Mark De Young - Please… Understand My Messed Up Life - Tales from Greenwood Middle School

Mark De Young is a veteran teacher of 14 years from Yuma, Arizona. Currently teaching fifth and sixth grade, he is an innovator in personalized learning and technology in the classroom. He also established global awareness projects in which his students Skyped with organizations in El Salvador and Uganda and raised funds for school improvement and clean water projects.

Mark De Young holds a bachelors degree in Elementary Education from the University of Arizona and a masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Phoenix. In 2010, he earned the Intermediate Teacher of the Year for Yuma County.

Dedic a tion

I dedicate this book to Deb Drysdale, who lit this astronauts rocket.

Mark De Young

PLEASE

UNDERSTAND MY MESSED UP LIFE

Tales from Greenwood Middle School

Copyright Mark De Young (2018)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

Ordering Information:

Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data

De Young Mark

Please Understand My Messed Up Life: Tales from Greenwood Middle School

ISBN 9781641820929 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781641820943 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781645360575 (E-Book)

The main category of the book Fiction / Fantasy / Contemporary

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2018)

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd

40 Wall Street, 28th Floor

New York, NY 10005

USA

mail-usa@austinmacauley.com

+1 (646) 5125767

Prologue

Dear reader,

Greenwood Middle School has your typical hip-hop dancers battling out their best moves in the cafeteria, brownies with special surprises waiting for just the right person, and sledgehammer-wielding teachers. Oh, this doesnt happen at your school? Even so, I guess you have your own wacky stories of what happened during your time at middle school. One thing that I know for certain is the fact that a day at any middle school without an ounce of craziness is plain crazy itself.

Students are under constant pressure to complete homework, deal with fire-eyed principals and bullies, and trying to make a name for themselves. All the while teachers are under strain to have enough energy for the day, meet test score requirements, and form relationships with their students. With hundreds of people under this amount of stress, there is no wonder that things often go completely haywire. Oftentimes students, and yes, even teachers, simply break down and cannot handle the daily grind.

Here is where these five adventures involving Greenwood Middle School students and teachers can help. Hopefully, reading about the comical events in their lives will connect with you on some level and give you assurance that you are not the only student struggling with issues. The key is to overcome these situations by looking for the help that you need.

I invite you to dive on in, explore, and laugh about how every person is looking for someone to help them understand their messed up life.

Chapter 1

Red-Handed and Red Bulls

Dear diary,

As usual, it is one oclock in the morning, little Joey finally slept at 11, and I think Mom has finally pulled into the driveway. It is amazing how watching your five-year-old brother can kick your keister until youre too exhausted to even lift an eyelid; yet I find time to complete most of my homework. Well, at least one-third of it. Hopefully, I can catch up with Joanne tomorrow and see if I can borrow the rest of the answers. It is hard to focus on dividing fractions when youre dodging wooden missiles aimed at your head in the shape of blocks. At least, Joey got fed tonight. My dinner of a bowl of Cheerios is now long gone from my system and I have to deal with my roaring lion of a stomach until 8:15, when school offers breakfast.

I sure wish Dad was tough enough to hang around. What a wimp! As soon as he lost his job and realized that he couldnt afford to live with us, he just got up and left his mess behind. Why do I feel like the one who got left with the pooper scooper after the dog took a dump? I know that it was no fun arguing all night while trying to continue to be smiling because you didnt want to upset Joey, but he should have manned up and dealt with it. He didnt even try to look for a new job and claimed that his being laid off was temporary until the company made more money. Temporary my butt! He hasnt worked for over six months. I personally think that he is just plain lazy. Even during the last six months, the apartment still looked like a trash heap, Joey had a least an inch of dirt coating his body, and every dinner was anything less than a dollar that could be microwaved or bought over the counter from some fast food joint. A dude can only eat so many chicken nuggets before he wants to puke! How in the world can my dad believe that grease and salt should be the main ingredients in any kids diet?

It is now my job to show Joey how a real man should act. Or at least what I can figure out from watching old television sitcoms. How did The Brady Bunch make it look so easy? I make sure that Joey takes a bath every night, wipe up the five gallons of water that somehow didnt end up in the tub, and create a gourmet dinner of Cocoa Puffs, CinnaSwirls, and Cheerios. Mom still doesnt let me use the stove and the microwave is on the fritz, but I have been preparing by reading up on recipes during my free time at school when I can get access to the Internet. Hey, I am trying to do my part to protect my family, and that is more than what can be said of my so-called father.

Now, Mom is the complete opposite of lazy. She has been working double shifts to try to make ends meet for Joey and me. How anyone could stand scrubbing toilets and mopping after everyone elses mess left behind in a hotel room is beyond me. After about the third nasty tour of a guests gnarly bathroom filled with toenail clippings and leftover hair in the drains, I simply would have taken out my plunger, slammed it on the front of the lobby desk, and stormed out. With her cleaning all day for her job, how can I ask her to do the same thing at home during the eight hours that she gets to get some shut-eye? The job has now come down to me, and I have to figure out a way to find a phone booth and turn into Super Henry!

Here is the craziest part of it all: my teachers think that I am a lazy, good-for-nothing free-loader who simply doesnt care! All they see are my failing grades due to not turning in homework. I wish that they would get a clue. How can a 12-year-old be expected to become an instant hero? If I could invent some kind of device that would slow down the earths time by another five hours, there would be no problems in the world. If they would give me a few minutes to explain, instead of the whole Dont give me excuses garbage, maybe they would think differently about me.

Slam! Did the door just click? Crap! Mom expects me to be in snoozeville by 10. Thanks for at least being here to listen to my whining, but I gotta go before she grounds me into the next century for staying up too late. Even though it really is her fault. Then again, is it really when she doesnt have the money for a sitter?