Read Click Here (to find out how i survived seventh grade) Online
Authors: Denise Vega
Tags: #JUV000000
Click Here (to find out how i survived seventh grade)
Copyright © 2005 by Denise Vega
All rights reserved.
Little, Brown and Company
Time Warner Book Group
Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at
www.HachetteBookGroup.com
Cover photography (lollipop image) © Lucky Pix.
Other photos courtesy of Getty Images.
Summary: Seventh-grader Erin Swift writes about her friends and classmates in her private blog, but when it accidentally gets posted on the school Intranet site, she learns some important lessons about friendship.
The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
First eBook Edition: October 2007
ISBN: 978-0-316-03113-4
The text was set in Life Roman and Trebuchet MS, and the display type is Badoni.
Contents
Chapter 9: Playing With Our Food
Chapter 14: Erin Swift, aka Idiot
Chapter 16: IPF (Invalid Page Fault)
Chapter 20: No Strings Attached
Chapter 22: OMIK (Open Mouth, Insert Keyboard)
Chapter 23: Erin Swift, aka Loser
Chapter 25: Erin Swift and the Chamber of Horrors
Chapter 28: Spam With a Purpose
Chapter 29: TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident)
Chapter 30: Home Page Advantage
Chapter 31: Defrosts and Hot Tamales
To Nancy Roach,
my seventh- and eighth-grade literature teacher and still my friend.
For making me believe, at the age of twelve, that I was a writer.
First novelists always tend to thank the entire world, and I’m no different, though I promise not to thank the shoe salesperson or the guy in the checkout line behind me.
First, big hugs to my family: my husband, Matt Perkins, and my kids, Zachary, Jesse Bernadette, and Rayanne Vega-Perkins. You rock. To my extended family and friends, who supported and continued to support my writing: my parents, John and Carol Vega; my brother, John Vega, and his wife, Eva Page Vega; my sisters, Michelle and her husband, Wayne Applehans, Cheryl VegaRyan and her husband, James Ryan, and Rebecca Vega; my mother-in-law, Elizabeth Perkins, and her late husband, Bill Perkins, and Bill Jr., Susie, and Sarah Perkins. To all my friends at St. Vincent de Paul School who picked up kids, watched kids, delivered kids, or stood kids on their heads when I needed a little extra writing time. I’m afraid to name you all lest I forget someone, but you know who you are.
Big non-Vegamite kudos to both of my critique groups, whose words of wisdom as they tore my work apart bit by bit and helped me put it back together again, made the manuscript immeasurably better. Here they are, in alphabetical order: Hilari Bell, Meridee Jones Cecil, Carol Crowley, Anna-Maria Crum, Julie Danneberg, Coleen DeGroff, Wick Downing, Amy Efaw, Vicki Ferguson, Claudia McAdam, Marjorie Blain Parker, Christine Liu Perkins, Julie Anne Peters, Shawn Shea, Bobbi Shupe, Caroline Stutson, Ann Sullivan, and Rick Winter.
Special thanks to Julie Anne Peters, who graciously opened the door to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, and to those at Little, Brown who welcomed me inside: Megan Tingley, Jennifer Hunt, Sara Morling, Phoebe Sorkin, and Michael “I’m leaving to get a master’s degree” Conathan. Thank you for your humor, support, and insights into the manuscript. I’m so glad I stepped through. And thanks to copyeditor Christine Cuccio, whose eagle eye saved me from embarrassment.
Many thanks to my agent, Wendy Schmalz, for agreeing to take a chance on a new author (and thanks to Julie Peters for introducing us). You’re the best.
And finally, thank you to my friends at the Denver Public Library, especially at the Eugene Field Branch: Susan Gomez, DuRae Kubat, and Kathi Yuran. I can’t thank you enough for tirelessly checking out my stacks of children’s novels, lugging my reserves from the back, and always making me smile.
Erin’s Website … Keep Out! (This Means YOU!)
This is the totally secret and private home page of ERIN PENELOPE SWIFT. I guess it’s kind of like a fake web page, because most web pages are seen by lots of people on the Internet and mine will only be seen by me. But I don’t care. If I want to be a webmaster when I grow up, I need to practice.
Besides, I need to talk about some things, and Jilly isn’t always around to listen…and even when she is, she is not always the best listener, though I would never tell her that because she’s my best friend and it might hurt her feelings.
Things You Should Know About Me 
• I have big feet, which is great for basketball and soccer, bad for dancing. Luckily I play basketball and soccer, and no 1 has asked me to dance.
• Jillian Gail Hennessey is my best friend and has been since K. She’s very pretty and friendly, and everyone likes her. Sometimes I can’t believe she wants me for her friend.
• I have an older brother, Chris. Now that he’s a sophomore in h.s. and can DRIVE, he treats me like I’m a pest. Chris wears stupid bright orange boxers with green frogs on them, checks his breath by breathing into his hand and smelling it, and tucks pictures of the girls he likes under a box on his dresser. Sometimes he takes 1 out and talks to it, like he’s talking to the girl. He doesn’t know I know.
Info About the Links
My Life
will be stuff about me and my exciting life. This will be the blog or live journal part, with dates and stuff…not really live since no 1 else will read it, but whatever.
Mug Shots
will have pictures of the zillions of people in my life. Or if I don’t make any new friends, it will just be me and Jilly.
MBMS
will be stuff about Molly Brown Middle School, my new prison, that I think is worth sharing.
Snickers
will be for when I get tired of clicking and just want to have a Snickers.
Ok, TTFN.
© 2005 by EPS, Inc. • All Rights Reserved • EPS Privacy Policy — It’s ALL private.
KEEP OUT
Don’t like this website? 2 bad!
The webmaster does NOT want to hear from you.
The Ped Stops Here!
Alphabet Day
D-Day.
Or should I say E-Day, as in Envelope Day. Jilly and I stood on her front porch, fighting for the small amount of shade from the maple planted several feet from the house. The air was still and hot, and we fanned ourselves in quick bursts with the identical envelopes we clutched in our hands. In these envelopes were our futures. Molly Brown Middle School divided each seventh- and eighth-grade class into three “tracks” of about 150 kids. So rather than feeling like a small fish in a 450-student pond, we’d feel like a small fish in a 150-student pond, going to all our classes with a mix of these 150 kids.
We were about to find out if we’d be swimming in the same pond.
“Ready?” Jilly asked.
My heart bounced up and down in my chest. “I’m nervous,” I said. “What if we’re not on the same track?”
“Don’t jinx it, Erin.” Jilly stuck her finger in one corner of her envelope, ready to rip.
“One, two, three!”
We tore open the envelopes. “C,” Jilly said at the same time that I said, “A.”
“Ahhhhh,” I wailed. “I jinxed it.”
“This is terrible,” Jilly said, jumping off the porch and sinking into the grass. “Are you sure you read yours right?”
