It's the End of the World as I Know It by Matthew Landis

Author:Matthew Landis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2019-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

1

I get up really early so I don’t have to see anyone. I eat Pop-Tarts, go out to the shed, and try to picture adding a big stupid box to hold a snake. Maybe it could fit. But only if I move all my bins around, which means totally rearranging how I get to all the stuff in an emergency.

Misty walks up the ramp carrying this big book. It has a picture of the sun on it.

“I’m going with Jupiter,” she says. “It’s huge. There has to be a place on it that humans can survive.”

“What?”

“The colonization project for Mrs. Baker. Where humans should go if we can’t live on Earth anymore. What planet are you doing?”

“I’m not.”

“What?”

“It’s due after the apocalypse.”

“Huh.” She shuts the book. “What are you measuring?”

“This thing for Tommy.” I tell her about the snake box and the mice and the mice food.

“Cool,” she says. “This place is turning into Noah’s Ark.”

“No. Not cool. It’s gonna smell like snakes and mice.”

“So you’re not gonna do it?”

“No. I don’t know.” I shrug. “Brock is being a Real Jerk about it.”

My phone buzzes. I’m not driving you to school, Claudia texts me. Tell your friends.

Ugh.

I text Brock and Tommy to take the bus. “I can’t give you a ride,” I tell Misty. “Claudia and I are in this big fight.”

“About what?”

“I yelled at my dad at the cemetery yesterday.”

“Why?”

“Because he’s the Ultimate Real Jerk.”

“Right, but why?”

I sit on the cot and pull the tape measure in and out. “He was with one of his girlfriends right before he came. And he didn’t even deny it. How messed up is that?”

She thinks about it. “Pretty messed up.”

“I told you he was a Real Jerk.”

Misty nods. Then she opens her book and starts flipping pages. “There’s this thing on Jupiter. It’s called the Great Red Spot.” She points to a picture of this giant red swirl on the planet’s surface. “It’s a storm, twice the size of Earth. Isn’t that crazy? And it’s been raging for hundreds of years. Nobody really knows how long it will last.”

“Mmhm.”

“You’re like Jupiter.”

“What?”

“You’re kind of big for our grade. You can do lots of pushups.”

“Okay.”

Misty leans forward. She moves her hand in this big circle around my chest. “There’s a storm in there. It’s been raging a while and it’s pretty strong.”

My jaw feels weird, like I’m using a bunch of muscles up. I say, “Gotta get the bus,” and walk out.

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