Getting it straight. Alyssa learns everyone has skeletons in the closet ... even the jerkiest boy in class.

I was waiting in line, crossing my arms over my Jockey half undershirt. I wear those because it is, in theory at least, less embarrassing than a bra with a cup size named after the recovering addict organization or, even worse, the roadside assistance people. I've decided to wait on the whole bra thing until I can whittle it down to just one A, assuming that ever happens.

Anyway, right before my turn, I noticed the door to the nurse's office, where the scoliosis screening was taking place, was slightly ajar. Before I could say anything about this, a nurse told me to bend down and touch my toes.

Behind me, I heard the nurse-y types muttering to each other. The examination seemed to be taking longer than usual--I could tell because the blood was rushing to my head and making my fingertips tingle like they were about to fall asleep. Maybe I would faint and not have to go to bio. I imagined the happy hour I'd spend on a plastic cot, watching Days of Our Lives, nibbling saltines and playing with my ice pack. At my school, the nurses give you ice packs for pretty much anything. I once got one just for having a paper cut. I got one another time for throwing up.

"You can stand up, Alyssa," said the taller nurse. I felt a mild head rush, but no dizziness. I gave up on my ice-pack fantasy. I wondered why the nurses weren't ushering me out and moving on to Jessica Glickman, who has been coming after me in the alphabet since sixth grade, when she transferred here and supplanted Elizabeth Gluck. Then, I saw him. Lurking. Outside the door. Like the HUGE perv he is. He took off when he saw me looking, but not before flashing me an obnoxious grin.

"Joel Bauer, you are such an A-hole!" I shouted after him.

The nurses stared at me. The short nurse moved on to Jessica, who bent obligingly, boobs flopping toward her shoulders. I watched, thinking, ew, boobs are weird. The fat nurse turned toward me. "Alyssa, could you sit down on the examination table for a second? There's something we need to talk to you about before we let you get back to class."

Determined to forget that the cutest, meanest, most idiotic boy in class had seen me in my stupid undershirt, I sat, ice packs once more dancing in my head. What could it be? A mole? A lesion? Maybe the nurses had discovered a third nipple--people do sometimes have them on their backs. God, a third nipple would be a great conversation-starter.

But the tall nurse looked at me with an insincere, wrinkly foreheaded, "concerned" expression, like the one TV news anchors use when they're asking an interview question like, "So, Ms. Jansen, how did you feel when you saw little Bobby's decapitated corpse?"

The tall nurse rubbed her chin as she cleared her throat. "Uh, we've noticed a slight spinal curvature. It does not look serious, but you should see a doctor about it," she finally said.

I reached around and touched my back before I realized I was doing it. "I don't feel any curvature. In fact, I don't think there's much curvature anywhere on me, to be honest," I said.

The nurse gave me a look like, "Why are you not devastated so I can comfort you with the expert comforting skills I learned in nursing school?" and then motioned for me to get up. "Come over to the mirror, Alyssa. I'll show you."

My reflection squinted skeptically, looking pretty much the same as always. Long, sandy-brown hair. Light-brown eyes with thick black lashes. Small nose, medium eyes, big mouth. I let my gaze move down, past my dorky undershirt and poke-y accordion ribs, toward the place where the fat nurse was pointing.

"See how one hip is higher? That's because you have a curve in your lower lumbar. I'm not qualified to make a diagnosis, but I'm calling your parents and you'll have to see a specialist soon."

She searched my eyes again for devastation, and this time, she might have been able to find some. But I was not about to give her the satisfaction. "OK, sure, whatever. Can I go now? I'm late for bio." She gave me a sad-eyed smile and nodded, patting me on the back as I hopped down off the examination table.

I'm sorry, did I say "back"? I meant "deformed hunchback." At least, those were the words that kept popping into my mind as I sat in bio trying to focus on the pop quiz about flagella. I wanted to cry, but I just kept penciling in right answers. Maybe I could be a recluse-scientist, hiding all hunchbacked in my hunchback lair with my even more hunchbacked assistant.

It seemed like a good plan. Because clearly, this seventh grade thing was so not going to work out.

"Alyssa Glass has a nice..."

"Don't even say it, Joel!" I put up the universal "talk to the hand" sign. We were waiting for the bus, and Joel was tormenting me as usual, which was exactly what I was not in the mood for today. I just wanted to get home and talk to my parents about my deformity and the cave fortress they were going to have to build for me deep underneath our house, from which I would never emerge except for holidays and nights when we were having cold sesame noodles for dinner (my favorite). But Joel wasn't about to let up. He never does.

You know how people (specifically, moms) say, "He teases you because he likes you"? This has never once in the history of recorded time been the case between me and Joel Bauer. What he said next proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt, as if there were ever a question.

"Dudes, I saw A-piss-a with her shirt off today," he told Paul Westlay and Doug Terrien. Those chuckleheads chuckled, as they always do at their lord and master Joel's crappy jokes, which are nearly always at someone else's expense. Sometimes they're at the expense of Paul Westlay and Doug Terrien even, but they laugh at those, too. They don't know better. They're chuckleheads.

"So what was that like, Joel?" asked Doug, raising an eyebrow and giving me a lame obnoxious wink. "Did Ayssa take her top off because she couldn't wait any longer to show you her goodies?"

"Yeah, was Alyssa totally like, 'Come here, Joel, my love stallion, and feast your eyeballs on my heaving mounds'?" said Paul in an annoying fake girl voice.

"You are such a loser fool, Paul," said my friend Megs, who has curly red hair and braces and at least five inches on Paul. He shut up, but Doug kept talking. "Heaving mosquito bites, more like! Or heaving pencil erasers!" Megs shot him an even meaner look than she'd shot Paul and he made a little "no harm, no foul" and backed away to where members of the seventh-grade dork patrol were playing with Pokemon cards.

Joel, who's always the last to get the "nobody wants to hear Joel talk" memo, continued, "I saw A-piss-a with her shirt off. And the nurses talked to her longer than any of the other girls who did that screening thing. Maybe they were trying to explain to her that if she wants to grow boobs, she should wear a bra, not those weird shirts little kids wear."

I rolled my eyes at Megs and pretended not to pay attention, but that's a little hard--OK, impossible--when you're blushing so hard that your face is basically purple. I wanted to wrap my undershirt around Joel Bauer's neck and squeeze. Hard. By this point, Patti and Doug had wandered back over.

"So why did you have to get talked to by the nurses for longer than everyone else, Alyssa?" Paul sneered.

"Nunya."

"Wha'?"

"Nunya business, you dumb butt nugget," I shouted. Bad idea. If these boys know they're getting a rise, they never let up. Especially not Joel Bauer.

"Oooh, A-piss-a's angry. She must have been talking about something top secret with the nurses[ What is it, Alyssa? Did you need them to explain where babies come from? Or is there something wrong with you and that's why you're still as flat as a flounder while every other girl at Jefferson has boobs?"

There comes a point of just totally having enough of something. "Flat as a flounder" was that point. I turned to Joel Bauer with fire and daggers shooting out of my eyes, and also ice. Every possible thing that people talk about doing with their eyes, I was doing it. If I had been a whatchamacallit from Greek mythology, Joel Bauer would be a stone statue, standing in the bus bay with that idiotic smirk forever engraved on his face.

However, I'm not a whatchamacallit. And my eyes had no effect on Joel. So I resorted to using words.

There's this thing I do sometimes where I just say whatever pops into my head, and this was one of those times. "You would not be mocking me right now, Joel Bauer, if you knew that what the nurses were talking to me about was a serious and life-threatening spinal deformity! I have to see a specialist. My parents will have to pay thousands of dollars that their measly insurance won't cover, and we'll have to go live in the poorhouse. And I don't even know where the poorhouse is located!"

By the time I finished this tirade, Joel was visibly shaken. And he wasn't the only one. I guess I had been kind of loud. Megs turned to me. "Whoa, you have a scolio-thing?" she asked, and the look of genuine concern in her eyes made me realize that, while I'd been mostly exaggerating when I'd shouted those things--scoliosis is social-life threatening, sure, but everyone knows it isn't life-life threatening--I was worried. And sad. And scared. And pretty sure about the insurance-coverage thing (my dad is a professor, and his insurance won't even cover two teeth cleanings a year because more than one is considered "cosmetic." I looked into Megs' eyes and did the dumbest thing I could possibly have done in this situation. I burst into tears. Loud, sobby tears. Luckily the bus came exactly at that moment, preventing the situation from becoming the very worst thing that has ever happened to me. But as it is, the time I ate 45 miniature Mr. Goodbars and puked on the way back from Hershey Park on the fourth-grade field trip and had to smell chocobarf for the rest of the trip, now has stiff competition.

"Alyssa!" shouted my morn. The nurse must have called about the deformity that was about to ruin my life. I couldn't decide how to address the topic. I mean, should I go for, "I am never going to school again, or, Do you realize this is going to ruin your fortunes?" It was a toss-up, for real. I was looking around for a coin to flip when my morn shouted my name again and wouldn't stop (I usually give her a few minutes to see if she gets tired on her own accord and decides to leave me alone). I went to the door of my room.

"Mom, what is it?" I said. "I know I am your little Alyssa-schmoopie, but you'll have to go without the pleasure of my presence sometimes."

"Alyssa, you have a guest! A visitor," Mom said. As she stepped to the side, I saw that the guest was Joel Bauer.

My heart exploded inside my body, and I died. Unfortunately, I came back to life a second later and saw Joel Bauer, still standing in my foyer. It was so weird to see him there. It was like if you were to see Big Bird eating at the feeder with the goldfinches and tufted titmouses. Titmice? Whatever. I hate Joel Bauer.

"I came to apologize," said Joel Bauer. Huh? But I hate Joel Bauer. Joel Bauer calls me "A-piss-a." The idea of Joel apologizing made my stomach twist in a funny way. Could something really be this off with the universe? Maybe someone had put a spell on Joel--dosed him with the kind of heinous evil black magic that makes people forget their own names. That happens in books all the time! Unfortunately, though, this was my life and not an episode of Charmed. Well, fortunately, really, because that show bites. But unfortunately in this one instance.

Maybe Joel was still messing with me. Maybe he was planning some elaborate prank that involved Paul and Doug jumping out with their hands clutching handfuls of heavily padded 34Cs.

"Well, I'll let you kids go up to Alyssa's room to study," my morn clucked. Seriously, my morn basically lays eggs. Joel Bauer wouldn't look me in the eye as we made our way up the stairs to my room, and I was mostly going on autopilot, putting one foot in front of the other. Some situations are just so bizarre that they defy analysis.

Thank goodness all the clothes piles that usually cover my bed and dresser and purple carpeting were shoved in the closet, where Joel couldn't make fun of their possible Jockey undershirt-ish contents. But Joel didn't seem interested in making fun of me or looking around my room or anything. He was shuffling his feet, looking totally uncomfortable. I have to admit, it was fun to see him squirm. For about a minute. And then it just became uncomfortable for me, too, and sort of boring.

Finally I was just like, "Joel, spit it out. Why on earth did you come over to my house? There's really nothing you can do to make the situation any worse."

He opened his mouth, and no words came out for a second. And then he said something truly nuts. "I know that," he stammered. "I wanted to make it better."

The look on my face must have said exactly what I was thinking, which was, basically, "Who...wha'...huh?" Joel finally raised his eyes to mine.

"I want to show you something."

Uh-oh. I've seen enough bad teen movies to know how this scene goes, and I wanted no part in it. The idea of Joel Bauer's tongue in my mouth grossed me out, even though he's totally cute. He's just such a jerk that no self-respecting girl should ever kiss him. Besides, "I want to show you something"? That line is cheesier than a brie and mozzarella sandwich topped with parmesan.

Then Joel Bauer reached down. Oh, my God, what was he doing? "Joel, stop! Ugh, this is so weird! I don't like you like that!" I shout-whispered.

That's when Joel Bauer took off his shoe. And I saw it. Where most people have a flat part, just past the pinkie toe, he had...a little stub. Not really a whole extra toe, but what looked like the unfinished beginning of one.

"Yeah, I have six toes. I've gotten crap about it my whole life. It's why, no matter how hot it gets, you'll never see me in flip-flops." He looked up from his crazy foot and locked eyes with me again. "I didn't know much about scoliosis until I got home from school and Googled it. And, Alyssa, it's not life-threatening!"

"Well, of course, I know that. I'm not stupid," I muttered. I was blushing again, which was weird. I wasn't feeling embarrassed anymore. I mean, maybe I was embarrassed for Joel Bauer and his freakish toe? No, that wasn't quite it. Anyway, he was talking again.

"It's, like, a minor thing. Well, it sucks, but it's not going to be something that damages your whole life. Sure, it would be better if you didn't have it... just like my little extra toe. But as long as you keep it in perspective, it's not going to throw you. Especially not someone like you, Alyssa. You can handle things."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Uh, how do you figure that?"

"I call you A-piss-a every day, and you've never once cried or smacked me. Can't say that about a lot of girls."

I had to laugh. Joel had a point. O

Emily Gould is co-author of Hex Education ($8.99, Penguin/Razorbill). Visit hexeducation.com for details.