by
When Am I Supposed to Sleep is Jenny Grant’s account of the trials and tribulations of her final year of elementary school. Along the way Jenny finds her world rocked by a family crisis, breaks the leg of one of the most popular girls in school, and discovers (can it be?) true love. By turns hilarious and heart wrenching, this nostalgic glimpse at Ontario in 1974 will keep readers from getting sleep themselves as they read on to find out how Jenny’s grade eight year turns out.
I am a flat chested teenybopper and nobody likes me. At least not today. Maybe if I’m lucky someone will like me tomorrow.
That’s how I started my project on family and community that Mrs. McKinney gave us for our first grade eight assignment. Pathetic eh? It’s not really true I guess. Just feels like it most days.
My friend, Heather Vandeboor, likes me. Other than that I am not exactly popular. I’m not unpopular like Smelly Bando. Well, her name isn’t really Smelly. It’s Stella but she does smell. She’s the one who always picks wads of gum off the ground and eats it.
READ MOREThe members of the purse gang are the most popular girls in grade eight. I call them that because they all have huge purses with what seem to contain all their life belongings. They never go anywhere without them. No one else has purses except them. Maybe if I had a boyfriend things would be different. I wrote an ad on the back of my family project. "Needed. One boyfriend. Desperately. Reply to Jenny Grant. September 1974."
It looked good on paper. I added a personal description. “Thirteen years old, 5 foot 2 and still growing, acorn brown hair with matching eyes, skinny in most places, flat chested, no zits.” Put down on paper like that I didn’t sound very appealing. It made me sound like a giant squirrel. But I like squirrels so maybe someone would like my description.
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