Lots of group dynamic stuff to sort out. You have to kind of just nod and go along if you want to fit in. Elijah laughed and turned around to tune his guitar. I shrugged in response. John and I had become our own little group inside this rock band. We hung out together during breaks and made jokes, especially since the other three guys hung out together and made their own jokes.
Bowles said. It was pretty obvious that they had practiced the song a lot of times before today. I have to say, they sounded amazing. Somewhere in the second chorus, Mr.
Bowles put his hand up for them to stop jamming. Killer bass, Elijah. These two dudes need a chance to learn the song, too. You do know D, right? B, high-fiving John. I noticed Elijah smiled at Harry, who looked down like he was trying not to laugh.
B to Elijah. B with his eyes closed. Not just your band! Bowles finally opened his eyes. Sound good? He clapped his hands twice. From the top. Elijah, get us going, man! On four. A one. In fact, we sounded pretty amazing together, I thought. He held his hand in the air to high-five me, which I did a little reluctantly. She tried to clap while holding her wet umbrella.
B looked at his watch. Oh man! We have to wrap this up. Everything in the lock room. B, putting the mics away. We all hurried up and put our instruments in the lock room. I liked the guy, I really did. One on one he was awesome. But he could be so clueless, too. It was like being friends with SpongeBob. After John and his mother had left, Elijah went up to Mr. Bowles, who was wrapping up the mic cords. Bowles answered distractedly, throwing the last of the equipment into the lock room.
B turned the key in the lock room. Then he looked at me, like he was surprised I was still there. There were no texts or missed calls from Mom. Just as I was about to call, my dad knocked on the band room door. I was totally surprised.
He smiled and walked in. I turned to Dad. He put his hand on my shoulder as we kept walking. Once again, I stopped walking. She has a huge cast. It was really pouring. The woman in the other car was fine, too. Her leg will be fine. Everyone is fine, thank God. Come on, get in. By now my sneakers were soaking wet. He started driving out of the parking lot. About nine? I had just gotten to work when they called me from the hospital.
You know that. I looked out the window. The streets were black and shiny because of the rain. You could see the reflections of all the red and white lights of the cars in the puddles along the highway. I pictured Mom driving in the rain this morning.
Did it happen right after she dropped me off, or when she was driving back to school with my stuff? When did that happen? Someone should have told me. Everything was under control. There was nothing you could have done anyway. The rain was coming down in sheets. Dad made the windshield wipers go faster. I leaned my head against the window. I blew some hot air on the window and drew a sad face with my finger. This was when we were about six years old. Auggie had had like a million surgeries before then, but this was the first time my mom thought I was old enough to go and visit him.
The doctors were removing it now, because they were pretty sure Auggie could breathe on his own. Auggie was really excited about this surgery. He hated his buttonhole. And when I say he hated it, I mean he haaaated it. Then Isabel or Nate would have to jab a tube into the hole, to suction it, so that he could breathe again. I watched this happen a couple of times, and it was pretty scary. I remember I was really happy about visiting Auggie after his surgery. The hospital was downtown, and Mom surprised me by stopping off at FAO Schwarz so I could pick out a nice big present to bring to Auggie a Star Wars Lego set and a small present for me an Ewok plushie.
After we bought the toys, Mom and I got lunch at my favorite restaurant, which makes the best foot-long hot dogs and iced hot chocolate milk shakes on the planet. And then, after lunch, we went to the hospital. Remember not to stare. I thought it was cool. It felt like a giant birthday party. These were kids like Auggie. Not that they looked like him, though a couple of them did, but they had other facial differences.
Some of them had bandages on their faces. One girl, I saw quickly, had a huge lump on her cheek that was the size of a lemon. They both came over to the door when they saw us and kissed us hello happily. They walked us over to Auggie, who was in the bed by the window.
As we passed the bed closest to the door, I got the impression that Isabel was trying to block me from looking at the kid lying in that bed.
So I took a quick peek behind me after we had passed. The boy in the bed, who was probably only about four, was watching me. Under his nose, where the top of his mouth was supposed to be, was an enormous red hole, and inside the hole was what looked like a piece of raw meat. There seemed to be teeth stuck into the meat, and pieces of jagged skin hanging over the hole.
I looked away as quickly as I could. Auggie was asleep. He seemed so tiny in the big hospital bed! His neck was wrapped up in white gauze, and there was blood on the gauze. He had some tubes sticking out of his arm, and one sticking into his nose. His mouth was wide open, and his tongue was kind of hanging out of his mouth onto his chin. It looked a little yellow and was all dried up.
My mom hugged Isabel. I stopped listening. I stared at Auggie, wishing he would close his mouth in his sleep. Via came over and stood next to me. She was about ten years old then. I nodded. He has a cleft lip and palate. His parents sent him here to have surgery.
The jagged flap of skin. My mom, meanwhile, was frantically wiping the floor with a newspaper. Via, who looked like she might throw up herself, turned around calmly and headed out the door.
Within a few minutes, some nurses had come into the room with mops and buckets. She dabbed my face with it.
By now, I was sweating profusely. I turned to leave even before Mom and Isabel had finished cleaning me off. But then I accidentally caught a glimpse of the little boy in the bed, who was still looking at me. I started to cry when I looked into the big empty red hole above his mouth.
At that point, Mom kind of hugged me and glided me out the door at the same time. When we got outside the room, she half carried me to the lobby by the elevators. My face was buried in her coat, and I was crying hysterically. Isabel and Via followed us out. They were both kind of mumbling sorries to each other at the same time.
She knelt down in front of me and started wiping my tears. Her eyes got very wet suddenly. Then she put both her hands on my face, like she was cradling it. I saw Via waving at me as the elevator doors closed. As soon as we were outside, Mom sat me down on a bench and hugged me for a long time. She just kissed the top of my head over and over again. When I finally calmed down, I handed her the Ewok. But Isabel can clean the Lego set. She had a huge cast that started from her thigh and went all the way down to her ankle.
She held her arms out to me, and I went over and hugged her. I was relieved to see that Daddy had told the truth: except for the cast and a couple of scratches on her face, Mom looked totally fine. She was dressed and ready to go. She smiled at us. For a few seconds, no one said anything.
I thought about what an awful day it had been. All of it, from beginning to end. Science, music, math, rock band. Worst day ever. Is Elijah being any nicer these days? Can you still come? He started humming the bass line and playing air guitar as we waited for the elevator. Mom smiled at him.
The elevator doors opened, and we got in. We reached the lobby, and the elevator doors opened. She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hand. She tried to turn around in her wheelchair to look at me. Did you and Auggie have a fight or something? I pushed Mom outside the front doors. Dad gave her the umbrella to hold, and then he pushed her down the wheelchair ramp and around to the passenger side of the car. The wind was picking up now, and the umbrella Mom was holding went inside out after a strong gust.
He started picking Mom up under her arms to transfer her to the front seat of the car. But I could tell she was in pain. He was soaking wet by now as he tried to help Mom find her seat belt. Dad hurried around to the back of the car and spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to fold the wheelchair to get it inside.
We all kind of sat there quietly for a second, the wind and rain howling outside the windows. Then Dad started the car. We were all soaking wet. Or were you driving back to school with my stuff?
I squeezed her hand. We have a lot to be thankful for. Today could have been so much worse. And then when I did, I felt a shiver go up my spine. We started FaceChatting each other a lot around that time. Like, practically every day in third grade, Auggie and I would hang out together on FaceChat.
We had decided to grow our Padawan braids before I moved away, so it was a great way to check how long they had gotten. Sometimes we would trade riddles. Like, what has a foot but no leg? Or, what does a poor man have, a rich man need, and you would die if you ate it? Stuff like that could keep us going for hours. Then, in the fourth grade, we started FaceChatting less. I just started having more things to do in school. Not only did I get more homework now, but I was doing a lot of after-school stuff.
Soccer a couple of times a week. Tennis lessons. Robotics in the spring. And that worked out fine, though it ended up being only Wednesday nights because Saturdays I had too much going on. It was somewhere toward the end of the fourth grade that I told Auggie I had cut off my Padawan braid. Then this year, Auggie started going to school, too.
I mean, being a new kid is hard enough. But being a new kid that looks like Auggie? That would be insane. And not only was he starting school, he was starting middle school! You have to give Auggie his props—that takes guts. I figured it was for the same reason I had cut mine off. I mean, you know, nerd alert.
I got to meet his new friends, who seemed nice enough. There was this one kid named Jack Will who was pretty funny. The last time I FaceChatted with Auggie was right after winter break had ended. Then he started talking about something else.
Something about a war at his school? Jack Will? I walked to the other side of the room with the laptop. They were very obviously trying to get a closer look at my screen. I shook my head at them. I noticed that they were no longer laughing. From my old neighborhood. What level are you on? Good luck with the second maze! Tyler started laughing, so I elbowed him out of screen view. Auggie always noticed stuff like that, even though he pretended not to.
I clicked off. As soon as I did, both Jake and Tyler started cracking up. He opened his eyes wide and shrugged.
There was an awkward silence. I grabbed one of the controllers. It was irritating. After they left, I started thinking about Zack and Alex, how they had ditched Auggie all those years ago. Even after all this time, it can still be hard being friends with Auggie. I clicked the TV on with the remote.
She was looking up at the staircase, shaking her head slowly. She looked really tired. He turned her wheelchair around toward him, reached under her, wrapped his other arm around her back, and lifted her out of the wheelchair.
This made Mom scream in a giggly sort of way. They were both laughing as they bumped into the railing and the walls on the way up. It was nice seeing them like this.
Last time we were all together, they were screaming at each other. I turned around and watched the rest of the show. Just as Phil the host was telling the last couple to arrive at the pit stop that they have been eliminated, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Elijah. Yo chris. I reread the text. My mouth was literally hanging open. Dropping out of the band?
Could they do that? John would go ballistic when none of them showed up at band practice tomorrow. And what did that mean for the after-school rock band? That would be awful! Then another text came through. He sucks. Bring your guitar. Dad came downstairs. Then he saw my face. I was kind of in a state of shock. They want me in their band? Our old house was actually a brownstone, and we lived on the first floor.
We only had one bathroom, and a tiny yard. But I loved our apartment. I loved our block. I missed being able to walk everywhere. I even missed the ginkgo trees. She wanted to ask her questions and leave before hearing the sales pitch. And the free samples included in the bags have led me to buy a few full-size products after using the samples.
I switched to alternatives that include the free site Canva which I love, love, love , Microsoft Paint on my computer, and the paid WordSwag app on my smartphone. I often use the free level of certain services until I know whether the paid level will suit my purposes. In fact, I did this recently with Teachable , a platform for online courses. I set up one course on the site to see if it was user-friendly for both my students and me.
Once I was convinced it offered what I needed, I upgraded to a paid level and now have three courses there. And I should be willing to do so. If you liked this, you'll also like Free will only take you so far Use quirky holidays in March for book marketing 3 Amazon secrets every author needs to know Get a publishing deal by avoiding these common book proposal mistakes Sandra Beckwith Sandra Beckwith is an award-winning former publicist who now teaches authors how to market their books.
Her website, BuildBookBuzz. I trust you enough to be willing to listen to you and your recommendations without fear of being harassed. Thanks so much, Kayleen! By the way, I love your Facebook posts. You work hard on your books, and then you work even harder to make sure the right readers know about them.
Thank you for sharing! I shed no tears for readers who have lost their source of stolen reading material. Unfortunately, dozens of these sites still exist.
The most valuable service or product I pay for? My Scribophile membership, which allows me to receive and give feedback on writing projects. It looks every affordable and well-worth the investment. In a society that admires marketing above all else, resentment over having to pay equals chickens coming home to roost. Today, the essence of marketing is the freebie, the giveaway, the teaser. What can we expect when a fair number of book marketers recommend self-marketing and platform-building even before a writer has written much of anything.
Many also urge writers to present themselves as experts, to generate how-to materials to use as marketing tools. Thanks, Barry. Tell me more about this piece: [a fair number of book marketers recommend self-marketing and platform-building even before a writer has written much of anything.
Like you mention in your post, I tried the free version to make sure it worked for me, and then subscribed to the premium version so I could have access right next to my document as I type. Love your site, Sandra, and appreciate all your helpful advice. Very helpful! Thank you. Thanks so much for the kind words, Joyce!
They mean A LOT. Do you think you have to be a really solid and experienced writer to rely on these tools — including Grammarly — enough to bypass a human editor? That might be an unfair question for you, but his observation stuck with me and your mention of Grammarly brought it back to mind. Great feedback, Jeanne! Their end product is going to suffer because of this kind of input…but bad advice is common when crowdsourcing, unfortunately.
Sandra, thanks for the straight talk on this topic. If the experience is what I need and this is important , the price is affordable, then I pay the fee and commit to the work. Thank you, Delia!
Appreciated the article, Sandra, and it was a good reminder to me to watch my own attitude toward getting things for free as well as what I want to offer people on my mailing list.
Thanks, Genene. The book was published in multiple languages including , consists of pages and is available in ebook format. The main characters of this horror, young adult story are ,. The book has been awarded with , and many others. Please note that the tricks or techniques listed in this pdf are either fictional or claimed to work by its creator. We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you. Some of the techniques listed in Teachers Pet may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.
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