Say "Cheese"

Yep, it's that time of year. It's school picture week here at Adams Middle School. The gym turned into a miniature portrait studio.

I don't like picture day that much. And it doesn't help that the photographer puts the camera so close to your face.

Hey Haley, if you're reading this, I wanna show you some of what got turned in for the yearbook. You might get a few chuckles out of these.

Eeeek! It's a ghost! Oh wait, no it's not. It's only Night-Meredith Hopkins, who so far is leading in the polls to become the next student body president. Not if I can help it.

Kylee Phillips, the bane of my existence. Geez Louise what a scary shot! And on top of that, she's running for president of my class.

Kylee's second-in-command, Vickie Vaccaro. Vicks just basically does what Kylee tells her to do.

My BFF, Kathryn "Kit" Kittredge. She's running against Kylee Phillips for class president. She came up short last year but I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get her over the hump this time.

Hey Haley, it's that girl you were telling me about, Natalie Spencer. Do you know she's playing volleyball this year? Natty, sweetie, didja think u were modeling?

Harriet, I love ya, gurl, but this is one scary yearbook picture.

My newest friend, Jess McConnell. She spent two years traveling in Belize and Egypt and tells me all kinds of really cool stories.

And the scariest shot of all....

BOO!

Back to School...Almost

Hello everybody, Lindsey here.

Haley's host says she's on her way to Massachusetts to her next host. I'm still waiting for pics from her last host, lol.
Meanwhile, back here school is about to start. I went to school today cause they wanted to introduce us to the teachers and the classes.

All the usual suspects are back in action. These three girls are the ruling class of the school. The girl on the left is Sasha Moore. The one in the middle is Meredith Hopkins. On the right is Natalie Spencer. I don't know these girls nearly as well as Haley does, but I already know I don't like Meredith. Oh, and by the way, the one in the middle, she's running for student body president. And so far, she doesn't have anyone running against her. The big reason is because someone who shall remain unnamed, whose initials are H. H., is currently out traveling and won't be back till October.

Meanwhile, I've got my own issues. The two girls who rule my grade, Kylee Phillips and Victoria Vaccaro, are at it again. This time they approached Kristy Van Dyke (who's back from, what I understand, West Virginia) and called her a dummy.

Kristy didn't take too kindly to that. The next thing I knew, she had Kylee pinned against the wall.

School hasn't even started yet.

Lindsey speaks out

Hey everybody, Linds here. I borrowed Vee's friend's camera to make this update, she thinks hers will be out of the shop soon.

Can't be soon enuf tho, school starts a week from Monday. I am SO not looking forward to it, especially with Haley still traveling. BTW, she STILL hasn't sent me those pics so I could post them, sigh. Haley, if you're reading this, hurry up!

Vee's friend has one of these fancy talking cameras with the auto-focus and about 20 megapixels. Sigh.

So, today I was at the aquarium with my pesty older brother Ethan when three girls suddenly came up to me. I knew exactly who these girls were, Kylee Phillips, Vicky Vaccaro, and a third girl that looked suspiciously like Haley's Natalie. Haley knows Natalie a lot better than I do, but I'm very familiar with Kylee and Victoria. Those two have been the bane of my existence since about the third grade, teasing me about everything, Kylee by far the worst of the two.

"Whatcha doin' here?" Kylee asked.

"What does anybody do here?" I replied. "I'm looking at the fish."

"Couldn't you have done ANYTHING with your wild hair?" she asked. "Every time I see you it's in that same frizzy mop."

I heard Victoria laugh and snicker behind her, but Natalie (or at least the girl I suspect was Natalie) didn't utter a peep. Then I figured it out. Alison told me the three of them were on the gymnastics team last year.

"Well you know, Kylee," I shot back, "that skirt is so high someone could probably see your underpants. If I left out of my house in that, mom and dad would burn it with me wearing it."

Queen Bees and Wanna-Bees

So, Sophie asked in her comments to my last post if Meredith (aka our class' queen bee) was still around, and my answer now, as then, is she is... and in my opinion, she's worse than ever. I heard she entered a couple modeling contests over the summer, and she sure has gotten her head swollen like a balloon.

And on top of that, she's got a new accessory -- er, companion, in the form of a French exchange student named Antoinette Boucher (right), who's staying with the family next door to the Hopkins' for the semester. She's very exotic looking, with long dark hair (almost as dark as Victoria's) and bright blue eyes. She wears glasses most of the time but she wasn't wearing them there. And to think, she could have been staying at MY place for the semester, bummer.

Nicki doesn't return to Colorado to start seventh grade there till next month, so she wanted to see what had changed at Adams since she last attended last year (which isn't much, btw). Harriet & I gave her a grand tour, and we showed her the newly-remodeled newspaper office. BTW, I'm totally digging Harriet's new outfit, it suits her. It's from Carpatina.

Speaking of the new newspaper office, I'm happy they got new computers in there, and we welcomed Kathryn "Kit" Kittredge as our newest staff member. (Megan plans to ask Lindsey to join on Monday, and I've told Kit not to tell her.) And just in time, too. We have to get the back-to-school issue printed by next week. I'm trying to convince Harriet to join us at the paper, but she refuses to budge, saying she'll have nothing to do.

As for those sixth-grade 'wanna-bees' Kylee, Zoe, and Victoria -- I'm not bothered with them -- except when they bother my friends, and Kit and Lindsey are my friends now, though they're not in the same grade as I am. Besides, I do suspect someone will put them in their place soon enough, and I actually would be very happy when that happens. Funny how that works, huh?

Seventh Grade!!!

Welp, started school this week, and hadn't had a moment to start recording everything. Until now.

Most of the usual suspects are back in action for another year, but a couple people still aren't back yet from whatever they were doing this summer, and I'm kinda worried. Kristy hasn't returned, neither has Hilary. I'm kinda bummed about it, actually. On the other hand, there are a whole lot of new faces around here.

Kit and Lindsey were telling me about some of their new classmates. "There are these three girls," they told me, "that you gotta stay away from at all costs."

Uh-oh. Are they the sixth-grade version of Meredith's crew?

I got a look at these girls. They sure did look like meanies. From left to right, they're Victoria Vaccaro (the dark haired one), Kylee Phillips (the blond), and Zoe Fishers (the brunette). Kit and Lindsey say Kylee is the definite queen bee of the group and has treated them like crap since kindergarten.

Speaking of Kylee, I'm actually stuck with her -- for the foreseeable future. That's because my student council sponsor matched us up for the seventh grade-sixth grade buddy program that I started last year. She reminds me of Meredith except, in my opinion she's actually even prettier. I was kinda hoping I'd get either Kit or Lindsey as I already knew them from Girl Scouts. Harriet's partner is Jess McConnell (I'm jealous as Jess seems far more interesting). I don't know who Hilary or Kristy have. Kit likes her partner as hers is into sports and they can talk baseball all day and all night. Lindsey's partner is Sasha Moore, one of Meredith's pals. I asked my teacher what made her make the matches she did, and she said they were totally random. I bet.

My classes -- I've only got one class with Harriet and three with Hilary. Hil and I have honors classes, plus French and TAG (talented and gifted) enrichment. Megan Ryder is still editor of the newspaper, although the newspaper sponsor, Ms. Baldwin, named me assistant editor now, so I'm gonna be spending more time with that. This means Megan and I have the task of picking new staffers. Kit and Lindsey have already submitted their stories, and I hope I don't have to tell one or both of them that they didn't make the staff, especially since they talked about it before all this happened.

I got into Parkington. I tried on my uniform, even paid the dorm fee... but then realized I couldn't go there. I didn't really belong there. It wasn't for me, at least not right now.