There are a lot of places I might have expected to see Harold Minsky. Potomac Video, for one, in the very anime section I’d just spent an hour organizing. Or possibly the sci-fi shelves. I would definitely have expected to see him in the computer lab at school, where he practically lives, in his capacity as teacher’s assistant to Mr. Andrews, the computer lab supervisor.

I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to see Harold in the manga aisle at our local Barnes and Noble, or standing in front of Beltway Billiards, where he and his friends spend hours attaining high scores on Arcade Legends.

But I can’t say I expected, in a million years, ever to find Harold Minsky in my house…much less sitting across the dining room table from my sister Lucy.

“Waggish,” Lucy was saying thoughtfully as I walked in. “You mean, like a dog?”

Harold said, in a bored voice, “No.” Then, when there was no reply from my sister, he prompted, “It’s an adjective.”

“Waggish.” Lucy looked up at the ceiling, as if expecting the vocab fairy to tumble down from the chandelier and help her out. Instead, she noticed me standing in the doorway with my mouth sagging open.

“Oh, hi, Sam,” she said brightly. “Do you know Harold? Harold, this is my sister Samantha. Samantha, this is Harold. You know. From school.”

I did know. Harold was my computer lab TA. I said, “Uh, hi, Harold.”

Harold nodded at me, then turned his bespectacled head (how could it not be, when his parents had named him Harold?) back toward Lucy. What could they have been thinking, by the way? Didn’t they know that naming a kid Harold was a self-fulfilling prophecy, guaranteed to turn him into all that the name stood for: glasses, a crop of weedish brown hair that was badly in need of cutting, an unsteady gait stemming from a frame that had shot up six inches over the previous summer, making him one of the tallest guys in school not actually on the basketball team, and an orange Hawaiian shirt, the tail of which flopped out from the waistband of his too-short Levi’s?

“Come on,” he said in a no-nonsense tone that I’m sure no male member of the species had ever used on my sister before in her life. “You know this one. We just went over it.”

“Waggish,” Lucy said obediently. Then, to me, added, “Oh, I got that thing for you, Sam. That thing we talked about the other night? It’s on your bed.”

At first I didn’t know what she was talking about. Then, when she winked slowly, it hit me—and I blushed. Deeply.

Fortunately, Harold was too caught up in getting my sister to come up with a definition for waggish (SAT word meaning “mischievous in sport; roguish in merriment or good humor; frolicsome”) to notice me.

“Lucy,” he said severely, “if you aren’t even going to try, I see no point in wasting my time and your parents’ money—”

“No, no, wait,” Lucy said. “I know this one. Really, I do. Waggish. Doesn’t it mean ‘happy’? Like, the football victory left him feeling waggish?”

I had to pass by the living room to get upstairs. My parents were both sitting in there, pretending to read. But I knew they were listening to Lucy and her new tutor.

“Hi, honey,” my mom said, when she saw me. “How was work?”

“Workish,” I said, keeping my head ducked in the hope that she wouldn’t notice my still-bright-red cheeks. “How long’s that been going on?” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder, toward the dining room.

“Tonight’s their first session,” Mom said. “I called the school, and they told me this Harold is the best SAT prep tutor they’ve got. Do you know him? Do you think he’ll be able to help her?”

“Well,” I said slowly. “If anyone can, I’d guess it would be Harold.”

“They tell me he’s a shoo-in for Harvard,” my mom said. “All the Ivies, actually.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That sounds like Harold, all right.”

“I asked for a female tutor,” my mom said, making sure to lower her voice so that Lucy and Harold couldn’t overhear her, “because I didn’t want there to be any…romantic complications. You know how boys can be about your sister. But when I saw Harold in action with her, I knew he’d be perfect. It’s almost as if he doesn’t even realize she’s…well, the way she is.”

It was nice of my mom not to come right out and say what we were all thinking: That Lucy is so gorgeous, guys on the street routinely fall in love with her on sight, and often trail after her, holding out scraps of paper with their cell phone numbers scrawled on them, which Lucy always politely takes, then deposits without a second thought in her bedroom trash can when she cleans out her purse every evening.

“Um,” I said. “Yeah. That’d be Harold, all right. He doesn’t go in for that popularity stuff.” Or girls much, really. Unless they’re named Lara Croft and live inside a Playstation.

“I don’t care if he falls in love with her,” my dad said, roughly turning a page of the newspaper he was holding. “So long as he gets her score up, I’ll be happy.”

“Oh, Richard,” my mom said. “Not so loud. David called while you were at work, Sam. He said to call him back when you get a chance.”

“Huh,” I said. “Great.”

Only I didn’t mean great. I actually meant the opposite of great. Because I knew why he was calling. To find out what Mom and Dad had said. To find out whether or not we were going to get together over Thanksgiving to play Parcheesi.

And the truth is, I’ve never actually been the hugest fan of board games.

What would he do, I wondered, if I said no? No, I don’t want to go to Camp David with you for Thanksgiving, David. Would he dump me? I mean, if I just came out and told him that while he might think we’re ready for sex, I’m not so sure?

No. No way. David’s not that kind of guy. For one thing, he’s a total nerd—I mean, card carrying, with his vintage Boomtown Rats T-shirts, Converse high-tops, and long, strictly sci-fi related TiVo To Do list. And let’s face it, nerds simply don’t dump their girlfriends for not putting out, the way jocks seem to. Or so I’ve heard, not actually being acquainted with any jocks.

And for another thing, I know David really loves me. I know that because of the way he can be making fun of my hair one minute, and nibbling on my neck, telling me how hot he thinks I look in my new Nike shirt the next. I also know because I’m the last person he speaks to every night before he goes to sleep (he never forgets to call my cell….if I’m already asleep—or pretending to be, like I was last night—he leaves a message) and the first person he calls when he wakes up (not that I always answer, since I am not fit to be spoken to before my morning diet Dr Pepper).

And he doesn’t call just because he feels like he has to or I’ll have a breakdown—the way Lucy does with Jack—but because…well, he wants to.

No, David’s not going to dump me if I tell him I’m not ready. He loves me. He’ll wait.

I think.

Besides, if he did dump me, the press would eat him alive. Not to sound braggy, but I am quite beloved by the American people for saving the life of their leader.

Although that was pre–dye job. Who knows how Margery in Poughkeepsie is going to feel about me once she sees my new apparently Ashlee Simpson–esque do?

“This Return to Family initiative David’s father is promoting,” my mom said, breaking in on my musings about my sex life—or lack of one. “I really like the idea. Sometimes I feel like I never get to see you kids, you’re all so busy.”

I just stared at her, completely shocked.

“Whose fault is that?” I practically yelled. “This part-time job thing wasn’t exactly MY idea, you know.”

My dad lowered his paper again. “It’s important for you kids to learn the value of a—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I interrupted my dad. “A dollar. I know.” Like anything even costs a dollar anymore. “Speaking of which, did Lucy switch shifts, or what? Why is she home so early? Usually she doesn’t get back from the mall until ten.”

I noticed the glance my mom and dad exchanged. Don’t think I didn’t.

“We decided that, given Lucy’s SAT score, she needs to devote more time to her schoolwork, and less to her social life and work schedule,” my mom said lightly.

It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. Then, when I finally did, my jaw dropped all over again.

“Wait a minute,” I cried. “She gets to quit her job just because she bombed the SATs? That’s not fair!”

“Shhh, Sam.” My mom glanced nervously toward the dining room. “Lucy’s very upset about having to give notice at Bare Essentials. You know how much she loved that employee discount—”

“So if my grades start to slip,” I demanded, “can I quit Potomac Video?”

“Sam!” My mom gave me a reproachful look. “What a thing to say. You love your job. You’re always talking about your little Donna friend, and how cool she is—”

“Dauntra.”

“Dauntra, I mean. Besides, you can handle a fuller schedule than your sister can. You’ve always been able to.”

“Count your lucky stars about it, too,” my dad remarked, returning to his paper, “or we’d make you quit art lessons the way we’re making her quit cheerleading.”

I stared, totally shocked.

“Wait…you made her quit cheerleading?”

“The SATs are more important than cheerleading,” said my dad. He would think that, seeing as how in high school, he was pretty much like…well, like Harold, from the stories I’ve heard.

“She’s just taking some time off,” Mom said. “If she brings her grades up, she can get back on the team. We spoke to the coach. She understands that it just got to be too much…cheerleading, homework…”

“It wouldn’t have gotten to be too much,” my dad said, from behind the paper, “if a certain person didn’t come down every weekend and expect to spend every waking moment with her.”

“Now, Richard,” Mom said. “I spoke to the Slaters. And they agreed to have a word with Jack—”

“Lot of good that will do,” my dad said with a grunt, still not looking out from behind the paper. “The guy never listens to them—”

“Richard,” my mother said.

I took this as my cue to leave the room. It is never fun listening to my parents fight about Lucy’s boyfriend. Which they do almost every time his name comes up. Not that they aren’t in complete agreement in their opinion of him: They both hate his guts. They just have different ideas over how best to handle the situation. My mom believes if they in any way try to thwart the relationship, that will only make Lucy’s affection for Jack stronger—sort of like how Hellboy’s affection for Liz just got stronger after they tried to keep him from seeing her when she fled to the mental institution.

My dad, on the other hand, thinks they should just forbid Lucy from seeing Jack anymore, and that will take care of the problem.

Which is why Lucy and Jack are still going out. Because everyone (except my dad) knows that telling a girl she can’t go out with some guy just makes her want to go out with that guy even more.

This is another way in which Lucy’s life is vastly superior to my own. She gets to date a guy my parents don’t like or trust, causing them to worry about her all the time.

Lucky Lucy.

Although, if you think about it, her luck has kind of run out—at least about the cheerleading thing. I mean, it might be undermining the feminist cause, but she really loved doing it. And now it’s been stripped away from her.

And yet, she hadn’t looked too unhappy down there with old Harold. Which is weird, because, regardless of whether or not she misses cheerleading, one thing she’s definitely going to miss, if Mom and Dad have their way, is Jack…. Where IS he, anyway? Why isn’t he beating down the door, insisting on seeing her? Had Dr. and Mrs. Slater had “a word” with him, as my mom had said they were going to?

But Jack, being an urban rebel and all, isn’t the type to agree not to see his girlfriend just because his parents say she’s having trouble in school, and he needs to give it a rest, or whatever. In fact, since he started at RISD, Jack has been playing up the malcontent artist thing more than ever, what with the new motorcycle, and all.

And okay, my parents have expressly forbidden Lucy to ride it, even though Jack bought her a helmet (not that Lucy was particularly thrilled with it. She’d wanted a pink one. Also, she says it mashes her hair down).

But that doesn’t mean Jack can’t use the bike to cruise by our house, as I often hear him doing, in the middle of the night….

Although, come to think of it, I hadn’t actually heard the roar of Jack’s Harley too often lately. What’s up with that? I would have to find out from Luce after Harold leaves.

In the meantime, I had the package Lucy had said she’d left for me.