By the end of the day, Jane had made three new entries for her Unfair Life book. In a black-bordered box on its own special page, she wrote:
Monday, 27. Jane Waleski was assigned Lucy Adams as her partner in Peer-Teaching.
From gym class she had:
Monday, 27. Jane missed more baskets than anyone in the class except Emily Zuckerman. Coach Jim said, "Sometimes I find it hard to believe that you and Caroline Waleski are really sisters."
As soon as Coach Jim had said it, Jane could tell that the coach felt sorry for letting the words slip out.
"Just kidding, Jane," the coach said. "Come on now, concentrate!"
Jane tried to think of a project for the science fair, but she didn't know how to begin. In elementary school, she and Emily had just done whatever project their dads suggested, from a library book Jane's mother checked out every year on award-winning science fair ideas. One year they had done something with magnets. Another year they had let mold grow on different foods: apples, bread, yogurt. That had been Jane's favorite project.She forgot what their hypothesis had been, but she still remembered how gross the food had looked when the project was displayed in the elementary-school gym.This year she wanted to do something different—not an experiment out of a book but one she thought up all by herself. She fantasized about the judges to be astonished that a sixteen-year-old could have thought up such a project and carried it out
On Friday afternoon, classes were canceled for a school-wide pep rally in the gym. It was the game of the season. The school had its biggest rival in every sport coming into tonight's game undefeated.As Jane walked to the pep rally with Emily, she gathered data for another entry in Unfair Life:Friday, January 29th.On the way to the pep rally, three different people asked Jane Waleski, "Are you really Caroline Waleski's sister?"When the team came running out into the gym, the people in the bleachers went wild. Everyone was chanting Caroline's name. Emily joined the crowd until her throat was hoarse from yelling. Jane had cheered as loudly as she could for all the others, but she tried to cheer even more for her sister. She felt terrible for th
Jane made up her mind to stick to her rules. After making a list of her dream goals, she made it her life mission to cross each one of them.But the hard part was crossing them.She felt a sense of optimism, almost excitement flooding through her. She was also slightly overwhelmed by the things she had to commit to. Things that were mostly her least favorite things, like studying instead of watching her TV shows or hanging out with Emily.But she believed that every great man and woman had to sacrifice a lot to reach their goals, so no more whining. She would have to do the same or die trying. That was how serious she was.Jane had been shooting baskets from five until seven. She only made 30 baskets out of 100. Compared to her usual
The bell rang. Jane was stuffingATale of Two Citiesinto her backpack when she heard Lucy's voice beside her."You're readingDickens?"Jane nodded warily."Oh, IloveDickens. Have you readDavid Copperfield? OrOliver Twist?Olive Twistis my favorite. I've read it twice. I cried both times. I can't believe someone else in our class is reading Dickens."To her dismay, Jane found herself walking down the hall to English with Lucy by her side, still talking, talking, talking."I didn't know you were such a big reader, Jane," Lucy said, smiling at her. "I guess because yo
Jane wondered exactly how the others had found out that Lucy liked her. Mary had probably told them. She was the kind of girl who loved to know a secret about somebody that she could sell to somebody else for free. Now Mary had Jane's secret. She only hoped that no one would buy it.Jane remembered how Mary had snatched back the poem she had shown her the other week, most likely so she could have the pleasure of showing it around. Not that Lucy ever tried to hide any of her poems. She scribbled in her Moleskine notebook in full view of the whole world. More than once, Jane had seen Mary standing right behind Lucy, reading over her shoulder.One thing was clear, though. If Lucy's crush had been a secret before, it was a secret no longer. It seemed everywhere she turned, people looked at Jane weirdly. And when Jane walked into science cla
Charlie and Jonas had agreed to make the flyers for the poetry contest on Mary's computer. Jane looked for them as she walked to school on a Tuesday morning. Sure enough, they were there, prominently displayed on the big bulletin board by the main office and on the Book News Bulletin board outside the library.There was a school rule against posting any unauthorized notices on bulletin boards, but these flyers looked amazingly professional. No one could have guessed that they were made by a bunch of high-school pranksters.Would Lucy see them? Did anyone ever actually look at a school bulletin board? Until this morning, Jane never had. It was a flaw in the plan that none of them had considered. Jane looked around and when she saw no one there, she ripped the flyer off the board and threw it into the bin. She decided she'd better mention
Jane had collected ten different balls to test, and she had found a library book on balls in the children's section at the public library. It was actually a book for little kids, full of pictures, but it had lots of information on balls.AfterA Tale of Two Cities, it was a relief to be reading a book with only 64 pages and a lot of pictures. She was still reading her daily quota of Dickens. She would be finished easily by the time she had to give her book report on Monday, though she still had to come up with something to say in front of the class. Jane didn't feel comfortable to stand up there and speak, but Ms. Reeds would expect more than just reading books, she wanted people totalkabout them, and she would not accept just, "I read this whole book. It has 422 pages."Somewhere in her report, Jane w
Monday, February 10.The bulletin board outside the gym had two enormous pictures of Caroline Waleski on it from Friday's basketball game. In gym class, Coach Jim picked six girls to go to a special weekend basketball camp. Jane was not one of them.Monday, February 10.Whoever invented alphabetical order? Every single time every single teacher starts with the last names and ends with Z ones. Is it just a coincidence that the vice president and president of Loser Club both have last names from the end of the alphabet?Jane was sitting in Ms. Reeds' English class, waiting for the stragglers to come in from study hall and scribbling a couple of quick entries in theUnfair Life. Jane had been so busy lately bouncing and reading Dickens that she had gotten behind in her record keepin