Laura tried to look happy despite the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Okay, how’s this?” asked Tiffany. “We’ll tell her she has to call a boy up on the phone. Then we can tape the phone conversation on Laura’s tape recorder.” “That’s good,” said Allison. “And if Debbie tells anybody about Pig City, we’ll play the tape for the whole class to hear. She’ll have to tell the boy she loves him.” “Passionately,” Tiffany said with great emotion. “She’ll have to say she loves him passionately.” Allison laughed at the way Tiffany said that word. “She’ll have to disguise her voice,” said Laura, trying to get in on the fun. “So the boy won’t know who she is.” Tiffany and Allison continued to plan what Debbie would have to say to the boy, but Laura’s mind was elsewhere. When she returned to class, she tore a piece of paper out of her notebook. Using her broken pencil, she wrote: Hey Gabriel, I think you’re uglier than a two-headed frog.
