INTRODUCTION



My name is Charlie Joe Jackson, and I used to hate reading.

Guess what? Now I hate it a little less. (Let’s keep that between us.)

I guess that’s what they call part of “the maturing process.”

Which brings us to the topic of this book.

Growing up.

I used to be all for it. I used to think the idea of being an adult was totally awesome—I could drive a car, and play video games whenever I wanted, and watch movies that my parents won’t let me watch now.

But then one day I realized—that’s crazy. What was I thinking?

And when I say “one day,” I mean, one actual day.

The day I realized that being a kid was the best job in the world.

The day I decided to not grow up.

I had to act fast, because it was already happening. I was getting older, and I was about to lose the most carefree part of my life. Forever!

You don’t have to tell me it was a crazy idea, I know that already. Childhood is fleeting, nothing lasts forever—blah blah blah. Trying to stop time is impossible, right?

Wrong.

When it came to growing up, I wasn’t going down without a fight.

* * *

So anyway, not like I’m making excuses or anything, but hopefully that helps explain why, at exactly 5:51 on a lovely spring evening, there was a graduation ceremony happening at Eastport Middle School, with 183 students scheduled to graduate, but only 182 of them were present.

Want to guess who was missing?

Yup. You got it. Me.

Instead, there I was, sitting in a dark room by myself, wondering what the heck happened—and if it was somehow my fault, as usual.

There was a knock on the door.

“Charlie Joe? Are you in there?”

I closed my eyes and sighed. I wasn’t exactly in the mood to see anybody right at that moment.

Oh, yeah—one more thing I forgot to mention.

It was my birthday.



Copyright © 2016 by Tommy Greenwald