Randy

Friday morning I walked onto the schoolgrounds feeling happier then I had in a while. Not only was I off restriction tomorrow, but Jana was FINALLY done with that school project she'd be working on with Keith for what had seemed an eternity. No more did I have to hear about them getting together practically every night to work on the dumb thing. Finally, she was free of him, and out of any influence he might have had on her. Hallelujah!

Jana had also seemed extremely cheerful yesterday when I'd seen her in the hall after her history class and I figured it was for the same reason I was happy- well, and because she and Keith had gotten a great grade. I glanced around the schoolyard to see if I could spot her, and noticed her standing near a birch tree with her Fabulous Five friends, Shane Arrington, and Tony Calcaterra. I decided to walk over and join them since I hadn't gotten to really talk to any of them this past week, outside of school, that is. I would be SO HAPPY when my restriction was up- I hadn't realized how much I talked to people on the phone and internet and stuff before this.

"Hey, everybody," I said, stepping up to the group.

"Oh, hey! There you are- we were wondering if you were at school yet," Shane said amiably, slapping me on the shoulder.

"Hi, Randy," Jana greeted me with a smile. I smiled back, then turned to listen to Tony who started talking again on the subject they'd all been discussing before I'd come up. A few minutes later, though, Jana picked up her backpack from where she's set it on the ground in front of her and turned to leave.

"I'll talk to you guys later, I want to make sure I have plenty of time to stop by my locker before class," she said, giving a quick glance to Melanie and Christie who were standing across from her and then nudged Beth who was standing next to her. They all gave her looks back, and Katie nodded seriously. That's weird, I thought. Is something going on I don't know about? I looked over at Tony and Shane to see if they'd noticed it, too, but they were still talking.

"Wait up, Jana," I said quickly. "I'll walk to the lockers with you."

She looked slightly startled and glanced almost nervously at her friends. "Oh... sure... ok. If you want to. I mean, you don't have to if you don't want to. If you want to stick around and talk to everyone for a little bit, that's ok, too."

I shrugged. "Nah. I don't have anything special to say and I'd rather walk with you anyway."

In spite of the weird way she was acting, she smiled at me as we started walking towards the school. We started talking about something, and she laughed and chattered happily as if everything was totally fine, but I could tell there was something different about her, although I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Something was definitely up- she was worried about something. Or at least it seemed that way. I knew it was possible that it might have been just my imagination, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there WAS something wrong. I wondered if it had to do with Keith in some way... but I shook my head at that, telling myself not to jump to conclusions. I was probably just being paranoid. As we neared her locker, though, I could tell just by the way she was walking and how the tone of her voice changed that there was definitely something wrong.

"Hey, are you ok?" I asked Jana as we stopped next to her locker.

"Hm? What?" She asked, turning to look at me.

"I said, are you ok? You seem sort of worried about something," I repeated, leaning closer to make sure she heard me over the buzz of conversations and locker doors opening and closing around us.

"Oh! Yeah, I'm fine," she replied quickly, drawing back a tiny bit and putting her hand over her heart as if she had a sudden chest pain.

"No interesting news then?" I asked, tilting my head slightly.

She gave me a puzzled look. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

"That's what you said last week when you seemed out of sorts," I insisted. "Remember? At the movies? I asked you what was bothering you and you said, 'nothing', just that you had got some interesting news. I was only wondering if the same sort of thing had happened today."

Jana raised her eyebrows. "Wow! I'm impressed. You have a great memory; I forgot all about that." She shook her head. "No, no interesting news." Then she gave a wry laugh, and muttered under her breath, "I wish."

"Wish what?"

"Nothing," she said quickly, facing her locker again and spinning the lock.

I rolled my eyes upward, fighting back the urge to scream. She was starting to drive me crazy with all these nonsense phrases. Obviously something was up, so why couldn't she tell me what it was? Did it really have something to do with Keith? I wondered. I had thought- or I guess hoped- that he'd be out of the picture when Jana finished the project with him, but maybe I wouldn't get so lucky. I sighed, and glanced back at Jana who was STILL fussing with her locker combination. I shook my head and turned to go to my own locker, convinced that Jana was indeed hiding something from me. But *what*? And why?