Bruce Cameron

When I was in sixth grade, I noticed something wonderful, something I’d never seen before: girls.

Well, OK, I’d seen them, but I felt about them the same way I felt about housecats: They did only what they wanted to do, and they weren’t any fun to wrestle. And, like cats, they could be cute sometimes, but they always left me feeling mildly allergic.

And then one day the girl in front of me in class smiled at me, and chemicals flooded my brain, turning it into the Love Canal.

My immediate reaction was to try to get the girl to perform that magic trick again, but she didn’t seem inclined no matt...