MOM GOT PAID!!! Her first real check from the nursing home. Two weeks of work. She held it at the counter by the microwave like it was a diploma.

We did three things with it:

1. Paid Mrs. D. for the week, in the office, ON TIME, and Mrs. D. wrote the receipt and then drew a little smiley face on it, which she has never done.
2. Put money in the envelope. The envelope says APT in marker. It's under the mattress, which is the first place a robber would look, I told Mom, and she said robbers don't rob Room 12, they rob people with VCRs.
3. Went out to eat. A real restaurant, with menus. I got a cheeseburger and a chocolate malt and Mom got chicken fried steak and we split pie. The waitress called us "you girls" and Mom laughed so hard.

The plan is an apartment by Thanksgiving. First month plus deposit. Mom says if she gets the extra weekend shifts we can do it. I did the math on the back of my science folder. It's close. Close is better than far.

Ms. H. is the counselor at my school. She's the only one there who knows about Room 12, besides the office lady who does the lunch forms. She said I can eat lunch in her office any time I want and she doesn't make it a big thing. Sometimes I do. She has a spider plant with babies hanging off it and she said I could take one home.

Today she called me in and I thought I was in trouble, but it was about the science field trip, which costs $8, and she said "it's handled." That's all she said. "It's handled." Then she gave me a bag with a calculator in it, the kind you need for algebra, and said somebody donated it. I don't think somebody donated it.

The spider plant baby is in a coffee cup on our windowsill. Mom named it Frank. I don't know why. It's growing.

K. asked me to spend the night next Friday and I said yes, and then she said "and then you can have me over after," and I said my mom works nights so we'd have to see. My mom does not work nights.

None of my friends know. When people ask where I live I say "over by the highway," which is true. The bus stops at the car wash on the corner. I walk there and I walk back, and if anybody's looking, I'm just a girl who lives somewhere behind the car wash. Ms. H. set that up with the bus people, which I will explain some other time.

It's not that I'm ashamed. OK, it's partly that. But mostly it's that when people know, they get a face. I've seen the face. It's the face the lady in the office at our old apartments had.

On the news tonight there were families from the hurricane in the Carolinas staying in motels, with all their stuff in their cars, and their dogs. The news lady was really nice about them. Nobody said anything mean about people who live in motels. I just think that's interesting.

Mom's first day at the nursing home! She's in the kitchen for now, making trays, and after 90 days they'll pay for her to take the nurse aide class.

She had to be there at 6 a.m., so she was up at 4:45 ironing her white shirt on a towel on the bed, because we don't have an ironing board, we have a towel. She looked really nice. I told her. She said "I look like a waitress" and I said "a nice waitress."

She took the city bus and I took the school bus and we both had first days, kind of.

When she got home she smelled like green beans, and she said one of the ladies, who is 94, asked her name three times and said it was "a pretty name" every time. Mom said she didn't mind hearing it three times. I think that's the whole thing about Mom, actually.

9-9-99, cool date. I only have 4 minutes left and a man with a briefcase is standing behind me doing the loud breathing. Next time!!

Mom saw on the news last night that Ty is going to retire ALL the Beanie Babies at the end of the year. Kids at the bus stop were freaking out. One boy said his are going to be worth a million dollars.

I had twenty-three Beanies. Now I have one, Peace, the tie-dye bear, because she was in my backpack the day we moved. The rest are in a box in a storage unit, or maybe not anymore, because we got behind on the storage too. So I guess mine retired in June. Ha ha.

It's OK. Really. Peace sleeps on the pillow between me and the wall. The walls here are thin and you can hear the TV next door, which is always wrestling.

Supper tonight: microwave macaroni and a can of green beans heated in a bowl with a paper towel on top, which is the trick so it doesn't explode. I am basically a chef now. Our microwave sits on top of the little fridge, and the fridge hums in B-flat, according to my music teacher, who I asked what note a refrigerator is without saying why.

First week of 8th grade.

Honestly school is the easy part. School is the same as before, just a different building. Same lockers, same smell of floor wax and pizza, same boys who think burping is a language.

The motel part: I get up at 6 so I can shower before the hot water runs out, because Room 10 and Room 14 both shower at 6:15 and we share a water heater (I figured this out scientifically). I keep my school clothes on hangers on the shower rod so they aren't in a suitcase-y pile. Nobody can tell. I checked in the mirror in the girls' bathroom.

I do my homework sitting on the bed. Mrs. D. gave me an old clipboard from the office, which is all you need for a desk.

There's a boy in art who draws horses better than me. That's all I'm saying about that.

I got my library card today!! You need proof of address, and Mom brought the motel receipt, and I was scared, but the lady at the desk just looked at it and typed it in like it was any address. Which it is, I guess. It has a zip code.

With a library card you can use the computers, 30 minutes, sign up on the clipboard. The librarian with the long braid showed me how to make a free home page. So this is it.

Here's the story, short, so I don't have to tell it again. In June we got evicted from our apartment. Mom lost her job when the plant closed, and then it was a domino thing. Since then we live in a weekly motel by the highway, in Room 12. It's $140 a week. There are two beds, a TV, a microwave, a mini fridge, and one window that looks at the parking lot and a sign that says WEEKLY RATES - COLOR TV - VACANCY, except the C is burned out, so at night it says VA ANCY.

Mrs. D. runs it. Her family owns it. She has a cat named Mango who sleeps on top of the ice machine because it's warm up there.

I'm not writing this so anybody feels sorry for me. I'm writing it because I like to write and this is what's happening. OK, my 30 minutes is almost up. Bye!!!