“Ninth grade is a minor inconvenience to him. A zit-cream commercial before the Feature Film of Life.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing in the next five minutes and she has the next ten years figured out. I’ll worry about making it out of ninth grade alive. Then I’ll think about a career path.”

“When I was in sixth grade, my mom bought me all these books about puberty and adolescence, so I would appreciate what a ‘beautiful’ and ‘natural’ and ‘miraculous’ transformation I was going through. Crap. That’s what it is. She complains all the time about her hair turning gray and her butt sagging and her skin winkling, but I’m supposed to be grateful for a face full of zits, hair in embarrassing places, and feet that grow an inch a night. Utter crap.”

“I want to be in fifth grade again. Now, that is a deep dark secret, almost as big as the other one. Fifth grade was easy -- old enough to play outside without Mom, too young to go off the block. The perfect leash length.”

“She complains all the time about her hair turning gray and her butt sagging and her skin wrinkling, but I'm supposed to be grateful for a face full of zits, hair in embarrassing places, and feet that grow an inch a night. Utter crap.”

“In the spring of fifth grade, the boob fairy arrived with her wand and smacked Cassie wicked hard.”

“i was raped, toosexually assaulted in seventh grade,tenth grade. the summer after graduation,at a partyi was 16i was 14i was 5 and he did it for three yearsi loved himi didn't even know himhe was my best friend's brother,my grandfather, father, mommy's boyfriend, my date, my cousin, my coachi met him for the first time that night and-4 guys took turns, and-i'm a boy and this happened to me, and-...i got pregnant i gave up my daughter for adoption... did it happen to you, too?”