Nola James had been standing on Weston Brigg’s cardboard box-filled porch for ten minutes before realizing that she hadn’t rung the doorbell. In fact, she hadn’t so much moved since she’d climbed up the steps and set her Skechers-clad feet on the dirty welcome mat. Nola wasn’t sure if it was fear keeping her from making her presence known or…okay, it was definitely fear. What made Nola think that she could hatch some mean-spirited Punk’d-style plot against her ex-best-friend-turned-nemesis Marnie Fitzpatrick, run next door to the house newly occupied by Marnie’s former boyfriend, and expect to go through with it?

Nola let out a heavy sigh, turned on her heel, and retreated a few paces. When she reached the edge of the porch, she turned her gaze upward and looked at the evening sky. The stars were twinkling like glitter above the city of Poughkeepsie as a chilly autumn breeze kicked up piles of raked leaves in the yard. Nola zipped up her navy blue Columbia windbreaker and put her hands in her pockets, thinking about what she would do if she ever got up the nerve to ring that doorbell.

She’d concocted a basic three-pronged plan on the walk over here, which had taken her no more than thirty seconds. The first stage called for telling Weston that Marnie had just seen him from Nola’s bedroom window and sent her out to ask him to meet her at Stewart’s Ice Cream Shoppe tomorrow night. The second stage called for Nola convincing Marnie to work on their English project together at Stewart’s tomorrow after school. The third stage called for lurking outside of Stewart’s to watch a stunned Marnie come face-to-face with Weston, the boy who’d thrown Marnie’s heart into a woood chipper last year (metaphorically speaking, of course).