Taffy Sinclair 007 - Taffy Sinclair and the Secret Admirer Epidemic Read Online Free Page A

came home and cooked dinner and took care of me. Oh, sure, she had Pink. But he wasn ' t exactly Mr. Excitement. He ' s a supernice man, and he ' s a printer at the same newspaper where Mom works, but that ' s about it. He ' s also a bowling nut, and he takes Mom bowling at the very same bowling alley every single Saturday night. It ' s no wonder that she was dreaming of exciting places.
    Just then I remembered that I had forgotten to show Mom the note from my secret admirer. I started to get up and go back to the kitchen, but I stopped in midair. I sank into my chair again, feeling a little guilty. Having a secret admirer was pretty exciting, and poor Mom was dying for some excitement in her life. Wasn ' t that why she had brought home all those brochures? Maybe I should wait awhile to show it to her, at least until we had a little change in our vacation jar.
     
    The next morning Christie met me a block from school. She looked as if she were dying of excitement.
    " You ' re going to love this, " she said, balancing her notebook on one knee and flipping it open. " Here. " She pointed to a page with some names written on it. " I ' ve made a list of every boy in our class, eleven boys to be exact. Then I ' ve made blanks for every period of the day, every recess, and even lunch period. I ' ll give one of these lists to each member of The Fabulous Five, and we can each make a check in the right blank every time a boy looks at you during the day. That way, at the end of the day, we ' ll be able to see exactly who has been looking at you the most. Isn ' t it great? "
    Christie didn ' t wait for me to answer. She removed the top sheet and handed it to me proudly. I know my mouth was hanging open, but I couldn ' t help it. Leave it to Christie. She is a mathematical genius and loves figuring things out. She had even made the lists on graph paper so that all the blanks were exactly the same size.
    " Wow, " I said. " This is really great. "
    " I thought so, too, " she said confidently. " And with each one of us keeping track of every single boy, we shouldn ' t miss any important glances or stares. "
    A couple of minutes later the rest of our friends walked up, and I read over the list of boys while she explained her plan to them.
    1. Randy Kirwan
2. Scott Daly
3. Mark Peters
4. Clarence Marshall
5. Curtis Trowbridge
6. Joel Murphy
7. Keith Masterson
8. Richie Corrierro
9. Gregory Harper
10. Eric Silverman
11. Matt Zeboski
    " Of course, Randy Kirwan can be eliminated immediately, " I huffed. " I ' m going to cross him off the list as soon as I get to my desk. "
    " Well, what about Scott? " Melanie asked indignantly. " Surely nobody thinks he ' s the secret admirer. "
    " And Joel has already asked Sara, and Mark asked Alexis, " added Beth.
    " Come on, you guys, " Christie pleaded. " I wrote down every boy in the class just to make sure I didn ' t leave anybody out. It isn ' t going to hurt anything. "
    Melanie gave Christie a frosty look and then made a big ceremony of folding her sheet and sticking it into her social studies book. It was obvious that her feelings were hurt, and I crossed my fingers behind my back that we wouldn ' t all be mad at each other before this mystery was solved.
    I stopped off in the girls ' bathroom to brush my hair before I went to class. I wanted to make sure that I looked my v ery best for my secret admirer— whoever he was. I was also thinking about the eleven boys in my class. Four of them had been eliminated right aw ay—Randy, Scott, Mark, and Joel —so that left only seven. In my mind I went down the list of the ones who were left. Clarence Marshall, jerk. Curtis Trowbridge, nerd. Keith Masterson, cute! Richie Corrierro, cute! Gregory Harper, too quiet. Eric Silverman, semicute. Matt Zeboski, almost semicute. One of those seven had to be my secret admirer.
    Next I eliminated Clarence, Curtis, and Gregory. I would die if it turned out to be any of them. I was down to four. Ranking them on