"What do you mean?" Mark retorted vehemently."Puritanical shock," chuckled Serena, "coupled with 'phwoah!'" Serena!" Mark's thighs tightened involunta...ily in outrage and his horse leapt forward which brought another scream of laughter from Serena.Mark reined in his horse. "Serena, you are a very, very wicked girl." Yes, Mark," said Serena demurely but her dancing eyes denied it."Look," said Mark severely. "I have seen Victoria three times recently and have hardly spoken to her. I admit I think. .. when no one's watching. We can give him money & he'll bring them to school." Do you smoke, Annie? I've never smelled it on you." I did a bit. I figure now that I'm sixteen it's time to get with the program." Do a lot of the girls at school smoke?" Yeah ... some. I've never seen you smoke, Hollis." It doesn't mean I don't know how. In fact, an expert -- my dad, instructed me in the fine art of cigarette smoking. I was about your age, too. I think I should give you the same instruction he gave. Even Tami and Robbie, who shared a lab table with me and Luke, looked zoned out.It's not that biology can't be interesting—hell, I was in my third year of research on female mammalian mating habits--but Mr. Bower had a monotone voice and never got excited. I doubt he could give a word inflection if he wanted to. It was a good thing his tests were straight out of the book or everybody would flunk. And it was a required course.For once, I was wide awake. But not because of the life cycle of the. " You won't be seeing it anymore," he said. Then with what appeared to be a great effort on his part, he calmed down, got a towel, and wrapped it around himself. He opened the door and stepped out."What do you want Madeline?" he asked in a tone far calmer than his eyes told me he was."I think we need to talk about ... well you know," I said. "But maybe we should wait a while. I think that you need time to calm down. I need time to explain things to you, and we really don't want to wreck the.