Dear Asshole: Thank you for keeping your word and believing me. It was more than I expected. Also, I'm sorry you were inconvenienced by my gluing your locker shut at the beginning of this year. However, I am not sorry that I did it, because it was a lot of fun. Love, Alex.

Did you meet your soul mate? That always happens on the first day of school, right?''Oh God, Charlie, she's letting you read again! You went straight to the paranormal section, didn't you?

I realized everyone around me was wearing a uniform. Black pants, white button-down shirts, green ties. Gotta love the smell of institutional equality in the morning.

I was the big sister. I was supposed to set and example and lead the way so people would say, 'Hey, you're Alex's sister, aren't you? You two look exactly alike!' instead of 'Hey, you're Alex's sister, aren't you? Are you crazy, too?'The only example I was ever going to set for her was to always check her food before she ate it.

I was diagnosed a thirteen. Paranoid got tacked on about a year later, after I verbally attacked a librarian for trying to hand me propaganda pamphlets for an underground communist force operating out of the basement of the public library. (She'd always been a very suspect type of librarian--I refuse to believe donning rubber gloves to handle books is a normal and accepted practice, and I don't care what anyone says.)

I stood there looking stupid, because that’s what I do when I’m accused of something I didn’t do. Forget making a case or, you know, denying that I’d done it.Denying hadn’t helped me in the past.

Also,' McCoy continued, 'this is the yearly reminder that our beloved scoreboard's birthday, the anniversary of its donation to the school, is coming up in just a few short weeks. So everyone get ready, prepare your offerings, and be ready to celebrate this great occasion!'The PA system went quiet. I stared at the ceiling. Did he just say 'offerings?'For a scoreboard?

Here.' Miles unzipped the backpack and pulled out the container of IcyHot. 'Go to the dresser. Should be one of the top drawers--smear this in the crotch of every pair of underwear you find.''I--what?' I took the container. 'That's disgusting.''I'm paying you fifty dollars for this,' Miles hissed, turning toward the bed.I went to the dresser and yanked open the top drawer on the left. Empty. Crisp white underwear and boxers filled the one on the right.Well... at least they were clean.

The only thing missing was Miles. But he was probably circling somewhere, destroying villages and hoarding gold in his mountain lair.