The Mosts (15 page)

What Happened Next

During the final few days of school, Caro did not start rumors about me. She didn’t arrange to have me run over. She just pretended I didn’t exist.

Fergie has waved at me the few times she’s seen me when she hasn’t been with Caro. But when she’s with Caro, she ignores me. Right after it all happened, she e-mailed me:
I wish we could still be friends, but you broke the code
. There’s no point in telling Fergie my side. First of all, there is no
there
there, as Sabrina loves to say about my former friends. And Fergie lives for Caro.

Sam is spending the summer working full-time at the farm. I, of course, am not. Avery and I are junior counselors at a day camp and have become really good friends with another girl, who just moved to Freeport and will be attending Freeport Academy in the fall as a junior, just like us. We’ve told her
everything
. Leila is from New York City and is incredibly cool and stylish, but not in a high-fashion couture way. In a her-own-style way. Fergie will hate her.

Sabrina was voted Most in Need again in the junior-class Not polls. She didn’t care again. She and Joe have decided they are Junior Class Couple.

Elinor’s Spring Fling date turned into a boyfriend. She still has the occasional frizz puffs, but she traded in her glasses for contacts when the boyfriend told her she had the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen.

My dad and Tiffany are expecting a baby. I’m really happy for him.

Avery and I have become very close.

Sam told me he loves me. I told him I love him.

Aunt Darcy sent me a huge “congratulations on the love thing” box of chocolates, no gross pink-cream centers.
To: Most You
, she’d written on the little card.

The Most Me. That is all I want to be.

Acknowledgments

First, this book would not
be
without the guidance and brilliance (and incredible patience) of my editor, Wendy Loggia. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Big thanks to my agents, Alexis Hurley and Kim Witherspoon at Inkwell Management.

The very kind owners of the Mitchell Ledge Farm took time out of their busy schedule to sit down and talk cows with me, and I appreciate it very much! Thank you, Mary and Andy.

Oh, to have a trusted friend who is also an author! Thank you, Lee Nichols.

And as always, a big thank-you to my adorable, amazing little guy, Max, a constant source of inspiration.

MELISSA SENATE
is the author of eight other novels, including her debut for teens,
Theodora Twist
, hailed by
Teen People
as a “hot summer read” and by the
New York Post
as “realistically raw, yet endearing.” A former editor of teen fiction in New York City, Melissa now lives on the coast of Maine, where
The Mosts
is set.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Melissa Senate

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Senate, Melissa.
The Mosts / Melissa Senate.
p. cm.
Summary: After a summer makeover, Madeline begins dating one of the most popular boys at her Maine high school, but when he moves to California, she fears for both her status and her relationship.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89657-6
[1. Popularity—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Dating (Social
customs)—Fiction. 4. Identity—Fiction. 5. High schools—Fiction.
6. Schools—Fiction. 7. Maine—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S4666Mo 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009026226

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