I'd been called queer practically ever since I started school, but I didn't really find out what it meant until seventh grade. This was back when gay still meant happy to most people, and queer was an insult.

I was small for a boy my age, both in height and frame (though I still managed to be sort of pudgy), and I had a form of epilepsy, controlled by medication, but I had been known to suddenly stop and stare at something, unresponsive, for as much as a minute or two. I never remembered doing this, which made it even weirder for other people.

So until I turned twelve, getting called queer was just kids being callous and unkind to someone who was a bit strange.

But starting intermediate school was different than grade school. Some of the girls had already hit puberty and begun to develop womanly shapes. And some of the boys in eighth and ninth grade had started to change too.

I might have been the smallest kid in the school. The ninth-graders certainly towered over me. And one, in particular, caught my attention. At fourteen, Paul Montana stood nearly a foot taller than me with hair on his arms, a deep voice, a shadow of a skimpy beard on his chin, and muscles.

I stood just inside the entry gate of Orange Heights Intermediate School and stared at him, transfixed by his wavy black hair, his tan complexion, his dark eyes, and his mouth. He had a beautiful mouth, and I didn't think I had ever seen one before.

Tommy Nakamura stopped beside me and leaned sideways to get a look at my face. "You having a fit, Andy?" he asked.

I shook my head and said, "No," to reassure him. Tommy was my best and almost only friend since kindergarten—we were both outsiders and had to watch each other's backs while doing ordinary things like getting a drink from the fountain, using the bathroom, or taking a cafeteria tray up to the wash line.

I moved a step or two, but Paul was still standing there between the cedar bush and the bike rack, talking to a girl I didn't know, and so I couldn't leave. "That's Paul Montana," I said intelligently.

"Uh, huh," agreed Tommy. "Jeez, look how much he's growed since he went to Canyon with us." Canyon Balboa Elementary School.

"Uh, huh," I said. "Think he remembers us?"

Tommy twisted his face into a thinking position and considered. "He popped Donnie Linklater on top the head when the bastitch was gonna toss you in the deep end of the pool that time. Couple other times, he did stuff like that. He's a good guy, but I don't even know if he knew who we were back then, let alone now."

I sighed.

"He's a good guy. What da funk?" Tommy asked.

Paul and the girl were laughing, and I felt a pain, so I sighed again.

"That's Luz Cristoforo, she's a ninth-grader, too," Tommy supplied helpfully.

"Who?" I asked.

"The girl you're staring at. She's pretty."

I shrugged. Paul and Luz moved toward the west end of the campus, and I watched them walk away, Paul's hand briefly on her shoulders. I sighed again.

"We're in Room E10 first period," Tommy said, pointing in the opposite direction.

"I know," I said. But I didn't move until Paul, and the girl turned a corner and were out of sight. Then I fell in beside Tommy and headed toward our home period and first class.

Tommy watched me out of the corner of his eye. His parents were Japanese, and his face was a bit chubby, so his eyes were almost nothing but slits even when he wasn't squinting because he was unhappy about something. And he looked unhappy right now.

"You weren't watching Luzie, were you?" he asked as we entered the building.

"Um," I said, surprised by the question.

He stopped, so I did too, and we turned to face each other. "Andy, are you queer for Paul Montana?" he asked.

"Huh? What does that mean?"

"The way you were looking at him," he muttered. "You looked like…" he couldn't think of how to say it. "You looked like you wanted to kiss him or something."

"I did not," I protested, turning red. I hadn't wanted to kiss Paul—I wanted him to kiss me with that beautiful mouth.

Something must have shown on my face because Tommy looked as if he'd found the rotten peanut from the song. "You are," he accused. "You're queer for Paul Montana. You're gonna get us killed."

I shrugged, starting toward class again. "They've been calling us queer for years," I pointed out.

Tommy took three long strides to catch up. "Yabbut, you don't have to make them right."

"I don't even know what it means, to be queer for someone, what does it mean?"

Tommy snorted. "It means you want to be a girl for him. So he'll like you and maybe kiss you… and stuff." His face turned dark in embarrassment, and he looked around to be sure no one was listening to our conversation.

Be a girl for him? Such a thought had never occurred to me. How would that work? Would I wear a dress for him, put on makeup, curl and dye my hair? I felt heat in my own face and knew I was blushing. The thought of being a girl for Paul… intrigued me. I might like that.

"You even said he was a good guy," I told Tommy. He didn't say anything after that, but he didn't look happy.

When we got to homeroom for our first period in intermediate school, we had to line up and sign in and take our seat number from the sheet. When seats are assigned alphabetically, Tommy and I would often end up near each other—Tommy Nakamura and Andre Prentiss. But this teacher was using a different system, and Tommy and I were on opposite sides of the room.

He looked relieved, glaring at me and making a gesture. One of our private signs: he pointed at me then stroked the top of his pointing finger with the other hand. It meant the same as the one-finger salute.

He was mad at me. If I wanted to be a girl for Paul Montana, would I lose my best friend?