8 Love Is Dumb

Chapter 8 Love Is Dumb "Girls are weird," I told the guys as we walked away from Andrea. "You can say that again," Michael said. "Girls are weird." We walked down the beach to scope out some of the other sand castles that people were building. They were really lame. "Girls are always falling in love," Ryan said. "Ugh, disgusting!" we all agreed. "I'm never gonna fall in love," said Neil the nude kid. "Me neither," said Michael. "Love is dumb." "Well, if Andrea is in love with Mr. Sunny, at least she won't be bugging me anymore," I told the guys.

"I think you're jealous, A.J.," said Ryan. "What?!" "You're jealous that Andrea's in love with Mr. Sunny." "I am not!" I insisted. "Are too," Ryan said. "You tried to talk her out of being in love with him." "I did not." "Did too." We went back and forth like that for a while. "Oh, come on, A.J.!" said Michael. "It's so obvious you and Andrea are secretly in love. That's why you're so mean to each other. Everybody knows that if you like a girl, you act like you hate her." What? That didn't make any sense. "Yeah," Neil said, "if you really hated Andrea, you would act nice to her. That would prove that you hate her."

My brain hurt. We went up on the boardwalk and bought saltwater taffy with some money my mom gave us. I got a bag of chocolate taffy. Michael got cinnamon taffy. Neil got strawberry taffy. Ryan got broccoli taffy. Ryan will eat anything, even stuff that isn't food. One time he ate part of the seat cushion on the school bus. I thought about what the guys said. Being mean to Andrea showed that I liked her. And being nice would show that I hated her. So if I wanted the guys to stop teasing me about being in love with Andrea, I would have to be really nice to her. We went back down to the beach to see how Mr. Sunny was doing on his castle. He was talking to the sand with his eyes closed. I called Andrea over.

"I bought you a present," I said, handing her my bag of saltwater taffy. "Sweets to the sweet." "Oh, thank you, Arlo!" Andrea said. "I didn't know you knew Shakespeare!" "Huh?" "'Sweets to the sweet,'" she said. "Shakespeare wrote that." "He did?" "Oooooh!" Ryan said. "A.J. is talking

that Shakespeare talk to Andrea and giving her candy. They must be in love!" "When are you gonna get married?" asked Michael. If those guys weren't my best friends, I would hate them.