Excerpt One:
I sit in my bed reading Fudge by Judy Blume. I remember in third grade it was my favorite book. I would read it every day, over and over again. It felt right saying that Lila, my sister, was a little bit like Fudge from the book. I didn’t say that to any of my family members. I guess you can say that my mom and dad have always been protecting Lila. Whenever I jokingly say, “Oh, Lila. I guess you are going to be a mean old witch when you grow up!” My parents are always like, “Leo this kind of stuff can hurt someone mentally as a child and then affect how you are when you grow up.” It’s pretty funny some of the stuff she does, but if I say one word… Poof… There goes all my allowance for the next month.
When I was Lila’s age, my parents left me with 7-year-olds and told them to be careful. Well, they were never careful. And if some older cousin said I had funny ears, then my parents would laugh and say, “Oh yeah, he does have hilarious ears!”
If I said that to Lila, I would probably be in jail. It just goes to show that parents go crazy the second time around.
Excerpt Two: In this Excerpt Leo is wondering where his friend Marshal is because he hasn’t seen him all day.
It was nine at night and I was trying to figure out where Marshall was. I didn’t think he was at Wilson’s. There was a little alley way between Marshall’s house and my house, and I could see that there was no light in his bedroom. He wasn’t asleep because he always slept with the closet light on. There was no window from my bedroom, but I was down in Lila’s room. She was asleep, so I was trying my best to stay quiet while peering through Lila’s closed curtains. None of the other lights in his house where on, so he was definitely not watching TV or something. As I stepped onto the window sill to get a better look at the closet, a toy that was on the window sill fell to the ground, causing a loud noise followed by the words, “Hi, what’s your name?” coming from the speaking doll now lying on the floor.
“Leo?” I heard an unsure Lila from her bed across the room.
“Hey, Lila,” I said, turning around and facing her. Hair was all over her face as she rubbed her sleepy eyes.
“What are you doing here Leo? It’s-” She turned and looked at her clock.
“I was trying to sleep Lo Lo,” she said slowly as she fell back into her bed.