I didn’t know how to describe my feelings until one day after school, while the opening credits of America’s Most Haunted played on my TV, Oscar turned to me and said, “Truth or dare.”

“What?”

“Truth or dare,” he demanded again.

I paused the TV, freezing Cliff VanWarren so he looked like a neighing horse. “Dare.”

Oscar groaned, and scooted down the couch toward me. “I totally thought you’d go for truth.”

I grinned. “That’s why I chose dare.”

“Okay, fine,” he said. “I dare you to tell me if you have a crush on Greg Gunther.”

A quick heat danced across my cheeks and down my neck, turning my chest a bright red. My thoughts in exactly this order were: Gross! Rude! Okay . . . maybe not that gross. I didn’t like-like Greg, but even if I did, I knew he wouldn’t like a round girl with a surprising amount of body hair.

But my next thought was something I said out loud before I had a chance to decide if it was even a good idea. “Why? Do you like Greg?”

Oscar scoffed, but I know my question wasn’t totally out of left field. I was pretty sure Oscar liked boys too.

He looked at me for a while, and I thought he might say more, but instead Oscar patted my knee and said, “Don’t worry. That big-nosed goofball is all yours.”

I sighed at the thought of Greg and his toothy grin. He was somehow both cool and nerdy at the same time. I slithered down into the cushions of the couch and covered my blushing face with a throw pillow.

“Oh, Sweet Pea,” Oscar said dramatically. “Your secret is safe with me.” And then he hit play, unfreezing Cliff VanWarren, and life as usual resumed.

As I sit down at lunch with Oscar and open my lunchbox, Greg says, “Sweet Pea would know.”

I don’t know what he thinks I could possibly know, but that doesn’t stop me from grinning like a dweeb, until I catch myself and suddenly stop.

“Sweet Pea would know what?” asks Oscar as he swaps me one tamale for half a peanut butter and banana sandwich. (It’s a pity trade, honestly. Oscar’s mom’s tamales are so good, she makes them every December and lets us sell them at the holiday market for a class fund-raiser.)

“About that Miss Flora lady on your street,” says Greg.

Cooper Lawson leans around the other side of Greg. Coop is a thin black boy with midnight colored skin who always wears his perfectly maintained cowboy hat and creased Wranglers to school no matter how hot it is. He laid claim to Greg on his first day. Oscar says it’s like he peed on him to mark his territory. It was kind of annoying the way Cooper hogged Greg, but honestly, if you’re lacking in the friend department here in Valentine, the only option is to act fast when fresh meat shows up.

“My brother, Dale, said she keeps every single one of her pets that die and gets them stuffed at Topher’s Taxidermy on Eleventh Avenue. But that’s not the weirdest part. She captures any mice in her house and gets them stuffed and uses them to re-create famous paintings.”