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easy for everyone to stay in touch
     with their friends from camp and whatnot, but I think they are boring and bogus and a
     waste of time. I mean, kids post stuff like, “I’m eating French
     fries.” I mean, how unnewsy—not to mention dumb—is that? Do I really
     care? Does anyone else? I just don’t get it. It just plain old wastes my time.
    I deleted Hailey’s invitation, fully knowing that she would e-mail
     it to me again, and then I quit my e-mail and Internet connection. Next I signed off the
     Internet for an hour. This is what I have to do in order to get any work done. OtherwiseI will continue to check, check, check the news all the time.
     Mom taught me how to do it after I started taking waaaay too long last year to finish my
     homework. She made me keep track of what I was doing when, and she added up that I spent
     way more time on the Internet than on math. Whoops!
    Sure enough, not one minute later, my phone rings and it’s
     Hailey.
    â€œAre you ignoring my buddy request?” she asks, without even
     saying hi.
    I sighed heavily. “Hailey. You know how I feel about those sites.
     It’s just a waste of time. It’s fake information. It’s information
     clutter. Plus, I’m in touch with everyone I want to be in touch with.”
    â€œBut it’s so fun. If you sign up, we can play cards together
     and join fan groups together and I can post funny photos and links for things I find
     online . . .”
    â€œYeah, but you can e-mail me all that stuff too,” I said.
     “And we can play games in person!”
    â€œWell . . . maybe you’ll join when you see the photos from
     football practice that Jeff Perry put up today.”
    Football practice? Hmm.
    â€œWhy? Are they funny?” I asked. “Is there one of
     Michael?”
    But of course, Hailey wouldn’t say. “You’ll just have
     to join! Ta-ta!” And she hung up.
    I looked at my phone and then I sighed heavily. That was an annoying
     conversation. I am not joining Buddybook. Just on principle alone, I don’t want to
     do it. Time wasting, fake-informational, nonfactual, uncensored, unedited, free-for-all,
     invasion of privacy . . .
    But the football photos? Those I had to see.
    I began the incredibly difficult and boring process of unlocking my Time
     Out application. Mom made it really hard so that I couldn’t just click back on it.
     Fifteen minutes later I was logged on to Buddybook and climbing all over that site. I
     was like a sugar addict who’d been let loose in a candy store.
    I had accepted Hailey’s request, which lead me to all of our
     friends’ pages, but I froze when I saw Michael Lawrence’s name as a buddy up
     on her wall. If I visited his page, would he know I’d beenthere? Would he be able to tell? Would it somehow send him a buddy request from me?
     And what if he didn’t accept?! I was too scared to find out the hard way so I
     didn’t click on it.
    Instead, I looked at Jeff Perry’s page and scrolled through all
     the football photos he’d uploaded. There were some really hideous-but-funny ones
     of guys straining through warm-ups, making ugly faces and stuff. Some were so bad I had
     to wonder if they’d mind that Jeff put them up there. There was one of this kid
     Andy Ryan where his belly was hanging over the top of his pants. It was kind of a bad
     angle, but he’s also pretty chubby and it was just not flattering.
    Maybe boys just don’t care that much about how they look in
     photos, I thought. But I would. Especially ones online for the entire world to see.
    I scrolled down a little farther and stopped dead in my tracks. There
     was a close-up of Michael Lawrence, his hair sweaty, his arm drawn back to throw the
     football, and his face all serious and concentrated. His tan made his blue eyes look
     even bluer, and his mouth was open, and he looked