Bonus: The Olympics!!!

Did anyone else catch the opening ceremony of the Olympics last night? Wow!!! I didn't know about these games until just recently, so it's probably too late for me to enter--'tho I'm sure I could win a gold medal at some of those events. Like anything where you have to lift or throw something, who could beat me? And those hurdles in the track races wouldn't slow me down very much. And there's also women's basketball!!!

But here's a list of sports that I don't think I'd be very good at:

1. Diving. I don't know that the diving board could support my weight. Also, they'd have to refill the pool after every dive!!!

2. Archery. With the bows and arrows they use, I'd look kind of silly. Like cupid. And I probably wouldn't be able to hit the broad side of a barn, either.

3. Equestrian. Me? On a horse? The cruelty to animal people would be all over me!!!

4. Cycling. Probably not going to happen unless GlomCorp makes me a custom-sized 120-speed bike.

5. Balance Beam. Are you kidding? Have you seen my size 73-and-a-half sneakers???

What do you guys think? Should I start training now for London in 2012?

Spooky

My dreams have been boring lately, and still no Dream Boy. I kept going back to the meadow where Dream Boy and I had our first dream kiss, but he was never there so the dream was just me sitting around until I woke up.

But last night things got spooky. First, the sky over the meadow went dark--not a little at a time like when the sun goes down, but with a snap like somebody turning off a light. Then a cold breeze blew right through my clothes, through my skin, and chilled my bones. I could feel the wind growing stronger and stronger until I could barely stand against it, 'tho the grass around me wasn't moving at all.

I heard a rustling sound from the other side of the meadow, where the ground rose to a ridge just high enough that I couldn't see over the top. "Is somebody there?" I asked. I had to ask a second time, louder, cuz that first time my voice never made it out through my lips.

The ridge rustled again. A red light lit that part of the sky like a flashlight in smoke and I heard a horrible choking noise and an animal's shrieking cry like I'd only ever heard once before in my entire life.

I forced myself awake and I'm never going back to sleep again!!!

Halfway Up the Melly Tree

I met the last school board member today. Mrs. Rodriguez. Doc wasn't kidding when he said she was "getting on in years." Mrs. Rodriguez looked like she was made entirely out of gnarls, wrinkles, and thick eyeglasses that didn't actually help her to see. I knew this cuz the first thing she said to me was, "Well now, you don't seem all that tall to me."

She was talking to my kneecap.

"I'm up here," I told her.

Mrs. Rodriguez took a step back and pointed her thick lenses upward. "Oh, climbed a tree, have you? That's most unladylike behavior."

"Sorry."

She chuckled. "That's all right, dearie. I scaled a few oaks myself when I was your age. Bet you're surprised to hear that!" I sure was surprised--who knew they had oak trees that long ago!!!

"I'll cut to the chase," she said, 'tho I couldn't picture her chasing much of anything. Maybe a snail, if it didn't have too much of a headstart. "Some of the parents," said Mrs. Rodriguez, "worry that you might be a danger to the other children."

"That's crazy!!!"

"I know, dearie, but it's my job to handle the crazy concerns as well as the sane ones. I'll need to ask some difficult questions to find out exactly how dangerous you really are."

"Ask me anything," I told her.

Mrs. Rodriguez laughed, which sounded more like a chicken's cackle than any sound a human would make. "Oh dearie, dearie! I've been around the block more than a few times. You don't get any useful answers from asking a person if they're well-behaved or not. But I know who just might have something to say on the matter--where is your foster-brother, Jay?"

I felt my stomach sink. "He's over in the house."

"Thank you, dearie. You stay up in your tree and I'll have a nice sit-down with your brother."

I don't have a good feeling that conversation. I'm worried Jay'll make up a bunch of stories about me, and I'm even more worried he'll tell the truth!!! Why couldn't I have been nicer to him when I had the chance??? Now I won't get into high school and my whole future will be ruined!!!

Now More Than Ever

I've been thinking about it and I do still want to play on the girls' basketball team. In fact, I want to play on the team now more than ever. I want to show Coach Saunders that I can work as hard as he wants me to, even if the workouts wear me out.

And I Said, "Give You Twenty What?"

I met Coach Saunders today, one more school board member who looks and acts nothing like a timid cow. Coach had me drop and give him twenty, then made me run laps back and forth through the rows of cherry trees in Mr. Appleton's orchard. Would a cow do that? I don't think so!!!

Coach kept looking at his stopwatch and saying I could run faster, faster, faster!!! Finally, I couldn't take another step. I couldn't breathe without feeling like my throat was on fire. "Why?" I asked, and that single word took up all the air left inside me. I felt like a beached whale and, rolling on the ground, I probably looked like one too.

"Dr. Crisp says you want to play on the basketball team," Coach stated.

I tried to lift my head and failed, miserably.

"There are girls on that team who have been playing ball since elementary school. Kayla Rice and Maddy Diamante spent their summers at a basketball camp to sharpen their skills. You may not have to work as hard as they do, but you will work as hard as they do--or harder. There are no slackers in my athletic program, and nobody who expects to just walk on and become an instant star."

That was over an hour ago and I still ache all over from running so hard. The basketball finals looked so easy when I watched them on TV, but sports are harder work than I ever imagined!!!

I don't know if I want to play on the high school team anymore.

The Honor's All His Honor's

Today is the last day I have to do Jay Appleton's chores as punishment for losing that basketball bet--one week and not a minute more!!! So naturally the little creep milked every moment of my time. Then he was supposed to go with me into town for my dental appointment, but he insisted on riding my shoulders and steering me past some teen hangout where all his friends would see us. Oh, didn't I tell you that Jay Appleton has friends? Yes, it seems that absolutely everybody has friends except for me. All I have are cows!!!

But I didn't get to meet Jay's friends cuz there was a police roadblock across Bypass Road. They must have known I was coming, cuz it's hard to believe they've been setting up like that every day with all those lights, sirens, bullet-proof vests, riot gear, fire trucks--yeah, fire trucks, the kind with the long ladders. That must be in case they need to rescue a kitten from my hair, I guess. And in the middle of the whole noisy-flashy mess was a thin man in a sharp white suit with crossed arms and the meanest scowl I've ever seen.

"That's Mr. Peterson," Jay whispered into my ear, and for that moment I was glad to have him on my shoulders.

"Mr. Peterson from the school board?" I asked.

"Yeah. His dad is the mayor."

"Great..." I tried to imagine Mr. Peterson as a timid cow, but he totally didn't look the part. So much for that little piece of advice. Thanks for nothing, LadyNerd!!!

"Do you have business in my town, Miss Mills?" Mr. Peterson asked.

"Your town? It's my town too, you know. Born and raised."

Some of the police officers adjusted their taser-guns, cuz I guess they didn't like my disrespectful tone, but Mr. Peterson waved them back. "Say you're sorry, quick!" Jay urged into my ear. I might have, except I didn't feel like I had anything to be sorry for.

"I have a dental appointment at eleven," I told Mr. Peterson. "If you move your toy soldiers out of my way, I should be able to just make it."

The man's face turned bright red, and I felt a panicked tornado in my stomach. I flashed back to the first time I "rampaged" through town and expected history to repeat itself--and it might have, except this time history was stopped by another man in a white suit that was even brighter and more spiffy than Mr. Peterson's, with a red rose in the lapel button. "What all is going on here?" the new man asked.

"Papa, please, let me handle this," said Mr. Peterson.

"Papa?" I asked.

"That's Mayor Peterson," Jay told me.

"Young Miss," said the mayor, addressing me. "You have my sincerest apologies for the dunderheaded actions of my boy. Gets a little big for his britches sometimes, if you know what I mean."

"Maybe I could lend him a pair of mine," I offered.

"Indeed, indeed," said the mayor with a wink, and such a charming laugh that I wondered how him and the younger Mr. Peterson could possibly be related. "You have a good day now, miss."

"Thanks, Your Honor. You too!!!"

"You're going to let her just stroll through town?" Mr. Peterson demanded of his father. "Think of the panic!"

"I see guns and uniforms on your side of the street and two innocent children on the other. Now tell me, boy, which would folks around here be more panicked about?"

"I'm just counting down the days until that school board meeting," said Mr. Peterson through gritted teeth. I felt his eyes burning holes in my back as I walked away into town.

After that, the dental appointment itself was pretty routine, or at least I think it was. I really have no way of knowing, since it was my first time ever having my teeth looked at. Does every dentist use ropes to hang out a second-story window and look into a person's mouth, or was that just for me?

Giant House on the Prairie

Mrs. Johansson is much nicer to me these days. She said it's cuz the reports she has to write about me are better than they used to be, back when she first took on my case. "Two months ago, you were living in a barn. Now you have adequate food, clothing, and shelter, access to medical care, and a stable family environment." She said this proudly, like it's all because of her, even though it's not.

Besides, I still miss my barn.

The clothes she was talking about weren't my cool new GlomCorp stuff, by the way. Mrs. Johansson brought by some prairie dresses she'd had made and I was modeling them for her and Mrs. Appleton. "Prairie" as in "Little House on the"--except these would have been too old-fashioned for even Laura Ingles Wilder!!! They were actually big on me, if you can believe that, and so long they tripped me up when I walked.

"You'll grow into them," said Mrs. Johansson.

I hope not. These dresses were made for a girl of nineteen or twenty feet, but I'm fine with only being seventeen feet, eleven inches, and closing in on another half-inch. That's a whole nother inch since June!!!

The way I've been growing this summer, I'll be eighteen-foot-something very soon--and for some reason that seems so much taller than seventeen-foot-something. It's just another foot, I know, but it's a milestone--and combined with all the other changes in my life, I feel like I'm about to peel away my skin and become a brand new Melly Mills. I'm sad about that cuz I really liked the old Melly Mills who lived in a barn with her cows and a shelf of stolen library books. I don't know who this new Melly Mills is going to be except that she'll go to school (I hope), play on the basketball team (I hope), and have a whole bunch of new friends (I hope, I hope, I hope!!!)

Jay couldn't stop laughing at my stupid new dress. I glowered at him but he wasn't looking at my face, so he didn't even notice--and don't you hate wasting a perfectly good glower like that? Jay only stifled himself when Mrs. Johansson told Mrs. Appleton that I'm going to need a dental checkup. I should have known she'd have yet another humiliation for me, no matter how nice she's been acting!!!

"I can take Melly to the dentist," Jay piped up. "We were already planning to do some school supply shopping."

"Is this true?" Mrs. Appleton asked, looking up at me with wide eyes. I had to swallow hard and nod, cuz it was just one more embarrassing thing on the list of embarrassing things I've had to do after losing that basketball bet. Jay knows how much I'm afraid of going into town, so he saved his worst "chore" for last.

Mrs. Appleton clasped her hands in front of her chest. "It's so wonderful that you're getting along so well. My little boy and my little-- Well, my boy and my girl, anyway. I'll make you an appointment to see Dr. Ham!"

Wonderful. Just wonderful.