DAY 28: WEDNESDAY MORNING

I'm never going back to that school again. I repeat, I'm NEVER going back.

Mom can make me burned pork chops lined up from here to the Extreme Hills and back again. Dad can talk about all that pacifist stuff till the cows come home. Blah, blah, blah.

I'm not listening anymore.

Do you want to know how school ended this morning? It ended with Mrs. Enderwoman picking rotten flesh out of her hair. I guess she was standing too close to the vending machine when I blew it up.

Yup, that's right. Gerald the Pacifist Jr. BLEW UP. In the cafeteria. In front of everyone.

Well, now that I got that out in the open, I might as well tell you how the school night started.

It started with Bones calling me Itchy. Before first period even started. I don't know why that came as such a shock. I mean, Bones isn't in my history class, so he doesn't know that my name is Gerald or that I was named after Gerald the Pacifist.

And who am I kidding? Bones wouldn't care about that genealogy stuff anyway. He's going to call me Itchy till the day we graduate from this place. Maybe even after.

Like when we're all grown up and we run into each other somewhere. He'll have these bony skeleton babies with him.

And he'll say, "Kids, this is my old friend Itchy from Mob Middle School." Then those skeleton babies will laugh their bony little butts off. So I have THAT to look forward to.

But Bones has been calling me "Itchy" for weeks now. Why did it bother me so much last night?

Maybe because Sam was in the hall, too. And he didn't defend me. He wouldn't even look at me—even after I dropped all those amazing facts about my great-great-grandpa in class yesterday. So I guess nothing has really changed.

What happened after that? Well, fast forward to lunchtime. I was already mad because I realized during Math that I forgot my lunch at home. And I'm sure Mom packed me burned pork chops.

See, she said she'd make me something special after I told her I did well on my history report. And what else could she mean by "special"?

I didn't even get the chance to smell those pork chops. I forgot my green lunchbox on the counter, right next to Cammy's baby bottle. That Exploding Baby was probably home with Mom eating MY pork chops.

So I had no choice except hitting up the vending machine. Third time's the charm, right?

I slid in my emerald and hit the "P" button for pork chops. It took forever for anything to happen, like someone had cast a potion of slowness over the whole machine. Then a pork chop started to move. Not the apple or the milk or the rotten flesh (phew!), but a beautiful pork chop. FINALLY, something was going my way.

The pork chop dropped. I saw it with my own two eyes. But somewhere between the pork chop row and the hole at the bottom of the machine, that chop got STUCK. NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

I started jiggling the machine. I know we're not supposed to do that, but I've seen Sam do it. He's pretty good at it, too. I guess I'm not. That chop wouldn't drop.

I kept at it, getting more and more frustrated. My entire body was itching, and I could feel the lava bubbling in my chest again. I knew the only thing that was gonna cool it down was that pork chop.

Then someone tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was done because she wanted to get something out of the machine. "Do I LOOK like I'm done here?" I wanted to shout.

It was some snooty eighth-grade witch. I didn't know her name, but she reminded me of Willow. And I was NOT going to step aside and let that witch steal my pork chop.

So I just ignored her and kept jiggling the machine. Then I heard laughter. It was that tinkly-bone kind of laughter. I knew right away that it was Bones and his crew up to no good.

I thought they were coming after me, but then I heard Chloe hollering at them to STOP. They were ganging up on her, and she was fighting back. I wished she would just blow up already and get it over with. But for some reason, she didn't.

So I kept wrestling with the machine. I mean, I was really rocking the thing. And Chloe started crying—I could hear her. She needed my help. But I needed my pork chop. And Bones just wouldn't shut his bony mouth.

That lava in me was ready to blow. I got SO hot, like someone had just plunked me into a furnace. I was shaking, too.

When Mrs. Enderwoman stepped in front of me, I could see she was scolding me. Her mouth was moving.

But I couldn't hear a word she said because someone was hissing. It was SO loud. Then I realized the hissing was coming from ME.

I took a step away from the machine. I took a step toward Bones. And the next thing I knew, there was this huge explosion.

I heard glass breaking. I'm pretty sure that was the vending machine.

Then I was lying on the ground next to Bones.

I must have knocked him over, because he had this really surprised look on his face. His mouth was gaping open even wider than usual.

Well, Mrs. Enderwoman and some other teachers cleared all the kids out of the lunchroom right away. I was glad for that. But I had to stick around and pick up the pieces.

There was gunpowder EVERYWHERE. I scooped it up and stuffed it in my backpack—no one even had to ask me to help clean up. I wanted to get rid of the evidence.

I wanted to erase what just happened, the way Mrs. Enderwoman erased the word "pacifist" from the board after my report.

She didn't scold me or send me to the office. She just swept up the glass from the vending machine and picked the rotten flesh out of her hair. Maybe she knew I already felt bad enough about my blowup.

Sitting through the rest of the school night was pure torture. No one would even look at me, except Ziggy Zombie. I felt like an Enderman, but it wasn't nearly as cool as I thought it would be.

When that morning bell finally rang, I sprinted out of school. I sprinted as if Sir Coughs-a-Lot was chasing me. And I didn't stop until I got home.

I locked myself in my room, and that's where I'm going to stay. Forget about surviving Mob School.

Like I said, this creeper is never going back.