Full to Bursting

There are three things I'm sure about:
1) I don't belong in a frozen lake wearing nothing but a Speedo.
2) Everybody wants to fit in somewhere--even if it's with weird people.
3) Holding a bake sale might sound like a ridiculous waste of time, but it's better than staying in a crummy motel.

My name is John Regan, and those are a few of the things I learned when I was in seventh grade. It was a bizarre year, starting when my dad got a new job and we had to move to Chicago. I expected to be a friendless, pathetic earthworm at my new school, leaving slime trails in the hall for more popular kids to slip on. I didn't expect that my grandmother would move in, a creepy kid would stalk my house, my teacher would be a vampire, and the girl I'd have a crush on would act like boys are the enemy.

But what I really never expected was that it would be a blast.

* Originally published under the title My Life as an Earthworm.