stuff in there.
I didn’t really know what to expect from detention,
but when I walked into the room, the first
thought I had was, “I don’t belong in here with
these future criminals.”
I took the only empty seat, which was right in
front of this kid named Leon Ricket.
Monday
Leon is not the brightest kid in our school. He
was in detention because of what he did when a
wasp landed on the window in homeroom.
I found out that all you do in detention is sit there
and wait for it to be over. You’re not allowed to
read or do your homework or ANYTHING, which
is a pretty dumb rule, considering that most of the
kids in there could really use the extra study time.
Mr. Ray was the moderator, and he more or less
kept an eye on us. But every time Mr. Ray looked
away, Leon would flick my ear or give me a Wet
Willie or something like that. Eventually Leon got
careless, and Mr. Ray caught Leon with his finger
in my ear.
77
Mr. Ray said if he caught Leon touching me again,
he was gonna be in big trouble.
I knew Leon was just gonna go back to bugging
me, so I decided to put a stop to it. As soon
as Mr. Ray’s back was turned, I slapped my
hands together to make it seem like Leon hit me.
Yes,
Mr. Ray.
ouch!
smack
78
Mr. Ray turned around and told Leon he was
gonna have to stay another half hour, and that
he had detention again tomorrow.
On the way home, I was wondering if I made
the smartest move back there at the school. I’m
not exactly the fastest runner, and a half hour
isn’t that big of a head start.
Tonight I realized all of my current problems
can be traced back to when someone in my family
started stealing the lunch snacks. So I decided
to catch the thief once and for all.
Tuesday
79
I knew Mom had gone grocery shopping over the
weekend, so there was a fresh supply of snacks in
the laundry room. That meant the snack thief
was pretty much guaranteed to strike.
After dinner I went in the laundry room and
turned off the light. Then I climbed in an empty
basket and waited.
About a half hour later, someone came in the
room and turned on the light, so I hid under a
towel. But it turns out it was just Mom.
I stayed perfectly still while she got clothes out
of the dryer. Mom didn’t notice me in there, and
she dumped the clothes from the dryer right into
the bin where I was hiding.
80
Then she walked out of the room, and I waited
some more. I was seriously ready to wait there all
night if that’s what it took.
But the clothes from the dryer were really warm,
and I started feeling a little drowsy. And before
I knew it, I was asleep.
I don’t know how many hours I slept, but what
I Do know is that I woke up to the sound of
crinkling cellophane.
Dump
zzzzz
81
When I heard the sound of chewing, I turned
on my flashlight and caught the thief red-handed.
It was Dad! Man, I should have known it was
him from the start. When it comes to junk food,
he’s a total addict.
I started to give Dad a piece of my mind, but
he cut me off. He wasn’t interested in talking
about why he was stealing our lunch snacks. What
he was interested in talking about was what
the heck I was doing buried in a pile of Mom’s
underwear in the middle of the night.
Right at that moment, we heard Mom coming
down the stairs.
HA!
MMMFF!
82
I think me and Dad realized how bad the situation
looked for both of us, so we each just grabbed as
many oatmeal creams as we could carry and made a
run for it.
I was still really steamed at Dad for stealing our
lunch treats, and I was planning on confronting
him tonight. But Dad was in bed by 6:00, so I
didn’t get my chance.
Dad went to bed so early because he was
depressed about something that happened when
he got home from work. When Dad was getting
the mail, our neighbors from up the street, the
Snellas, walked down the hill with their new baby.
Wednesday
Hey
there,
frank!
83
The baby’s name is Seth, and I think he’s about
two months old.
Every time the Snellas have a baby, six months
later they throw a big “half-birthday” party and
invite all the neighbors.
The highlight of each Snella half-birthday
party is when the adults line up and try to
make the baby laugh. The grown-ups do all
these wacky things and make complete
fools of themselves.
I’ve been to every single Snella half-birthday
party so far, and no baby has laughed once.
Goo goo goo
goo goo!
84
Everyone knows the Real reason the Snellas
have these half-birthday parties is because their
big dream is to win the $10,000 Grand Prize on
“America’s Funniest Families.” That’s this tv show
where they play home movies of people getting hit
in the groin with golf balls and stuff like that.
The Snellas are just hoping something really funny
will happen at one of their parties so they can
catch it on videotape. They’ve actually gotten some
pretty good stuff over the years. During Sam
Snella’s half-birthday party, Mr. Bittner split
his pants doing jumping jacks. And during Scott
Snella’s party, Mr. Odom was walking backward,
and he fell in the baby pool.
wwaauugh!
whirr
85
The Snellas turned in those videos, but they
didn’t win anything. So I guess they’re just
gonna keep having babies until they do.
Dad hates performing in front of people, so he’ll
do everything he can to avoid having to act like a
fool in front of the whole neighborhood. And so
far, Dad has weaseled his way out of every single
Snella half-birthday party.
At dinner, Mom told Dad he has to go to
Seth Snella’s half-birthday party in June. And
I’m pretty sure Dad knows that this time, his
number is finally up.
Everybody at school has been talking about the big
Valentine’s Dance that’s coming up next week.
Thursday
June
86
This is the first year at my school that they’ve
actually had a dance, so everyone’s all excited.
Some of the guys in my class were even asking
girls if they would be their dates to the dance.
Me and Rowley are both bachelors at the
moment, but that’s not gonna stop us from
arriving in style.
I figured if me and Rowley scraped together
some money in the next few days, we could rent
a limo for the night. But when I called the limo
company, the guy who answered the phone called
me “Ma’am.” So that pretty much blew any
chance he had of getting my business.
87
Since the dance is next week, I realized I was
gonna need something to wear.
I’m kind of in a pinch because I’ve already worn
most of the clothes I got for Christmas, and
I’m almost out of clean stuff to wear. I went
through my dirty clothes to see if there was
anything I could wear a second time.
I separated my laundry into two piles: one
that I could wear again, and one that would
get me sent down to Nurse Powell’s office for a
lecture on hygiene.
shake
shake
sniff
88
I found a shirt in pile number one that wasn’t
so bad, except it had a jelly stain on the left-
hand side. So at the dance, I’ll just need to
remember to keep Holly Hills to the right of me
at all times.
I was up late last night making Valentine’s cards
for everyone in my class. I’m pretty sure my
middle school is the only one in the state that
still makes all the kids give cards to one another.
Last year I was actually looking forward to the
card swap. The night before Valentine’s Day, I
spent a lot of time making an awesome card for
this girl named Natasha who I kind of liked.
Beloved Natasha –
For you, a fire blazes
in my heart
So strong that the
embers alone could
bring a thousand hot
tubs to a boil
So intense that it
causes snowmen
everywhere to despair
Let the bonfire of my
love wrap you in its
warmth
Only your kiss could
quench the flames
that so consume me
To you I pledge my
love, my desire, my
life
Greg
Valentine’s Day
I showed Mom my card to check for spelling
errors, but she said what I wrote wasn’t “age
appropriate.” She told me maybe I should just
get Natasha a little box of candy or something,
but I wasn’t about to take romantic advice from
my mother.
At school everyone went around the room and put
their Valentine’s cards in one another’s boxes, but
I delivered my card to Natasha personally.
I let her read it, and then I waited to see
what she made for me.
Natasha dug around in her box and pulled out
this cheap store-bought card that was supposed to
be for her friend Chantelle, who was out sick
that day.
90
Then Natasha scribbled out her friend’s name
and put my name on it instead.
Anyway, you can probably see why I wasn’t too
enthusiastic about the card exchange this year.
Last night I came up with a great idea. I
knew I had to make a card for everyone in the
class, but instead of being all mushy and saying
things I didn’t really mean, I told everyone
exactly what I thought of them.
To: Chantelle
From: Natasha
Greg
I think you’re
Far out
91
The trick was, I didn’t actually sign any of
my cards.
A few of the kids complained about the cards to
our teacher, Mrs. Riser, and then she went around
the room trying to figure out who sent them. I
knew Mrs. Riser would think that whoever
didn’t get a card was the culprit, but I was
prepared for that, because I made a card for
myself, too.
Dear James,
you smell.
Dear Greg,
I hate
your guts.
92
After the card exchange came the Valentine’s
Dance. The dance was originally supposed to be
at night, but I guess they couldn’t get
enough parents to volunteer to be chaperones. So
they put the dance smack in the middle of the
school day instead.
The teachers started rounding everyone up and
sending them down to the auditorium at around
1:00. Anyone who didn’t want to cough up the
two bucks for admission had to go down to Mr.
Ray’s room for study hall.
But it was pretty obvious to most of us that
“study hall” was basically the same thing as
detention.
93
The rest of us filed into the gym and sat in the
bleachers. I don’t know why, but all the boys sat
on one side of the gym, and all the girls sat on
the other. Once everyone was inside the gym,
the teachers started the music. But whoever
picked out the songs is seriously out of
touch with what kids are listening to these days.
For the first fifteen minutes or so, no one moved
a muscle. Then Mr. Phillips, the guidance counselor,
and Nurse Powell walked to the middle of the gym
and started dancing.
You do the
hokey pokey
and you turn
yourself
around…
94
I guess Mr. Phillips and Nurse Powell thought if
they started dancing, all the kids would come
down onto the floor and join them. All they
really did was guarantee that everyone
stayed in their seat.
Finally, Mrs. Mancy, the principal, grabbed a
microphone and made an announcement. She said
that everyone in the bleachers was required
to come down onto the floor and dance, and it
would count for 20% of our Phys Ed grades.
At that point me and a couple of other boys
tried to sneak out to go down to Mr. Ray’s
room, but we got caught by some teachers who
were blocking the exits.
95
Mrs. Mancy wasn’t kidding about the gym grade
thing, either. She was walking around with Mr.
Underwood, the Phys Ed teacher, and he was
carrying his gradebook with him.
I’m already close to flunking Phys Ed, so I
knew it was time to get serious. But I didn’t
want to look like a fool in front of the kids in
my class, either. So I just came up with the
simplest move I could do that would technically
qualify as “dancing.”
Step
Pause
Step
Pause
1
2
3
4
96
Unfortunately, a bunch of guys who were worried
about their Phys Ed grades saw what I was
doing, and they came over to where I was. And
the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by a
bunch of bozos who were stealing my move
s.
I wanted to get as far away from those guys
as I could, so I looked around the gym for a
place where I could go and dance in peace.
That’s when I spotted Holly Hills across the
room, and I remembered why I even bothered
coming to the dance in the first place.
Holly was dancing with her friends in the middle
of the gym, and I started doing my step-dance
thing, moving slowly toward them.
Step
Step
Step
Step
97
All the girls were lumped together in one big
pack, and they were dancing like professionals,
probably because they spend all their free time
watching mtv.
Holly was right in the middle of the group. I kind
of danced around the outside of the circle for a
while, trying to find an opening, but I couldn’t.
Finally, Holly stopped dancing and went to get a
drink, and I knew it was my big chance.
Step
But just when I was about to go up to Holly
and say something witty, Fregley came flying in
out of nowhere.
Fregley had pink frosting covering his face, so
he was probably all hopped-up on sugar from the
cupcakes they were serving at the refreshments
table. All I know for sure is that he totally
ruined what should have been a great moment
between me and Holly.
A few minutes later, the dance was over, and I
missed my chance to make a good impression on
her. I walked home alone after school, because I
just needed a little time by myself.
BoogieBoogie
Boogie!
99
After dinner Mom told me there was a Valentine’s
card out in the mailbox with my name on it. When
I asked her who it was from, she just said,
“someone special.” I ran out to the mailbox and
got the card, and I have to admit I was pretty
excited. I was hoping it was from Holly, but there
are at least four or five other girls at my school
who I wouldn’t mind getting a card from, either.
The card was in a big pink envelope with my
name written in cursive. I ripped it open, and