8th Period: 7th Grade Essay #3
Hello Everybody!
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Thanks for all your effort,
Ms. D.
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Easily Replaceable
Short Story Essay
In the short story “Nobody Stole Jason Greyson” by Carolyn Mackler, a girl named Abby Tad starts all sorts of trouble when she steals a photo of her crush, Jason Greyson. His girlfriend, Daytona, tells her father, the vice principal, about the stolen photo. The chaos in the days after is enough to send Abby over the edge. Daytona cared too much about the photo of Jason Greyson even though she could take another picture of him, which he offered to do.
The day after Abby stole the picture, Daytona made a big seen in front of her locker with her friends. She said “I’m going to tell my dad, and he’ll make sure whoever stole it gets punished big-time.” This led to Daytona and her friends to have a big argument. She made a big deal out of a small thing and accused her friends of a something big even though she didn’t know it was them.
Two days after she stole the photograph, Abby put the photo from her notebook to a “safer” spot. A message was put onto the loud speaker: “Attention, students, due to a recent incident, the principal and I are doing a random locker search this morning…” This shows because of one small thing, big action was taken even though it shouldn’t have been made into a big deal.
Five days after the picture was stolen, the principal still had no idea who stole the picture and so “…The principal called every student into her office, one by one, to see what they knew about the stolen photo.” This shows, again, how the entire school was involved in one person’s small problem.
In the end, Abby decides that she would forget the photo and put the photo away and see, when she’s older, if she still liked him. The whole story shows that people care and do too much about something that doesn’t really matter and can be easily replaced.
In the short story, “A Letter from the Fringe,” by Joan Bauer, everyone is constantly making fun of the people that sit at the Fringe table during lunch. The ICI’s, otherwise known as In Crowd Individual’s, are the Fringe’s worst enemy. Dana stands up to the ICI’s and they continue to make fun of the Fringe. Just because Dana isn’t popular, it doesn’t mean that the ICI’s can make fun of her.
Sally, someone that sits at the Fringe table, was sitting and eating a cookie. An ICI named Booker starts to make fun of Sally because she is a bit on the chubby side. Dana stood up for her and he said, “ ‘Why don’t you and your fat friend just get out of my face because the two of you are so butt ugly that you’re making me sick.’ ” Sally deserves to be able to eat a cookie and not be made fun of.
Another person that the ICI’s continuously make fun of is a guy named Gil. Gil has a skin condition and can’t grow a lot of hair. His, “car got covered with shaving cream last week… he can’t shave and is embarrassed about it.” He shouldn’t be made fun of because of a skin condition. If he is embarrassed about it, they shouldn’t bring it out into the open and try to be cruel to him.
Once Parker, one if the ICI’s had to be Dana’s lab partner. Dana was upset but didn’t really mind. But to Parker, “This was the worst news she had gotten all year.” Parker didn’t want to be around someone that was different from her like Dana was.
Just because someone isn’t popular, it doesn’t mean that they are different. In the story the ICI’s are always making fun of the people just because they aren’t like them. Dana, Gil, and Sally are all different from each other and they are different from each other and they are friends. But people like Parker and Booker can’t accept that.
“You Got Ditched”
In “Sammy’s Choice”, by Mallory Lefland, a high school girl named Sammy got dared to be friends with a girl labeled “Loser Lucy” for a week and then she had to tell her off at the end of the week. After she ditched “Loser Lucy”, she started to feel terrible. In the story, Sammy was mean to Lucy to save her reputation but, she still felt bad about being mean.
One night, Sammy, Chrissie, and Scott were at Tony’s house. Sammy got dared by Tony, Chrissie, and Scott to “act like you want to be friends with Lucy at school on Monday.” As if this wasn’t mean enough, Scott told Sammy to “‘tell her off’” on Friday. Despite the fact that this was a mean thing to do, Sammy took the dare to maintain her reputation, but, she still knew that she was hurting Lucy’s feelings. That showed that Sammy was willing to do anything to keep her reputation.
On Monday, Sammy began the dare and wrote Lucy a friendly note. Later at lunch, Sammy sat with Lucy and they hit of their new friendship. Sammy started sitting with Lucy’s friends at lunch and became “their true friend”. Sammy actually got Lucy to think that she was her friend. This showed how into the dare Sammy was and how deceitful she could be.
Friday came and it was time for Sammy to tell off Lucy. Yet, Sammy realized that she was truly Lucy’s friend, even though it was a dare. But, a dare is a dare. Sammy had to follow through. So, she left Lucy a note in her locker saying that she didn’t want to be friends anymore and many more mean things. Scott told Sammy how Lucy reacted by crying, and “on the inside”, Sammy was crying, too.
Just as in the story, when Sammy deceived Lucy, people lie to each other all the time in real life, too. What they don’t realize is that feelings were much more important than the popularity that they would’ve gained. If you thought you could become cool or popular by hurting someone else’s feelings, you were wrong. Something would always came around and hit you in the face. When you realized that someone is hurt, you would feel bad about what you did. Karma would come around and get you.
Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover
In the short Story, “Sammy’s Choice,” by Mallory Lefland, the characters face many issues. The main issue that they face is that they judge people before they get to know them. This happens to Sammy with Lucy.
When Sammy and Chrissie were at Tony’s party they played the game never have I ever. When Sammy lost she had to do a dare. The dare was that she had to pretend to be friends with Lucy, a nerd at her school, and then at the end of the week she had to stop being friends with Lucy. When she finds out what the dare is she says, “Who, loser Lucy?” This shows that people judge people before they’ve get to know them. Sammy thinks that Lucy is a loser, but she has never really met Lucy so she doesn’t know who she really is.
When Sammy was at home writing an e-mail to Lucy, she started to think about what she is doing and how she would hurt Lucy’s feelings. While she is thinking she says, “I was starting to feel bad for what I was doing.” This shows how Sammy is starting to realize to not judge people before you meet them. She starts realizing that Lucy isn’t really a loser, but just a regular person.
When Sammy is writing the letter to Lucy about the dare and that she didn’t really want to be friends with her, Sammy almost started to cry. She also started to get mad at her friends and said, “I can’t believe I am friends with people who could make me do something like this.” This shows how Sammy realized to not judge people before you get to meet them. She realized that what she was doing was wrong. She also realized that Lucy was a regular person just like herself.
In life you will probably judge someone from the way they look like or act. But you should try to get to know the person before you judge them.
Popularity
In the short story, “Popularity” by Adam Bagdesian, two little unpopular wannabes, Allan and Allan, are circling around a tree looking for four leaf clovers. Among those boys is the narrator, which I don’t know his name. My idea about this story is that everyone wants to be popular because if they aren’t, they will end up like those two boys being shunned by the popular kids and everyone else on the playground.
For example, the narrator says, “We had been looking for four-leaf clovers every school day for six months. And each of us knew exactly what he would do if he ever found one: he would hold the lucky clover tight in his hand, close his eyes, and wish that he was popular so that he would never have to spend time with the other two again.” This quote shows that the nerdy boys want to be popular so they will even wish on four-leaf clovers that they were popular and never have to hang out with the other nerdy boys again.
Another example is that the narrator realizes in the beginning of the story that ten-year-old boys weren’t supposed to be running around trees all recess. He felt a need to be popular. He says, “I had been resigned to my rank for months, but now looking at the two Allans (still fighting over the same three-leaf clover), then at the popular boys, I suddenly knew that I could not stand another day at the bottom- I wanted to be part of the noise and the laughter; I wanted, I needed, to be popular.” This quote shows that he is tired of his social status and would do anything in his power to be amongst the popular boys.
For a last example, the narrator thinks, “And I did not trust (the popular boys-his new friends), because I knew then that I was standing on sand and was only a yellow shirt and a pair of pants away from the Oak trees where the two Allans were still looking for four-leaf clovers.” This quote shows that the narrator wants to be popular so badly that he would even have fake popular friends that he couldn’t trust, than real friends.
In real life, a lot of kids wish that they were popular. But a lot of kids also don’t care what other people, especially the populars, think of them. They don’t need anyone’s approval for how they act or dress. I think that it doesn’t matter if you’re popular; it only matters if you are happy with yourself and you have a friend to talk to. You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and you shouldn’t judge a friend by their rank. A friend that you can’t trust might not really be your friend. Don’t try to be friends with the popular people just because you want to be popular yourself.
“Scott Always Thought of the Worst Dares”
In the short story, “Sammy’s Choice,” by Mallory Leftland, a high school girl, Sammy, sneaks out of her house to a party where she is dared to pretend that she likes a girl named, Lucy, who isn’t part of the “in crowd”. Even though Sammy knows what she is doing is wrong and is hurting herself and Lucy, she still goes on with the dare. The author is trying to get across to the reader that Sammy knew what she was doing would turn out bad but she still accepted the dare.
When Sammy’s friend Scott was thinking of the dare she was, “nervous because Scott always [thought] of the worst dares.” Sammy allowed Scott to dare her even though she knew he wouldn’t cut her any slack. Sammy was aware that there would be consequences but she accepted the dare anyway.
Since Lucy was hanging out with Sammy and the “in crowd” all the time, her friend got “mad because she thinks [Lucy] ditched her. She thinks that [Lucy] can’t sit with anyone else.” Lucy’s friends were trying to protect her because they knew Sammy and her friends would ditch her, but Lucy decided not to listen.
During the week when Sammy had to pretend to like Lucy she started to “feel bad for what [she] was doing. As the week went on [she] really wanted to stop and tell Lucy about the dare.” Sammy knew what she was doing would hurt Lucy but she kept on going with the dare and didn’t tell Lucy because it was against the rules.
Sammy knew that she shouldn’t have gone along with the dare but she didn’t want her friends to make fun of her. In real life people do things that in the end they know will turn out bad. Mallory Leftland was trying to get the idea out to everyone that you should think about the consequences of your actions, before you act.
Nobody Stole Jason Grayson
In the short story “Nobody Stole Jason Grayson” by Carolyn Mackler, there is a girl named Abby Tad. Abby is a nobody and one decision changed the way she thought about things.
Abby was alone in the hall, Daytona’s locker was open. Abby opened it, under the postcards and other things she saw the of her long time crush Jason Grayson. Abby had the perfect opportunity to take the photo, so she did. The next day Daytona was going crazy over the stolen picture. Abby could hear her say, “I’m going to tell my dad and, and he’ll make sure who ever stole it gets punished big time.” Daytona’s dad was the vice principle at the school. Abby didn’t know that Daytona would over react about the picture.
Abby had the photo in her binder, the next day she pinned the picture of Jason on the inside of her pants. She was lucky because that day over the loud speaker she heard, “Attention students due to a recent incident, the principle and I are doing a random locker search this morning…” Abby was shocked that something so small like a picture being stolen could turn into something that involved the whole school.
About 5 days after the incident “…the principle called every student into her office one by one, to see what they knew about the picture.” Abby was one of the last people called in she realized that her decision got the whole school involved. When she got home she was thinking and because she made the choice to take the picture of a boy she liked and now she didn’t really like him any more.
The story shows that something small can develop something that involves everyone. It also shows that a decision can make you think differently.
“I hope you enjoyed your week of fame”
“Sammy’s Choice” by Mallory Lefland is a story about a girl named Sammy who is dared to pretend that she is friends with a girl they call “Looser Lucy” for a week, and then ditch her. At the end of the story, she learns to not do things that will hurt other people’s feelings just to stay popular.
Sammy “thought that the best way to start the dare would be to write her a letter. The less time I had to spend with her the less pain I had to suffer through”. She wants to get through the dare without a lot of work so she can stay in her social group. Even though in the back of her head she knows its wrong, she’s doing it anyway to stay with her popular friends.
In school the next day, her friend, Scott (who originally gave her the dare) tells her to Sammy to wave to Lucy. Sammy thought that “it was so funny that I had the power to do this to other kids.” When Lucy froze when Sammy waved to her. She knows the has the power to hurt others yet she’s doing it anyway to stay friends with Scott and her other friends.
As the end of the dare is creeping up, Sammy and Lucy form a friendship. She feels more comfortable with Lucy then with Scott and her other friends. Scott asks her if she’s actually staring to like Looser Lucy. Sammy feels like she “couldn’t what I was really feeling. I would be the laughing stock of the school. My friends would think I was so weird and I probably wouldn’t be allowed to hand out with them anymore.” Even though she wants to be friends with Lucy, she’s still going along with the dare so she can stay friends with her popular friends, and keep her reputation.
In the end, Sammy lets down Lucy and giver a note saying it was all just a joke. The note said: “This was all a dare that started at a party. I had to act like your friend then tell you about it at the end of the week. You were the perfect person because nobody would ever believe that I, Samantha Johnson, would want to hang out with you. I never wanted to or will want to be your friend. I hope you enjoyed your week of fame because it’s up.” Sammy was really upset about writing the note, but she didn’t want to give up being popular. She heard from Scott that Lucy cried. Sammy is unhappy and she learns that you can’t do things so hurt others just to stay popular. Because you’ll usually be unhappy with the outcome-just like Sammy.
In the short story “A Letter From The Fringe” by Joan Bauer, mean kids at the school, sometimes have a reason to be mean. It may not be a reason, but it is a reason. The mean kids in the school also have it hard for them. It goes to show, mean kids aren’t mean to be mean they’re mean because of something else.
In the short story, a character named Dana starts to realize what might be happening in their lives. “I’ve stopped hoping that the mean kids get punished for their cruelty. I think in some ways they have their punishments already. As my mom says, meanness never just goes out of a person-It also goes back to them as well.” Dana realized that they already have their punishment, why be punished more.
In Dana’s class, Dana was partnered with a girl named Parker. Dana asked her, “ ‘Parker, do you like this class?’
‘My dad is making me take it, he’s a doctor so he wants me to know all this dense stuff.’
‘What would you rather be taking?’
‘Art History’
‘Why don’t you?’
‘My dad wont let me.’”
From that moment on, whenever Dana saw Parker, she didn’t think about how popular she was or how mean she is, she thought about how parker’s dad doesn’t care what she wants to do, and how much that must hurt.
Whenever Dana sees the mean kids being mean, she always thinks back to what her mom always says, “Sometimes people try and control others when too many things are too out of control in their own lives.” Usually mean girls and boys are only mean to other people because things are bad in their own lives.
Usually in every school there is a mean kid. Whether it’s a boy or a girl they can use harsh words to make you feel bad about yourself. Just know that most mean kids have a reason to be mean, they don’t just do it for fun. Just goes to show, know matter who you are, treat others the way you would want to be treated.
(my title is “Mean Doesn’t Just Go Out, It Also Goes In”)
“Bad Decisions”
In the story “Sammy’s Choice” by Mallory Lefand she shows that not thinking can lead to bad decisions. One person that got led into a bad decision is Sammy.
In the beginning Sammy went to a party and got dared to be Lucy’s friend for a week. The person who dared her said, “You need to act like your friends with Lucy for a week and then on Friday you have to lay her off.” Sammy said yes without even thing about her choice.
After Sammy accepted the dare she wrote a letter to Lucy asking to be her friend and she wrote, “I couldn’t think what to say next… it’s kind of weird that I want to be your friend out of the blue…” Sammy wrote this without thinking about Lucy and how she would feel on Friday when she had to lay her off.
On Friday Sammy wrote a letter to Lucy telling her that it was all a joke. In the letter she wrote, “This was all a dare that started at a party… I never wanted or will be your friend.” After Sammy heard that Lucy was crying after she read the letter she started to cry too.
Everyone makes bad decisions in their life sometimes but you also have to think of the consequences of your choice.
By, Whalesiack
Long Ago Stopped Caring About Being in, out, or in Between
In the short story, “A Letter from the Fringe,” by Joan Bauer, a girl named Dana was a reject at school. Everyday she sat with her friends at the Fringe table for lunch. The Fringe table was the table that everyone made fun of because they thought that the kids who sat there were losers. In this short story people shouldn’t let other people bully them.
One day at lunch Doug Booker, a popular wrestler at Dana’s school, started making fun of Dana’s best friend Sally. Doug went up to Sally and said, “’What have you got, Sals, about thirty pounds to lose? More?”’ Just because Sally was a little overweight didn’t mean Doug had the right to bully her. Dana “stood up. ‘Get lost Booker.”’ Dana stood up for her friend because she knew friendships were more important then trying to impress the popular kids. She didn’t want to encourage Doug’s bullying by standing in the corner and watching her friend be humiliated.
Jewel Lardner was a “zany artist with pink-striped hair” who say at the Fringe table. “She’d long ago stopped caring about in, out, or in between.” Jewel did what she wanted without caring what other people would think or say about her. She was not going to change for other people. Even if people bullied her about being weird, Jewel decided she wasn’t going to care.
Dana started writing a letter to the popular kids explaining her concern with the way she and her friends were being treated. At first, she didn’t know how to start but then she turned on her “computer and began to put it all down finally.” While writing the letter, she realized the letter wasn’t for the popular kids… It was for her. She was standing up for her self. She was sick of being bullied all the time and wanted things to change. She was willing to make that change happen.
In the short story, “A Letter from the Fringe,” by Joan Bauer, Dana was a reject who sat at the Fringe table. She stood up for herself and her friends and didn’t care if people thought she was a weirdo. Most people would let other people make fun of them and their friends, they wouldn’t have the guts to say what was on their mind. People shouldn’t be intimidated be bullies.
The Longest Twenty Yards
In the short story “Popularity” by Adam Bagdasarian the narrator wants to fit in, but unfortunately he isn’t popular. He is stuck on the lowest level of the Social Pyramid, which means the narrator has a social level of a “stable boy.” In the story, the narrator finds himself in the acquaintance of two other “stable boys” named Allen Gold and Allen Shipman. The three boys don’t really have much in common with each other, they don’t even like each other, but they make the best of it.
The three boys are looking for four-leaf clovers during recess so they could “wish to be popular” and never have too spend time together again. While looking, the narrator thinks “I knew that ten year old boys were not supposed to spend recess circling Oak trees in search of four leaf clovers.” He then lifts his head and only twenty yards away is the popular group of kids who seem to be having a great time. He stares longingly at that group of loud kids and then glances back at the two Allen’s and then realizes that he needs to join that group and be popular. The narrator stands only twenty yards away, but to him it feels like a thousand miles! Then he took a deep breath, mustered up his courage and crossed “the longest twenty yards I had ever walked in my life,” ending up a few feet from the popular group.
The leader of the popular group is Sean Owens; he is “the best student in the fourth grade. He was also one of the humblest, handsomest, strongest, fastest, most clear thinking ten year olds god had ever placed on this earth. Sean Owens could run the fifty yard dash in six seconds, hit a baseball 200 feet, and throw a football forty yards.” Sean was the king of the playground, and if you were his friend or associated with him you were popular and fit in. It’s like the “playground had dissolved into a monarchy of kings and queens, dukes and duchesses, lords and ladies,” and Sean ruled them all.
Around the core of the group, (Sean), is his jester Mitch Brockman. Mitch is the funniest boy in the fourth grade, so it is his job to make Sean laugh. The narrator notices from watching the group “that every time Mitch said something funny he eyed Sean Owens to see if he was laughing.” As long as Mitch made Sean laugh his position in the group was secure.
Sometimes Mitch’s wit got him into trouble, and that destroyed his reputation. One day the narrator left his house going to school without noticing that one leg of his cuffed jeans was longer than the other. While on the same day, Mitch left his house wearing a “yellow shirt with a yellow pair of pants.” At recess the narrator stands at the edge of the group while Mitch tells another hilarious story. Suddenly Mitch turned to the narrator points to his uneven pants and says “someone needs a ruler,” and the group laughs at the narrator’s pants. The narrator counters by pointing at Mitch’s shirt and pants and then saying ‘“someone else needs a mirror. You look like a canary!”’ The volume of laughter doubled and Mitch seemed to vanish while the narrator became someone, someone to follow, someone to seek out. “Mitch the following year was gone- to another school perhaps, or another state, or another country.” The narrator never found out what happened to Mitch.
The short story “Popularity” shows that all people in life want to fit in. It conveys this message by showing the narrator as a complete outcast in the beginning but, after he took a chance and walked over to the popular group, he then made the other boys laugh so hard he suddenly realized that this is where he belonged. This is also true in real life as people take chances to try to blend in to their surroundings. This story also shows that being popular doesn’t mean you’re invincible as Mitch thought he was. Popularity can change in an instant. Mitch ended up being “discarded” from the group and the narrator then took his place.
It Was All a Dare
In the short story, “Sammy’s Choice,” by Mallory Lefland, Sammy, a teenage girl, loses a game at a party and gets dared to become Lucy’s (a ‘loser’) friend. Sammy brought Lucy down for her benefit.
Sammy lost a game called ‘never-have-I-ever’, so she got dared to become Lucy’s friend for a week. Then, at the end of the week, Sammy would have to tell Lucy that their friendship was just a dare. “You need to act like you want to be friends with Lucy at school on Monday. Then on Friday you need to tell her off.” Sammy wanted to stay in the ‘popular’ group. So, she brought Lucy down so she could stay cool.
Sammy wrote a letter to Lucy, asking her to sit at her lunch table. She started to become ‘friends’ with Lucy. “I thought the best way to start off the dare would be to write her a letter,” Sammy said. In the letter, she wrote, “Hi! I’ve wanted to get to know you for a while.” Lucy didn’t know about the dare at this point, and thought that Sammy really wanted to be her friend. Sammy still started to do the dare, even though she knew it might make Lucy feel bad.
Because of the dare, Sammy started to hang out with Lucy a lot. So, she got to know her, and even started to like her. But, she still had to complete the dare, since she wanted to stay ‘cool’. To complete it, she had to tell Lucy that their ‘friendship’ was just a dare. Sammy thought that the best way to do this would be through another letter. She wrote, “Dear Lucy, This was all a dare that started at a party.” Sammy felt bad doing this, although not bad enough, as she still completed the dare. But, she did feel some remorse. “I was almost crying when I wrote this. I can’t believe I am friends with people who could make me do something like this.” When Lucy found the letter, she started to cry. Even though Sammy was still ‘cool’ because she finished the dare, she felt bad since she brought Lucy down for her benefit.
You shouldn’t bring other people down for your benefit. Sammy, like a lot of teenagers, wanted to be ‘cool’. So, she decided to complete a dare that made Lucy feel very bad about herself. But, even though Sammy stayed ‘popular’, she felt bad about hurting Lucy’s feelings. That helps represent how you shouldn’t bring people down for your own benefit.
5/10/07
In the short story called “Nobody Stole Jason Grayson,” by Carolyn Mackler, there is a girl named Abby Tab. Abby has a huge crush on a boy named Jason Grayson. Finally one day she goes to Daytona’s locker and steals a photo of Jason Grayson. Daytona is a popular girl who has 28 best friends, and a boyfriend named Jason Grayson.
At the beginning of the story a girl named Abby loves a boy named Jason Grayson. One day she goes passed Daytona’s locker a girl who is popular and sees a picture of Jason Grayson. When the bell rings for dismissal Abby goes to Daytona’s locker and opens up the locker and removes the small squares of tape and then slides the photo into her earth science textbook and then closes Daytona’s locker really lightly so to not make a lot of noise and then she left school really quickly and quietly.
The next day Daytona opened up her locker and noticed that her picture of Jason Grayson was missing. Abby could hear Daytona’s voice “where’s my picture of Jason Grayson?” she was shrieking “do you think someone stole it?” Daytona was freaking out so much that when Jason Grayson came to her Jason said “look, I’m sick of the way you always freak out about everything. It’s getting a little old. Until you calm down, I don’t think we should see each other anymore.” Daytona was really emotional when Jason said this to her.
The next couple of days Daytona’s missing photo of Jason Grayson spread throughout the school also, the principal got the news and the principal called every student into her office, one by one, to see what they knew about the stolen photo of Jason Grayson. Abby was in the last group of kids at the end of the day and when she got to the principals office she said nothing about the stolen photo.
My idea about the short story “Nobody Stole Jason Grayson” relates to the real life because yes, stealing is bad and mostly everyday somebody steals something from somebody. Stealing somebody’s money is really bad and cruel because that means that the bad person wants to get rich. This story is trying to say that if you steal something you will get a punishment.
“Whats The Worst That Could Happen?” by Bruce Corville is about a kid named Murphy who thinks he has bad luck.
He thinks he has bad luck because he turned thirteen. “If thirteen is supposed to be an unlucky number imagine being forced to go through a whole year with that as our age.” I think he said this because thirteen is any unlucky number. Also there is this girl he likes, but he’s too afraid to talk to her. “As I lie here in my hospital bed trying to work out how I got here in the first place.” Yes he’s in the hospital, you’re probably wondering how he got there. Don’t worry we will get to that soon.
Before all that happened the girl he likes (her name is Tiffany) had asked him to be in this play, of course he accepts. Murphy’s best friend Mikey comes over and asks what that was about, Murphy tells him. When he was done explaining Mikey reminded him about the “Stage Fright Incident” in fifth grade. “I want to tell you that I was good during the rehearsals but when the curtains opened and I saw the audience….” Yes Murphy couldn’t move he was so scared. That shows an example of how he has bad luck, but he wasn’t going to let fear let the love of his life Tiffany down. But Murphy was still very nervous, about what you may ask? Well to make it simple he didn’t want to look like a dork in front of Tiffany. Finally the day of the performance comes and right before the curtains open Tiffany told him to untie his shoelace because his part in the play he’s supposed to look like a fool, he brings his foot up to untie it the curtain comes up and he falls over. He was shocked he thought he looked like a fool, but people started laughing but that was good for his part. He did awesome. You’re probably thinking “Vince what are you talking about he doesn’t have bad luck.” Well just you wait. He was doing good until he started chocking on the food he was eating someone gave him the “Heimlich Manuever” when the food came out he fell off the stage and broke his leg. Still think he doesn’t have bad luck?
And thats how he ended up in the hospital, and that shows how he thinks he has bad luck.
People Aren’t Always Who You Think They Are
In the Short Story “Nobody Stole Jason Grayson” by Carolyn Meckler is about Abby, a girl who steals a photo of her crush, Jason Grayson, from his girlfriend’s locker, which sparks an investigation and a lot of drama. But in the story, Abby learns that Kylee and Brooke, Sloppy Joe, Jason Grayson, and even herself, are not who she thought they were.
Kylee and Brooke were people who Abby judged as Daytona’s followers. She never thought that they would go against her. Then Daytona started accusing them of stealing the picture and threatens to tell her dad. ‘”Fine,’ Scoffed Kylee, ‘Go ahead and tell Daddy’. ‘Yeah. Who would steal your stupid picture anyway?’ added Brooke”. Brooke and Kylee decided that Daytona couldn’t do that, and they stood up for themselves which Abby didn’t think they would.
Sloppy Joe had a reputation for being Sloppy, Lazy, and a Loser. He was a ‘nobody’, and she didn’t really notice him. But then, when Abby sees Jason in the Office before her interrogation, she drops all of her books, and “Sloppy Joe got down on his hands and Knees and gathered all of” her “stray papers”. She never thought of him as a sweet person, and now learns that he is really sweet, which she didn’t think he was.
Jason Grayson was who Abby liked. But then he calls her a “dork” when she drops all of her papers. She starts to react, “my eyes stung. This is not the way, Jason Grayson, boy of amber eyes and long lashes was supposed to act”, she thinks. In her mind, Jason Grayson would never call her a dork, and she realizes that the person in her mind and the real Jason Grayson are entirely different.
Lastly, she realized that she isn’t who she thought she was. Abby always thought she was a ‘nobody’ and a loser until the end, after Sloppy Joe calls her and asks her out, “I mean nobodies don’t disrupt an entire school and receive phone calls from cute boys with dimples on their chins” she thinks. She realizes she can make a difference and she isn’t how she thought she was.
Abby learns about Brooke and Kylee, Sloppy Joe, Jason Grayson, and even herself throughout the book and how they aren’t who she thought they were, but more importantly how people, in general, aren’t always how you think they are, and how she deals with it.
In the short story “Sammy’s Choice” by Mallory Lefland, a girl named Sammy accepts a dare to pretend to be “Loser” Lucy’s friend for a week and then tell her it was a dare. Without even thinking about Lucy’s feelings she goes through with the plan. At the end of the story Sammy regrets accepting the dare.
At a party, Sammy plays the game never-have-I-ever that after losing leads her to a dare she will regret. “‘You need to act like you want to be friends with Lucy at school on Monday. Then on Friday you need to tell her off.’ … I thought the best way to start the dare off would be to write her a letter,” said Sammy. Sammy accepts the dare without considering the fact that she could hurt Lucy.
During the dare Sammy starts to realize what she is doing and wishes she never agreed to do it. Then Sammy begins “to feel bad” for Lucy, as Lefland describes it. Sammy now sees that what she is doing is going to hurt Lucy. She really wanted to just “tell Lucy about the dare” but she knows she can’t because that would be breaking the rules of the game.
Sammy is now at the point where the dare comes to an end. Sammy didn’t want to “hurt Lucy’s feelings.” So she decided she would write a letter to Lucy. Sammy was “almost crying” when she wrote the letter. Sammy felt terrible for doing this to Lucy, but she got stuck in a situation that led her to do this. If she thought about the dare before she did it she wouldn’t have been in this sticky situation.
Think before you act, that’s what this story teaches you. Now Sammy has to pay for her actions. By lying to Lucy she didn’t only hurt Lucy. She also hurt herself.
“Four Leaf Clovers”
In the short story Popularity, by Adam Bagasariar, there’s a guy who, to be blunt, is a complete loser. He circles around oak trees with two self absorbed brats during recess, searching for four leaf clovers so that they could wish themselves away from their awful position of bottom feeders on the social food chain. The guy, who’s name’s never mentioned in the story, longs to be the funny guy. He wants to be Sean Owens’ right hand man. Seam, who is, in the eyes of the average ten year old boy with typical ten year old boy imperfects, perfect, is pretty much the most popular guy in the fourth grade.
One day, quite fed up with his clover hunting friends, the guy (let’s just call him Mark from now on?) decides to make his way over to the group of guys surrounding Mitch, the funny guy. Mitch is considered, by most, to be the funniest guy in the fourth grade, and apparently every recess he spends his time making anybody he can laugh. “Mark” slips into the circle of guys surrounding Mitch, and stares longingly, biding his time until the perfect moment, when he can replace Mitch as Sean’s right hand man and the funniest guy in fourth grade.
After a few days of simply standing on the outskirts of the circle of guys, dreaming of what could be, “Mark” is finally given a chance to prove himself, after so many other chances to come out and say something funny have slipped through his fingers. He makes the possibly horrible, but eventually quite oddly rewarding mistake of rolling his jeans up, with a very noticeable difference in length. He goes to school like this, and, come recess, stands in the same place where he normally does, daydreaming of being Mitch, when, out of nowhere, Mitch is pointing to “Mark’s” uneven cuffs and saying, “’Someone needs a ruler.’”
Apparently, this was one of the wittiest things Mitch had said, and in about a half second, “Mark” had gone from being the completely unnoticed bystander, to be humor to the guys whose ranks he’d hoped so dearly to join. That day, Mitch had felt quite compelled to dress himself hideously, with yellow pants and a yellow shirt. “Mark”, who had finally been given his only chance to shine and show everyone what he was made of, raised his left arm “in a presentational gesture and said, ‘Boys, I give you Tweety Bird.’”
With this, Mitch shrunk away into the crowd, and “Mark” became the new funny guy. Sean Owens’ right hand man. Best friend with all of the popular guys. A somebody.
Turns out though, that this new popularity came at a price. Rather, how easy said popularity was to gain came at a price. After all, if all it took was a pair of yellow pants and a yellow t-shirt (no matter how ugly) to turn the funniest guy in the grade into “Tweety Bird”, couldn’t the same happen just as easily to “Mark”?
Sure, his phone would ring every day, and he was invited to all the “sleep-overs and baseball games and bowling parties and bicycle races” that he could ever dream of, it had to be in the back of his mind the whole time that if he made just one mistake and some other aspiring funny guy pointed it out in front of a crowd, “Mark” could lose all of that. His friends didn’t really like him at all for who he was or for what he had to say or what he thought or anything like that. Instead, they just kept him around for comic relief, and he knew that he was “standing on sand and only a yellow shirt and pair of pants away from the oak trees where the two Allans were still looking for four-leaf clovers.”
To be honest, that’s all popularity really is. A bunch of people respect you or like you because you’re pretty, or you’re funny, or something like that. They don’t really know you at all, and it’s by no means permanent, or even perfect for the time it does last. It’s not the end of the world if you’re not popular. It might not be as much fun, but seriously, it doesn’t make you automatically flawless, and you’re not guaranteed a spot at all those parties for forever either. You could be standing on some sliver of ice left on the pond in late March. You’re going to come falling down to the water eventually. It’s inevitable.
In the short story “Sammy’s Choice” by Mallory Lefland, a girl named Sammy accepts a dare to pretend to be “Loser” Lucy’s friend for a week and then tell her it was a dare. Without even thinking about Lucy’s feelings she goes through with the plan. At the end of the story Sammy regrets accepting the dare.
At a party, Sammy plays the game never-have-I-ever that after losing leads her to a dare she will regret. “‘You need to act like you want to be friends with Lucy at school on Monday. Then on Friday you need to tell her off.’ … I thought the best way to start the dare off would be to write her a letter,” said Sammy. Sammy accepts the dare without considering the fact that she could hurt Lucy.
During the dare Sammy starts to realize what she is doing and wishes she never agreed to do it. Then Sammy begins “to feel bad” for Lucy, as Lefland describes it. Sammy now sees that what she is doing is going to hurt Lucy. She really wanted to just “tell Lucy about the dare” but she knows she can’t because that would be breaking the rules of the game.
Sammy is now at the point where the dare comes to an end. Sammy didn’t want to “hurt Lucy’s feelings.” So she decided she would write a letter to Lucy. Sammy was “almost crying” when she wrote the letter. Sammy felt terrible for doing this to Lucy, but she got stuck in a situation that led her to do this. If she thought about the dare before she did it she wouldn’t have been in this sticky situation.
Think before you act, that’s what this story teaches you. Now Sammy has to pay for her actions. By lying to Lucy she didn’t only hurt Lucy. She also hurt herself.
A Bad Choice
In the short story “Sammy’s Choice” by Mallory Leftland. A girl named Sammy makes a bad decision on a dare. She decides to pretend to be friends with Lucy, who is unpopular. Sammy ends up wanting to treat Lucy like Lucy treated her.
Sammy lies to her parents and goes to a party where she pays the game “Never-Have-I-Ever”. She loses the game and is forced to take a dare. The dare was “you need to act like loser Lucy’s friend for a week and then tell her off.” Sammy doesn’t want to do the dare, because she doesn’t want to hurt Lucy’s feelings but she knows if she backs out of the dare, she will never hear the end of it.
As the week starts, Sammy is fine with the dare and thinks it’s funny. Towards the middle of the week, she starts to think how Lucy will feel after she tells her about the “I feel bad for Lucy” Sammy said. Everyone gave her a funny lock. Sammy continues with the dare even though she knows it’s wrong.
It’s the end of the week and therefore it’s time for Sammy to tell Lucy. She leaves a note in Lucy’s locker about the dare. Steve said she cried, I was crying on the inside too. Sammy felt really bad about the dare.
Throughout the book the author left a trail of clues trying to show that Sammy felt bad for Lucy and waited to treat Lucy the way Lucy treated her. The book tries to show that you should treat others that way you want to be treated.
The short story, “Nobody Stole Jason Grayson” by Carolyn Mackler teaches the reader a good lesson. In the story, many of the characters make impulsive decisions and things go wrong, so the story teaches readers that you should always think before you act.
Abby Tad has a crush on Jason Grayson, but unfortunately, he is dating Daytona, the most popular girl in school. Abby notices while she is alone one day in the hallway, that Daytona’s locker is cracked open. She sees the picture of Jason Grayson and decides to steal it, not thinking about Daytona and how she might react. “I want, no I need that picture of Jason Grayson,” is what Abby is thinking when she steals the picture. It’s obvious that nobody absolutely needs a picture of their crush, but Abby stole it anyway.
When Daytona finds her picture of Jason Grayson is missing, she has a fit and makes a huge deal about it. She tells her father, who also happens to be the school’s vice principal, that her picture was stolen. Rumors got started and people began to think that somebody was going around stealing things from lockers. Still, nobody suspects that Abby has anything to do with this, because Abby is a nobody. She is the last person people would think of to steal anything. Daytona gets so dramatic about the situation that Jason begins to get upset. Jason says to Daytona, “You always freak out about everything,” and then breaks up with her. If Daytona had thought about Jason’s feelings and what his reaction might be, she may have thought twice about freaking out over such a small thing like a picture.
The whole situation becomes so huge that fights even begin to break out during classes. Abby says, “A fight broke out during 6th period art class,” so the vice principal steps in. He runs into the art classroom, not thinking about the risks. “An open bottle of pink dye flew into the air and landed on the vice-principal’s snow white hair.” If the vice principal hadn’t come running in, and the person that threw the pink dye had thought about what bad could happen, the vice principal would never gotten his hair dyed pink.
“Nobody Stole Jason Grayson” is about making good decisions that you won’t end up regretting later. It’s about thinking before you make a decision, and knowing that bad decisions are something you’ll regret making later.
Pick
In a short story called, “Nobody stole Jason Grayson,” by Carolyn Mackler, there is this girl who steals a photo of a boy in school from someone’s locker. She kind of felt bad stealing it but she finally felt like a somebody and not a nobody, a person who has no friends and feels left out about everything. This girl is Abby Tab. While she sits in the principal’s office, about the missing picture, she hears the conservation about the missing picture and hears how she is a nobody.
While Abby is waiting, to talk to the principal, she hears the conservation of the principal talking to the vice principal, on the phone, about the missing picture.
“Yes, I’m questioning the last group of kids…No, no…it’s nobody really.” Abby got surprise at the word nobody. She hated being a nobody since the beginning of the school year. She felt really mad.
When the principal continues to talk, the principal says, “Just tell Daytona that nobody stole Jason Grayson.” That made Abby angrier. She always wanted to be a somebody but this chance ruined it for her. She is still a nobody.
Finally, Abby had enough. “I’m sick of being a nobody. I’m sick of people not remembering me, and I’m sick of Jason Grayson.” She says this because, she is sick of everything that is going on with her life. She is now not caring what happens next, before, or right then. She stopped caring.
Abby didn’t want to be a nobody from the start of school. She had always wanted to be a somebody, a popular kid that everybody likes, but instead, she had changed her mind and let everything all go past.
In the story “Sammy’s Choice” the main character is faced with a problem. She has to pretend to be someone’s friend for a week, and then tell them it was all a dare and that she didn’t really want to be her friend. At first she thinks that its torture, but then she starts to like the girl, named “Loser Lucy”, in the end. This story is about peer pressure, and doing what you think is right.
In the beginning of the story Sammy is dared to hang out with “Loser Lucy”. She thinks that it will be terrible, but she does it anyway so her friends think better of her. When she starts to like Lucy her friend Scoot asks her how she fells about the dare. “I couldn’t say what I really felt. I would be the laughing stock of the whole grade.” She cares a lot about what other people think of her. That’s what really matters to her.
Later after she really starts to like “Loser Lucy”, and she over heard Lucy saying that she is one of her best friends, Sammy starts to fell really bad. The dare says that she has to tell her that she doesn’t like her. Sammy fells really bad but doesn’t really know what to do. “I can’t be I have friends who can make me do this. But what am I supposed to do, stop being friends with them for Lucy? I would have to give up everything, friends, boys, parties, popularity, and my reputation.” She still really cared about what other people thought of her and that stopped her from doing what she thought was right.
After she drops the note explaining everything into Lucy’s locker she fells terrible. Her caring what other people thought of her stopped her from doing what she thought was right and from making herself happy. “On the inside, I was crying too.” It’s like there were two people inside her. The one that wanted her to be happy and the one that wanted her friends to like her.
People care about what other people think of them, they always want to be on top. They will do any thing to get there. They will like people, but not talk to them around their popular friends because they think they will think less of them. They pick one friend over another so that they can climb the latter. When they do that, people can get hurt. People should try to be happy, not perfect, or popular. That is the lesson behind this story.
Love, for better or for worse
In the short story, “What’s the worst that could happen” by Bruce Coville, a boy named Murphy Murphy had a crush on a girl named Tiffany. Normally that is not a bad thing, but Murphy was blinded by love and became ignorant to common sense. This story shows that if love is the center of attention in one’s life, they will become impulsive and do stupid things and may get hurt if something goes wrong.
In the beginning, when Murphy explained why his parents gave him the same first name as last, he said“…Love makes fools of us all”. This shows that Murphy thinks that even his parents are blinded by love and made a fool of.
Murphy tried many times to flirt with Tiffany, but he never even got to talk to her. Then one day she asked Murphy if he wanted to be in a skit that she wrote. He said yes, even though “(a) I have not yet read the script and (b) I have paralyzing stage fright.” Murphy was so impulsive that he forgot the humiliation that he felt last time he tried to perform. This clearly shows that love makes us stupid and impulsive.
In the end he actually did well in the performance. Well that is until it all fell down when he choked on a cupcake during the skit. His friend rushed to the stage and did the Heimlich maneuver on him. Fortunately he spit up the cupcake, unfortunately it splattered all over Tiffany’s face. He rushed to her to wipe off the cupcake and accidentally tripped and fell off the stage and broke his leg. Tiffany came to visit him in the hospital and brought along her boyfriend. “Something inside me died when she introduced him”. Murphy was hurt by love physically, by breaking his leg, and emotionally, because the person he loved did not love him back.
As you can see love can be bad if you are obsessed. It is unfortunate that Murphy did not read this essay before he became obsessed, for he would have known that devoting one’s life to one purpose is a pathway to despair.
In the story “Nobody Stole Jason Grayson” a girl named Abby Tad stole a picture of a guy named Jason Grayson from a girl named Daytona. Daytona Told her Dad, who is the vice principal that her picture got stolen from her locker and he took unnecessary action.
If something small and replaceable gets stolen or goes missing, then you don’t have to make a big deal about it. You don’t have to lose your friends or boyfriend because something small goes missing. Daytona said “Whoever stole my picture is going to get punished big time.”
Because Daytona’s dad was the vice principal, he and the principal conducted a random locker search. It means that because of one small thing, large action was taken.
Five days after the picture was stolen, the principal called every student into her office to see what they knew about the stolen picture. And because of one persons small problem if they overreact than it can turn into something big.
This story shows that people can care too much about little things than can easily be replaced.