Things were changing for Lucas. That fall he had started growing his hair long and smoking grass. He was getting tired of always doing what his father wanted. He hated his obnoxious tennis partner on the school team and didn’t like having to go to practices every day. Finally, he quit.

Johnny kept playing tennis. By junior year he was the best on the team. By then Lucas and Johnny were in completely different crowds. Johnny’s crowd was all straight-A, top students who wouldn’t touch grass in a million years.

The summer between junior and senior years, Lucas’s father’s regular doubles partner tore his Achilles tendon and had to have surgery. The recovery was expected to take a year. Lucas’s father asked Lucas how he’d feel if Johnny was his partner for the annual country club doubles tournament.

It was a weird moment. Lucas knew it probably made sense for his father to team up with Johnny because they’d be the strongest doubles team in the tournament. But still . . . Lucas couldn’t help feeling like he’d been replaced.

Lucas’s father and Johnny won the club doubles championship. Only it didn’t end there. That summer and fall, they went on to play other tournaments. They won a bunch of them and were ranked number two in the East.

The next summer, Lucas’s father’s former doubles partner had recovered from Achilles’ tendon surgery and was ready to play again. But Johnny was younger, faster, and a better player. Lucas’s father decided to keep Johnny as his doubles partner. They won the club championship again and traveled all over the Northeast playing other tournaments.

Lucas worked in his father’s factory and pretended not to care.

By the time I finish the story, it’s almost ten p.m. I missed dinner and didn’t notice. This is the longest piece of prose I’ve ever written voluntarily. After rereading it, I think maybe it’s a little too maudlin. Nonetheless, I’m proud of it. It may not have much of a setting, but I think it has well-defined characters, a conflict, plot, and theme. My first short story!

I put it in an envelope and address it to Miss Landers, care of the high school.

Every writer you’ve ever heard of

Was at one time a writer

You’d never heard of.

Thursday, August 7

“We’ll go underground.”

It’s 4:30 a.m. and Milton stinks of gasoline. Sirens wail in the distance. A few minutes ago, I was awakened by a plink, plink, plink against my bedroom window. It sounded like small hail. In the middle of summer. I dragged myself out of bed and pulled back the shade. Milton’s face was pressed close to the glass, which he was tapping with a fingernail.