The bell rang for the end of second period. I gathered my books and joined Jessi. "What are you going to do for your project?" I asked her.

"Well, I was thinking that I could interview Madame Noelle about her life as a dancer." (Madame Noelle is Jessi's dance teacher.) "Good idea. That would be like reporting on the history of ballet for the last hundred years," I teased. I've seen Mme. Noelle, and she's old.

Jessi smiled. "She's not that old. What are you going to do?" We stepped out into the hallway and entered the flow of students changing class. "I have no idea. None," I admitted.

"You could write about winning that award for your short story," Jessi suggested. I'd won Best Overall Fiction in the Sixth Grade for my story, "Caught in the Middle," on Young Author's Day.

"What would I say about it?" I asked.

Jessi shrugged. "I don't know - how hard it was to write, and how you felt when you won?" "No, I don't think that would be enough. I'll think of something, though." Which was exactly what I did for the rest of the day -think.

I was still thinking about the assignment when I walked through the front door of my house that afternoon. As usual, things were a little wild.

The triplets, who are ten, were each wrapped in one of my father's white dress shirts, and each one had a tie knotted around his head. They were pretending to be ninjas, slicing the air and jumping off the living room sofa yelling "Ha! Ya!" like a bunch of maniacs. Adam, Byron, and Jordan are identical, a!though I have no problem telling them apart. I knew which ninja was which.

My sister Vanessa paid no attention to the ninja triplets. She was busy trying to master one of those Skip-It rings. You know, those giant ankle rings, with a rope attached. You put one foot through the ring, and use that foot to swing the rope around, then you jump over the rope with the other foot. She wasn't having much luck. Like me, Vanessa is a dud at most sports. (She's a good writer, though. For a nine-year-old, she writes some pretty amazing poems.) Nicky, who is eight, was driving our bassett hound Pow insane with his new Squiggle Ball. The ball has a battery inside and never quits moving. Even if it shoots under a dresser it will roll its way out. Pow was trying to catch it, but the ball never stopped, so he couldn't.