It was Homeroom, a hot, muggy Friday—the last day of school. Our teacher, Mrs. Woods, let us open all the windows, but it didn’t really help. The sky was overcast outside, with a mix of light and dark gray clouds, and there was that wet metal smell in the air like rain was coming, or at least might be.

I was in my usual seat near the back of the room in the row by the windows, just in front of Lance, Danny, and Ben. In the opposite corner by the door were Myrna, Rose, and the other cool girls who liked to sit by Myrna. Ramona was back in her corner, in the back of the room across from us. Martin was up in the front row, just in front of the teacher’s desk, and Kate, who never talked to anyone, was as usual sitting wherever she could that wasn’t next to other people.

It was mom this time who drove me and Abby to the seventh grade dance Friday evening. Mom had been pretty good about not asking or saying embarrassing stuff, just asking us when she should come back to pick us up. The one embarrassing thing she did do was say how much she LOVED dancing and how just hearing a good song with “that beat” would make it hard for her not to just start moving her feet, wherever she was, whether it was “appropriate” or not.

And when we got to the driveway by the side of the school, because there were other kids around who knew us and we didn’t want to see us together, Abby thanked mom for the ride but got out of the car before I did, closed the car door and walked towards the entrance to the school. I waited in the backseat.

Mom looked at me surprised and asked, “Aren’t you going to walk in together?”

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Even though my clock radio alarm wasn’t turned on, I woke up just after 7:15. Light came in my bedroom window, but it was the light of a cloudy day. I knew that because the Earth’s axis was tilted, and it took a whole year to revolve around the sun, this time of year the sun came up a couple minutes earlier each day, so now it was at least daytime when I walked to school, which was better than back in January and February when I left the house in the dark.

I heard our cat Midnight crying as usual, outside on the roof below my window, wanting me to let him in. I wondered why my alarm hadn’t gone off, because I knew it was Monday, because yesterday was Sunday.

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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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