"Jamie, you remember Alexis, don't you?" Taylor asked her friend as she sat across from her in the school cafeteria.

"Of course! How are you?" Jamie greeted Alexis, a girl she'd met at the skating rink whose mother was good friends with Taylor's mother.

"I'm all right." Alexis smiled. "How are you?"

"All right, I guess. I still miss Andy a whole lot." Andy had returned to the Amazon several weeks previously, right before school had started. Although he kept in touch by email, Jamie was still saddened by his absence.

"Andy?" asked Alexis.

"He's a missionary," Taylor explained. "He comes back here to see his family in the summer and then goes back to South America for the rest of the year." She adopted a sing-song voice. "Jamie's in looove with him."

"Shut up! We're just friends," Jamie snapped. Taylor grinned. Jamie scowled, then giggled.

"Have you heard anything from Brock yet?" Taylor asked Alexis.

"Nope. And he promised he'd stay in touch, too!" Alexis frowned, then turned pale. "Oh my God - " Holding her hand over her mouth, she made a beeline for the girl's room.

Taylor giggled. "I guess tater tots don't agree with her anymore. She sure gobbled them up last year."

"Brock was her summer love, I assume," Jamie remarked.

Taylor wrinkled her nose. "Yeah. I only met him a time or two. He came across as a sleazebag to me."

When Alexis returned, she looked pale and shaky. "Are you all right?" asked Taylor. Alexis nodded.

Jamie didn't give the incident any more thought as she continued her day. When she got home that evening, Bethany ran to greet her. "Hi, Jamie!"

"Hi, Bethy. How are you?"

"I got a boo-boo on my knee." Bethany showed her. "Mommy put a Cookie Monster Band-aid on it."

"That's nice. How did you get your boo-boo?"

"I fell down on the sidewalk."

"She was pretending to be Tinkerbell." Jo laughed. "How was your day?"

"OK, I guess. I have to read Beowulf for English."

Jamie didn't see Alexis again for several days, and then one evening, she was on her way to the bus when she saw Taylor standing with her arm around Alexis, who was crying. "Hey! What's wrong?" she asked.

"I - I - " Alexis stammered.

I'll tell you later, Taylor mouthed to Jamie. Puzzled, Jamie continued on to the bus.

She'd just finished eating dinner that evening when Taylor called her. "Alexis just found out she's pregnant," Taylor said. "She'd been having some symptoms, and I told her she'd better buy the test and take it, but she said she was too afraid. I kept trying to talk to her about it, and she finally said she'd go to the drugstore if I'd go with her. We went together, and she bought the test and then went into the bathroom and took it."

"I'm sorry." Jamie didn't know what else to say.

"Now she's got to tell Brock. She's so scared he's gonna be mad, but I told her he has the right to know, and she agreed with me."

"Well, what's she gonna do?"

"I dunno. I guess it depends on how Brock reacts."

That Saturday, Jamie accompanied Jo and Bethany to the supermarket, saying she wanted to look at the makeup. "Mom?" she asked while Jo was driving.

"Yes?"

"How long had you and Doug been dating when you got pregnant with Bethany?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Jamie was taken aback by the sharp tone of her mother's voice. "No reason. I was just wondering."

Jo pulled into the parking lot and searched for an empty spot. "There must be some reason you want to know."

"Was Doug mad when you told him you were pregnant?"

"No. He was actually quite pleased."

"But you were a lot older than seventeen."

"Yep."

Nothing else was said about the subject, but Jo couldn't get it out of her mind for the rest of the day. It was obvious that something was really bothering Jamie, but she knew that the girl would only clam up if she pried.

After tucking Bethany in that night, she went into the living room to cuddle with Doug on the sofa. "I'm worried about Jamie," she told him. "We were on our way to the supermarket today when she asked me how long we'd been dating when I got pregnant with Bethany, and if you got mad when you found out." She faltered. "You don't suppose - "

"Jamie?" He frowned and shook his head. "I don't see how that could have happened."

"Andy's only been gone about a month, and that's about how long it takes - "

He moved away from her. "No way! Andy never would have let that happen!"

"Well, she hasn't been with anyone else, has she? Oh yeah, there was that guy from the skating rink - what was his name?"

"I think you're jumpin' to conclusions, babe. Just try not to worry about it too much. I'm sure everything'll be fine."

Jo sighed. "I wish I were as sure as you."

Monday at lunch, Taylor grabbed Jamie's arm and pulled her into a corner of the cafeteria. "Alexis told Brock," she whispered.

"And?"

"He accused her of lying and said she was trying to trap him."