Trash Can Days by Teddy Steinkellner

Author:Teddy Steinkellner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction - Young Adult
Publisher: Disney Book Group

23 • Dorothy Wu

Thursday, February 18

I wake up far earlier than usual this morning, at 5:42 a.m. I ponder going back to sleep for a moment, but, bah, there is no point. I have not been able to sleep effectively for the last month or so. Methinks it is the growing pains.

One of the advantages of suddenly waking at random hours is that you can remember your dreams. In my dream this morning, I was Bruce Wayne, a.k.a. the Dark Knight. I snuck around the halls of San Paulo posting covert messages on the walls. The messages were secret logos, similar to hobo signs. I do not remember their significance. At the end of the dream, I was holding a secret meeting with other people from San Paulo who were also superheroes. Jake was Spider-Man. Coach Wade was the Incredible Hulk. Tyler Bell was Professor X. Mr. Morales was a made-up superhero who wears glasses, even though nerds are not generally heroic. I do not remember the subject of our meeting.

And, yes, I realize that my dream mixed Marvel and DC characters inappropriately. I have already given myself plenty of grief about it.

I spend the rest of my before-school morning watching assorted YouTube clips of Rurouni Kenshin and Yu-Gi-Oh! It is, as they say, “legit.” However, in my enjoyment, I lose track of the time. My father walks into my room fourteen minutes before school to discover me still in pajamas, watching clips on my bed, giggling girlishly. He curses up a storm and threatens to take away my computer. It would not be surprising if he followed through on this threat. He has already taken away most of my civil liberties.

I arrive at math class seven minutes late. Luckily, however, Mr. Peterson does not assign me a detention. Ever since Mr. Peterson spoke to my father on the phone, I think he has realized that I already receive enough punishments at home. To assign me a detention as well would be unusual and cruel.

In health, we continue our unit on SEX. (Sometimes I like to say that word loudly to get people’s attention. Hehe.) In today’s class, we do an activity in which everyone walks around shaking each other’s hands. When Jeremy Farnsworth shakes my hand, he gives my wrist a little scratch. After thirty seconds, Ms. Windler asks whoever got scratched by Jeremy to raise their hands. I do, along with five others. Then Ms. Windler asks anyone who shook the hand of anyone who got scratched by Jeremy to raise their hands. The entire class does. Ms. Windler says that if Jeremy had an STD, and if shaking hands was sex, and if we had not used protection, then right now we would all have STDs. Whoa.

English class is frustrating. We are reading The Giver by Lois Lowry, one of my all-time most-beloved books. Yet the lessons Mr. Morales assigns are so mundane! Today, all he tells us to do for the entire class period is to go through chapters 8–12, find twenty vocabulary words, and define them.

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