“Or do you want to give up and just pay me the
hundred dollars now?” She waved to two of her friends across the hall, two girls who look just
like her.
“My diary is going to be awesome,” I said. “I wrote twelve pages in it last night.”
I know, I know. That was a lie. I just wanted to see Tessa react.
She sneered at me. “Twelve pages? You don’t know that many words!” She laughed at her own
joke.
“I have an idea,” I said. “Why don’t we share each other’s diaries?”
She frowned at me. “Excuse me?”
“I’ll read your diary, and you can read mine,” I said. “You know. Just for fun.”
“Fun?” She made a disgusted face at me, puckering up that tiny heart-shaped mouth. “No way,
Alex. I’m not showing you my diary. I don’t want you stealing my ideas!”
Oh wow.
Oh wow!
That’s just what Tessa said in the diary entry.
Was the diary entry coming true? Was it all really going to happen?
I suddenly felt dizzy, weak. How could a book predict the future?
I shook my head hard, trying to shake the dizziness away.
“Alex? Are you okay?” Tessa asked. “You look so weird all of a sudden. What’s wrong with
you?”
“Uh … nothing,” I said. “I’m fine.”
The bell was about to ring. I gazed into Mrs. Hoff’s classroom. It was filling up with kids.
I turned back to Tessa. “Uh … you haven’t read chapter eight yet, have you?” I asked.
“No. Not yet,” Tessa replied. “Why?”
“No reason,” I said, trying to hide my grin.
I followed her into the room. I waved to Chip and Shawn. Then I dropped my backpack to the
floor and slid into my seat at the back of the room.
Mrs. Hoff was leaning over her desk, shuffling through a pile of folders. She has straight
black hair and flour-white skin, and she always wears black.
Some kids call her Hoff the Goth. But that doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t even rhyme.
I sat stiffly in my seat, watching her, tapping my fingers tensely on the desktop. My heart
started to race.
Is she going to give the test? I wondered.
Is the rest of the diary entry going to come true?