Free Me and Miranda Mullaly by Jake Gerhardt

set up camp a few tables away. It just drives me nuts, seeing Chollie with her, especially after watching him look into Miranda’s eyes at the basketball game today. And then lucky Chollie gets to work with her in the library tonight of all nights. I wish I had a thumbtack waiting on his seat.
    To take my mind off this, I pull out a book I’m borrowing from my mom called
I Feel
Bad About My Neck
by Nora Ephron. It’s supposed to be “thoughts on being a woman,” but I’m really not getting much out of it besides learning that New York City is expensive and most skin creams that women use to combat aging don’t work. But my mom laughed out loud when she read it, so I thought I’d give it a try. To me, though, the book is very disappointing and not really funny. It’s probably the kind of book Erica Dickerson would write.
    â€œThoughts on being a woman,” Erica Dickerson says, and before I know it, she has the book in her hands. “What, are you planning on becoming a woman someday?” If it weren’t for her bad manners, she wouldn’t have any manners at all.
    â€œYou know, that’s really rude, taking my book out of my hands like that,” I say.
    â€œOh, I’m sorry,” she says with a lot of sarcasm as she takes a seat across from me.
    I grab the book back and hide it in my bag.
    â€œYou know what’s a really great book?”
    â€œNo,” I say. “What’s a really great book?” And I’m being very sarcastic.
    â€œ
Twilight
,” she says, which is really nothing new to me because my sister Maureen has about fifteen copies of those books. They’re everywhere in the house.
    â€œ
Twilight
, huh?” I say, and I take out all my yak stuff so Erica Dickerson gets the idea that I’m ready to finish this report and go home.
    â€œOh yeah, it’s my favorite book. And Miranda’s, too.”
    This last piece of information really gets my attention.
    â€œ
Twilight
, eh?”
    So I write “
Twilight!!!!!!
” on my list of things to do.
    Knowing this energizes me. So now I’m ready to start this report so I can get home and start reading
Twilight
. But Erica Dickerson has other plans.
    â€œI’ll be right yak,” she says.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’ll be right
yak
.”
    â€œWhat are you talking about?”
    â€œThink about it, Dolan. I’ll be right
yak.
”
    Erica actually laughs at her own stupid joke. She also calls her backpack her back
yak
or
yak
pack. Just when I’m getting along with her, she has to go and say something unfunny like that.
    Before I even get a chance to tell her as much, she runs off to talk to Miranda. And then I can hear them laughing and I have this terrible feeling they are laughing at me. Even Chollie Muller is laughing.
    I can’t wait for this day to end.

11
Give Me Toilet Paper!
SAM
    Picture this. I walk into school just minding my own business, you see, because I’m in a bad mood. My book bag weighs about a thousand pounds because I have all the Twilight books in it, I have rehearsals for the musical after school, and I still have no idea how I’m going to move along my relationship with Miranda Mullaly. I’m a man with a lot on his mind.
    But Lichtensteiner has finally had enough of the toilet paper tossing in the bathroom and decides to take all the paper from the boys’ bathrooms. And then he goes around telling everybody to ask
me
about it. Like I’ve been saying all along, I’m not the one who’s tossing the toilet paper. Idon’t even go in the dirty boys’ room, since Coach opens the locker room for the basketball players. It’s a really big perk of being on the team.
    Anyway, Lichtensteiner takes all the toilet paper from the boys’ rooms today and doesn’t say anything. Some guys find out too late, if you know what I mean. You can actually hear people screaming for help from the