I have mouse-brown cowlick-y hair, glasses that are about an inch thick and braces that look like I tried to swallow a train wreck. (4)

And that's the problem: The kid follows me around like I'm Elvis or something. (4)

On that tragic day, I came home, said hi to Mom, glugged down some milk, and headed down to the basement to practice. (5)

I had this huge drum feature in this Brian Setzer song called "Jump Jive an' Wail," and I nailed the whole thing. (9)

Just then, Renee Albert stopped right next to us to congratulate her boyfriend (we'll just call him Biff), a sophomore guitarist with an alarmingly perfect complexion and muscles like Barry Bonds. (10)

Then two things happened at once: He started to scream like a banshee, and the drop of blood turned into a torrent. (16-17)

It wasn't the first time I noticed this-- how Renee kind of swished around in a cloud of perfume, and Annette just popped up like some spastic hand puppet. (28)

I always think of it this way: "Here comes Steven, bursting into his Big Solo. Watch those hands-- they're too quick to follow. Holy cow, this kid is a magician!" Like there's a Monday Night Football commentator standing over my left shoulder. (30)

At the same time, the trumpets were blasting like a herd of elephants, with Dizzy's horn flying high above everything else. (32)

I remember thinking, "Wow! A protector. Not everybody gets to be a protector! I'm gonna be like Robin Hood. I might eve get to wear a badge..." (38)

The thing I couldn't believe was how this cancer thing turned the whole planet upside down in one day. (39)

Steven, I look like a raccoon. (47)

Actually, he looked like some deranged anteater, but I didn't figure that would be the thing to tell him. (47)

This kid looks like he just lost a boxing match with a gorilla. (48)

So for the rest of the week, while I was walking around in a fog, I didn't say a word. (51)

Fortunately, my dad has a Stone Age stereo system in the basement with an actual turntable, so I was playing along with at least one whole Latin record each night. (54)

Well, my journal was starting to look like some kind of weird origami factory, with page after page folded on different angles and edges sticking out all over the place. (56)

You know how baseball players sometimes talk about games when the ball seemed to be coming at their bats in slow motion, looking like a gigantic freeze-frame cantaloupe just waiting to be pounded? (61)

This term means to use a strong exaggeration:

Which of the following is an example of onomatopoeia?

Giving human characteristics to nonhuman object or animals is an example of what type of figurative language?

What is a simile?

What is a metaphor?