November 2

In his bedroom, Gabe sighed and tossed the ruined diorama in the general direction of the garbage can. He hadn’t mind the teasing as much as he’d minded not having the assignment to turn in. Mr. Bexton was a very nice teacher, but he had given Gabe after school detention when Gabe didn’t have his book report complete to turn in. Gabe wasn’t about to give Alex the satisfaction of having the Sprite soaked scene on the window ledge in class.

“If only Derek were still here,” Gabe said to himself, looking at a photo of the two boys from last Halloween pinned on his bulletin board. Derek had been his true friend. They’d known each other since kindergarten. A big second grader had stolen Gabe’s hat on the playground and was holding it just out of his reach. Derek had come running up and kicked the second grader in the shin and returned the hat. Gabe gave Derek half his cherry fruit roll up at snack time and the two boys had been fast friends ever since.

They made an unusual pair – Gabe had always been small for his age, and very pale even in the middle of summer. His thick, dishwater blonde hair was constantly falling in his eyes, and he always had a look of bewilderment on his face. In contrast, Derek was the tallest boy in class, with dark brown hair and glasses. Somehow, even in kindergarten, he’d had an air of something special around him. He was friend to everyone, and the teachers all loved him. As the boys had aged, Derek had proven himself to be the smartest boy in class, as well as the most interesting to be around. Gabe had always felt very special being Derek’s best friend.

Alex had moved to town when the boys were in fourth grade. He had tried to bully Gabe and Derek at first, but Derek had just ignored him and encouraged Gabe to do the same. The three boys eventually bonded over a class field trip to the zoo when they’d all discovered they had a special fondness for snakes. Alex invited Derek and Gabe over to meet his pet boa constrictor, Link, and they had managed to maintain a friendship despite Alex’s tendency towards meanness. Derek was always coming up with new adventures and games to keep them entertained.

Gabe had been absolutely devastated when, on the last day of fifth grade, their teacher announced that Derek’s family had left town suddenly for a family emergency, and that they were not expecting to come back to town. Alex and Gabe had made half-hearted efforts to maintain their friendship during the summer between fifth and sixth grades, but without Derek around, the two discovered that they had nothing to talk about.

Despite the loss of his best friend, Gabe had started sixth grade at Green Meadows Middle School with high hopes, thinking that he’d make new friends. There were two other elementary schools that fed into the middle school and Gabe was sure he couldn’t be the smallest boy in all three schools.

Unfortunately, he had been wrong. And even now, in late October, Gabe had not met anyone that he thought could take Derek’s place.

Shaking his head, Gabe pulled himself out of his reveries. He knew that thinking about his old friend wouldn’t help his current situation. Besides, Derek had never bothered getting in touch with Gabe since he had disappeared. Gabe was still trying to decide whether he was hurt or angry about this.

Instead of making up his mind about that, Gabe pulled out his math homework, curled up on his bed, and buried himself in a world that made more sense to him than the real world. He had always felt at home with numbers, and math was the one subject he’d always excelled in, beating even Derek in the yearly math competition. In sixth grade, he was already studying high school level algebra. It was another thing that made him stand out as a subject for ridicule, but Gabe cared more about learning than he did the teasing.

Before long, he was so deeply entrenched in his math assignment that he was barely aware of his surroundings. Anastasia’s rat, Eustace ran across the room towards a hole in the wall near the door, but Gabe didn’t even look up from his paper.

Eventually, his left arm started to tingle as it fell asleep from being pinned under him. Gabe sat up and rubbed his left hand. He noticed that it had gotten dark outside while he’d worked, and a big full moon was shining brightly in the sky. He also noticed that he was starving.

He glanced at the clock, and wondered what was taking dinner so long. Maybe his punishment for the door slamming was no dinner, but it wasn’t like Anastasia to let that go without rubbing it in his face. He folded up his homework and tucked it inside his text book and decided to go see what was going on.

Gabe walked over to his door, opened it up, and found a solid brick wall blocking his way.

“Wha--?” he said, reaching out his hand to feel the rough brick, “What is this doing here?”

“Hello, Gabriel,” said a voice from the direction of Gabe’s bed. Gabe turned around to find out who had snuck into his room, only to find out that his bedroom had entirely disappeared.

November 1

Chapter 1.

“Gabriel! Don’t slam that door!”

Gabe couldn’t hear his mother’s admonishment as he stomped up the stairs to his bedroom, kicked the door shut and threw himself onto his bed. He stared at the ceiling and heaved a big sigh.

“I am never going to survive the sixth grade,” Gabe said to himself, flopping onto his belly and picking up his newest comic book.

“Something got you down, big bro?” came a voice from under the bed.

“Anastasia! What are you doing in here! I thought I told you to stay out!” Gabe jumped to the floor and pulled back his bedspread to find two small feet wiggling around on the floor. “Get out from under there. What is the matter with you?”

“Eustace got away.” Gabe’s little sister explained, as she scooted out from under the bed. “I thought he might have sought refuge in here, seeing as it is,” she wrinkled up her nose as she glanced around the room, “the dirtiest room in existence.”

“Did you find your nasty rat?” he asked, ignoring the slight on his cleanliness. Gabe had never claimed to be a clean freak.

“No, but I did find that math homework you lost last year.” Anastasia replied, handing her brother a crumpled sheet of paper. “You missed numbers 12 and 17. And your penmanship is deplorable.”

Gabe snatched the paper from her hand and started pushing her towards the door. “Your stupid rat is not in here. Now, get out! And stay out! I mean it this time!”

“Sounds like someone had a rough day at school. Listen, Gabe, I understand that you’re in a bad mood, but really, there are better ways to channel your aggression than slamming doors and bullying your little sister. For instance, you could…”

Gabe didn’t bother listening to his sister prattle on and slammed the door in her face. A second later, he heard a knowck at the door.

“What?!” Gabe yelled, ripping the door open.

“Mom says not to slam the door.” Anastasia said, sticking her tongue out at him.

“Away!” Gabe shouted after her retreating figure. He shut the door carefully this time. He didn’t want to top his horrible day off by getting grounded. Just for good measure, though, he kicked a pile of clothes laying near him on the floor.

Gabe stomped back over to his bed and picked up his backpack, and pulled out a copy of Huckleberry Finn and a shoe box diorama depicting two people on a river raft. There was a large footprint smushing the two figures together, and the cardboard of the shoe box was wet and distorted. Gabe sighed, heavily as he recalled the events of the day.

Today was the day that the first book reports of the year were due. Their teacher, Mr. Bexton, encouraged creativity, and as Gabe hated writing, he had decided to take the opportunity to create a diorama book report. He had spent many hours getting the raft and Huck to look just right.

He’d proudly carried the diorama to the school bus stop that morning where he’d run into his old friend, Alex. Alex and Gabe had been good friends in the fifth grade, with their buddy Derek, rounding out the trio. After Derek had moved out of town, Alex had decided that he was too good for Gabe, and had started hanging out with the older middle school students. Gabe hadn’t really cared as he always thought Alex was a little bossy, but somehow Alex had decided that he had to torture Gabe in order to maintain his new ‘cool’ attitude.

When Gabe had walked up to the corner, Alex ignored him at first, but as soon as a couple of eighth graders arrived, Alex got a gleam in his eye and grabbed the diorama out of Gabe’s hands. “Ooh, look here! What is this?” Alex had taunted, making sure the older boys were listening, “It looks like a diorama! I thought we stopped making those after second grade. But we always knew you were a little… slow Gabe, didn’t we?” Alex laughed loudly, and held his can of Sprite over the painted on blue river. “But it looks like you didn’t finish this yet, huh? There’s no water in the river!” He upended his can into the scene, and then threw the whole thing on the ground as the bus pulled up. The eighth grade boys smirked at Gabe, and one of them slowly stepped onto the diorama as he moved towards the bus door.