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.

I have to say, I have never done anything really bad before — well, I dropped an eggplant out of a fifteenth-floor window a couple of months ago, but no one got hurt or anything — but there really is something sort of thrilling about it. I mean, I would never want to do anything too bad - like anything where someone might get hurt.

But I have to say, it is immensely gratifying to have all these people coming up to the microphone and decrying my behaviour.

I probably wouldn't feel so good about it if I'd gotten caught, though.

I am being urged to come forward and turn myself in even as I write this. Apparently, the guilt for my action is going to hound me well past my teen years - possibly even into my twenties and beyond.

OK, can I just tell you how much I'm NOT going to think about high school when I am in my twenties? I am going to be way too busy working with Greenpeace to save the whales to worry about some stupid fire alarm I pulled in the ninth grade.

The administration is offering a reward for information leading to the identity of the perpetrator of this heinous crime. A reward! You know what the reward is? A free movie pass to the Sony Imax theatre. That's all I'm worth! A movie pass!

The only person who could possibly turn me in isn't even paying attention to the Assembly. I can see Justin Baxendale has got

a Gameboy out and is playing it with the sound off while Lana and her fellow cheer cronies look over his broad shoulders, probably panting so hard they are fogging up the screen.

I guess Justin hasn't put two and two together yet. You know, about seeing me in the hallway just before that fire alarm went off. With any luck, he never will.

Mr Gianini, though. That's another story. I see him over there, talking to Mrs Hill. He has obviously not told anyone that he suspects me.

Maybe he doesn't suspect me. Maybe he thinks Lilly did it and I know about it. That could be. I can tell Lilly really wishes she'd done it because she keeps on muttering under her breath about how when she finds out who did it, she's going to kill

that person, etc.

She's just jealous, of course. That's because now it seems like some kind of political statement, instead of what it actually

was: a way to prevent a political statement.

Principal Gupta is looking at us very sternly. She says that it is always natural to want to burn off a little steam right before Finals, but that she hopes we will choose positive channels for this, such as the penny drive the Community Outreach Club is holding in order to benefit the victims of Tropical Storm Fred, which flooded several suburban New Jersey neighbourhoods

last November.

Ha! As if contributing to a stupid penny drive can ever give anybody the same kind of thrill as committing a completely random act of civil disobedience.