Third Time Lucky

5. Emanuelle - In the eighth grade, my best friend and I found this book on top of a rubbish bin on East Third Street. We took turns reading it out loud. It was very, very good. At least the parts I remember. My mom caught us reading

it and took it away before we'd gotten a chance to finish it.

Books That Sucked*

1. The Scarlet Letter - You know what would have been cool? If there had been a rift in the space-time continuum and one of those Euro-trash terrorists Bruce Willis is always chasing in the Die Hard movies dropped a nuclear bomb on

the town where Arthur Dimmesdale and all those losers lived, and blew it sky high. That's about the only thing I can think of that would have made this book even remotely interesting.

2. Our Town - OK, this is a play and not a book, but they still made us read it and all I have to say about it is that, basically, you find out when you die that nobody cared about you and we're all alone for ever, the end. OK! Thanks

for that! I feel much better now!

3. The Mill on the Floss — I don't want to give anything away here, but midway through the book, just when things were going good and there were all these hot romances (not as hot as in Emanuelle, though, so don't get your hopes up), someone very crucial to the plot DIES, which if you ask me is just a cop-out so the author could make her deadline on time.

4. Anne of Green Gables -All that blah-blah-blah about imagination. I tried to imagine some car chases or explosions that would actually make this book good, but I must be like all of Anne's drippy unimaginative friends, because I couldn't.

5. Little House on the Prairie - Little yawn on the big snore. I have all ninety-seven thousand of these books because people kept on giving them to me when I was little and all I have to say is if Half Pint had lived in Manhattan,, she'd have gotten her you-know-what kicked from here to Avenue D.

* Mrs Spears, I believe the word 'sucked' is transitive in this instance.

Thursday, December 10, Fourth Period

No PE today!

Instead there is an Assembly.

And it's not because there's a sporting event they want us all to show our support for. No! This is no pep rally. There isn't a cheerleader in sight. Well, OK, there are cheerleaders in sight, but they aren't in uniform or anything. They are sitting in the bleachers with the rest of us. Well, not really with the rest of us since they are in the best seats, the ones in the middle, all jostling to see who can sit next to Justin Baxendale, who has apparently ousted Josh Richter as hottest guy in school, but whatever.

No. Instead, it appears that there has been a major disciplinary infraction at Albert Einstein High School. An act of random vandalism that has shaken the administration's faith in us. Which is why they called an Assembly, so that they could better convey their feelings of - as Lilly just whispered in my ear - disillusionment and betrayal.

And what was this act that has Principal Gupta and the trustees so up in arms?

Why, someone pulled a fire alarm yesterday, that's what.

Oops.