Part of growing up is accepted things the way they are. Making the best of them instead of always wishing they were different.

As if good luck and bad luck were all tangled together. She sighed. She wasn't sure of anything - except the next time she saw a spider before breakfast, she was going to leave it be.

All the farmers from twenty miles around went to the auction. We got there very early. Before anyone else. We blocked all the roads leading to the farm so no one else could get through. When the auctioneer asked for bids, only one he got was from us - five dollars.

According to ma, hair should only be cut when the moon was "growing". This would make the hair grow in thick and healthy.

Pioneers had real adventures all the time. Their life was hard, but they were brave and hardworking. They were - what was the word her teacher used sometimes? Self - reliant, that was it.

By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started and Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.

"True, I haven't introduced meself. Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of the Keys and Grounds of Hogwarts."

"Seeker?" he said. "But first years never - you must be the youngest House player in about - " "--a century"

"The Sorting Hat chose you for Gryffindor, didn't it? And where is Malfoy? In stinking Slytherin."

Then a pain like he'd never felt before pierced his head; it was as though his scar were on fire. Half blinded, he staggered backward. He heard hooves behind him..

Aliens don't invade fifth-grade classrooms. They don't look like fifth graders. And they don't talk like commericals and pro wrestlers.

He ran down the slippery hallway. He ran down the rough and pebbly stairs. He ran out the school doors, across the playground, and over to an empty space next to a fire hydrant where there used to be a rusty white van with an AAA ANT FARMING sign on its side.

What was going on with these kids? Every time he got an AEW report, these kids were at the location.

He tried to say, "But these two kids and their hamster are from another planet and they are crazy and they are going to mess up my whole life...and maybe turn off the whole planet. Help!"

Mrs. Halley did not see, or hear, the Channel 11 News Team cover the "rash of strange electrical happenings in Brooklyn today."

The fate of this fifth-grade career, and maybe the world, hung in the balance of a question from a taco.