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Charlotte traipses back froar in her hand "Ohthe cotton candy stand? I think he had, like, three teeth"

I give the scrawny-looking guy a wink, and Charlotte practically spurts cotton candy out her nose

"Gross," Madeline says, les and hands Charlotte a napkin But her chin’s all sticky, and little flecks of paper get stuck there, hter, giggling so hard we have to hold on to each other to stay upright The crowd strea us weird looks, but we don’t care

"What’s next on our agenda?" I ask, finally straightening up and tugging at the hem of my Ella Moss tissue tee

Mads looks around "Gabby and Lili want us toit"

She holds her iPhone screen up to my face so I can see their latest Twitpic

"That could be a picture of anything," I scoff "I need a visual confiro" Mads links ar with contentment, and we head back into the fray

The fair is swar with people We’ve only ed, dusty path between booths, e buerly Her foot lands squarely on lare at her

"I thought we lost you back by the front entrance," I snap I couldn’t get out of driving Laurel here, but Mads, Charlotte, and I slipped away from her the second she was distracted by someone in her class

A hurt expression flits across her face, and I turn away Sometimes I wonder if I’m too mean to Laurel We actually used to be friends, but then we just … drifted apart It happens Plus, I think that deep down, I’hter, the child they never thought they could have There’s always a fear inside me that they love her just a little bit more

Laurel sweeps her hair back off of her shoulder "I just saw Aidan Grove by the Skee-Ball He asked if you were here tonight," she reports, looking proud of herself "I told him you were" She reminds me of a puppy ants a treat for a well-executed sit or roll over

"He is so srees She doesn’t bother to look up fro furiously as she barelypast us on all sides Her hand is jostled and she squeaks a protest "Stupid autocorrect!" She sighs again, but her eyes shine with enthusiasot here Oh! There he is!"

She spies a figure walking through the crowd and starts to wave We all crane our necks to see Garrett coh cheekbones, and s--but in a cute way

Madeline nudges Charlotte, whose cheeks are pink with happiness "I guess Garrett was okay with you co with hi sheepish "Yeah"

"Why didn’t you come with him?" Laurel asks

"Sutton told uys, you have to have the upper hand at all ti oad her

"And you were right," Charlotte adht about those kinds of things"

"Hey," Garrett says as he joins us He drapes his arives her a kiss on the cheek Charlotte looks like she’s about to faint Then Garrett nods at the rest of us "Where are you guys headed?"

"Skee-Ball," I announce

Garrett twists his oes, huh?"

"That’s usually hoorks," Madeline answers, shrugging

We head over to Skee-Ball, where the crowd is thicker than ever Over the clatter of wooden balls bouncing through targets, we’re greeted by a roar of hooting, whistling, and enthusiastic cheers Mads and I exchange a glance Someone was clearly on a roll Could this crowd be all because of Gabby?

But then a cloud of Wintermint Trident surrounds me, and I hear Gabby’s screechy voice in"You totally missed my moment of triu Mads an eye roll "It looks like we’re here just in tih"

"It’s Thayer," Laurel squeals, scanning the scene and grinning She rises on her tiptoes to get a better look "He’s kicking butt!"

I frown It’s got to be someone else Last year, Laurel used to alhine about how she and Thayer never went to any good concerts because he couldn’t deal with crowds And forget about things like talent shows and battle of the bands--though we’d soh the walls at Mads’s house, he would have never, ever gone onstage and performed in front of all those people Madeline used to say that instead of having attention-deficit disorder, he had attention-terror disorder

I jostle Laurel aside and rise, zeroing in on the Skee-Ball hest-scoring hole A scoreboard lights up and the crowd cheers I follow the trajectory of the ball backward and up an exceptionally graceful, well-ray T-shirt … a T-shirt that covers the chiseled torso of the least likely candidate for rock-god status Hollier High has ever known