First Entry: Stop the Presses, a Teenager is Late for School

In a dusty, humid bedroom somewhere in Oklahoma, an alarm clock goes off, where it's ignored for about thirty minutes before it's owner cares to slink out of bed, turn it off, and return to sleep.

Jacob Mason couldn't be bothered with promptness, you see.

The door flew open and slammed into the wall with a loud bang as he fell back into the sheets. His mother stood there for the routine 4.47 seconds before shouting "GET UP THIS INSTANT, YOU WILL BE LATE FOR SCHOOL" and lurching away.

It took him 8 minutes to leave the bed, and ten minutes to find and successfully put on some shorts (Don't ask).

There was a text message on his phone from his girlfriend, Loretta. But everyone called her 'Lori.'

Good morning, it read. The timestamp on the message indicated that she sent it before sunup.

Unable to come up with a witty reply, Jacob replied with Good morning! and continued about his morning duties, which included: 37 minutes of surfing YouTube, 40 seconds of dental hygiene, and probably about 20 pounds of breakfast.

At this point, it's pretty close to 8 o'clock, which leaves him perhaps negative ten minutes to catch the bus.

"Mom! I need a ride to school!"

This is what you get for postponing my driver's license test, Jacob thought.

Jacob's mother, as it turned out, had climbed back into bed, and it took her thirty minutes to get up and get ready to leave.

"This wouldn't have happened if you had just gotten up when you were supposed to," she chided.

"Why did you go back to sleep if you knew I was so irresponsible?"

"You're sixteen. I should be able to ask you to get up in the morning."

Jacob kept his retort to himself.

Upon arrival to school, his mother bolted for the door, signed the late sheet, handed Jacob the pass, and took off down the street, presumably because she had some incredibly important sleeping to do. Jacob walked through the hallways until he found the door to his first hour, Physics, already in progress.

Second Entry : Physics Is Like Math Class Except It's Weird

The equations on the board made perhaps as much sense as a Russian man trying to translate Basque to the Chinese. After Jacob sat down, and studied the problems, he willed himself to be awake for maybe ten seconds, and then he fell asleep.

Sarah, his tablemate, was genuinely impressed. "It's quite a step up from falling asleep at the door," she says.

It took him a little to reply, and not 'reply' insomuchas go mmrnf, but Sarah nodded and returned to her Book Of The Week Slash Five Days. She was always reading in class. The latest book she's acquired is a comedy that's about tragedy. It also contains an unhealthy volume of poetry and singing.

As for Jacob, well, he was always sleeping.

But they both continued to pass Mr. Summers's Physics class, because homework and classwork didn't affect the grade whatsoever. So long as you can B.S. your way through his tests, you're golden. And B.S.'ing a primarily multiple-choice test that's about numbers can be easier than one might imagine.

Jacob's phone buzzes, and he jolts awake to read it.

"He lives!" jokes Sarah.

The message was from his friend, Diane. Are you here today, it read.

Oh, right. Being late for school meant they couldn't hang out at The Place today. The Place being, as some might say, 'totally ghetto' or 'where you want to go for some [insert illegal thing here]'.

But of course they didn't do any of that- it was just a fun place to be before school to watch all the crazy people on narcotics and painkillers. Just yesterday the raggedy couch they would sit on somehow ended up overturned in a Dumpster. The noise that resulted was fun to explain to the authorities.

Yes, I was a bit late. You know the deal with me and waking up.

Jacob returned to sleep. Sarah poked him in the arm.

"Not planning on working today?" she asked.

Jacob turned his head to look at the book she was holding. "The best friend dies in the end. And the protagonist goes into a coma."

Sarah put on a look of disgust and hit him with the book. "You jerk."

Mr. Summers is explaining on the board how swinging things on strings applies to physics. He writes equations and derivitives of equations in every free space on the board- and then zooms it out. The school paid a lot of money last year to have people install new, fancy teaching equipment in every classroom. Jacob's still trying to figure out why a gymnasium might ever need a laptop cart and an electronic whiteboard.

The teacher takes the zoomed-out chunks of text and neatly organizes them into a heap in the corner of the board (so they remain visible for students that might need them) and continues writing in the remaining area.

"You can find the tension force in this string, by taking the weight of the object and it's centripedal force as values in a Pythagorean theorem equation…"

Sarah looked up from her book and started taking notes, briefly, before returning to reading. She made a note that the test over circular motion is scheduled for next Tuesday, according to the teacher.

The bell rang, and Jacob almost didn't hear it, having fallen into a brief daydream.

Third Entry: Hilariously Placed Exposition Regarding the Life of Jacob Mason

Fourth Entry: Claire's Horrible Automobile and a Lingering Attraction to Guys

Fifth Entry: Close Encounters of the Awkward Sort Involving A Guy We'll Call 'Captain Attractiveness'