I received a letter from school today with a list of my courses for next year—ack, next week! My English teacher is Mr. Birkway. He must be new, because I’ve never heard of him. So a complete stranger is going to read this journal and know all about our odyssey. Let’s hope he is understanding and doesn’t put red marks all over everything.
Carl Ray’s better every day. He’s coming home next week, and we’ve been busy decorating his room with signs. Aunt Radene and Uncle Carl Joe and all my cousins are going back to West Virginia today, although you can tell they don’t really want to leave without Carl Ray, but he can’t travel yet. When he’s ready, Dad will take him back to West Virginia.
Carl Ray is hobbling all around the hospital already. He asks all the nurses to sign his casts. I think he’s becoming more outgoing. Who would have imagined? That Carl Ray is full of surprises.
I decided to end this journal tomorrow. I only have a couple of pages left in this little blue book anyway (this is the sixth blue book I’ve used this summer). I asked Beth Ann and Alex if they did their journals. Alex said he only started his when he went to Michigan (I wonder if he wrote anything about me in it???), and Beth Ann said she thought she’d start it today! I know I wrote too much, but maybe I won’t turn it in anyway. I’m not sure I want a total stranger to read this.
Our family went to Windy Rock today with the Cheeveys and the Furtzes and Beth Ann. What a day. We were all feeling sorry that Carl Ray was still in the hospital and wasn’t able to come too, but Mrs. Cheevey said we would call it Carl Ray Day (“Ooh, a rhyme!”) and she would take pictures and show them to Carl Ray, and when he gets out of the hospital, we could all go again.
I’m sure by now you can imagine all these people clumped together at Windy Rock and you can imagine Mrs. Cheevey darting all around and Beth Ann talking her head off and my brothers climbing trees and me and Alex sneaking off for one little kiss (well, heck!). So I don’t have to write all that down.
I just want to say one more time that Carl Ray is okay!
I was trying to remember how Homer finished off the Odyssey, so I just read the ending again. It’s a little corny, with Athene telling everyone to make peace, but I can’t think of a better ending.
Sigh.
Summer’s over.
Alpha and Omega!!
Acknowledgments
With warm thanks to Marion Lloyd
About the Author
Sharon Creech won the Newbery Medal for WALK TWO MOONS, as well as the Newbery Honor for THE WANDERER. Her work also includes BLOOMABILITY, ABSOLUTELY NORMAL CHAOS, CHASING REDBIRD, and PLEASING THE GHOST. After spending eighteen years teaching and writing in Europe, Sharon Creech and her husband have retured to the United States to live.
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Also by Sharon Creech
WALK TWO MOONS
PLEASING THE GHOST
Credits
Cover art © 1997 by Mark Elliott
Cover design by Tom Starace
Cover © 2001 by HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Copyright
ABSOLUTELY NORMAL CHAOS. Copyright © 1990 by Sharon Creech. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition OCTOBER 2008
ISBN: 9780061972430
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