Max and I

Chapter Twelve

On Monday we had a book report to be done and it was due in one week. Mr. Robertson made us choose a book about a famous person. Blah. I wished I could do a book on friends.

And to add to that, Sophia hung out with Timmy again. It made me feel friendless. I still played with Ashley in her little group, but it wasn't that exciting. I never told her that though. Pretty much all the girls did was bring their cellphones and iPods and smartphones and play games. They told secrets sometimes.

"Do you know that Sierra's cousin has something wrong with his brain?" one of the girls, Michaela, said.

"So who cares?" I replied.

All of the girls looked at me as if there was something wrong with me instead.

"She doesn't like secrets," Ashley explained. "Her brother has a health problem so it makes her feel weird."

I knew Ashley was protecting me. Elli had no disease and she knew that.

Later that day, I talked with Ashley about our projects. "What did you choose?" I said.

"I don't know. "Maybe Helen Keller or something."

"I want to do that," I said. I didn't but since I had no ideas I decided to steal one.

No. I'm doing that one and you can't." Ashley laughed.

"I'm doing the president," I said.

"What? Then maybe write him a letter," Ashley suggested.

"No, I'll be fine. I'll do a poster."

"They're dull."

"I'll make up a song."

"No."

"Why? I can do it. OK, whatever, I'm gonna make a video and pretend Elli's the president and I can interview him."

"Yeah, right," Ashley said. "I'm singing a sad song. And everyone will think I'm the star of the show."

"Star," I mumbled. "You're just a small star out of a billion!"

Ashley and I both laughed, but then I got serious. "I need to think about what I'm doing," I finally said, after a few minutes of silence.

When I came home that day, I needed to think about what I would do for my project. However, I had no clue. After bothering Elli about the project, I decided he wouldn't help me anyway.

I looked around Elli's bookshelf and saw a book labeled All about Jackie Robinson. I took it out, leafed through, and put it away, into Elli's closet. For about ten minutes, I looked through the completely uncountable number of books.

When I asked Mom what to do, she told me to get Dad and ask him to drive to the town library.

I went down the hall and into the Mom and Dad's room. Of course, Dad was sitting in his little office space by the window doing his after-school work. When he saw me, he just smiled. "Well, what are you doing here?" he said.

"I just need some help with school stuff," I said.

"Uh-hah. I get it. Why are you in my room? Should I help you with the 'stuff'?"

"I don't really need your exact help, but can you drive me to the library? I need to do a report on a famous person."

"Why don't you use my computer to research?"

"You see, computers are not good. There are too many sites and you can't really count on them."

"Yeah, certainly, Meg. I can drive you. I can use a computer in the library instead to do my work."