My first year in town was a disaster.

Third grade wasn't much better. She was still hot on my trail every time I turned around. Same with fourth. But then in fifth grade I took action.

It started out slow — one of those Nah-that's-not-right ideas you get and forget. But the more I played with the idea, the more I thought, What better way to ward Tiffany off? What better way to say to her, “Tiff, you are not my type”?

And so, my friend, I hatched the plan.

I asked Kim Seolhyun out.

To fully appreciate the brilliance of this, you have to understand that Tiffany hates Kim Seolhyun. She always has, though it beats me why. Seolhyun's nice and she's friendly and she's got a lot of hair. What's not to like? But Tiffany hated her, and I was going to make this little gem of knowledge the solution to my problem.

What I was thinking was that Seolhyun would eat lunch at our table and maybe walk around a little with me. That way, anytime Tiffany was around, all I'd have to do was hang a little closer to Seolhyun and things would just naturally take care of themselves. What happened, though, is that Seolhyun took things way too seriously. She went around telling everybody — including Tiffany — that we were in love.

In no time Tiffany and Seolhyun got into some kind of catfight, and while Seolhyun was recovering from that, my supposed friend Yuri — who had been totally behind this plan — told her what I was up to. He's always denied it, but I've since learned that his code of honor is easily corrupted by weepy females.

That afternoon the principal tried cross-examining me, but I wouldn't cop to anything. I just kept telling her that I was sorry and that I really didn't understand what had happened. Finally she let me go.

Seolhyun cried for days and followed me around school sniffling and making me feel like a real jerk, which was even worse than having Tiffany as a shadow.

Everything blew over at the one-week mark, though, when Seolhyun officially dumped me and started going out with Woo Ji Ho who likes to be called Zico. Then Tiffany started up with the goo-goo eyes again, and I was back to square one.

Now, in sixth grade things changed, though whether they improved is hard to say. I don't remember Tiffany actually chasing me in the