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I suggested that we call our team the "Twisted Wizards," and get the Game Hut to sponsor us. Nobody liked my idea, though. One kid said we should call the team the "Red Sox," which I thought was a terrible idea. Number one, the Red Sox are a baseball team, and number two, our soccer uniforms are blue. But of course everyone else loved the idea, and that's the name that won out. Then the assistant coach, Mr. Boone, said he was worried that if we called our team the Red Sox, we might get sued. I'm pretty sure those guys have better things to do than to go around suing middle school soccer teams, but like I said before, nobody wanted to listen to my opinions. So the team voted to change the name to "Red socks," and that was final.

我建议称我们的团队为“扭曲奇才”，并让Game Hut赞助我们。 但是没有人喜欢我的想法。 一个孩子说我们应该叫这支球队“红袜队”，我觉得这是个糟糕的主意。 第一，红袜队是一支棒球队，第二，我们的足球服是蓝色的。 当然，其他人都喜欢这个主意，这个名字就胜出了。 然后助理教练布恩先生说，他担心如果我们把我们的球队叫做红袜队，我们可能会被起诉。 我很确定那些家伙有比起诉中学足球队更重要的事情要做，但就像我之前说的，没人愿意听我的意见。 所以团队投票决定改名为“红袜子”，这是最后的决定。

After that we started practice. Mr. Litch and Mr. Boone made us run laps and do leg-lifts and a bunch of other stuff that had nothing to do with soccer. In between wind sprints, I hung out by the water cooler with the other two Pre-Alpha Minus guys. And every time we were slow getting back to the field, Mr. Litch would yell- GET YOUR BUTTS OVER HERE! Me and the other guys thought it would be pretty funny if the next time Mr. Litch said that, we all ran at him with our butts sticking out. So the next time Mr. Litch yelled for us to get our butts over there, I ran with my rear end pointed at him. But the other guys totally hung me out to dry.

之后我们开始练习。 利奇先生和布恩先生让我们跑圈，做抬腿和一堆其他和足球无关的事情。 在冲刺的间隙，我和另外两个Pre-Alpha Minus队员在饮水机旁闲逛。 每次我们迟迟不回球场时，利奇先生就会大喊：“给我滚过来！”我和其他人觉得下次利奇先生再这么说的时候，我们都翘着屁股朝他冲过去会很有趣。 所以下次利奇先生叫我们赶紧过去的时候，我就用屁股对着他跑了。 但其他人完全把我晾在一边了。

Mr. Litch did not appreciate my sense of humor, and he made me run three extra laps. When Dad picked me up at the end of practice, I told him that maybe this soccer thing wasn't such a good idea, and that he should probably just let me quit. That made Dad pretty mad, so he said— NO SON OF MINE IS A QUITTER! Which isn't really true at all. I'm a huge quitter, and so is Rodrick. And I think Manny is on his third or fourth preschool by now.

利奇先生不欣赏我的幽默感，他让我多跑了三圈。 当爸爸在训练结束时来接我时，我告诉他也许足球不是一个好主意，他也许应该让我退出。 这让爸爸很生气，所以他说：“我的儿子不是一个放弃的人！”这根本不是真的。 我是个轻易放弃的人，罗德里克也是。 我想曼尼已经上了第三或第四所幼儿园了。

Anyway, I got the feeling that if I'm gonna get out of soccer, I'm gonna have to think of another angle. Friday Ever since I started playing soccer, I've been going through my clothes twice as quick as I did before. I've been totally out of clean stuff to wear for a while now, so I've been pulling all of my clothes out of my dirty laundry piles. But I found out today that recycling clothes from the dirty laundry pile can be risky. I was walking by some girls in the hallway today, and a pair of dirty underwear fell out of one of my pant legs. nkledc. I just kept walking and hoped that the girls might think the underwear wasn't actually mine.

不管怎样，我有一种感觉，如果我要退出足球，我就得考虑另一个角度。 星期五自从我开始踢足球以来，我穿衣服的速度比以前快了一倍。 我已经有一段时间没有干净的衣服可穿了，所以我一直在把我所有的衣服从脏衣服堆里拿出来。 但我今天发现，从脏衣服堆里回收衣服是有风险的。 今天我在走廊上经过一些女孩，一条脏内裤从我的裤腿上掉了出来。 我只是继续走，希望女孩们会认为内衣不是我的。

But I paid the price for that decision later on in the day. A PAIR OF BOYS' UNDERPANTS WITH THE NAME "GREG H." WRITTEN ON THE WAISTBAND WAS FOUND IN THE HALLWAY. WOULD THE OWNER PLEASE COME TO THE FRONT OFFICE TO RETRIEVE HIS ARTICLE OF CLOTHING? I think I'd better hurry up and learn how to do my laundry, because I'm really running out of options. Tomorrow I'm gonna have to wear a T-shirt I got from my Uncle Gary's first wedding, and I'm really not looking forward to it.

但那天晚些时候，我为这个决定付出了代价。 一条写着“格雷格·h ”的男孩内裤 腰带上写的是在走廊里找到的。 请失主到前厅来取他的衣服好吗？ 我想我最好快点去学怎么洗衣服，因为我真的没办法了。 明天我要穿一件我加里叔叔第一次婚礼时穿的t恤，我真的不太想穿。

I was kind of down in the dumps on the walk home from school today, but then something happened to change that. Rowley told me one of his friends from karate was having a sleepover this weekend, and he asked me if I wanted to come along. I was about to say "no way," but then Rowley said something that got my attention. The kid who's having the party lives on Pleasant Street, which is in the same neighborhood that Holly Hills lives in.

今天从学校回家的路上，我有点垂头丧气，但后来发生了一件事改变了这一点。 罗利告诉我，他一个空手道的朋友这周末要来他家过夜，他问我要不要一起去。 我刚想说“不可能”但罗利的话引起了我的注意。 开派对的那个孩子住在普莱森特街，和霍莉·希尔斯住在同一个社区。