s almost supper time! Does your mommy know you’re still outside?”

Buddy’s hair was as dark as Luke’s was light. He had freckles and green eyes, and he wore a T-shirt that said “Eatme.”

“Susie, you must be having a bad day if you have nothing better to do than harass Luke here,” he said smugly.