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ukulele with your first paycheck. Just think of that. And after the audition, you can come over and we’ll do some research on Kenneth Chip, and if we discover that he’s rich, then you’re going to deal with your rage by milking him for millions of dollars. If he were my dad, I’d get him to pay for new shoes, clothes, a new phone. You should demand a weekly allowance.”
    “I can’t audition. I can’t focus on anything. I haven’teven figured out how I’m going to tell my mom about this.”
    “See? That’s why you should come. At least walk with me and then you can decide once you get there.” He pulled a can out of his backpack. “Ginger and ginseng energy drink,” he said. “This will give you vigor and vim.”
    My first laugh of the day. “Is
vim
a word?”
    “Yes. It means ‘robust energy and enthusiasm.’ ” He popped it open. “Oooh! Serious fizz!” He took a sip and then gagged.
    “Bad?” I asked.
    “No, it’s good,” he said, trying to regain control of his face.
    My second laugh of the day. Fin doesn’t believe in having regrets, so he likes everything he buys.
    I took a sip. It tasted like carbonated tea steeped in battery acid.
    We passed the can back and forth as we negotiated the sidewalk. The snow that hadn’t been properly shoveled had turned into treacherous patches of ice.
    “Come on, people, some of us have to walk out here,” Fin shouted to no one. “Shovel your sidewalks!”
    Our high school is about five blocks from downtown Evanston, so it didn’t take us long to get there, even with the ice and my itchy-foot zombie walk. On the corner of Grove and Sherman, Fin pulled out the flyer and double-checked the address.
    “This is it. Sixth floor,” Fin said, and we both looked up at the tall white building.
    “I’ve walked by this corner a million times, so why haven’t I noticed this?” I asked.
    “Because it’s probably filled with podiatrists and old people getting their warts removed.” He held open the door.
    I didn’t move.
    “Just come up with me. If you don’t, I’m telling Pat that you murdered your new sweater.” He pulled me into the lobby and pushed the elevator button. “Energy is oozing through my veins. It’s the vim and vigor juice!” He squealed in the funniest way and I started laughing, which made him laugh.
    I stopped. “Fin, your tongue is gray. Is mine?” In the reflection of the elevator doors, we examined our tongues.
    “Zut alors!” he said. “That juice was probably made of endangered elephant-butt skin!”
    We both started cracking up.
    “They won’t hire us!” he wailed.
    “They cannot discriminate on the basis of tongue color,” I said. “That is totally illegal.”
    The elevator arrived. As we got in, another guy ran into the lobby and asked us to hold it.
    It’s impossible to know everybody in our high school, especially people who are not in our actual grade level or people who didn’t go to our middle school, but I recognized this guy because he was in the school’s jazz ensemble, and we see those guys when we have chorus-band concerts.
    “You play that big gigantic thing, right?” Fin was using his flirty voice. He uses it on everybody — grocery store clerks, cheerleaders, hot guys waiting in line at the movies, old ladies with thick glasses, puppies … you name it.
    “It’s called a bass, Finnegan,” I said.
    “A double bass, actually,” the guy said. “I’m Hayes Martinelli.”
    Formal introductions are not exactly common among high school people. Usually, you get to know new people gradually because you sit next to them in class, so I was shocked when he stuck his hand out inthis old-fashioned way with this deliberate eye-to-eye gaze and said, “Hello, Minerva.”
    I shook his hand, which was strange.
    (Hayes, if you’re reading this, I didn’t mean that your hand felt weird. I will admit here that your hand actually felt nice — cold from the air, but not like a robot or a frozen fish