名稱：what，Whens，and Wheres
內容簡介：
Dear Arizona,
　　Between homework, chores, and after-school stuff, I keep forgetting my whats, whens, and wheres! How in the world do you keep your life straight?
　 —Spacey in Spokane

Dear Spacey,
　　You think you're spacey? Sometimes I'm so spacey I think I should be wearing a space suit.

A little while back, my life started getting busier and busier—with karate classes twice a week, helping out at my parents’ grocery, doing chores, keeping up with homework, hanging out with friends . . . you get the idea! I thought I was doing a decent job keeping it all together.

“I like your panda T-shirt,” I told this girl Roxanne one day. Because Roxanne is an awesome person, I’ve always wanted to be her friend.

“Thanks!” She smiled. “It’s from the panda movie that’s coming out this weekend.”

“Yeah, that movie looks so good,” I said. “I can’t wait to see it.”

“A bunch of us are going to see it at the Downtown Cinema at 3:00 on Saturday,” she said. “You should come.”

“Yay!” I said. “I’ll definitely be there.”

“Great!” Roxanne started running for her bus. “We’ll wait outside the theater for you.”

Now, I know what you’re thinking: What was I doing, saying I’d definitely be somewhere without even running it by my parents first? But I was so excited about the possibility of hanging out with Roxanne and her friends that I didn’t stop to think everything through.

I planned to talk about it with my parents as soon as I got home from school. But before I had a chance to bring it up, my mom started scolding me.

“You said your room would be clean by this morning, Arizona. And you still haven’t unloaded the dishwasher you promised to unload yesterday! Do I need to stand over you to make sure you keep your word? Believe me, Zonykins, I wish a magic cleaning fairy would take care of the housework, but until one comes along, we’ll have to take care of things ourselves!”

“Sorry—I just ran out of time!” I exclaimed.

“Well, please wash your hands and unload the dishes now. Oh, and don’t forget that you invited Mareya and J.D. to come work on your group science project Saturday afternoon, so your room needs to be cleaned by then. OK?”

“OK,” I grumbled.

Well, you can probably see where this is going. That happened on Thursday, so by the time Saturday rolled around, I was frantically straightening my room to get ready for the scienceproject meeting, and I’d completely forgotten about the conversation I’d had with Roxanne.

“What happened to you?” Roxanne asked me at recess on Monday. “We waited forever outside the movie theater!”

“Oh no!” I said. “I forgot!”

Yeah, we finally figured it was something like that. By the time we gave up on waiting for you, there weren’t any seats left together, so we ended up having to sit apart from each other.”

“I’m so, so, so sorry!” I told her. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I should have asked for your phone number so I could’ve called to find out what was happening.”

“And I shouldn’t have said I’d be there without asking my mom and checking my calendar first.”

“Anyway, Panda Parade is pretty hilarious,” said Roxanne. “You should see it sometime if you can.”

Even though Roxanne had said not to worry about it, this incident made it clear: I needed to make some serious changes. After going over my schedule with my mom, I ended up cutting back to one karate class a week. Plus, I started writing things in the daily planner in my binder as well as checking the calendar in our kitchen. So now if a friend invites me to do something, I say, “That sounds great, but I’ll have to check on it first and let you know.”

So, dear Spacey, I know it’s hard keeping track of your “whats, whens, and wheres”! You might try to have a little less going on, write everything down, and check a family calendar before making a plan. Doing these three things has helped me to put my life in order—or at least in more order than before!

PS: If you ever meet the cleaning fairy, please tell her where I live!

Ciao for now,

Arizona