“I’m going over there,” Ryan said.
“No!” I shouted. “Don’t do it, Ryan!”
“A.J.,” he said, putting his arm on my shoulder. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”
Ryan walked over to the other side of the rec hall, went over to a girl, and the next thing we knew, the two of them were dancing.
“Look!” shouted Neil. “Ryan is dancing with a girl!”
Traitor!
The song ended, and Mr. Klutz started playing a new song. Ryan came back over to our side of the rec hall.
“How was it?” Michael asked him. “What’s that girl’s name?”
“I don’t know,” replied Ryan. “But we’re going steady. I think I’m in love.”
Mr. Klutz’s next song was faster and thumpier than the last one.
“I’m going over there,” announced Michael.
“Wait for me,” said Neil.
Nooooooooo!
Neil and Michael went over to the line of girls. They asked two of them to dance, and then the four of them were dancing in the middle of the rec hall.
One by one, the boys on our side and the girls on the other side were starting to dance with each other. I went over to the punch bowl to get a drink. Nobody was going to make me dance. No way.
That’s when the weirdest thing in the history of the world happened. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around.
It was Andrea Young!
Nooooooooo!
“Hi, Arlo,” she said sweetly.
Oh no. Andrea was going to ask me to dance. If the guys saw me dancing with Andrea, they would make fun of me for sure. They always do.
“Are you enjoying camp so far?” Andrea asked me.
“I was until now,” I replied.
“I love camp,” said Andrea, who loves everything I hate. “What’s your favorite part?”
“It will be when my parents come to pick me up,” I replied.
“My favorite part is rest hour,” Andrea said. “I can catch up on my summer reading. My goal is to read all the books that won the Newbery Medal.”
“Great,” I replied. “Listen, I gotta go.”
“Go? Where?”
“Uh,” I said, “I gotta go to a dentist appointment.”
“There are no dentists here,” Andrea said. “Do you want to dance with me, Arlo?”
“No.”
“Come on,” she said. “Everybody else is dancing. If you don’t dance, your friends are going to make fun of you.”
Nice try. I’m not falling for that.
“I don’t know how to dance,” I admitted.
“I’ll show you,” Andrea told me. “It’s easy. You just move around to the music.”
“Ask somebody else to dance with you,” I said.
“Everybody else has a partner already,” Andrea replied. “And besides, I want to dance with you. Come on. Just one dance.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do.
“Well, okay,” I said, “as long as we don’t have to touch each other.”
“Okay.”
The music was really loud and thumpy. Andrea and I started dancing. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was just jumping around.
