• June 29, 2006 I know, it’s been awhile. I’ve been bored, just because Amy and Alex went to band camp, so there's no one to talk to. The pain is gone from my wisdom teeth. I’m happy about that. I miss them, though. They’re gone until the 25th of July. I won’t even be around. I’ll be in New Hampshire, hanging with the cousins. I’ve started another book, like last summer when I wrote that book about those with the beast power. It was quite good for a first novel. If I do say so myself. This one, I think, is going to be even better. It’s about this girl, who has these things called the Great Beasts. They fight and do competitions and stuff for her, and they’re a team. She wants to challenge the League of the land, but only guys can challenge. I know, in a way it’s a takeoff of Pokemon. I just have to change enough to make it seem like it’s not. I’m going to give Jessica, my main character, an ally. According to my story, his name is Louis. Yes, I took that from Luis Anderson. They have a lot of similar traits, like looks and attitude. Only Jess hates his guts. Which I guess I did at first. He’s going to be a big help to ol’ Jessica in the road to victory. Maybe I should have them fall in love. Maybe. Jessica and her brother, Matthias, (isn’t that a great name? I’ve loved it for years) also have a lost sibling named Alexander, which they’re going to try to find. It was only fair to name a character after Alex. I haven’t fully decided why Alexander isn’t with Jessica and Matthias, but I think he was kidnapped. I just have to make up an evil organization that would want him. The equivalent of Team Rocket, perhaps? Haha. You know, that’s not a bad idea. My story’s got its tragic parts. Jessica’s mom committed suicide (because I was honoring Ted, whose dad committed suicide about two and a half months ago) and her dad is always gone. I’m going to have a scene where Matthias and Jessica both decide to leave, because their dad isn’t coming back. He’s a traveling salesman. I know, tragic. Matthias decides to go look for their lost brother and Jessica goes to challenge the League with Louis. I wonder how I’m going to make Matthias okay with that, because he can be a prick sometimes. He’s still the older brother, and Jessica loves him anyway. It’s told from first person, and I’m telling it kind of sarcastic. Michael’s gone. He went to camp, Junior War College. I called it Paintball Camp for a straight month to piss him off. It worked. I wish I had been up on time and gotten to go to the airport with them, because I’m not going to see Michael for seventeen days. Me and Dad leave for Seattle the day he comes back and we’re going to miss him by about an hour. Six or seven days in Seattle, and the ten days at Paintball Camp. I miss him. I wonder how I’m going to react when he goes to college. I’ll probably cry. I know David will. David loves Michael. I guess I love Michael, too. I miss everyone. I want to go back to school. I miss Fuzz. I miss the Walrus. I miss Amy. I miss the Walrus. I wish I had his number. I don’t know why I chose this year to find someone like him. I miss him so much. What is it, like, eleven more weeks or something? I hope he at least goes to choir camp. I could see him there. Hopefully. Can’t wait until sophomore year starts. I’m listening to David’s iPod. He has some good stuff. Great, “You’re Beautiful”, James Blunt. I remember when I first heard this song. It was right after Festival, back in March. I was waiting for Dad in the parking lot of the bank while he went to go get money. I was still all hung up on Luis, and the song almost made me cry. It was the line “Now I don’t know what to do, because I’ll never be with you”. That’s why I don’t like this song. Reminds me of what a hell of a five months I went through with him. I remember what first hit off the saga. It was after my audition, the chair audition. I had been procrastinating it for a few weeks. Luis had just cut his hair and it made him look totally different. This was back when I hated him. That I remember. This was about eight months ago. November 1st or 2nd, nighttime, at Huron. I come out of the school. I know I have not done well, but I’m glad the damn audition is done. I can sigh with relief. Then a voice materializes across the arch, scaring the crap out of me. Voice: “So, how’d you do?” I squinted. It was hard to see across the arch in the dim light. Then I realized that I knew the voice, even if I didn’t know the hair yet. Of course. Who could make this night even better? Yep, Luis. Me: “Okay, I guess. What are you doing here?” Luis: “Just got off wrestling.” Ah. Of course. Wrestling was a catch-all for idiots like him. I should have guessed. Me: “Roberts did catch me reading my scales off a little piece of paper, though.” Luis: (laughs very hard at the stupid freshman and shakes his head) “See you tomorrow.” That was the one and only time I made him laugh, if you don’t count the time where I dropped my mute in the middle of that Rosa Parks song at the quietest part. He got a bit of a kick out of that. Geez, why did I like that guy? He was good until the Walrus came around. I just typed his real name accidentally. Oh well, when I introduce him to Mom and Dad I guess I can start calling him by his real name. And, if you look closely through these pages, you could probably deduce who the Walrus is. It’s really process of elimination, and there are little clues everywhere. I actually gave something big away when I was mentioning something about Paul, about the group’s relationship with him. It has to do with schoolwork. I started wearing Cam’s necklace today. Even though we hardly talk these days, it’s still an awesome necklace. I might have to get a new chain for it though. Damn it, today’s his birthday! His sixteenth birthday. I remember his fifteenth. Wow, seems like so long ago. It’s okay, though. I think he has some friends. Theater types. I know he has a girlfriend. I doubt they’re doing much making out and stuff like that, because Cam’s not like that. We’re just different these days. I know now that we’ll never go out. That’s okay though. That’s not what I want. Now it’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go Go” by Wham! I kind of like this song. Reminds me of Lauren in Latin. I miss Latin. It was a good class. I doubt I’ll ever have that kind of class next year, with those people. Mr. Vogel is the greatest teacher ever, followed closely by Mr. MacDonough. I miss him. He was the best student teacher I’ve ever had. He was only 23, so he was close enough to our ages that he was an instant hit. He got a great job in Illinois, and he was a hell of a teacher. I’m happy for him. Okay, I got to go. Time = 12:30 A.M. EDST. Goodbye. July 1, 2006 Bunny bunny. It’s a new month. Mrs. Kielb used to say that in 7th grade every time there was a new month. She was kind of an idiot, but she was okay. Never mind that I never figured out how to get X with her. Algebra was a complete mystery to me until Mrs. Nicoll-Turner took pity on me and taught me. She saved my ass in Algebra. Now I get to do Geometry. Mom and Dad are sending me to Sylvan. At first, I was kind of mad about that, just because Sylvan Learning Center is sort of for people with rock heads. I’ve always thought I was a tad above that. Call me arrogant, but whatever. Maybe it’ll help. I sure hope so. I need to start getting better grades. I was looking at Michael’s transcript last night. I realized, I did better than he did his freshman year. I had a 2.9 at the end of this semester. He had a 2.6 at the end of his freshman year. We both had a 3.0 GPA at the end of the first semester of our freshman year. Wow. I outperformed him. Barely, but I did. Too bad I can’t tell him I saw that, otherwise I would tell him that and perhaps shove it in his face a little. I’m doing good on my story. I think Mom is kind of wondering what I’m up to, though. I’ve had to shove it out of sight whenever she comes in, and she caught me hiding the composition book behind Michael’s pillow once. It would help me if people would wait for me to say, “Come in” before they just barge right in! It’s not that I don’t want them to read it, it’s just that this needs to be all my work, and without other suggestions. And I guess I don’t want them having been able to judge it. I’m currently doing a bit of a funny scene. Matthias and Jess go into this lady’s house. Her name is Mrs. Pimpy. Mrs. Pimpy offers them tarts. Jess purposely makes Matthias laugh and he has to excuse himself. They went to Mrs. Pimpy’s house to see if she remembers their brother Alexander, who dropped off the face of the earth. I’m going to have Louis know more about it than Mrs. Pimpy does. I don’t know how that’s going to work yet. I think I’m going to have Alexander kidnapped by somebody. He can’t be dead, I know that. He and Jess have to interact somehow. I think Alexander should have been adopted by some mob boss kind of guy. He’s about nineteen when my story takes place. I really need to start thinking about the middle of my story. I’ve got a clear idea of the end and a clear idea of the beginning, but I don’t know how the middle is going to be. I know that Jess is going to become the first female Marshal and the old Marshal will know that she’s a girl, because his daughter tried to do the same thing she did. Only she lost. Maybe I should have Jess sort of resisting the mob-types in the middle. Only that would be completely obvious that this somehow came from Pokemon, because in those games, that’s what really pushes the plot along. It’s always the main character versus Team Rocket or Team Aqua or Magma. I might have a subplot following Matthias, because he’s tracking down their dad, who doesn’t give a damn about them. That would be a bit Redwall, because they always have the people who travel, the people at the abbey, and the enemy. I like Matthias, personally. He’s quite a forceful personality, a good brother, and a pretty brave guy. Actually, both the Brecksons are brave. Nothing really to report about today. I nearly passed out going up to the mailbox to send a letter to Amy. I had to pass Paul’s house. I was hoping he’d be out, but no. His brother and sister were out. He and his brother look just alike. Just different hair. Paul’s hair is kind of curly, and his brother has straight hair. I found a great song yesterday while going through Michael’s CDs. It’s called “Changes” by 2Pac. It’s a takeoff of “The Way It Is” by Bruce Hornsby, only it’s more modern. “The Way It Is” is about the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, and about how laws don’t change attitudes. “Changes” is more about how we should learn to love each other and stop being gangsta just to make money. Normally I detest rap, but I really like that song. Strangely, 2Pac was dead on. It’s kind of an inspiring song. That’s good because rap is usually something to the effect of “I wanna have sex with my girlfriend and then shoot people”. That’s why I hate it. Well, 24 more days until Amy and Alex come home. I got to go for dinner. Time = 7:40 P.M. EDST. ‘Bye. July 2, 2006 I’m blasting “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind to drown David out. I hate musical theater, and he happens to be singing that. Ben’s on, but I’m definitely not talking to him. I should block him, but he never AIMs anyone unless they AIM him first, so I think I’m okay. I don’t know what I’m going to do about him next year. Hopefully I just won’t have to see him. Amy says I broke his heart. I would say that’s safe to say. I’m glad I never went out with him. I could have been in a much worse place with that guy if I had. Still, if you’re jealous, don’t prank call the girl’s friends! That’s going to get you nowhere. I stayed up until almost 5 last night. That’s really not healthy, but I’m not at all tired. I got seven hours of sleep and I’m still going strong. I was writing. Night is the best time because no one comes up to bug you. Jess is about to leave. Matthias has already left. He took Mordechai, her Dragon of the Wind, because he’s underage and can’t compete in the League. Matthias took him as a means of transportation. I’m going to make the story alternate between Jess and Matthias, first person point of view. We’ve got to find out what happened to Alexander, right? That reminds me, I have to look up what both Alexander and Matthias mean online. I changed the background of my desktop. It’s now a map of the Roman Empire. Too bad I can’t show Mr. Vogel. He might be proud. I’ve seen him proud of me only a couple times. One time was when I scraped an 85% on the noun endings quiz, because I was infamous for not knowing them. The other time was when I got a silver medal in the National Latin Exam. The freshmen and sophomores were the ones that got medals. Lauren in front of me got a gold medal and Peter Kim got a silver medal and their both sophomores. Me and Paul also got silvers. Oh, and one junior got a gold. I think the underclassmen rocked the exam, though. Mr. Vogel hinted that when he was handing out certificates and medals. We made the juniors look bad. It’s a nice feeling. I wonder what they got on the exam. The first day into the second semester, we got our first semester exams back. I didn’t do bad. I got an 87%. By Mr. Vogel’s grading scale, that’s a B+. I remember that was the day that Paul joined the class. Anyway, Mr. Vogel completely flipped out on us. It was Renton’s fault. He said Mr. Vogel’s grading scale was a complete judgment call. Fatal mistake, you weedhead. It’s just a bad idea to accuse Mr. Vogel of being at all unfair, because he prides himself on his fairness, which he should because he is very fair. Renton said that because he was mad at Mr. Vogel. He had messed up his desk by putting stickers on it or something and Mr. Vogel said he couldn’t have his final until he cleaned it up. And then he found out he failed the final. So he was pretty pissed. So he tried to point the finger at Mr. Vogel. Ooh, I’ve never seen Mr. Vogel so mad. He read us an impressive lecture on how it was our own faults we didn’t do so good because we rushed through it to listen to our iPods. I realize now that was directed at Renton, because he was the first to finish and really wanted to listen to his iPod. We got reamed. He went on for a straight five minutes about how we made stupid mistakes because we didn’t have the patience to do it right. “So don’t you dare tell me that it’s a judgment call, because it’s your own fault,” he told us. Too bad Paul had to get such a bad first impression of him. In fact, after Mr. MacDonough left, he told me he hated Mr. Vogel. I really don’t get why people don’t like him. He can be kind of tough, but he’s a good teacher and can be a really nice guy. He’s also really funny when he wants to be. A lot of the people in Humanities don’t like him, I’ve noticed. There was this time where I was in the Foreign Language Department making up a quiz, and this kid came in to get something. He told Mr. Vogel about how the class didn’t like him because he didn’t give them enough time for their timed quizzes and tests. He got shot down, of course, because Mr. Vogel was better than him at argumentation and kind of put him in his place. All the people I’ve talked to like him. Aadith who went to Tappan, Hurley, my whole Latin 1 class. Hurley likes him as much as I do. We talked about it that day we were both alone at lunch and hung out. And we made up a test together for Mr. MacDonough on verb identification. I beat him by one point. I had to rub it in his face. I think I may start my next letter to Amy tonight. Me and her get back on the same day. I’m glad I get to go to New Hampshire. I almost didn’t get to go, because of the days I’m going to Seattle with Dad. It should be fun to be an unaccompanied minor with Michael again. Hopefully they won’t give us the gayest flight attendant who’s going to talk down to us again. That guy made me angry. I can’t stand people who talk down to teenagers. Twenty-three days left until my online buddies come back, in addition to my best friend. Time = 6:50 P.M. EDST. Peace. July 3, 2006 I’m in a bad mood for some reason today. I think I’m just bored. I wanted to take Bailey outside for a walk, but apparently it’s forbidden because its David’s job. He made a huge thing of it. I shouldn’t have to ask to take my own dog out. It’s just common sense. I wish I was back in school, just so I could have some kind of intellectual challenge for awhile. I’ve decided I hate summer. It’s too hot and you’re always bored. I like winter. Nice and cool, and also Christmas comes in winter. What do you get in July? Or in summer in general? Nothing huge. Fourth of July? Not very big. I really want to do good in school this year. I’ve heard sophomore year is a breeze, at least with the science. At Huron, sophomores take Earth Science, which is pretty much just rocks. I told Mom and Dad that if I get Mrs. Goebbel two years in a row, I’m going to cry. I hope I get Mr. Vogel two years in a row, though. I heard from my friend Bella that Mr. Julius can’t teach. That’s funny, because he has the more Roman surname. There’s really a huge difference between knowing material and teaching it. I have a fifty-fifty chance of getting Mr. Vogel for my sophomore year. I hope they upgrade him to Latin 3 after that, so he can be my Latin 3 teacher. I finally found my cell phone. I had to put out some effort to find it, because Dad was going to cut me off. He told me that if I couldn’t find it, I wouldn’t get another until my junior year. That pissed me off enough to go find it. I was exactly where I thought it was, on my bed. I had just put my old math binder on top of it, so I couldn’t see it. It was my Jessica Simpson moment of the week. As soon as I turned it on, I got a voicemail from about six that night (it was around nine or ten) from the Walrus. He was asking me out to Top of the Park. I still have no idea of how to bring up the subject of me going out with people to Mom and Dad. I’ve been going over the Interlochen bulletin today. It’s pretty much the same as last year. Hopefully I won’t be attracted to my squad leader this year. It’s kind of strange to think that he’s graduated now. He was the one who got saddled with the likes of me and taught me. I tend to frustrate people who try to teach me how to march. I frustrated the crap out of both Jessica and Jing Han. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned Jessica. She was kind of the person I went to as a freshman to understand how Huron works. She thought I was kind of cool, for a freshman, that is. Okay, it’s even weirder to think that the sophomores are juniors now. The sophomores were always the sophomores. I mean, Michael was a junior. It’s just hard to see them in that stage. All of ‘em, Jessica, Zach, Jing Han, Megan, Luis, everyone. I wonder if I’ll have a freshman buddy next year. Me and Amy agreed that we have to warn all new freshmen about the existence of a guy by the name of Ryan Deskins. He comes off nice at first, but he’s downright dangerous. He’s basically a womanizer. He befriends all the new freshmen and then tries to get with the freshman girls. He’s not going to touch me, because he knows Michael, and Michael would make him very, very sorry if he did anything to me. But he went after Amy, and it was my fault. I was the one who talked to him last year at Interlochen, and I thought he was a good guy. I brought him upon the group. He also went after Melanie. He actually did pin me against the wall once, but I screamed for Fuzz, who was walking by, and he let me go, because Fuzz is a bigger guy, even though Deskins is a junior (a senior now). I already warned Anne of St. Francis. With any luck, his reputation will spread. Lucy Lu says he raped her, but I don’t think so. I think she let him, because she doesn’t seem to be at all traumatized by it and talks about it a lot. I have to warn freshmen about her, too. She drives me nuts! Amy is the only one who gets that. Everyone else just thinks she's a bit eccentric or perhaps insane. But not a bad person. They’re wrong. She’s like Lili Wolford. She goes after the guys in our group. To date, she’s liked Fuzz, Charlie, and Wyatt. I wouldn’t be surprised if she went after Ted or Kevin next. I’m going to go and eat something, and then put my trumpet back together because I was cleaning it. Grease everywhere. Time = 6:15 P.M. EDST. ‘Bye. Twenty-two more days........ July 4, 2006- The Fourth of July Okay, I just realized how stupid that looks. I guess it’s kind of a given that July 4th is the Fourth of July. Ugh.... I’m so tired. I stayed up until three or four last night and woke up at two-thirty in the afternoon. I think I need a more regular sleep schedule. Amy called today from band camp. She’s getting my letters. I was glad because I thought you might have to put the name of her band camp on the letter, but apparently not. I’ve been trying to make them decently entertaining. I had to rewrite the first one, because I said some things that were out of line concerning me and Alex. I didn’t want to have her pissed at me from camp. I was risking things that ought not be risked. So I did a total rewrite. I’m bored, needless to say. I can’t wait until this Saturday, when Dad and I leave. I need something to do. I wish I could have done summer school or something, just to have an intellectual challenge for awhile. Maybe I’ll do that next year. I actually kind of want to start on Geometry, just to see if I can do it or not. I’m voting on not. I suck at math. Michael’s the one that’s good at it, not me. What can I say, he’s good at everything. He also called last night. I don’t think he’s liking his camp all that much. I don’t think it’s much of a challenge for him. I told Mom, “The only thing that actually may challenge him is the actual military. He’s too good for everything else.” He wants to be a pilot in the Air Force or Navy or possibly Coast Guard. That’s the job he really wants. I think I know the job I want. I want to be like Bob. He’s a social worker that sort of acts as a psychologist. I want to do that, just because of the people I’ve seen at Huron that need more help than their friends can give them. Amy says I have a sarcasm problem, so I need to get that under control first. And it’s bad form to laugh at your patients, so I have to get the infamous “Claire laugh” under control. I say it’s creepy. Amy loves the Claire laugh. Fuzz also loves it. I told them that they shouldn’t put up with it. Michael and David recorded it that day we were doing “The Broke Bunch” for Michael’s English project. It’s one of the creepiest things I’ve ever heard. It’s like the Wicked Witch of the West or something. The Claire laugh comes out when something is really funny, and I can’t seem to stop laughing at it. It makes other people laugh, too, just because it’s such a screaming type laugh and it doesn’t stop. Okay, it’s been real. I have to go eat dinner now. Time = 7:19 P.M. EDST. Goodbye. Twenty-one more days....... July 5, 2006 I stayed up until 5:30 in the morning. I know that can’t be healthy. Dad told me to try to break the cycle and get up at nine tomorrow regardless of the time I go to sleep. That will put me on a regular sleep schedule. I think I’m going to try that. I just gotta set my cell phone to the alarm. I think staying up late gives you the strangest dreams. I recall two that I had, and both were about the Walrus. There was one where I was at his house, and not much happened in that one. We were just sitting on his bed, not really doing anything. Mom came to get me and he walked me out, then we started making out. After awhile, I told him to stop because Mom didn’t know about him yet. Conveniently, Mom was looking in the other direction when I got into the car. I was sort of wondering what she was looking at, but for some reason I didn’t. The second one was one of the most vivid dreams I’ve ever had. We went to the prom together. Afterwards, we went to some house where all people do is have sex. There were just random naked people in the halls, hanging out. A voice told me to hold myself back through all this. I don’t think we actually did anything, because he disappeared. I asked a guy and he said that the Walrus had left for a place called the Imaginary Cafe or something like that with five friends. I asked a girl where the Imaginary Cafe was and she took me there. The place was under a curtain and had a jazz band for some reason. There were random people just watching. I remember I went with Lili Wolford, which I don’t think I would normally do. I was encouraging her to go out with a guy (which she needs no encouragement for....) and then I asked if she was still going out with what’s-his-name who’s going out with Megan now. She asked me who I liked and I said, “I can’t say” because the Walrus is her ex. Then she got kind of mad at me. Then I woke up. I swear it was the most vivid thing I’ve ever dreamed. The whole sex house thing was incredibly real. I didn’t get the cafe part, though (or why I was talking to Lili Wolford in the first place) or why the Walrus left with exactly five friends. The whole place felt like some sort of club or theater. It was very dark. People were apparently very helpful, though. I’ve found a bunch of new songs I like. The best one yet is “Bend and Not Break” by Dashboard Confessional. I also got “Almost” by Bowling for Soup and “My Sundown” by Jimmy Eat World. I actually took most of Michael’s Dashboard Confessional CD. All I have to do is go through Michael’s CDs and I’ll find about twelve new songs I like. I have to do it when he’s not around, though. Probably because he has a crude rap selection that he doesn’t want people to know he has. Mom and Dad don’t really know he listens to rap. All this swimming has me all tired out. I barely can type. My thumb feels all worn out. I got a lot of exercise today, actually. I had to walk a long way up the street to send a letter to Amy. We need more mailboxes here in this neighborhood. One of these days I’m going to catch Paul outside. I want to talk to him about him and Amy. I need to know if that’s going to work out or not, just for Amy. We’re all kind of wondering what happened to the other girl he liked. I say she was a decoy, to distract from him liking Amy. I should know about decoys. In seventh grade I liked guy named Eric Arbor. I couldn’t try anything because he was going out with the girl who used to be my best friend. So I had to try something. I pretended to like Gary so he would teach me how to play Magic. It was my cunning plan of the seventh grade. I think Paul made up a person so it wouldn’t get out that he liked Amy. Amy is well-known enough that people would find that interesting. After all, people went nuts when they found out who I liked. That wasn’t my fault. Caroline and Sarah Vallem told EVERYONE. I’m glad we’re over the agony that Amy was going through. That was a bad couple months for her. She wouldn’t admit she liked him until May. She did all along, though. Maybe it’s good the Fairy March is a thing of the past. I never did get to meet him. I hear he was in Charlie’s Bio class, though. I never saw the Fairy March that day I went looking for Mrs. Goebbel. I needed to ask her if she had gotten my permission slip. I knew I was going to be late for Law. Unfortunately, in a choice between a field trip and Ms. Bryant, the field trip wins. I glanced into Mrs. Goebbel’s class. Damn! I had forgotten that Mr. Alger took Mrs. Goebbel’s class until 3rd hour. Charlie stood outside the class with a bunch of his friends. I had also forgotten Charlie was in that class. He grinned at me and said, “Hey, Claire.” “Hey. Do you know where I might find Mrs. Goebbel at this hour?” He said, “Yeah, I think.” Then he asked me if I had something that he could borrow. I did have it, and I gave them to him. I haven’t gotten them back, but that’s okay. They weren’t mine anyway. Charlie led the way. He took me to the back office where Mrs. Goebbel keeps her records. I realized he was probably right. He pounded on the door. Lo and behold, Mrs. Goebbel answered. I grinned thanks at Charlie, who nodded, and went in with Goebbel. We went into the main classroom. She smiled knowingly at me and said, “Who was that?” I rolled my eyes and said, “That’s Charlie.” Changing the subject (which could go very uncomfortable), I asked, “Did you get my permission slip?” I had slipped it under the door last night, since I had been sick. “Yes, dear, I did,” she said absently. “You know it’s today, right?” I nodded. Charlie, who was in the classroom, came up and sighed. “Why did I even go around?” I laughed. “I don’t even know.” The two minute bell rang. Damn. I was for sure going to be late for Law. I asked Mrs. Goebbel, “Can I have a pass? I don’t think I’m going to make it to Law.” She nodded. “I took you to the right person, right?” asked Charlie, concerned. “Yeah. That’s Mrs. Goebbel.” He should know by now. I spend half my life complaining about her. While Goebbel was writing the pass, I thought I saw her do that knowing smile, that Is-He-Your-Boyfriend? smile, again. Geez, that woman was really getting it into her head that I had a thing for Charlie. She gave me the pass and ordered me to come to the teachers’ lounge at 9 o’clock sharp. I nodded, said goodbye to Charlie, and hightailed it to Law. I did not see the Fairy March in my brief visit to Mr. Alger’s class. I’m glad Amy’s over him, though. Now she can go out with Paul and be happy. We might just be happy this year, all of us. That would be great. It might be a novelty, too. Someone was always in pain this year, emotionally. I think we’re going to have a good sophomore year. Mom just caught me. I got to go. Time = 12:08 A.M. EDST. ‘Bye. Twenty more days..... July 6, 2006 My nose itches. I wish I weren’t allergic to cats. I’m making a lot of money taking care of these ones, though. And they’re cute, too. There are three of them, Stretch, Miles, and Blue. Siamese cats. Stretch is the one that really likes me. He jumped into my lap today and I petted him for a long time. Blue and Miles hate me. They run away the second I step in through the door. I’m breaking the cycle. I actually woke up at noon today, even though I stayed up until five or so last night. I think I’m going to be okay. Man, I love this song. “Bend and Not Break”, Dashboard Confessional. I was talking to Michael about it last night. He apparently doesn’t like it very much. I didn’t get the chance to ask him why he had it on one of his homework CDs if he didn’t like it. He sounds like he’s doing good. His camp is getting better. He doesn’t like the stuff that’s irrelevant, though. Who does? Soon, I’m going to go up the street and mail my letter to Amy. I couldn’t get to sleep last night, so I wrote her a letter. For some reason I had a moment where I couldn’t stop laughing at this time when we went to go see Date Movie and there was this scene where the main character sees the blond guy from an earlier scene. Amy said, “Oh, it’s the same guy!” and I said, “Really?” and she said, “Shut up!” That’s when I knew it was time to go to sleep. Didn’t really work out. Can’t wait until Saturday. Day after tomorrow, yeah! Then it’s Seattle and the rest of the summer will go fast. I’m going to go mail that letter. Time = 7:48 P.M. EDST. Here I go hiking. Nineteen more days...... July 7, 2006 Well, this is going to be it for about a week. Tomorrow is Seattle. We’re leaving at about nine tomorrow. I’m going to miss Michael by about an hour. Sucks. I miss him. I’ve been waiting for the Walrus to get on. I want to say goodbye. Hopefully he’ll get on soon. This is a great song. I heard it today. “Where’d You Go” by Fort Minor. It’s kind of sad, but it has a good tune. It’s about this guy who’s always away from his family and his wife misses him and ends up leaving him because he’s never around. I think Michael might like it, so I burned a CD of it and left in his stereo, along with some other stuff, like all the new songs I’ve bought while he was gone. I broke the cycle by getting only three hours of sleep last night. I should be tired tonight. I worked at the Emmanuel House on three hours of sleep. Good thing it’s not really physical work, and the stuff that is, they won’t let me do because I’m only fourteen. I took a nap at about two and woke up at five, so all in all, I got about six hours overall. Rejoice, for the cycle is broken! This vacation is going to be awesome. I’m looking forward to it. Why do I feel sad, then? I think I just miss everyone. The summer should go fast after this. I know this semester is going to be awesome. Amy will have Paul. I’ll have the Walrus. At least I hope so. Okay, I’m kind of worried about him. I think he had another fight with Melanie, because of what he had on his away message last night. He was begging her to talk to him, because he said he had stuff to tell her. I hope he’s not in trouble. I wish there was some way to force him to get his ass online. Well, I will be back in about a week. I forget the exact date, but I think it’s somewhere around the thirteenth or fourteenth. Hopefully it will be a safe trip. Time = 9:17 P.M. EDST. Be back soon. July 17, 2006 I’m back. Seattle was awesome. We went everywhere. Space Needle, Crater Lake, IMAX, everywhere. And I actually got into no fights with Dad like I was worried we would. Actually, there was one. We were on our way to Oregon and Dad asked something about my hiking boots. I realized I had forgotten them back in Washington. I delayed by telling him I wasn’t sure if I had packed them or not. I was listening to my iPod and “Forget My Name” by New Found Glory was playing. The first line to “Forget My Name” is “Tell all my friends I’m dead”. I was listening to that and thinking, Yup, that’s about right. He didn’t scream too bad, though. Just made me feel guilty as hell because he had to buy more hiking boots and they’re really expensive. Overall, it was great. Lots of fun. I’m glad I’m home, though. The flight back seemed really long, even though I sat next to a cool guy. He was funny, even though he was kind of dumb, and he was really nice. It crossed my mind that he could be a pedophile (how sad am I? I’m turning into Mom) but he had a couple of kids and a nice wife and was reading Christian fiction. Raping kids is frowned upon in Christianity. We compared places that we had been in Washington. I realized that if Mom had been there she would have ordered me to switch seats with her because I was talking to the guy. I’m off to New Hampshire in three days with Michael. That should be fun. We might see Aunt Laura and Uncle Rick while we’re up there. They are by far the coolest aunt and uncle we have, because they’re a full fourteen years younger than Mom and Dad, so they’re more with the times. And I haven’t seen their kid (our cousin) Jack since Thanksgiving of eighth grade. He’s almost two now. He’s a little clone of Uncle Rick. Amy and Alex are going to be home soon! The 25th is only a week away. I got a letter from Amy the day I got back. It was kind of funny. All the sentences end either with a question mark or a exclamation point. I wrote her a letter back correcting all her spelling mistakes. She hates it when I’m the grammar Nazi. There was one time where she was off on a Margaret Parus speech to me and Fuzz (this chick at Huron...... we hate her) and she said something about how they were watching a movie on octopuses. “Octopi,” I said. “What?” “The plural of octopuses is octopi.” Fuzz chuckled. Amy gave me a look. “I knew you were going to say that.” “It’s in Latin.” That led to another discussion of Paul, of course. Paul sat next to me in Latin for a straight semester because Mr. Vogel doesn’t believe in switching seats every quarter, just at the semester change. I was one of the first people to be nice to him. I like to think I was his first Huron friend. The first person to talk to poor Paul was Renton. Ugh, Renton. I think he actually got expelled. I’ve noticed something. You’re automatically in if Renton takes a liking to you. I never needed any help, but he didn’t really like me anyway. Embarrassingly enough, I actually used to like him, back when he used to sit in front of me. He used to strech back onto my desk, grin at me and say, “Hey, what’s up?” I dropped a book on his head on purpose one day before a quiz. Mr. Vogel nodded approvingly at me. I think he knew I had a crush on Renton. He’s literally omniscient. Now I realize that Renton was a jerk. He went away to a special school because he was addicted to weed. Turns out he’s gay anyway. He was hot for Mr. MacDonough and also for Michael. Michael hated him. He always thought Renton was an idiot. Can’t wait until Amy and Alex come home. I miss them. Life isn’t the same without Amy’s comments and Alex’s smartass remarks. I wish I could have figured out Alex’s cabin and then sent him a letter and then just told him not to tell Amy. But I guess that’s not what friends do. Too bad. He said no one ever sends him anything, not even his mom. I got another interesting idea for a story. It would be about these four friends and would be told in a different way. I would tell it sort of like how I do here, with memories instead of chapters. Something like Memory #1, and then number them from there. Give the date and time of day and a title to the memory. I would have to take from all the stuff that the four of us have done and all the conflicts we’ve had. I always told them that I’m going to write a book someday about them. Like us, there would be two boys and two girls. So far, for names I have Jess and Patrick. Might be interesting if I decide to write it. I have to decide first why Louis knows so damn much about the League and the region. Maybe his mom or sister did the same thing that Jess is doing. It’s hot. It got over a hundred degrees yesterday, apparently. That’s why it was so bad on the way to the mailbox when I was walking there yesterday. I keep hoping to see Paul so I can talk to him about Amy but I haven’t seen him yet. I’ve seen his sister and brother but not him. I wonder, if he starts going out with Amy, is he going to become a part of the group? I did it. I bet he could do it. The circumstances are sort of the same. I had a friendship with Amy and she helped me meet all those people by inviting me to her fifteenth birthday party. Ooh, that was fun. I had a great time. It was me, Amy (of course...), Fuzz, Wyatt, and Akira. She invited Melanie but she didn’t go because her strange friend Jenny wasn’t invited, so she pulled the old “uncle is in the hospital so I have to go out of town” which I thought was funny because Michael had used the same excuse to get out of a Zap Zone party because he thought it was a bit juvenile. I played foosball with Wyatt and Fuzz almost the whole time. I kicked Fuzz’s ass and then Wyatt laughed. I beat Wyatt once and Wyatt beat me once. I sort of started liking him that day, but then I found out about Melanie and him and all their trouble and I thought, “I can’t get into the middle of this.” So I gave up. Moved on to Ted. I didn’t tell anyone but Fuzz about that, but Fuzz figured it out on his own. I think Melanie was getting a clue, but then she moved away. I might have tried something with Ted if his dad hadn’t killed himself during that time. I thought it was best to step back after that. I was literally skipping 4th hour to spend time with him. Six times in two weeks. Then Mrs. Goebbel turned me in to Mom and I had to stop that. Ted’s line when he saw me before 4th hour was, “Go to class!” He and Fuzz escorted me to Bio in the time after Goebbel was nice enough to tell Mom and get me busted. Lucky I smoothed that over. Michael couldn’t believe it. I pretended like it was SO hard to get to Bio from Latin and Mrs. Goebbel would have given me detention if I got a red pass (which is true) and I didn’t want to mess up anyone’s schedule trying to get me to detention after school. I cried. That got Mom. The trick to doing that is to believe your lie and focus on how much trouble you’re in. That brings the tears right away. You really do have to believe the lie you’re telling or else it shows on your face. I’m a great liar. Not that I’m proud of it. It can be useful, though. I don’t know what to do now. I might go check my email or something. Time = 7:19 P.M. EDST. Yes! There’s Zach! Oh, right, bye.

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