Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

James Patterson is the world’s bestselling author. The creator of Max Einstein and Middle School, he founded JIMMY Patterson to publish books that young readers will love. He lives in Florida with his family.

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Middle School: Get Me out of Here!

Little, Brown and Company

CHAPTeR 1

WHOOM!

Well, who’d have thought so much could change in one summer? Not me, that’s for sure. Not my best buddy, Leonardo the Silent.

Probably not the folks at Airbrook Arts Community School either. That’s where I was supposed to start seventh grade in the fall.

Supposed to. You caught that, right? There’s a reason my last book was called Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life. Sixth grade was only the start. I’ve got a whole lot more to tell you about. But first I should introduce myself.

Anyway, I guess I should have seen it coming. It’s like every time things start to look okay in my crazy life, something always comes along to change it. It’s like it just falls out of the sky.

And everything changed on the day Swifty’s Diner burned to the ground.

Here’s what happened. See, there’s this thing called a grease trap over the grill at the diner, where Swifty (also known as Fred) cooked about fifteen dozen greasy burgers every day. If you don’t clean out the trap once in a while, it turns into a giant fireball, just waiting to go off.

And guess what?

I didn’t get to see much. I was in the storage room in the back, just passing the time and waiting for Mom to finish her lunch shift. Then all of a sudden, I heard this giant WHOOM! People started yelling, the fire alarm started blaring, and I could smell smoke.

A second later, Mom was there.

“Come on, Rafe,” she said. “We have to go—right now!” And she hustled me out the back door.

Nobody was hurt, but flames were coming through the windows and up through the roof before the Hills Village Fire Department even got there.

By the time the firefighters finally put out the fire, Swifty’s Diner looked more like Swifty’s Big Pile of Ashes. Everything was all black and smoking, and the restaurant was just—gone.

And that’s not all.

No Swifty’s meant no job for Mom.

No job meant no money to pay the rent on our house.

No house meant we had to pack up all our stuff and get out.

(See what I mean about everything changing?)

The only place we could go was Grandma Dotty’s. She told Mom we could come stay there as long as we wanted, which was really nice of her and everything, but the problem was, she lived in the city, about eighty miles away. In other words, way too far for me to even think about going to Airbrook anymore. Now I was going to be starting seventh grade at some big-city middle school, where kids like me get turned into chopped meat every single day.

So there you have it. Chapter 1 isn’t even over, and I’m already starting a whole new life. Try to keep up if you can. This is only the very beginning, where I say—

Good-bye, Hills Village!

Good-bye, lucky breaks!

And hello, seventh grade!

CHAPTeR 2

MOViNG DAY

Here’s what it looked like on the day we left Hills Village. Not too shabby, huh?

CHAPTeR 3

OR SOMeTHiNG LiKe THAT

Yeah, I wish.

If you know me, then you know I have what my mom likes to call an “active imagination” and what some of my teachers might call a “tendency to lie.”

I like to think of it as putting my own spin on the things that happen to me. But don’t worry—I’ll always steer you straight. In fact, here’s what it really looked like when we left town:

Those people waving are Ms. Donatello and Jeanne Galletta, two of the only people who were nice to me at Hills Village Middle School.

Ms. Donatello was my sixth-grade English teacher. I used to call her the Dragon Lady, but she turned out to be human after all. She was also the one who got me into Airbrook, before my big plans went down the garbage disposal.

As for Jeanne, she was nice to everyone, so I don’t even know if that counts. When I told her I’d try to keep in touch, she said I could leave a message on her HVMS student page. Was that a good sign? You tell me. I don’t exactly have a ton of experience with girls. Or friends. Much less… girlfriends. Still, if there was one person I was going to miss, it was Jeanne.

So if you haven’t guessed by now, it’s not like I was leaving behind some kind of perfect track record in Hills Village. Which is maybe the understatement of the year.

And if you want to know what I mean, just check out the next chapter.

CHAPTeR 4

MY TOP TeN(ACTuALLY ONLY SiX)

Rafe Khatchadorian’s Top Ten Six Biggest Accomplishments From Sixth Grade (try not to be too impressed):

CHAPTeR 5

WeLCOMe TO THe BiG CiTY!

This is going to be great,” Mom kept saying while we drove into the city. “I can’t wait to show you guys around. There’s so much to do here, and you’re going to love the park.”

I stopped listening after a while. I think my sister, Georgia, did too. We both just stared out the window, trying to imagine living here.

Fill in whatever city you want—New York, Chicago, Boston, South Bend, Boise, Omaha… whatever. Just imagine lots of shiny skyscrapers, perfectly clean sidewalks, and millions of happy people catching money as it rains out of the sky.

Now think about the exact opposite of that. Got it?

Welcome to Grandma Dotty’s neighborhood. Also known as our new home.

“This is where you grew up?” Georgia said, and not in a nice way.

“It used to be… different,” Mom said, but you could tell she meant better. Now I knew why Grandma always came to visit us in Hills Village and not the other way around.

All the houses on the block were crammed together, one after the other. They didn’t have any side yards or front yards. Just sidewalks. I saw a lot of garbage cans and graffiti too.

“I’m never going to make any friends here,” Georgia whined.

“Come on, honey. I know it’s a big adjustment, but you’ve got to stay positive,” Mom said.

“Okay,” Georgia said. “I’m positive I’m never going to make any friends here.”

Mom took a deep breath. “How about you, Rafe? Are you ready to give city life a chance?”

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

The truth was, I felt exactly the same way as Georgia. I didn’t want to live here, and I definitely didn’t want to go to school here.

But unlike my little sister, who never knows when to shut her mouth, I knew that Mom was doing the best she could.

“Well, here we are,” she said, and stopped in front of the fifth house from the end of the block. “Six twenty-five Killarney Avenue.”

Georgia made a sound like she was coughing up a hair ball. “It’s the worst one on the street!” she said.

“It just needs some spiffing up,” Mom said. “You’ll see. All...