5 Ch5-Sugar Shock

Chapter 5 Sugar Shock After dismissal, me and Michael and Ryan searched the woods behind the school for Speedy the turtle. We couldn't find him anywhere. I guess he ran away. We were sad. But we were even sadder the next morning when we got to school. Two big guys wearing overalls were wheeling the soda pop and candy machines out of the vomitorium, where we eat lunch. "Say good-bye to sugar!" cried Mrs. Cooney, who is beautiful. "From now on, there will only be healthy food at Ella Mentry School." "NO!" I yelled, hugging the candy machine. "Don't take it away!" Mrs. Cooney told me I was being silly. She said that after I stopped eating junk food, I wouldn't even miss it. "Can I just say my good-byes to the soda and candy machines one last time?" I begged. "Well, I suppose so," said Mrs. Cooney.

I got down on my knees in front of the machines. No more Good & Plenty. No more Almond Joy. No more Jujyfruits or M&M's or Starburst or Laffy Taffy. No more Sprite or Sierra Mist or Mountain Dew. No more junk food! How would we survive? I thought I was gonna die. Tears started welling up in my eyes. Michael suggested we have a moment of silence in honor of junk food. I thought that was a great idea. All the guys gathered around the machines. During the moment of silence, I thought about all the good times we had eating candy and drinking soda pop. I even made up a poem for the occasion. I put my hand over my heart and recited it: "I pledge allegiance to the cans of soda and bags of chips. And to the yumminess for which they stand, two machines in the vomitorium with trans fats and high fructose corn syrup for all" Some other kids joined us and watched as the guys in overalls loaded up the machines and wheeled them out of the vomitorium. We were all sniffling. That's when Andrea and her annoying girly friends came over. "What's the big deal?" she asked. "I like to eat healthy snacks like carrot

sticks and fresh fruit. Kids should have a balanced diet." I wish her diet would get unbalanced and fall on her head. All I could think about that morning was junk food. While Miss Daisy was telling the class about precipitation (which is just some fancy grown-up word for rain and snow), I was searching through my desk for something to eat. A Tootsie Roll Pop. A Smaltie. A Froot Loops. A tic tac. ANYTHING. "I need sugar!" I whispered to Ryan. "I'm dying!" Finally, in my back pocket, I found something. An old LifeSaver! It was covered with so much lint that I couldn't even tell what flavor it was. But I ate it anyway. Sometimes, in a survival situation, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. I guess that's why they call LifeSavers lifesavers. Because that LifeSaver was a lifesaver!