Gary D. Schmidt

Within a year, possibly by next fall," he was saying, "something that has never before been done, will be done. NASA will be sending men to the moon. Think of that. Men who were once in classrooms like this one will leave their footprints on the lunar surface." He paused. I leaned in close against the wall so I could hear him. "That is why you are sitting here tonight, and why you will be coming here in the months ahead. You come to dream dreams. You come to build fantastic castles up in the air. And you come to learn how to build the foundations that make those castles real. When the men who will command that mission were boys your age, no one knew. But in a few months, that's what will happen. So, twenty years from now, what will people say of you? 'No one knew then that this kid Washington Irving High School would grow up to do'...what? What castle will you build?

A comedy isn__ about being funny...a comedy is about characters who dare to know that they may choose a happy ending after all.

Reader, I kissed her. A quiet walk we had, she and I.

Okay, so maybe sometimes the real world is smiles and miracles.

It means, Doug Swieteck, that in this class, you are not your brother.

I know. That sounds like a lie. But Presbyterians know that every so often a lie isn't all that bad, and I figured that this was about the best place it could happen.

Mr. Ferris didn't say anything the whole time. He sat next to me and listened. And when I finished, I looked at him.He was crying. I'm not lying. He was crying.I don't think it was because how hard I hit him.I know how the Black-Backed Gull feels when he looks up into the sky.Maybe, somehow, Mr. Ferris does too.