Heavenstone 01 - The Heavenstone Secrets

him.
    Eddie Morris greeted us. He was the star of the junior varsity basketball team and would surely be on the varsity next year. He was a six-foot-four ninth-grader with a shock of coal-black hair that he liked to keep long. It was the source of lots of humor, because he was always brushing it off his face. During basketball games, he kept it tied behind his head in a thick ponytail. I didn’t know him all that well, but he was always polite and friendly whenever we did speak in school. He had a younger sister, Amy, in elementary school, who had apparently been shipped to her cousin’s house for the night.
    “Hi, Semantha. Welcome. How did this goofball get you to be his date?” Eddie asked. He and Kent playfully punched each other’s shoulders. “The pizza’s already been delivered. You guys should get some before it’s all gone.”
    Others were coming in behind us, and he went to greet them as well. The music blaring from the living room was so loud everyone had to shout to be heard, even if he or she was only a few feet from the other person. I was surprised to see a number of students from tenth and eleventh grade, as well as a dozen or so from our class.
    “I’m starving,” Kent said. He led me right to the kitchen, where the open boxes were spread on the long white-tile counters and the tiled butcher’s table in the center. There were paper plates and plastic forks, but everyone was mostly just holding a piece and gobbling it down as if he had been on somedeserted island for months. I saw plenty of soda, but it wasn’t until we went into the living room, where Dustin Dylan had set up his disco equipment, that I saw anyone drinking liquor. It was the older boys, who slipped it into their sodas and then offered it to the girls they had brought. I didn’t see anyone turn it down.
    “Remember, no smoking,” Eddie warned his guests. “Of anything!” Everyone who heard him laughed, but he made his next warning very seriously. “And don’t forget. My father’s a pharmacist, so there’s no drugs.”
    Noel and Bobbi had somehow beaten us to the house and were already dancing. Kent and I had a piece of pizza and drank some soda, and then we joined them. I wasn’t very confident of my dancing. I had done so little in front of other people. Of course, I practiced in my room at home whenever I could. Cassie always teased me about it. I never saw her dance, even at weddings we all attended, unless Daddy asked her. Those were only slow dances, however.
    Kent was a good dancer, and he kept complimenting me on my dancing. As my confidence built, I felt myself relaxing more. I had left Cassie’s warnings back at the gymnasium, and for the first time, I felt I could enjoy myself. Here I didn’t have to keep remembering that I was a Heavenstone. No one seemed to care who anyone was, least of all Kent. His friends kept kidding him about having to have his father drive him on a date.
    “At least he made a great choice,” Noel said, coming to his defense. He winked at me.

    “Yeah, well, what’s he going to do, ask his father to take them behind the football field later?” Sammy Duncan asked.
    “As long as he doesn’t turn around to look, it’s all right,” Kent fired back.
    It made me blush. Bobbi grabbed my arm, and we went off to the bathroom together to talk.
    “Don’t listen to those idiots,” she told me. Then she smiled and said, “Noel says Kent is head over heels in love with you. He’s going to ask you to go steady with him. Nothing as corny as giving you a school ring or something, but, you know, promise to be only with each other. What will you do?”
    “I don’t know.” I really didn’t, but she mistook my hesitation for something more.
    “That’s good. Play hard to get. Boys say they hate it, but they really don’t. It makes you more … more of a catch when you do give in.”
    “My sister says it’s not good to move too quickly with any boy.”
    “She’s right. Though who am I to agree? I lost my brake pads a while ago.”
    I suspected what she meant, and I suppose the look on my face caused her to laugh. After she repaired her lipstick, we returned to the living room and the dancing.
    “I hope none of that joking bothered you,” Kent said.
    “No, of course not,” I said as strongly as I could. I didn’t want him or anyone to think I was so dainty. I had enough of that with Cassie constantly reminding me how fragile I was. I knew almost everyonethought I was