Chapter 1: The Great Gummy Bear Incident

Monday

Okay, so I officially hate Mondays. But today was extra awful because I somehow ended up in the principal's office before lunchtime. And let me be clear—I did not plan for this to happen.

It all started in the cafeteria when my best friend, Azri, came up with a brilliant idea. (By "brilliant," I mean "terrible.")

"Bro," Azri whispered, leaning across the lunch table, "I bet you can't hit someone's milk with a gummy bear from here."

Now, a normal person would have ignored him. But I'm not normal. I'm Mana, which means I make questionable decisions daily.

So, I grabbed a gummy bear from my fruit snacks, aimed carefully, and launched it across the cafeteria.

And that's when things went very wrong.

See, I was aiming for some random kid's milk carton, but instead, the gummy bear took a detour—straight into Mr. Stevens' forehead.

Now, if you don't know Mr. Stevens, let me explain: He's our math teacher, but he's also the scariest person in the whole school. He has this permanent frown, and I'm pretty sure he can smell fear.

So when that gummy bear smacked him right between the eyes, the whole cafeteria went silent.

Mr. Stevens slowly turned in my direction, his face turning a dangerous shade of red.

"WHO. DID. THAT?" he growled.

And what did Azri do? He immediately pointed at me.

Traitor.

Before I knew it, I was being marched to the principal's office. I tried explaining that it was an accident, but Principal Harris just sighed and handed me a detention slip like it was a normal part of his day.

"See you after school, Mana," he said, like I had personally ruined his Monday.

So now, I have detention for a week, Azri is acting like he wasn't involved, and I have to figure out how to explain this to my mom without losing my video game privileges for the rest of my life.

Just another day at sixteen.

—Mana, Jan 2017