BEYOND COOL
By Bev Katz Rosenbaum
ISBN: 0425215636
Available now at: Amazon.com and other bookstores.

swww.venicebeachcryonicscenter/secretlydefrostedpeopleonly/peer counselorbiographies/FloeRyan

Floe Ryan, Teen Peer Counselor:

Defrosted just last year, cryonically preserved Floe Ryan is living proof that being a 'frozen zombie', as this Venice Beach native calls it, is far from a detriment! No sooner did Floe get herself up to speed on a decade's worth of inventions, including holographic teachers, Skedpets (holographic scheduling devices) and hoverblades, then she set in motion a massive fundraising campaign benefiting the Cryonics Center and ensuring her own parents were defrosted.

Floe has had plenty of experience with the social and emotional repercussions of waking up in a whole new world. Her younger sister, now her older sister, was her guardian until her parents were brought back to life! Not only did Floe have to get used to that, she also had to live in a new home, in a new city, and make all new friends.

Floe is thrilled to be in the position to help other teenaged 'frozen zombies'. She leads a peer counseling group for teens on Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. (in the teen lounge), or you can write to her at her totally secure, for-secretly-defrosted-teens-only on-line advice column, “Dear Floe”.

Dear Floe:
Help! I thought once I learned how to hoverblade, play smashball, and got caught up in Math and Science (can you even believe how many new discoveries there've been?!), everything'd be cool. But I'm starting to think I'll never catch up! My new school friends have grown up with all-in-one computers and virtual reality games. Any advice? Luv ya,
Slow Girl

Dear Slow Girl:
Sorry. Can't help ya because I'm going through the exact same thing and have absolutely no clue how to deal. Truth is, I'm a total fraud. Bummer, I'm aware. Luv ya, too,
Floe

Well, okay, I don't actually write that, but I want to.

I whip my all-in-one into my locker (it's lunch) when my gorgeous boyfriend Taz comes up to me and starts to nuzzle my neck. It's okay for Taz to see the advice column I write for other teens who were cryo-preserved at the Venice Beach Cryonics Center--my boy toy is a former popsicle, too--but seeing as Dr. Dixon, head honcho at the Venice Beach Cryonics Center, hasn't gone public yet with the news that there are, in fact, several dozen frozen zombies roaming the earth, I can't very well let anybody else see it. And there are always a whole bunch of people trailing Taz, who's a senior now.

A hugely popular senior.

“Dudes, get a room!”

The comedian who's just caused the nuzzling to stop(grrrr!) is an equally good-looking senior named (nicknamed, I hope) Crimp.

Another senior, Samara, who looks like the reincarnation of Avril Lavigne (before she went all couture), grins and says, “Leave the lovebirds alone.”

Don't be fooled. She's secretly in love with Taz. Okay, maybe I'm just paranoid.

Taz smiles and turns to Samara, whose locker is next to mine. (Lucky me.) “Hey, want to check out The Holobabes at Bleep tonight?”

Note: the Bleep thing was Crimp's idea--he's buds with the owner. My boyfriend's bff is completely obsessed with the 'right' music, the 'right' clubs, and the 'right' everything else.

“Abso-friggin'-lutely!”

“Great. Pick you up at eight.”

Okay, you're thinking, I'm definitely not paranoid. And Taz is a jerk. But here's the thing. Samara is all about music—like Taz—and I'm not old enough to hit the clubs yet. They're all eighteen, the new, recently lowered drinking age in California. Well, Taz is actually 28--he was 'frozen' for ten years, like me--but his new buds don't know that. (And in case you're wondering, yeah, high school's a year longer 'cuz of all the new tech stuff everybody has to learn.)

Taz turns back to me. “So, what's up with you tonight?”

I muster a smile. “Checkup, then a hoverdriving lesson.” Goody, right? Last year only a couple people on the planet even had hovercars. This year, they're all the rage. No point even getting your land vehicle license anymore. As if I didn't have enough trouble learning how to hoverblade. (That's blading a foot off the ground. The body movements, the timing, the skate levers…don't even get me started.) I could have taken hoverdriving lessons last year, but learning to hoverblade pretty much did me in.

“Aww, a hoverdriving lesson,” Crimp says. “Isn't she cute?”

Cute?? Aargh! But I can't get too mad at Crimp because every so often he says or does something really nice that makes me think there's another side to him besides the too-cool-for-school one he usually puts out there. Just yesterday, when I was having trouble with my all-in-one, he leaned toward me and whispered, “Those things are too friggin' complicated, if you ask me.”

Yeah, I know. People love to impose positive character traits on really good looking people. I'm probably so imagining that other side…

“Hey, Apple Martin's playing at Sked,” Samara says casually, and I know instantly she'd rather check out Gwyneth and Chris's spawn than the Holobabes. If Taz nixes the idea and she doesn't argue, it's a sure thing she has her eye on him.

Taz wrinkles his nose. “She's okay, but kind of a mainstream pop tart. The Holobabes are totally original.”

Samara nods quickly. “Totally. Just thought I'd mention it.”

Great.

“Oh, wow, my locker's, like, a wasteland,” Crimp says from his locker across the hall, running a hand through his long, vaguely dreadlocked hair. “I'll never find my math book for class this aft.”

“Want some help cleaning it?” I ask. I have no idea why, except that a) I want Taz to think I'm nicer than Samara, and b) I really want Taz's friends to like me.

Pathetic, I know.

“Would you?” he says, turning his unbelievably blue eyes on me.

“Sure,” I say, forcing myself to sound like there's nothing else I'd rather do. Truth is, I'd rather sit through ten hoverdriving lessons than organize the huge pile of crap (whoops, I mean awesomely cool stuff) in Crimp's locker.

He's at my side in a second and punches me in the arm. “You're a great kid, you know that?” Ugh, the kid thing.

Yeah, I'm definitely imagining that other side.

He drags me over to his locker by the elbow and I just wave helplessly to Taz.

We spend the next few minutes cleaning his locker. That is, I spend the next fifteen minutes cleaning his locker. While Crimp talks to what seems like every one of the one hundred students at Venice Beach Alternative School.

“Great work, kid!” he says when he finally casts his eye on the newly organized storage space. “Anything I can do for you in return, you just lemme know, 'kay? Fix you up with concert tickets--whatever.”

“Thanks,” I say, pleased (despite the 'kid' thing).

I'm hanging a pukka shell bracelet I found at the bottom of his locker onto a hook when Samara, who's been taking the opportunity to chat up Taz, says, “Awww, Crimp, that's the bracelet I bought you when you came to VBA last year and were accessorizing like a moron!” It's extremely hard for me to believe the trend-obsessed Crimp ever accessorized like a moron, but I wasn't here last year, and it must be true, because Crimp takes the bracelet off the hook and says, “It's yours, Sammy. In appreciation.”

“Awww, you want me to have it?” Samara hugs him and grabs the bracelet out of his hand at the same time.

“S'only right.”

Like, he couldn't have given it to me in appreciation? (I'm trying to imagine Samara taking even one minute to help him clean his locker, but the image just isn't coming…)

“So, is this, like, a token of your affection?” Samara teases.

“Yeah, sure,” Crimp says vaguely, turning back to his locker to get his lunch, now easily visible on a shelf.

“I'll walk you to the caf,” Samara offers.

“Yeah, okay,” Crimp says.

When he's not in one of his totally hyper gotta-be-there-and-do-that phases, Crimp spaces out. Which explains how he missed Samara's trés obvious signals just now. (So who does she like, anyway—Taz or Crimp? My head is spinning.)

As the two of them walk off (wow, it's like I'm not even there), Taz flashes me one of his melt-inducing smiles and says, “And I'll walk you to the caf.”

“Mucho thanks again, kid,” Crimp calls back. “Lock it, would ya? Later, T-man.”

I slam his locker door shut (a little more violently than necessary), and lock it. Taz, still grinning, gestures with his chin toward the cafeteria.

I smile, too, as I start walking, but I'm totally forcing mine. (Are sore cheeks a sign of a relationship gone wrong?)

“So,” I say, “fill out your applications yet?”

Being a senior, Taz has to decide pretty quickly where he wants to go for university next year. (Is it bad that he hasn't even discussed his choices with me? That I have absolutely no idea what's going on in that defrosted head of his?)

“Wha--?” he says vaguely, as he always does when I ask anything that requires an answer having to do with The Future. “Oh…no, not yet. So, listen, I think I'll just scarf down my sandwich on my way to the locker room. Lunch hour smashball practice--“ smashball being the new and thoroughly repulsive sport involving big smashable balls and heavy bats that everybody except me is into in a major way “--is in five minutes—“ natch “—but I'll catch up with you later, OK?”

“I'll be at the Cryonics Center before dinner, and hoverdriving class after,” I remind him.

“Right. And I'll be at the club later. But I'll call you,” he says, giving me a quick (distracted? removed? remote?) peck on the cheek.

It's not just his future I want to discuss—it's mine, too. Juniors should have at least some idea of what they want to study, what they want to be.

I don't.

Possibly because I'm crapping out at school pretty much across the board. Teen peer counselor or not, it's kinda tough to get back on track when you've missed ten years.

Available NOW at: Amazon.com and other bookstores.

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