Read Online Happy Kid! by Gail Gauthier - Free Book Online Page B

I’d always done really well on them, and I didn’t want to mess with success by going overboard studying. I could end up making things a whole lot worse doing something like that.
    No, the review work I had left, the “Are We Alone?” essay for Mr. Borden, was important because Chelsea was in his class. I had spent all of sixth grade sitting in two classes with her. Maybe I could spend all of seventh grade making a good impression on her. Then, when we were together next year in those ninth-grade English and social studies classes, we could talk on the phone a few times. And then when we were together in whatever kind of A-kid courses they had at the high school, we could spend all our time between classes together. Then in eleventh grade . . . I’d have someone to go with me to the Junior Prom!
    So I sat down at the crummy old computer I had inherited when my grandmother upgraded hers, which is all I have in my room because my parents insist it’s just fine for doing homework. I opened a new file and typed “Are We Alone?” at the top of the screen. Then I typed “No.”
    I deleted the “No” and started again.
    Are We Alone?
    Some people ask, Are we alone? The answer is no.
    Well, there’s one paragraph, I thought. Then I went on.
    Are We Alone?
    Some people ask, Are we alone? The answer is no.
    Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines “alone” as “separated from others,” “isolated,” “exclusive of anything or anyone else.”
    Uh-oh, I thought as I closed the dictionary and dropped it on the floor. That means the answer is yes.
    Are We Alone?
    Some people ask, Are we alone? The answer is yes.
    Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines alone as “separated from others,” “isolated,” “exclusive of anything or anyone else.” Even if there are aliens in the universe, we are separate from them and isolated, and so we are alone.
    I thought that sounded really intelligent and deep, as if I spent a lot of time thinking, which is exactly how A-kid papers sound.
    Then I kind of drew a blank.
    I sat at my desk and kicked at some stuff on my floor while I tried to think. I hit something that was hidden under my pajama bottoms. I kept kicking and thinking and kicking and thinking. After a while, I was kicking and not thinking and kicking and not thinking. I don’t know how long I went on like that before I finally looked down and saw that what I had been kicking was the copy of Happy Kid! I’d thrown on the floor that morning after I’d finished with it.
    Since work on my essay had come to a halt, I thought I’d put my time to good use by reading another chapter. I didn’t have to do anything the book told me to, after all. I could just read a chapter and get a dollar. So I opened up Happy Kid! and once again started to read the first thing I found.
    Does Your Life Stink or Is It YOU?
    Say you wake up to a beautiful day and spend it being miserable because you have to go to school. Or you get a B-minus on a paper and wish it were an A. Or you have an opportunity to eat lunch with a friend and all you can think about is how bummed out you are because the friend is spending time with someone else later. You could be one of those people who only see the worst in every situation. Think about it. Does your life actually stink, or do you just think it does?
    I had to laugh when I read that. Just how is a person supposed to be able to tell if his life stinks or he just thinks it does? And couldn’t you turn that question around? “Is your life really great or do you just think it is?” I thought I’d like to hear a happy person answer that.
    What I should have been feeling was surprise that I just happened to stumble upon this passage that just happened to be about the exact thing my mother just happened to have been nagging me about for days. But she had bought me the