The Summer Before

My Years in Middle School

By: Rozie Manton

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Length: 58 mins

Publisher's summary

The Summer Before: My Years In Middle School

This is Book No. 1 entitled The Summer Before in the 6 part series My Years In Middle School.

Follow the adventures of Nancy Jane and her two best friends Helen Schunter and Karen Stamm as they experience school, boys, bullying, getting even, dealing with Nancy Janes' nemesis Lois Talker and more. Other titles in this series include:

• Book #2: Is This Love?
• Book #3: Scanner In My Neighborhood
• Book #4: Summertime Memories
• Book #5: Girl's Revenge
• Book #6: Lookout High School, Here We Come!

Following is an excerpt from Book #1 The Summer Before.

"AAAAGGGGHHHH!" I could hear my mother screaming from the direction of the living room as I lay in bed, half asleep. "Who would do such a thing?" she continued to scream. I went from my half-asleep stupor to wide awake almost instantly. I sprang out of bed and ran into the hallway, heading towards the living room and the direction of all of the noise and commotion.

When I arrived in the living room, there was my mother standing in the open front door to our modest house, with her hands on her hips, as she looked intensely out the wide open doorway towards the street in front of our house. I was taken back for a moment because, from my vantage point, where I was at the back and left of Mom, her silhouette made her look like some crazy woman out of one of those action adventure horror movies. I proceeded cautiously and moved in alongside my mother so that I could see out the front door to see what all the excitement was about.

Mom's screaming had quieted to her more normal, low rumbling tone as she continued, "I just can't believe it! Who would do such a terrible thing?" About that time, I got a good look at myself.

"WHOA!" I roared and then burst out into spontaneous laughter. There it was. The object of all of the early morning excitement was right there in front of my eyes. And what a sight it was. Mom's minivan had been egged right there in front of our house. The poor thing looked like it was a bull’s eye at a shooting range. I just could not keep myself from laughing.

And laughing was the wrong fuel for Mom's fire at that time.

"What are you laughing about? It's not funny!" Mom's rumblings began to elevate into a little bit louder roar. "If you think it's so funny.... I'll show you what's funny... you get your butt dressed and out there, and you get that egg off of my car! Yes I'll show you what's funny!" Mom shouted out as she turned and walked towards the kitchen.

"Now where is my phone?" Mom muttered as she entered the kitchen, "Where is that thing when I need it? I'm going to call the cops and report this! I won't stand for this, I won't stand for this type of crap at all. I'm going to call the cops and we're going to catch them. Oh there it is."

As I made my way back to my room to get some clothes on before I went out to clean up the mess I could hear Mom on the phone talking to the police. I was not looking forward to cleaning all of that gooey sticky egg yuck off of Mom's mini-van.

I thought to myself, “Why did I have to do it? Why couldn't my older brother Tommy do it? But then Tommy was never home much anymore anyway.”

Tommy got a "new" car last Spring when he had graduated from high school. By "new" I mean new to him. It was four or five years old but it was the car of his dreams so it was "new" to him. Since he was headed off to college at the end of the week he had not been around the house much the past few days. He was out joy riding with his old high school buddies saying "I won't see them for a long time after I go to college so I gotta spend time with them now." Such a life, I couldn't wait until......