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Before you judge me and say those books are for GIRLS, let me just explain that the only reason I got into them was because one time I forgot to bring in a book for Silent Reading, and the only books the teacher had were in the Slumber Party Pals series. And once you've read one of them, you can't stop. There must be something like a hundred books in that series. The first thirty or so were pretty good, but after that I think the author started running out of ideas.

Lindsey Loses a Mitten Anyway, in the Slumber Party Pals books these two friends are always getting into fights with each other about little stuff. YOU USED UP ALL MY PURPLE LIP GLOSS BECAUSE YOU KNEW I WANTED TO WEAR IT TO THE ROLLER RINK! WELL, YOU ONLY WANTED TO WEAR IT BECAUSE YOU KNEW JUSTIN WOULD BE THERE! But after a while things always cool down and the girls learn the true meaning of friendship.

I'M SORRY I USED UP YOUR LIP GLOSS! AND I'M SORRY I KISSED JUSTIN AT THE ROLLER RINK. WAIT... WHAT? And that's basically the plot of every single book in the Slumber Party Pals series. Well, that might be the way things work with GIRLS, but I can tell you firsthand that is NOT the way it works with BOYS. For boys, things are just a lot less complicated. For an example, let's say one guy breaks something that belongs to another guy, but it's totally an accident. Well, five seconds later everybody's moved on and things are pretty much back to normal.

I don't know if that means guys are less sophisticated than girls or whatever, but I do know that the way we do things sure saves a lot of time and energy. Friday I hate to say it, but Mom's prediction about me and Rowley is starting to come true. Ever since Abigail and Rowley got together, Abigail has been sitting at our lunch table, which is all boys. I already mentioned how she's not a fan of the chocolate milk bubble-blowing thing, but there's a lot of OTHER stuff she doesn't like, either. One of them is the five-second rule. All the guys at our table agree that if you drop a piece of food on

the floor, as long as you pick it up within five seconds, it's still okay to eat. A new twist someone came up with recently is that you can grab a piece of food off the floor even if YOU'RE not the one who actually DROPPED it. I've lost two chocolate chip cookies and a Fudgesicle that way already. This new rule has caused some other problems, though. Yesterday, Freddie Harlahan ate a piece of ham off the floor because he thought Carl Dumas dropped it, but it was actually there from a group

that had lunch BEFORE us. It might've even been there from before that, because Freddie started to feel sick and ended up in the nurse's office for the rest of the day. Something tells me they don't have the Five-Second Rule at the table Abigail used to sit at, or probably any of the OTHER girl's tables, either. Another thing I'll bet they don't have is French Fry Fridays. They serve burgers in the cafeteria every Friday, but the meat is grey and taste like a wet sponge. PLUS, they serve sweet potato fries now instead of regular french fries. But Nolan Tiago's mom works part-time in the library, and every Friday she brings Nolan a cheeseburger and fries from the fast-food place on