5

I'm kind of an expert at writing book reports by now. All you have to do is write exactly what the teacher wants to hear, and you're all set. Man, Sherlock Sammy is so smart, and I'll bet that's cause he reads so many books. I'll bet you're right!

There were a bunch of hard words in this book, but I looked them up in the dictionary so now I know what they mean. I guess you're a bit of a "sleuth" youself! OCTOBER Monday There was a kid named Chirag Gupta who was one of my friends last year, but he moved away in June. His family had a big going-away party, and the whole neighborhood come. But I guess Chirag's family must have changed their mind, because today Chirag was back in school. Everyone was happy to see Chirag again, but a couple of us decided to have a little fun with him before officially welcoming him back.

So we basically pretended he was still gone. BOY, I SURE DO MISS CHIRAG. YEAH... I WONDER HOW HE'S DOING? HEY, GUYS! I'M RIGHT HERE! I have to admit, it was pretty funny. At lunch, Chirag sat next to me. I had an extra chocolate-chip cookie in my lunch bag, and I made a big deal about it.

I WISH CHIRAG WAS HERE. OH, HOW HE LOVED CHOCOLATE-CHIP COOKIES. I'M NOT EVEN THAT HUNGRY... BUT I'M SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO YOU! OK, so maybe that one was a little cruel. I guess we'll probably let Chirag off the hook tomorrow. But then again, this Invisible Chirag thing could turn into the next "P.U." nkledc. Tuesday OK, so the Invisible Chirag joke is still going, and the

whole CLASS is in on it now. I don't want to get too far ahead of myself or anything, but I think I might have Class Clown in the bag for dreaming this one up. In Science, the teacher asked me to count the number of kids in the classroom so she'd know how many pairs of safety goggles to get out of the closet. So I made a big show of counting everyone in the room except Chirag. ...33 ...34! THERE ARE 34 PEOPLE IN THIS CLASS. Well, that REALLY set Chirag off. He got up and started yelling, and it was really hard to stare straight ahead and act like he wasn't there.

I... AM... A... HUMAN... BEING... TOO! I wanted to tell him that we never said he wasn't a human being, it's just that he's an INVISIBLE human being. But I managed to keep my mouth shut. Before you go and say I'm a bad friend for teasing Chirag, let me just say this in my own defense: I'm smaller than about 95% of the kids at my school, so when it comes to finding someone I can actually pick on, my options are pretty limited. And besides, I'm not 100% to blame for dreaming up this idea. Believe it or not, I got the idea from Mom. This one time when I was a kid, I was playing under the kitchen table, and Mom came looking for me.