Surprisingly, I was having a hard time this week coming up with a boy to write about---which, if you know me, is really quite shocking because I'm always reading some sort of chick-lit/romance. However, this week, there just weren't any guys that really popped out of the page for me. BUT then I remembered how I promised to do a MBB on Cricket Bell not so long ago, and let's face it, if you've read Lola and the Boy Next Door, you'll understand just how lovable Cricket Bell is! But without further adieu...
Ladies and Gentlemen (but probably just Ladies because I seriously doubt there's a guy out there reading this...) I present...
- Cricket Bell was always taller than most boys, but in the last two years, he's added half a foot. At least. His slender body--once skinny and awkward, despite his graceful movements--has also changed. He's filled out, though just slightly. The edge has been removed. But pointing out that someone is tall is like pointing out the weather when it's raining. Both obvious and irritating.
"It's the hair," he says with a straight face. "Gravity has always been my nemesis."
And his dark hair is tall. It's floppy, but...inverted floppy. I'm not sure how it's possible without serious quantities of mousse or gel, but even when he was a kid, Chricket's hair stood strait up. It gives him the air of a mad scientist, which actually isn't that far off. His hair is one of the things I always liked about him. - has amazing blue eyes---"There's something about blue eyes. The kind of blue that startles you every time they're lifted in your direction. The kind of blue that makes you ache for them to look at you again. Not the blue green or blue gray, the blue that's just blue. Cricket has those eyes.”
- Is shy and gets nervous/flustered a lot
- blushes easily (aww)
- has an amazing (maybe slightly quirky) sense of fashion
- is an inventor
- has been in love with Lola since they were kids
- is SO incredibly genuine and sweet
Now I'm staring at my hands, too. "I would have let you take it."
"I know." His voice croaks."
"I know you aren't perfect. But it's a person's imperfections that make them perfect for someone else."
Lola: "You have a roommate."
Cricket: "Yeah." He sounds confused.
"The, um, picture on your door surprised me."
"NO. No. I prefer my women with...fewer carnivorous beasts and less weaponry." He pauses and smiles. "Naked is okay. What she needs are a golden retriever and a telescope. Maybe then it would do it for me."
I laugh.
"A squirrel and a laboratory beaker?" "A bunny rabbit and a flip chart," I say.
"Only if the flip chart has mathematical equations on it."
I fake swoon onto his bed. "Too much, too much!"
"So do you believe in second chances?" I bite my lip.
"Second, third, fourth. Whatever it takes. However long it takes. If the person is right," he adds.
"If the person is... Lola?"
This time, he holds my gaze. "Only if the other person is Cricket."
"Once upon a time, there was a girl who talked to the moon. And she was mysterious and she was perfect, in that way that girls who talk to moons are. In the house next door, there lived a boy. And the boy watched the girl grow more and more perfect, more and more beautiful with each passing year. He watched her watch the moon. And he began to wonder if the moon would help him unravel the mystery of the beautiful girl. So the boy looked into the sky. But he couldn't concentrate on the moon. He was too distracted by the stars. And it didn't matter how many songs or poems had already been written about them, because whenever he thought about the girl, the stars shone brighter. As if she were the one keeping them illuminated.
One day, the boy had to move away. He couldn't bring the girl with him, so he brought the stars. When he'd look out his window at night, he would start with one. One star. And the boy would make a wish on it, and the wish would be her name.
At the sound of her name, a second star would appear. And then he'd wish her name again, and the stars would double into four. And four became eight, and eight became sixteen, and so on, in the greatest mathematical equation the universe had ever seen. And by the time an hour had passed, the sky would be filled with so many stars that it would wake the neighbors. People wondered who'd turned on the floodlights.
The boy did. By thinking about the girl."
