Seventeen: Duck, Duck, Goose!

"Okay." Aria blew her long bangs out of her eyes. "In this scene, you have to wear this colander on your head and talk a lot about a baby we don't have."

Noel frowned and brought his thumb to his pink, bow-shaped lips. "Why do I have to wear a colander on my head, Finland?"

"Because," Aria answered. "It's an absurdist play. It's supposed to be, like, absurd."

"Gotcha," Noel grinned. It was Friday morning, and they were sitting on desks in English class. After yesterday's Waiting for Godot disaster, Ezra's next assignment had been for them to break up into groups and write their own existentialist plays. Existentialist was another way of saying, "silly and out there." And if anyone could do silly and out there, it was Aria.

"I know something really absurd we could do," Noel said. "We could have this character drive a Navigator and, like, after a couple of beers, crash it into his duck pond. But he's, like, falling asleep at the wheel, so he doesn't notice he's in the duck pond until the next day. There could be ducks in the Navigator."

Aria frowned. "How could we stage all that? It sounds impossible."

"I don't know." Noel shrugged. "But that happened to me last year. And it was really absurd. And awesome."

Aria sighed. She hadn't exactly chosen Noel to be her partner because she thought he'd be a good co-writer. She looked around for Ezra, but unfortunately wasn't watching them in fitful jealousy. "How about if we make one of the characters think he's a duck?" she suggested. "He could randomly quack."

"Um, sure." Noel wrote that down on a piece of lined paper with a gnawed-up Montblanc pen. "Hey, maybe we could shoot this with my dad's Canon DV camera? And have this as a movie instead of boring play?"

Aria paused. "Actually, that would be kind of cool."

Noel smiled. "Then we could keep the Navigator scene!"

"I guess." Aria wondered if the Kahns really had a spare Navigator to crash. Probably.

Noel nudged Mason Byers, who was paired up with James Freed. "Dude. We're going to have a Navigator in our play! And pyrotechnics!"

"Wait. Pyrotechnics?" Aria asked.

"Nice!" Mason said.

Aria clamped her lips shut. Honestly, she didn't have the energy for this. Last night, she hardly slept. Plagued by yesterday's cryptic text message, she'd spent half the night thinking and furiously knitting a purple hat with earflaps.

It was awful to think that someone knew not only about her and Ezra, but also about that stuff with her dad. What if this A person sent her mom messages next? What if A already had? Aria didn't want her mom to find out—not now, and not that way.

Aria also couldn't shake the idea that the A message might actually be from Alison. There just weren't that many people who knew. A few faculty members maybe, and Meredith knew, obviously. But they didn't know Aria.

If the text was from Alison, that meant she was alive. Or…not. What if the texts were from Ali's ghost? A ghost could have easily slid between the cracks of the women's bathroom at Snooker's. And spirits from the dead sometimes contracted the living to make amends, right? It was like their final homework assignment before graduating to heaven.

If Ali needed to make amends, though, Aria could think of a more deserving candidate than her. Try Jenna. Aria put her hands over her eyes, blocking out the memory. Screw therapy that said you should face your demons: She tried to blackout The Jenna Thing as much as she tried to block out dad and Meredith.

Aria sighed. At times like this, she wished she hadn't drifted from her old friends. Like Hanna, a few desks over—if only Aria could walk up to Hanna and talk to her about this, ask her questions about Ali. But time really changed people. She wondered if it would be easier to talk to Spencer and Emily instead.

"Hey there."

Aria straightened up. Ezra was standing in front of her desk. "Hi," she squeaked.

She met his blue eyes and her heart ached.

Ezra tilted his hips awkwardly. "How are you?"

"Um, I'm…great. Really awesome." She sat up straight. On the plane back from Iceland, Aria had read in a Seventeen she found in her seat pocket that boys like enthusiastic, positive girls. And since brilliant hadn't worked yesterday, why not try out preppy?

Ezra clicked and unclicked his Bic pen. "Listen, sorry to cut you off yesterday in the middle of your speech. DO you want to give me your index cards so I can take a look at them and grade you?"

"Okay." Huh. Would Ezra do that for the other students? "So…how are you?"

"Good." Ezra smiled. His lips twitched as if he wanted to say more. What're you working on, there?" He placed his hands on her desk and leaned over to look at her notebook. Aria stared at his hands for a moment, then slid her pinkie finger up against his. She tried to make it look like an accident, but he didn't pull away. It felt like electricity was surging between their two pinkies.

"Mr. Fitz!" Devon Arliss's hand shot up in the back row. "I have a question."

"Be right there," Ezra said, straightening up.

Aria put the pinkie finger that had touched Ezra's into her mouth. She watched him for a few seconds, thinking he might come back to her, but he didn't.

Well, then. Back to plan J, for Jealous. She turned to Noel. "I think our movie should have a sex scene in it."

She said it really loud, but Ezra was still bent over Devon's desk.

"Awesome," Noel said. "Does the guy who thinks he's a duck get some?"

"Yep. With a woman who kisses like a goose."

Noel laughed. "How does a goose kiss?"

Aria turned toward Devon's desk. Ezra was facing them now. Good.

"Like this." She leaned over and smacked Noel on the cheek with her lips. Surprisingly, Noel smelled pretty good. Like Kiehl's Blue Eagles shaving cream.

"Nice," Noel whispered.

The rest of the class burbled with activity, unaware of any goose kissing, but Ezra, still next to Devon's desk, stood absolutely still.

"So did you know I'm having a party tonight?" Noel put his hand on Aria's knee.

"Yeah, I heard something about that."

"You should totally come. We're going to have a lot of beer. And other things…like Scotch. Do you like Scotch? My dad has a collection, so…"

"I love Scotch." Aria felt Ezra's eyes burning into her back. Then she leaned over to Noel, and said: "I'll totally come to your party tonight."

By the way his pen fell out of his hand and clattered to the ground, it wasn't hard to guess whether or not Ezra had heard them.