My Miserable Life by F. L. Block Page A

pit-bull-type kid, not a little poodle. Rocko started talking to Marvin right away. I could tell he was trouble.
    Later, Marvin and I were playing soccer and I felt a shove. I fell over onto the grass, and it hurt. I couldn’t get up, and then the counselor came and helped me, and Marvin helped, too, and the counselor said he was going to call my mom. I tried not to cry by biting my lip, but my arm hurt like a pit bull had taken a bite out of it. A little while later, Mom came running into the nurse’s office screaming, “Where’s my baaaaaby? What happened?” I was so embarrassed that I forgot about how much pain I was in.

    â€œI think he broke his collarbone,” the counselor said.
    â€œHe what? He broke his collarbone?” yelled my mom. She speaks in question marks when she’s upset.
    One of the counselors drove us to the hospital, and they X-rayed me and gave me some kind of medicine that made me feel better but also really weird. My mom told me I was saying some goofy things like “The kid that pushed me is a peeper-squeak,” but I don’t remember. I got a sling for my arm to take pressure off my collarbone, which is actually called a clavicle. I thought I might be able to get out of 4 Kids Only, with a shattered body part and all, but nooooo! I still had to go to camp, but I couldn’t run around or play any sports, which made it even worse.
    When I got back to camp, I went looking for Marvin. He was hanging out with the pipsqueak I’d only glimpsed for a second before he’d pushed me down “by accident.”
    I went up to Marvin to show him my sling, and he said, “Cool,” but Rocko didn’t say anything. He just tossed his hair like Dustin Peeper and looked away and started humming to himself. Then he said to Marvin, “Come on, let’s play handball.”
    Marvin said, “Do you want to play, Ben?”
    But Rocko said, “He can’t. He broke his arm, and his bones are fragile.”
    â€œCollarbone,” I said. I would have said clavicle , but I didn’t want to sound like a nerd. (And you actually broke it, pipsqueak.)
    They went off to play, and I sat on a bench by myself. At lunchtime I went to eat with Marvin, and there was Rocko again. I sat with them, and Marvin talked to me, but Rocko didn’t say anything. I got up to go to the bathroom, and when I came back, my lunch was gone. I hate my miserable lunches, but I had to eat something. I asked Marvin if he had seen my lunch, and he said no, he had gone to throw his away, and when he got back, mine wasn’t there. I looked at Rocko. He wouldn’t look me in the eye. He tossed his hair like Dustin Peeper and turned away. Marvin gave me an extra fruit roll he had in his pocket. Still, I was hungry for the rest of the day.

    Rocko Hoggen is the worst bully there is. If there was a word called worstest , that would be him. Although my mom would die if I used the word worstest . She also hates the word funnest and when people say a whole nother thing. “Is there such a thing as the word nother ?” she will say. “What is that?”

    All summer Rocko was the bane of my existence. My mom would say, “Good use of the word bane , Ben.” I was just so glad that Rocko was out of my life so I could start the school year fresh.
    But there he was again, standing in Ms. Washington’s classroom.

 
    CHAPTER 2
    THE BANE
    I decided to ignore Rocko Hoggen. But at recess, when I went to play handball with Leif, there was the BANE. He blinked at me and tossed his hair.
    â€œCan you play handball?” Rocko asked. “I thought you broke your arm.”
    â€œMy collarbone,” I said. “And it’s not broken anymore.” Dork. Jerk. Pipsqueak .
    â€œWell, Leif and I are playing now,” Rocko said, hitting the ball.
    I looked at Leif.
    Leif looked at me.
    I looked harder at him.
    Leif shrugged. “Rocko lives next door to