Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar

Franka introduced the topic of stream-of-consciousness writing. That’s where the writer sort of vomits the contents of his mind onto the page, just letting whatever comes flow out. Go out. Show out the prose and cons and all the twisty little pretzel bends of each thought untaught in the belief that anyone else on the planet would want to read the spewings despite the fact that the writer didn’t plan it but just kept going and going like a battery bunny banging a drum like the drum I wanted when I was five but got a toy clarinet instead which broke when I tried to use it to pry up a rock in the backyard next to the apple tree so I could bury my hurt feelings.
    Don’t feel bad if you skimmed that last sentence. I sure wouldn’t read it. I already spend too much time with my streaming, screaming consciousness.
    Mr. Franka didn’t talk too much about the topic. “You’ll get a fair dose of it in college if you forget to duck,” he said. “For now, we’ll stick with more accessible literature.”
    Speaking of ducking, my teachers screwed up big-time. None of them gave out any homework. I can relax and enjoy the weekend. Sleep late. Catch a movie withthe guys. Oversleep. Shoot some hoops. Get some sleep. All I have to do tonight is cover the game.
    I might even go hang around the garage tomorrow. Dad and Bobby are out there now, grinding some sort of cylinder or widget or gasket. Or perhaps it’s a brisket.
    I saw three kids in the halls carrying
Revenge of the Mutant Zombies
. I’m definitely going to strangle Mouth.
    The team got clobbered again. I paid special attention to Vernon, which was like being forced to watch a very bad movie. I needed to mention him a lot in my next story. It wouldn’t be easy. He was one of the main reasons the team stank.
    At the end of the first quarter, Kyle said, “This really rots.”
    I glanced over at Patrick. “You aren’t even going to make it to halftime, are you?”
    He shrugged. “I’ll stay if you want me to.”
    “That’s okay,” I said. “No reason all three of us should be miserable.”
    They split. I wished I’d left early, too. Especially when I saw Julia and Kelly walk over to the players’ bench and hang out there after the game. Julia spent a lot of time talking with Vernon. I never would have guessed he could hold a conversation. It killed me to see her hovering near him. She was so wonderful and smart. Maybe she was studying him for a science project or something. I sure hoped this wasn’t her idea of making new and interesting friends.
    When I got home, I went right to work. I didn’t want to do more Tom Swifties. That would get old pretty fast. As Ithought about the writing I’d been doing recently, I got an idea. Amazingly enough, the second article rolled out as easily as the first.
    Once again, I figured I’d sleep late. Obviously, I was slow to learn new lessons. This time, it wasn’t thumping that woke me. It was the gentle whisper of a power sander.
    Mom, dressed in coveralls with a mask over her nose and mouth, was repainting the spare room. Or the nursery. Or whatever the heck it was going to be.
    “What do you think?” Dad asked when I peeked in from the hall. He patted a stack of decals—ducks, bunnies, squirrels, and other lovable critters. But at least, from what I could see, there wouldn’t be any Pooh on the wall. At least not yet.
    I stared at the plastic wildlife for a moment. “It’s nice,” I lied. As I left the room, I had a sudden urge to call Uncle Jack and ask him to take me hunting.
    September 29
    Here’s a fact for you. Squirrels are rodents. So are rats. Check out your walls before you go to sleep. Rodents all over. Just figured you’d want to know. But don’t worry. They aren’t real. At least, not while the lights are on. Who knows what happens in the dark?
    And as for flesh-eating ducks—you probably don’t even want to hear about them.
    I wrote my second article. Check out how it starts:
Dear diary, today