7 Blah Blah Blah

7 Blah Blah Blah It was graduation day. At last! I didn't care much about graduation, but I couldn't wait to see Lil Mouse live and in person. After I woke up, I brushed my teeth and put on my cap and gown. Then I went downstairs for breakfast. "I look ridorkulous," I announced to my parents.

"You're right, for once," said my big sister, Amy. "Don't be silly," said my dad. "You look very handsome, A.J." "We are so proud of you, A.J.," said my mother. She looked like she was going to start crying. "It's just third grade, Mom!" I told her. "It's not like I'm graduating from college." "Ha!" snorted Amy. "As if that's ever gonna happen." We drove to school and went in the side entrance to the all-porpoise room. I don't know why they call it the all- porpoise room. There are no dolphins in there. But the room was filled with teachers and parents and grandparents and great-grandparents and aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and a bunch of other people who looked like they just showed up because they had nothing better to do. Some of the moms from the PTA*

were selling hot cross buns. The rest of the parents were taking pictures. Of course. Parents love taking pictures. "Oh no," I groaned. "Not pictures!" "This is a milestone, A.J.," my dad said. Everything is a milestone with parents. I could clip my toenails and my parents would say it was a milestone. Then they'd take pictures of me clipping my toenails. Ryan's and Michael's parents were taking pictures next to us, so of course the grown-ups had to gather the three of us together for a group shot. "Don't they look handsome?" said Michael's mom.

"Smile!" all the parents shouted. First they took pictures of me and Ryan and Michael. Then they took pictures of me and Michael. Then they took pictures of me and Ryan. Then they took pictures of Ryan and Michael. Then they took selfies of themselves with me and Ryan and Michael in the background. Ugh. I thought I was gonna die from old age.

"Hey, let's get the brothers and sisters in there!" shouted my dad. "No!" shouted me and Ryan and Michael. My dad once told me that when he was a kid in prehistoric times, people couldn't take a million hundred pictures of every little thing they did. Cameras needed this stuff called film, and when you ran out of film, you couldn't take any more pictures. I miss the good old days, before I was born. Finally, the picture-taking torture was over. The parents were sobbing and blowing their noses into tissues. Well, they were blowing their snot into the tissues. It could be dangerous to blow your whole nose into a tissue. "I can't believe my baby Ryan is graduating from third grade," blubbered Ryan's mom. "It seems like only yesterday he was in diapers." "Dude," I said to Ryan, "you wore diapers yesterday?"

We were told to take our seats up on the stage. I had to sit between annoying Andrea and crybaby Emily. Alexia and Neil were sitting in the row behind me. "Where's Lil Mouse?" Neil asked me. I looked around. Lil Mouse was not in the house. "Celebrities always show up late," I told Neil. "That way they can make a grand entrance."