Book 1 SAMPLE CONTENT: Chapter 1: Penny Porter is a seventh grader at Pine Hills Middle School, on Long Island in Pine Hills, NY. Pine Hills is a suburban community located near the center of Long Island. It has lots of parks, shopping, and kids who play sports. It also has kids with problems. Some of them have big problems. Are you kidding me ? Penny thinks to herself as she is about to leave the bathroom stall. Why me? What did I do to deserve this ? Penny wonders as she reads her name carved into the grey metal stall partition wall. Why would someone take the time to carve my name and call me a pickle? It doesn’t make any sense. I’m nice to everyone. Except maybe that nasty boy, Evan in Mr. Smith’s class. He deserved what he got, but he couldn’t even get into the girl’s bathroom. So, it couldn’t have been him . Penny rubs her forehead with her hand and tries to come up with a way to remove the embarrassing artwork. Everything was going great and now this! How am I going to get rid of this? It’s carved right into the metal. She tries the pen that is in her pocket. It doesn’t work – it doesn’t even make a mark. This isn’t fair. Who would do this? I’m going to need a sharpie to cover this up. That should work. I hope . Penny Porter pushes the bathroom door open and hurries into the school hallway. She is wearing a tie- died pink and orange t-shirt that has big blue script lettering that says “SOFTBALL” with an outline picture of a girl pitching a softball using a windmill motion below it. In big red letters below that, it says “iPitch.” Penny goes to Pine Hills Middle School, a school just like thousands of others. There is nothing special about this school: cement walls, lots of windows, and black and white tiles on the floors. There are of course lots of kids, ranging from well-behaved to out of control. There are lots of teachers too. Most are pretty good at what they do, but a few could use some refresher classes on how to teach middle school kids. Penny hurries back to her class while thinking, Mr. Jenkins gets aggravated when kids are out in the bathroom for too long . She hurries even faster and feels her face begin to turn red. I hope he doesn’t pick on me when I get back inside. I hate when he does that. I don’t think I was gone too long – or was I ? Slightly out of breath, Penny stumbles through the door making a bit of a racket. This gets Mr. Jenkins’ attention. Mr. Jenkins is Penny’s science teacher - a teacher who tries to make jokes about everything. He wears the same tan pants and dark red sweater vest over a plaid shirt almost every day. He’s a real “fashionista.” “So glad you could rejoin us Penny! Maybe you can answer a question about the dinosaurs we are studying. What do you call a dinosaur that has stinky feet?” Penny starts turning an even brighter shade of red as she navigates the classroom to find her seat. “Umm. I don’t know Mr. Jenkins. Look……I’m sorry I.” Mr. Jenkins cuts her off, “It’s called ex-stinked. Get it? Extinct. Dinosaurs are extinct so they no longer smell. Ex-stinked. Yes, well….” Pretty much the entire class groans with yet another stupid Mr. Jenkins joke. Just as Penny takes her seat the bell rings to end the class. Penny sighs in relief that her school day is almost over. Thankfully, science is her last class.