Poor Derek. When he's in Stoneybrook, what he wants most of all is to be treated like a regular kid, not like a star. He likes to do all the things other eight-year-old boys do. He's a good big brother to his little brother, Todd. And, while he sometimes has trouble readjusting to "normal" life, he's basically just a smart, friendly guy. I hoped the other kids would give him room to be himself, instead of treating him like someone famous. I can understand why he hates that.

I understand a lot about kids. I kind of pride myself on that. It's not necessarily because I have a natural talent for it, though — it's just because I'm around kids a lot. I baby-sit all the time, and it's something I love to do. In fact, I'm in this club — the Baby-sitters Club or BSC. It's a group of girls — and one boy — who love to baby-sit and who have gotten together and made kind of a business of it. I'll explain more about the club later.

Understanding kids may not be one of mynatural talents, but I do have some of those. Mainly what I'm talented at is art. I love all kinds of art, and without being egotistical about it, I have to say I'm a pretty good artist.

Not that I love everything I do. I've drawn plenty of pictures only to rip them up, and started and never finished a bunch of sculptures. But I've also done some things I'm proud of, and things other people seem to like a lot.

I'm always working on some project. Sometimes it's handmade jewelry, which I love to wear or give as gifts. Sometimes it's a sculpture or a collage. Other times it's a series of paintings, like the ones I did of junk food. Yes, junk food. That's one of my other loves. I could eat Twinkies and Doritos all day long. I think my paintings really showed how much I love the stuff, too, because the objects in the paintings — a Chunky bar, a pack of Lifesavers—lookbeautiful. They're kind of like portraits. Portraits of loved ones.