My clock radio turned on. Frank Sinatra was singing…

I said that’s life (that’s life)
And as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks
Stomping on a dream
But I don’t let it, let it get me down
‘Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinnin’ around

I hadn’t been awake, but I hadn’t been asleep either, I’d been in that kind of inbetween place. It was Monday morning of the last week of school before the two-week Christmas vacation. I hadn’t been able to go back to sleep since I’d woken up in the middle of the night after this weird dream of being in a giant house where zombies had taken over the bottom floor and I had to go upstairs, and then up into the attic as they kept looking for me. The attic had three regular walls but the fourth one was like a giant glass window with some kid behind it looking at me and looking worried. I asked if he could hear me but he didn’t respond, so I figured he couldn’t. I could hear the zombies downstairs and I kept looking at the staircase afraid they would come up in the attic and find me.

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Because Abby told me, I knew Rose’s last name was Bertram, but I still hadn’t talked to her. She was in my Homeroom, but she sat in the front of the room by the door next to Myrna. I sat in the back by the windows with Lance and the other cool boys. She was kind of pretty and I just liked looking at her whenever I could, but I didn’t look at her so much that Lance and the others might see me and tease me about it. Sometimes when I was looking at her she might look at me and she might smile a little bit but then look away. I guess that was good. Abby had said that Myrna had said she was shy. I didn’t like to admit it, but I guess I was kind of shy too, so her being shy I guess was good.

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I was glad my regular school day was over, it felt like it had gone on for forever. I felt kind of tired all day because I hadn’t slept very good last night. Yesterday in Band, the teacher, Mr Balfort, got mad at me because I kept messing up my part in the “Liberty Bell March” we were learning, and then he said that this kind of thing happens if you don’t practice enough. I mean he was kind of right that I didn’t practice enough, but it was so embarrassing when he said that with all the other kids there listening and looking at me. Last night I practiced my part for a half hour, but I was still having trouble with it, so it was really frustrating. When I got into bed I kept thinking about that and worrying that if I kept messing it up he would get even angrier, because he did get angry at us a lot. I also worried about the Math test today, because I always wanted to do good on tests to impress my teachers, because tests always seemed to be really important to them, and I could see their eyes twinkle a little when they handed a test back to you where you got a really good score.

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