Hi Everyone! I am so proud of my new YA fiction book. I really enjoyed writing it and I really hope you enjoy reading it.

Chapter 1: 5th grade me

 

Hi. My name is Jessica. I’m about to be 10 years old.  I am going into 5th Grade at Riverside Elementary School.  My teacher this year is Mrs. D and she is very strict. In fact, she is known as the meanest teacher in the entire school. I heard she once hit a kid with a ruler because they spoke without raising their hand.

 

I can tell this year is going to be tough. One of the biggest reasons is that I don’t have many friends in my grade. I am not like the popular girls. I’m not a Girl Scout, I don’t have pretty clothes, and I don’t do gymnastics.  Every year in elementary school it seems my friend circle shrinks a little more. This year I have about 3 girlfriends left that talk to me, Joey, Rebecca and Azra.

 

Besides my 3 school friends I have a secret crush on a boy named Deacon in my class. He is so cute. I have liked him since the 4^th grade but he’s popular and I am not. Still, I hope that maybe he’ll notice me one day, so I try to suck in my tummy every time he walks by. He never notices me, but he is the cutest boy I have ever met.

 

 

Even if he did notice me, I don’t know how to speak in front of him. I just freeze and I don’t say anything. Nothing is better than something stupid, right? I don’t need any more reasons for everyone to laugh at me in school. I’ve made it pretty easy to be laughed at already.

In second grade I peed my pants at recess. In third grade I threw up in a popular kid’s mom’s brand-new minivan on a class trip to the beach. In fourth grade I faked a sprained ankle when I really just broke my toes running away from my oldest brother. I decided to use my other brother’s old crutches. I thought that it wasn’t actually lying, I did break my toes, it just wasn’t I-needed-crutches-serious.

 

The nurse called my mom and I had to go back to school the next day and walk on my heel with my toes taped together… No crutches. I got made fun of for a month. I plan on lying low this year and just trying to make it to middle school.

 

I live in a little town called Riverside. It’s nice, minus the not having very many friends at my school.  It’s the first day of school.  My summer felt long, and I loved every minute of it and now I am stuck back at school all day. The weather is nice at least.

September is my favorite month of the year. I love fall, and it just so happens that my birthday is also in September. I walk very slow to get to my new class. We are the top of the top now. 5th grade. The last grade before you go to middle school and become the smallest all over again. None of my friends are in my class this year so I have to wait till recess to even talk to them. This is going to be terrible.

 

 

I walk in and see that my assigned seat is right in the middle of the entire class. I totally prefer the sides. I hate being in the middle of anything. My class neighbor is this girl Rebecca. Not Rebecca my friend in another class: Rebecca the most popular girl in the entire school. She also hates me for reasons that I have never figured out.

One time I heard her telling Stephanie, a girl who was my friend in 2nd grade, that I smelled funny and dressed like a boy. I do dress like a boy, that’s true. My clothes are mostly hand me downs from my two older brothers. Today I am wearing brown corduroys and a mustard yellow t-shirt. At least my shoes are new.

 

My hair is long, straight and boring brown. I am trying to grow my bangs out, but they are only long enough right now for me to tuck them behind my ear. No matter what they always fall forward.  There’s this boy named Tim that calls me bald eagle because I have a scar on the top of my head, right in the middle of my scalp. A big bald spot from when I had cradle cap as a baby. My mom said I scratched it so much I made it scar so no hair ever grew there. I tell people that I fell down the stairs and my hair got stuck on bubble gum and it ripped it out and then no hair ever grew back…..

 

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