Can You Say Catastrophe? Read Free

the same.
    Then I looked in the mirror at my front.
    The article I read also said scientific evidence suggests that stimulation of breasts makes them grow faster. The only boob I really want to grow is my left one. So while I was standing there naked with my back arched, I rubbed my left boob. I waited to see if anything happened, but it didn’t, so I rubbed it a little harder. The article didn’t give specifics on how long to do it, so I kept rubbing.
    But then the worst thing happened.
    I heard giggling, and it was coming from under my bed. I snatched up my bedspread, and my evil, spying little sisters were not only hiding under my bed, they had my cell phone! May started snapping pictures of me. Naked! I grabbed my phone and both of their arms and pulled them out from under the bed. May was laughing like crazy, and June was rubbing her chest and imitating me.
    I’ve never screamed so loud in my life. “GET OUT! YOU’RE NEVER ALLOWED BACK IN HERE! IF YOU EVER SO MUCH AS TOUCH MY PHONE AGAIN, YOU’RE DEAD!”
    I pushed them out the door and slammed it shut behind them. After I deleted the naked pictures of myself on my own phone, I kept screaming at them through the closed door. But all I heard was more laughing. I’m so furious. My throat hurts from screaming.
    And I still have one boob that’s smaller than the other.
    10:52 P.M.
    I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about everything that happened today. Billy’s toe touching mine. Naked pictures of me on my own phone. A boob that refuses to grow. Fifty-one days till camp. I can’t wait to go away with my best friends and leave my sisters and parents behind for four perfect weeks. Mom just came into my room to tell me it’s time to turn my light off. Which part of her doesn’t understand that I’m thirteen?
    She doesn’t need to come into my room to tell me to turn my light off. What is the point of being a teenager if you can’t make simple decisions like when to turn off your light?
    Friday, April 26, 5:45 P.M.
    The humiliation continues
    I was just forced to roam the streets of my neighborhood yelling for my dog. Sadly, for me, it was not the first time this has happened.
    Even more sadly, I know it will not be the last.

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.
    â€”George Bernard Shaw
    Friday, May 3, 4:45 P.M.
    I’m a torture victim
    Tonight is the grand opening of the Love Doctor Diner. The night when everyone in Faraway is going to be at the diner. The night that my mom has made matching red vinyl jackets for my entire family with the logo of the Love Doctor Diner embroidered across the back of them. She’s insisting we all wear jeans and white Ts and the jackets she made. This is cruel and unusual punishment for being born into what is clearly the wrong family for me. I’m not even sure it is my family. It seems so obvious that in no way do I share DNA with these people.
    I don’t want any part of this. I’m going into the kitchen to speak my mind.
    4:53 P.M.
    I’m back from the kitchen. I spoke my mind and, as usual, no one (specifically Mom) cared what I had to say.
    â€œI’m not wearing this,” I said to Mom and handed her back the jacket she made.
    â€œYou’re not wearing this?” She repeated what I said, but she didn’t say it like a statement. She said it like a question that was so absurd it didn’t need to be answered. Then she handed me back the jacket and told me to go get ready, because we had an opening to go to and Dad was counting on all of us to do our parts.
    I didn’t like the sound of that. “What does ‘do our parts’ mean?” I asked.
    Mom made her you’re-going-to-like-this face, and instinctively, I knew I wasn’t. “We’re all going to be servers tonight.” She said it like it was going to be a grand adventure that my entire family was taking together. Maybe May and June