He is no Zero.

I think the kid in front of me farted. My first day as a sophomore and the idiot in front of me farts. High school has proven to me once again that it sucks.

I cannot wait to see Francesca and tell her, but I write it down on a page and stuff it in my Might-Forget-To-Tell-Francesca pocket because I might forget to tell Francesca.

This kid in front of me, I think his name's Josh, he farted.

Once I scribbled that down, I looked back at the front of the class, at my new English teacher, Mrs. Corona. Franny (my shorter, more practical nickname for Francesca) and I played with her name a lot. She was saying something about the color purple or something like that. I don't know why we are learning about purple in English class. I think she should lose her job for going off track.

When class was over, I met Franny at the fountain, and pulled out the paper where I had scribbled my notes.

"That Josh kid farted in class." I said.

"Are you serious? Idiot."

"Yeah."

"Have you seen Eric?" She asked. I shook my head.

"I can't find him or Max anywhere."

"You're sure they're even coming here?" I asked lamely. Franny rolled her eyes.

"I think we should look for them." She said.

"Why? Just call Eric's mom. She'll tell you if he's at school, and we can look for them. They might've caught mono… again."

"Great idea!"

We ran into the bathrooms down the hallway and Franny pulled out her cell.

"Hi Mrs. Barnes. I'm fine, she's fine, too. We were wondering if Eric came to school today."

She nodded and made "oh" and "uh-huh" sounds.

"Okay, thanks." Franny hung up.

"He's here, so Max's here, too."

"Okay, we'll see them now. I mean, you see everybody during lunch."

"Good point."

We left the bathrooms and followed the mass of people heading for where he hoped was the cafeteria. When we got to the cafeteria, or great imitator of that, we stood in line forever. Once we reached the lunch lady, the food looked cold and angry, like the lunch lady.

"Does that food strike you as being a bit bad tempered?" Franny asked.

The lunch lady with a big black lump under her hair net flung some reddish stuff onto my plate, and then Franny's. I would have said thanks if I wasn't busy trying to not die of asphyxiation.

"What the hell is this?" Franny asked once we sat down.

"I don't know. It's gross."

"It's red."

"Like blood."

"It looks like a puddle of blood clots."

I glanced up at her wondering how random that comparison was.

"With meat." She added.

"That's disgusting," I said to her, she laughed at me sticking out her tongue out, and her eyes went wide.

"Hey there's Stanley…I thought he was…I mean people say he was in… I don't believe it he's way to nice." she said and I grinned it was a little known fact that she was madly in love with Stanley Yelnats and it killed her when he got sent to jail or wherever.

"So…Franny not to sound like a nudge…but once again…TALK TO YELNATS!" I said to her and she blushed at my somewhat loud suggestion.

"Fine…" she said starting the long walk (meaning 20 feet) to Stanley her face growing rapidly paler.

I walked over to her being the bestest friend I am decided to help her incase she started stuttered or throwing up or something.

"Hi…Uh…Stanley." I heard her say I could tell her face was red and I wasn't even there I'm that psychic.

"Hi Franny." Stanley said casually and I looked over and saw he wasn't alone he was with a friend (a very cute friend) short, with bushy hair, but surprisingly that worked for him because he was gorgeous at least to me he is.

I decided after a heart felt argument with myself (and the voices in my head…KIDDING) that Franny could do this flirt session by herself, and I'm guessing she was rewarded because her Stanley and whoever his (cute) friend was walked over to me and a grinning Franny said,

"Stanley and Hector are going to sit with us." she said trying to hold in a grin,

"cool…so where exactly are we going to sit?" I asked looking around the very full cafeteria.

"I have no idea." Franny said and we all started searching for a place to sit.

While the boys were looking around for a place to sit I whispered to Franny, "Good job your one step closer to Stanley Yelnats being your man candy." she was about to say something when Stanley said he found a table. I looked over at Hector and decided to day was going to be a good day…