Crush — Ellen Conford

B.J. Green though, not for the first time, what a dumb name Sweetheart Stomp was for a Valentine's Day dance. Not that she wouldn't want to go to it, but it sounded like an event where you stomped your sweetheart unconscious.

But the social bigwigs at Cutter's Forge High were heavy into alliteration this year. They'd called the Halloween dance the Halloween Hoedown. The Thanksgiving dance was the Turkey Trot. For Christmas they'd had the Holiday Hop. And now for Valentine's Day the dance committee had come up with the Sweetheart Stomp.

B.J. sighed and looked around at her classmates. The room was buzzing with the excited whispers of predance planning. The event was a week and a day away. There would be get-togethers before the dance and parties afterward, which would prolong the festivities into the early hours of February 15.

B.J. wouldn't be attending any of them.

00-01 Young Hoosier Book Award Masterlist (Grds. 6-8) and 00-01 Black-Eyed Susan Award Masterlist

2000 List of Popular Paperbacks for YA