"So?" Nelson persisted. "How do you keep from popping a boner with al those naked guys around?" Jason heaved a sigh and put his sandwich down. "They're my team. They're like family."

"Oh," Nelson said and bit into his sandwich, his brow furrowed in thought. "Wel, I don't think that would stop me."

"Can we please change the subject?" Kyle asked. Al three of them became quiet til Kyle asked Jason, "Have you thought about your speech?"

"Yeah," Jason said, but he neglected to add that every time the thought came into his head, he pushed it out again. He'd played bal and even kissed his boyfriend in front of thousands of spectators, but the thought of getting up to speak in front of total strangers stressed him too much to think about it.

He had no idea what on earth someone like him could possibly have to say at the opening of a gay and lesbian high school.

"I'l help you with it," Kyle offered. But Jason told him, "Maybe later."

And once again, he put it out of his mind.

chapter 18.

Nelson lay down in the car's backseat as they left Nashvile and continued west on I-40. He stil felt tired from dancing around the Faerie fire the night before and wanted to take a nap so he'd arrive wide-awake to experience the ful glory of Graceland. Besides, the road toward Memphis didn't have much to see: mostly a bunch of boring mountains covered with green stuff.

But as Nelson closed his eyes to sleep, Jason began reading mileage signs: "Memphis, 163 miles." Then "Memphis, 148 miles." And "Memphis, 128 miles."

"Dude!" Nelson sat up. "Could you please stop that?"

Thank God Jason shut up. When Nelson woke again, they'd reached the Memphis outskirts.

Elvis Presley Boulevard took them through a dumpy area of car washes, pawnshops, and used car lots.

"You sure this is the right way?" Nelson asked. It seemed like a pretty sleazy neighborhood for the King to have lived in.

But amazingly enough, the Graceland Shops appeared on their right, advertising free parking. The boys puled into a space, jumped from the car, and raced next door to the Graceland admission counter, just in time for the last tour.

They al agreed to splurge on platinum tickets, which got them into everything, beginning with the "mansion." It actualy wasn't much bigger than Nelson's house, but it was definitely weirder.

For some reason, the TV room had mirrors on the ceiling. The Jungle Room had green shag carpeting on both the floor and ceiling. And the kitchen stil smeled like bacon grease, even though it hadn't been used for thirty years.

Nelson sighed as he stared at the white fake fur bed. "Poor straight Elvis could've definitely used a queer makeover. Oh yeah. Uh-huh. Real bad." But he thought the exhibits after the house were kind of cool, especialy Elvis's colection of signature jumpsuits. "I'd kil for that gold lame one."

"Isn't it weird," Kyle commented, "that this entire exhibit doesn't make a single mention of his drug use?"

"Kyle, stop being such a downer." Nelson strode away to look at Elvis's grave. At first he thought it was tacky how parents were taking photos of their kids in front of the gravestone, but then he decided, what the heck?

"Can you take one of me?" he asked Jason, handing him the cel phone. "I want to e-mail it to Jeremy. You want to send one of you to your mom?"

"Sure," Jason replied. Then Kyle asked a lady to take a photo of the three of them, smiling in front of dead Elvis.

Folowing the mansion they viewed Elvis's car colection and airplanes. Jason thought they were the best part of the tour. Afterward they checked into the Graceland Campground. Nelson cleared some empty beer cans previous campers had left.

Kyle unpacked the tent and asked Jason, "Where are the tent poles? I can't find them." Jason's face went blank. "They're not with the tent?"

"Nope." Kyle held up the empty tent bag as proof. "You packed them up this morning, right?" Jason began rummaging through the trunk til he'd searched thoroughly. "I guess ..." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "I must've left them behind."

"You forgot our tent poles?" Nelson asked gleefuly, no longer feeling so stupid about his cel phone episode the day before. Then he got a briliant idea. "Let's go back to the sanctuary for them."

"Yeah, right," Kyle protested. "It's four hours away."

"So?" Nelson flashed a grin. "We could spend the night again."

"No way," Jason said, "are we going back. We'l buy new poles."

They packed the tent back into the trunk and asked at the camp office for the location of the nearest discount store. After some driving around, they found the store and Nelson asked a silver-haired saleslady about tent poles.

"I'm sorry, miss." The old lady adjusted her trifocals, peering at Nelson's hair. "I don't know anywhere that sels poles without the tent." The three boys stared at one another and Nelson whispered to Kyle, "Why'd she cal me 'miss'?" Kyle ignored his question and began looking through the half-dozen boxes on the shelf. "We'l have to get another tent."

"Do you have any bigger ones?" Jason asked the saleslady.

"This is al that's left." She wobbled her head. "It's the end of the season."

They decided to buy the cheapest box labeled as a two-to three-person tent and returned to the campground. But once assembled, the tent hardly looked big enough for two.

"It's even smaler than the last one," Jason complained.

"Wel, maybe we can use the poles from this tent with our old tent," Kyle suggested. They proceeded to try that, but the poles were too short.

"I think we should go back and get our old poles," Nelson suggested again.

"I told you," Jason cut him a sharp look. "We're not going back there."

Kyle agreed: "We don't have time."

Nelson lit a cigarette, annoyed, and took a walk to phone his mom. He'd never imagined he would miss her, but he did, a little.

When he returned to the campsite, Kyle and Jason were sitting at the picnic table, staring at the dinky tent as if hoping it would somehow grow bigger.

"Let's do something!" Nelson told them. "Not just sit around moping. Isn't the Mississippi somewhere around here? I want to go see it. You guys coming?" Jason drove and Nelson sat beside him while Kyle navigated from the backseat.

"There it is!" Jason yeled as they drove up Riverside Drive. "Let's stop and look at it." But in trying to cross over, he accidentaly turned onto a ramp for I-4O West. Suddenly they were on a bridge across the river headed toward Arkansas. In both directions, the Mississippi stretched golden in the sunset.

"Woo-hoo!" Nelson leaned out the car window. "The Mighty Mississippi!" he shouted, the wind rushing through his hair. "Mark Twain!" Jason tugged at Nelson's belt, yanking him back inside. "Are you trying to get yourself kiled?" Nelson sat down, grinning. "I didn't think you cared, Jay-Jay."

Once they crossed back over the river, they drove past the Pyramid sports arena and then downtown. At Beale Street Kyle informed them, "This is where the blues started."

They stopped for dinner at McDonald's. Upon glimpsing the tal African-American cashier, Nelson's gaydar began to ping like crazy. But the teenage boy didn't notice him at al. Instead he gazed directly at Jason, with a huge welcoming smile.

"Hi. I'm Nate." His voice was soft and deep. "What can I get for you this evening?" Nelson's translation: Big Mac, fries, or me?

But Jason remained oblivious, ordering the Big Mac and fries. It wasn't fair. Jason already had Kyle.

Nelson realized there was a problem with this trip. Alongside gorgeous Jason, Nelson would always be the ugly step-sister-or at best the less cute guy.

"You from around here?" Nate asked Jason.

Nelson's translation: Are you gay?

Kyle stepped in, explaining that they were only passing through. Nate's smile fel in disappointment.

"He was so trying to pick you up," Nelson told Jason when they sat down.

"Huh?" Jason said, unwrapping his burger. "He was not." But then he turned to Kyle. "Was he?" Kyle nodded, sipping his Coke. "He didn't take his eyes off you."

Nelson could hear a hint of jealousy in Kyle's voice.

Jason glanced toward the counter at Nate, then back at Nelson and Kyle. "For real?" A moment later Nate strode out with a broom and long-handled dustpan, pretending to sweep invisible crumbs near the boys.

"How is everything?" He said it like he was addressing the group, but his eyes gazed only at Jason, as if realy asking: Do you think I'm cute?

Jason's gaze darted nervously at Kyle. Nelson thrust his face in front of Jason's, hoping Nate would finaly notice him, and smiled as big as he could. "Everything's great!"

For an instant, Nate did seem to notice Nelson. And Nelson's heart caromed against his chest. But then Jason pushed Nelson's head aside.

Nate strode away, and Nelson's heart crashed back into place.

Once back at the campground, the three boys squeezed into their new tent, packed even more tightly than before, al elbows and knees.

Atop his sleeping bag, Nelson thought about Horn-Boy and Nate. And he wondered how on earth-between Kyle trying to protect him and Jason stealing attention away-he would ever find love.

chapter 19.

The folowing day Kyle woke up soaked with sweat. The morning sun had turned the tiny tent into an oven. Next to him, Jason's sleeping bag lay empty. No doubt he'd gone to shoot baskets.

On the other side of him Nelson groaned, kicking open his sleeping bag. "What time is it? How can it be so hot already?" Kyle squinted at the Star Trek hologram watch Nelson had given him last Christmas. "It's eight already. Come on! The civil rights museum opens at nine."

"You go!" Nelson puled his pilow over his head. "Pick me up afterward."

"No!" Kyle puled the pilow off Nelson. "We're all going."

During the past four years, as Kyle had gradualy come out and learned to accept himself as gay, he'd become more and more interested in social justice stuff.

He'd learned about the National Civil Rights Museum while plotting their trip.

"We went to Graceland like you guys wanted," he told Nelson. "Now I want you guys to go to the museum with me. It's a lot more important than Graceland."

"That's blasphemy," Nelson moaned. But he crawled from the tent anyway.

The museum was located in the two-story Lorraine Motel, on whose balcony Martin Luther King Jr., leader of the civil rights movement, had been shot in 1968.

As Kyle puled into the parking lot, Jason looked out the window at the other people emerging from their cars.

"Hey, Kyle," Jason said in a low voice. "I think this is for black people."

Kyle stared at him, unsure what to make of the comment. "Jason, it's the Civil Rights Museum. It's for everyone." It irritated him that Nelson and Jason were so unenthusiastic. Didn't they understand how important civil rights were? To avoid any further arguments, he paid for everyone's admission tickets with the money that was left from his dad's fifty.

Once inside, Kyle couldn't help notice they were about the only nonblack people in the place. Nelson and Jason yawned through most of the exhibits, until they stepped into the 1955 Montgomery city bus.

Behind the wheel, a bus driver statue faced a Rosa Parks statue sitting near the front. As Nelson and Jason slouched into empty seats, the bus driver abruptly barked, "Move to the back of the bus!"

Nelson and Jason jumped.

"That scared the crap out of me," Nelson gasped, staring at the driver statue.

Then the Rosa Parks statue replied that she wasn't moving.

As Jason descended from the bus, he asked Kyle, "You mean that realy happened?"

"Yeah," Kyle replied, and told them the story of Rosa Parks. He was happy to see Jason and Nelson starting to take an interest. Their curiosity grew even more when they saw another bus with its firebombed blasted-out window.

"How can people hate so much?" Jason asked, shaking his head in amazement.

By the time the boys reached the restored motel room where Martin Luther King stayed the night before being assassinated, Nelson and Jason stared solemnly at the historic balcony.

"Hey, Kyle?" Jason asked as they slowly walked back to the lobby. "If this is a civil rights museum, shouldn't they mention the hatred toward gay people, too?"

"Yeah!" Nelson agreed. "They have a whole frickin' exhibit about the Little Rock black kids getting caled names and being beaten up for going to a white high school. What about al the gay kids who stil get beat up every day?"

"Wel ..." Kyle nodded in agreement, excited by Nelson and Jason's newfound enthusiasm. "We could put that in the suggestion box."

"We should do something better than that," Nelson argued, "like stage a kiss-in." Jason's brow furrowed and Kyle persuaded Nelson to settle for the suggestion box. They each wrote their own note and turned them in.

"You think they'l realy pay any attention?" Jason asked as they walked back outside into the heat.

"At least we spoke up," Kyle replied. "Isn't that what the museum is about?"

Jason bit his bottom lip, as if thinking, and Kyle asked, "What?"

"I was thinking about my speech."