Confessions of a Class Clown - Softcover

Costner, Arianne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593118731 ISBN 13: 9780593118733

Verlag: Random House Children's Books, 2023

Inhaltsangabe

Jack's hilarious online videos might get thousands of views . . . but is fame worth the price of friendship? Now in paperback, the humor of I Funny meets the multiple perspectives of Because of Mr. Terupt.

Meet Jack Reynolds. Making people laugh is his life's work. Jack's wacky MyTube channel is really starting to take off. The only problem is, for the truly epic posts, he needs a collaborator. And, well, he doesn't exactly have any friends. So Jack has to swallow his pride and join the new after-school club Speed Friendshipping. But who would make the best partner in comedy?

• Brielle, Miss Perfect candidate for student body president?

• Mario, whose mom won't even let him have a smart phone?

• Or Tasha, the quiet, mysterious girl with a shaved head and a crocheted hat for every day of the week?

 One of these kids could help catapult Jack to internet fame . . . or even become a true friend. But what will it cost him to go viral?

With an unfailing knack for the middle-grade voice, Arianne Costner, author of My Life as a Potato, explores themes of friendship, belonging, and the ways social media can put pressure on today's kids.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

ARIANNE COSTNER is the author of My Life as a Potato. She's a part-time pianist and full-time mom who enjoys writing stories after the kids go to bed. Much of her inspiration comes from her time teaching middle school English to fun and very lively students. She has lived in Arizona, Utah, California, and Chile, but calls Arizona home. She writes for kids who love reading and for those who usually don't. If she can get you to laugh, she calls it a win.

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1

Just Trying to Keep Things Interesting

T-rexing is an art understood by many yet mastered by few. 

It starts with the squat. Most people skip this important step. To convincingly play a T. rex, you gotta crouch a little, with your legs spread apart, and lean forward on your toes. 

Then there’s the arm perch. Pretend your upper arms are superglued nice and tight to the sides of your torso. If you’ve got your elbows flopping all over, you’ve ruined the moment. 

Finally, there’s the highlight of T-rexing: the roar. The ideal sound is something like half hawk, half elephant. The more obnoxious the better. Oh, and raise the back of the roof of your mouth for volume. That’s a trick I learned last fall in beginners’ choir before I got kicked out. (I sang too loud, apparently. Proof the trick works.) 

You might be asking yourself, “Who is this rare genius speaking to me? And how has he mastered the art of T-rexing at such a young age?”

Nice to meet you. I’m Jack Reynolds. Making a fool of myself is my life’s work. I figure that in middle school, you’re gonna look like a doofus anyway. You might as well own it. 

I burst into first-period English wearing green checkered socks and my hoodie strings scrunched tight, so my nose peeps out of a small clothy circle. 

“GRAWUUUREEEEAAAARRR!” I perch my arms at my sides and wiggle them around. It’s not my best roar--a little heavy on the hawk--but it does the trick. Most people smile, some laugh, and some roll their eyes. But most smile, and that’s the important part. 

I can’t claim I invented T-rexing, but I’m the one who made it popular here at Franklin Middle School. I’ve made lots of things popular. Marshmallow sniping. Bubble Wrap scarves. I have to say, though, that T-rexing is my crowning achievement. Just two weeks ago, I posted a video of me T-rexing through a JOANN Fabrics store, and it already has over four thousand views on MyTube. (MyTube, by the way, is basically the world’s greatest app. It’s like if YouTube and Instagram had a better-looking child.) 

“Jack.” Ms. Campbell looks a little like a candy cane this morning in her red-and-white-striped shirt. She presses her honey-colored bangs against her forehead like she usually does when she’s frustrated. “How many times have I told you? No dinosaur noises in class.” 

“You said no T. rex noises.” I flap my arms. “That was clearly a Pteranodon.” 

Ms. Campbell keeps a straight face, but a smile cracks in the corners of her eyes. “At least you’re early. Get to your seat before the bell.” 

You wouldn’t know it, but Ms. Campbell is my favorite teacher. She’s about my mom’s age and has this cool gap between her two front teeth. She lets us act out scenes from books, and makes funny voices when she reads. Listening to her read is probably the only thing I like about school. 

I loosen my hoodie strings and head to my seat. It waits for me in the back row, far left, aka the most boring corner of the room. Ms. Campbell has surrounded me with some of the best-behaved kids in the class like she’s using them as a fort of protection to separate me from my innocent classmates. 

It’s not a bad strategy. 

Ever since first grade, I’ve been what you’d call a class clown. I don’t mind the label. I wear it well. Six-year-old me couldn’t spell or hold scissors right, but I could glue foam pieces to my nose and run around. 

Everyone’s gotta be good at something, right? 

I take a detour on the way to my seat to pass by Zane’s desk, three rows over. He and I have been pretty tight ever since he randomly invited me to go laser tagging with him and his friends a few weeks ago. Before that, we’d just mess around in class, chucking erasers at each other and stuff. It’s been fun to start hanging out with him outside of school. 

Zane’s the kind of guy who everyone knows, even if he’s never talked to you a day in your life. For the past three years, he’s thrown a huge back-to-school pool party at his house, complete with water guns and chocolate fountains and the newest Marvel movie playing on a projector screen. He’s running for class president, and he’s a shoo-in to win. Especially with the Pokémon-themed posters I helped him design. 

You wouldn’t think Zane and I have much in common. For one, he’s a football guy--or was last semester, during football season. Me? I’m about as athletic as a stick of string cheese, although I was pretty good at T-ball as a kid. (It’s not fair how that stops being impressive after you turn five.) Zane and I also have different styles. I wear cartoon shirts and Converse. He wears jerseys and training pants (which is another word for sweatpants, but I like saying training pants because it sounds like a diaper). He goes skiing every other weekend, while I’ve somehow managed to live in Utah for the past thirteen years without ever hitting the slopes. The main thing we both like is making MyTube videos. In fact, he was the one who recorded my first T-rexing. It was his idea to do it in JOANN’s, because if they banned us from the store--which they did--we wouldn’t care. 

I slap his desk. “’Sup, coolio?” 

He glances up. “Oh, hey.” 

That’s weird. He’s supposed to say, ’Sup, broski. It’s tradition. 

There’s an awkward silence, so I grab his pencil and start twirling it. 

He straightens his back and shakes his hair out of his eyes. “Hey, don’t lose that. It’s my only pencil.” 

I pinch the pencil like a dart. “Think I could get it to stick in the ceiling?” 

“Don’t.” He snatches it out of my hand. Geesh. Someone’s having a bad day. 

“I was just kidding,” I mumble. 

“Hey, Zane,” Jared Pearson says as he walks into class. Jared’s a big dude. Like, probably the size I would be if I ate steak every night and was the literal son of Thor. He lifts his chin. “Ready to get gains later?” 

“ ‘Gains’?” I say. “What’s that?” 

Zane twirls his pencil, which is pretty hypocritical, since he just got mad at me for doing the exact same thing. “It means we’re lifting. I didn’t think you’d be interested.” 

Lifting weights? We’re in seventh grade. We’re supposed to be worried about homework and body odor. Since when are we supposed to work out? 

Still, I’m annoyed I wasn’t invited to get these “gains,” as uninteresting as it sounds. 

I flex my nonexistent muscles. “You don’t think these babies can take a challenge?” 

The girl in front of us giggles, but Zane doesn’t. 

“Five seconds to the bell!” calls Ms. Campbell. For once, I’m glad class is about to start. I make a show of running through the aisles and plopping my butt into my chair right as the bell rings. 

Ms. Campbell hushes the class and holds up a stack of papers. “Who can run this down to room twelve?” 

I wave my hands wildly, but she ignores me and picks Brielle instead. No shocker there. Brielle Kimball is this perfect girl who gets tons of awards and dots the i’s in her name with little hearts. That’s the type that always gets...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Children's Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2023
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593118731
• ISBN 13: 9780593118733
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: preigu GmbH & Co. KG; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; Niedersachsen; 49078; Deutschland