I got this assignment to try to keep a journal. So here I am trying to keep one. We'll see how it goes. Miss Ross said it doesn't have to be anything fancy. And I should write it for me only, not for anyone else to read. Although she is going to read it I guess. Aren't you Miss Ross? Just kidding. LOL.
Not much going on lately. Just karate practice and the school play. Baseball's over for the year.
Michael watches football every now and then but it doesn't really hold my interest. I don't know why. I guess I don't like the guys hiding themselves under the helmets and padding. If you're going to play a game, you should show your face, it's the least you can do. I don't like that crunch sound when the players charge at each other either. It sounds like it hurts and why would anyone want to hear someone else's pain, even when they're just playing a game.
Baseball, now there's a game. I've got this book where I keep track of all the players' stats. I guess it was sort of my journal before I started this one. I keep track of all the teams but my favorite, of course, is the Yankees. My dad's taken me to games before, although not lately.
My dad is a coffee importer. He recently hired this new guy, Dominic, and he loves baseball too. This guy and I didn't exactly start off as best friends. Long story short, he held a gun on me and my mom and brother. But he ended up being all right. I can talk to him about the Yankees and pretty much anything else. He's cool about taking care of me. That's his job, but he really seems to do it better than anyone else has before. My half-sister Kristina goes out with this creep, Kiefer, and Dominic scared the living shit out of him once when he was picking on me. (Oops, sorry Miss Ross, for the swearing!) Anyway I really like hanging out with him and I like that he seems to like hanging out with me, even though it's just his job. Oh, I almost forgot. He saved my life once.
It's been great having Michael back home with us. He was sick for a really long time and I missed him a lot. We used to play video games all the time back before he got sick. Now, not so much. It's still good to have him back though. I kind of wish he would smile more though. He doesn't smile or laugh or have as much fun as he used to. Most of the time he kind of ignores me and doesn't want to be around anyone but our dad.
I don't know, ever since he woke up, Michael has this look about him. Like this scowl and meanness. There's a kid in class. To protect the innocent, let's just call him Clancy. One day at recess he found a bird's nest. Just broken eggshells and bits of feather in it. There was a bird near the nest and it was crying. Just chirping away and it sounded like a cry. There weren't any baby birds near the nest so we figured that either they had up and flown away already or else they'd been eaten by some predator. So this bird was just standing on one of the branches, crying and crying.
This kid Clancy went up to the tree and picked up the bird. It wasn't a very high tree so he could reach up to the branch, no problem. We all thought he was going to try to comfort it or take care of it somehow. Maybe take it back to class and we could all feed it or something. He did pet the bird for a while and said things like "There there, it'll be all right." But then, out of the blue, he got this mean expression on his face, and he held up the bird and snapped its neck. Just like that. Snap, was the sound it made. And he just stood holding the dying bird. The head hung limp at a weird angle away from the bird's body and twitched for a while and Clancy just watched it twitch. Tiny drops of blood came out of its beak. And then the head went still and the little heart inside the body stopped beating. Clancy just stared at it like it was the most fascinating thing. The rest of us were all like, "Ewww! Dude, what the hell, put it down. Let's go!" He held it for a while longer then threw it down on the ground. And we all ran over to the stupid swing set and started playing there.
We never talked about the bird. I think if we had talked about it, something tells me that Clancy would have just said he was doing the bird a favor, putting it out of its misery, and left it at that.
That snapping sound was pretty gross and I remember it to this day and it makes me a little sick even thinking about it. But, if Clancy even remembered the sound, which I doubt he even did, I don't think it made him very sick at all. After that day he started walking around with a scowl and a meanness to him. Kind of like Michael's. I don't think whatever Michael did that gave him his scowl, I don't think it makes him sick at all either.
I guess that's a lot for one day's entry into this thing. I've got to go anyway. We're all getting ready soon to go to my baby sister's baptism. All our family and friends will be there to welcome baby Jocelyn into the church and into the world.