Is This Love?

My Years in Middle School

By: Rozie Manton

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Is This Love?: My Years In Middle School

This is Book No. 2, entitled Is This Love?, in the six-part series My Years in Middle School.

Follow the adventures of Nancy Jane and her two best friends, Helen Schunter and Karen Stamm, as they experience school, boys, bullying, getting even, dealing with Nancy Jane's nemesis, Lois Talker, and more. Other titles in this series include:

• Book #1: The Summer Before
• Book #3: Scanner In My Neighborhood
• Book #4: Summertime Memories
• Book #5: Girl's Revenge
• Book #6: Lookout High School, Here We Come!

Following is an excerpt from Book #2 Is This Love?.

"OH NO! THEY LET THEIR DOGS OUT!” I imagined myself saying, “RUN! COME ON!”

It was as if we were running in slow motion. My two very best friends in the whole world, or at least in all of Hicston, Helen Schunter and Karen Stamm, were in the middle of TP’ing my old nemesis Lois Talker’s house. We were ready to get away when someone from inside the house must have discovered us outside doing our dirty work. The front door was pulled abruptly open and outran the Talker’s two attack dogs, barking and foaming at the mouth as they came.

Helen, being the quicker one of us three, easily slipped through the split in the side hedge and was racing down the street in the moonlight towards my mom’s minivan. My mom, our getaway driver, was waiting patiently behind the wheel, munching on her wheat thins and sipping on a cup of hot coffee. Little did my mom know that in seconds, our quiet, peaceful night was about to erupt into extreme chaos.

Karen, a wee bit on the plus side, was not far behind Helen. I had never seen Karen run so fast since our escape from CJ’s convenience store when we thought they thought we were shoplifting. Later, we found out that Karen’s mother had called the store just as we were leaving and had asked Mrs. CJ to have Karen bring home some milk. I’m not sure why we got so spooked.

Anyway, Karen almost caught up to Helen as they neared the mini-van.

On the other hand, I was trying my hardest to run, but I could barely make my legs move. They felt like they were filled with lead, and it was all that I could do to drag them and myself forward. I could hear the fast-approaching dogs. Those Talker, killer, attack dogs that they had for occasions just like this. Closer and closer they came. I just knew I was about to meet my maker and was dreading all of the suffering that I would have to endure in just a few moments
.
I could hear Helen and Karen screaming in the distance, safe from all harm on the inside of the mini-van, “NANCY JANE! RUN FAST! COME ON! YOU CAN MAKE IT! NANCY JANE!”

At that moment, my lead pipe legs could go no more. I stumbled and was falling forward towards the hard ground in front of me. The two killer attack dogs were almost upon me. I turned my head towards the dogs and saw them just as they leaped into the air to hurl their bodies at me. In a moment, they would both be upon me, I shut my eyes and braced myself for the inevitable… and waited… and waited… and waited some more… Then I cracked first one eye and then the other eye open to look around.

“What? Where am I?” I thought to myself in the peaceful quietness and calmness of the place that I was in. “No attack dogs? No hard ground beneath me?”

“Oh yeah, I was dreaming,” I thought as I breathed out a huge sigh of relief. “Helen, Karen, and I were not TP’ing the Talker’s house. And there was no killer, attach dogs. The Talkers have a couple of dogs, alright, but they are not attack dogs; they are dachshunds, Sparky and Barky, and even I could boot them across the front lawn if I had to. I certainly was in no danger,” I continued in my thoughts.

About that time, the cobwebs in my....