CRUSH: STORIES BY ELLEN CONFORD IN THANE

"Tickets for the Sweetheart Stomp are still available at the student government office, Room 114, during lunch hours or half an hour after school." 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.... anything can happen, especially in high school. You can fall in love, break up with someone, discover a secret admirer'and maybe even have a few dreams come true. In the days before the big Sweetheart Stomp Valentine's Day dance, B. J. Green finds her thoughts turning to her own love life and those of her fellow students at Cutter's Forge High School. There's weird Amy Porter and her equally bizarre boyfriend, Batso; Robert LaMotte, in desperate need of a big makeover and a little romance; and, of course, the handsome, mysterious Alexei Grigorov, Russian exchange student extraordinaire... what is his deep, dark secret? That's one mystery that B. J. wouldn't mind solving herself ! Here are nine romantic, interwoven stories that will make you laugh, cry, and maybe even fall in love. 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... anything can happen, especially in high school. You can fall in love, break up with someone, discover a secret admirer—and maybe even have a few dreams come true. In the days before the big Sweetheart Stomp Valentine’s Day dance, B. J. Green finds her thoughts turning to her own love life and those of her fellow students at Cutter’s Forge High School. There’s weird Amy Porter and her equally bizarre boyfriend, Batso; Robert LaMotte, in desperate need of a big makeover and a little romance; and, of course, the handsome, mysterious Alexei Grigorov, Russian exchange student extraordinaire... what is his deep, dark secret? That’s one mystery that B. J. wouldn’t mind solving herself ! Here are nine romantic, interwoven stories that will make you laugh, cry, and maybe even fall in love.