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In fact, we won a LOT of Mom's games. The only one we stunk at was the Mini Pumpkin Toss, but I guess you can't be good at EVERYTHING. After the games were over, somebody turned the music louder, and the party cranked up a notch. It was a little hard to pull out my best moves while I was attached to Rowley, but I still had some pretty good stuff.

I gotta say, it was AWESOME. The only kids who WEREN'T having fun were the handful of guys who were there. But I wasn't gonna let a few sour grapes spoil my good time. Right when the party was about to hit the next level, Rowley told me he needed to use the bathroom. But when we made the costume we didn't PLAN for that sort of thing. There wasn't a zipper or anything like that, so the only way to get out of the costume was to cut it off. Neither one of us was wearing pants underneath, so THAT wasn't happening.

I was pretty annoyed, because earlier in the evening I had TOLD Rowley to slow down on the fruit punch, and of course he hadn't listened. I decided he was just gonna have to wait until we got home to deal with it. So I tried to go back to having fun, but Rowley made it kind of impossible for me to enjoy myself. I think Mom figured out what was going on from the look on Rowley's face, and she said it was time for us to "wrap things up" and head home. Now I was REALLY mad. The party was in full swing and we had to leave because Rowley needed a potty break.

But Mom said it's better to leave a party when it's going strong than when it's fizzling out. She said it makes you look COOL, because everybody will think you have better things to do. I don't know what's better than hanging out with Mariana Mendoza, but Mom was practically pushing me up the stairs. When we drove away, I was pretty miserable. But Mom was as happy as I've ever seen her.

NOVEMBER Thursday All this week, Mariand and her friends have been saying how great the party was and how much fun my mom was. I don't know how to feel about that, exactly, but I guess I'll take it as a compliment. I've kind of lost interest in being in the band, though, and it's not JUST because the party's in the rearview mirror. Once we got back to school on Monday, the guys in the woodwind section started giving me a haro time. And it's not just the BIG guys, either. Even Jake McGough's gotten in on the act.

When I told Mom and Dad I was thinking of quitting the band, Dad said that wasn't an option. He said my instrument cost a lot of money, and that I had to honor my "commitment." He said I can't just quit something because it's HARD, and if there's anything he's gonna teach me, it's PERSEVERANCE. I could tell Dad wasn't gonna let it go, so I promised him I'd keep trying. He seemed pretty happy with that, and I thought I was off the hook.