When I decided to write these stories, I first read a bunch of books. About halfway through the young adult rack at the Hadley Street Library downtown, one of the reference ladies told me I was too young to be reading that kind of stuff, you know, teenagers kissing, saying curse words, defying the police, and telling the principal to go to blazes. Anyway, she sent me back to the kid section, which was humiliating because those books have about five words to a page with pictures that look like they were drawn left-handed with smeary crayons. The only excitement around that campfire is the nonfiction stuff, like that one book about starving animals that wander into some national park and snack on a handful of clueless -mostly teenage- hikers stupid enough to carry a box of glazed donuts in their backpacks while climbing through grizzly country. Those kinds of books are cool because you can almost hear the guy saying, "Holy crow! I guess it was a mistake to heft these Krispy Kremes along the Continental Divide!"

Sheesh.

What were we talking about?

Oh yeah, books.

All those books, the young adult stories, as well as the kid stuff, have a dedication or an acknowledgments section (see, I can spell it), where the author thanks a whole list of people who played an important role in writing the book, editing the book, publishing the book, the works. I suppose that grizzly-eats-teenage-hikers book would have someone listed even if that someone was served up on a hoagie roll to a thousand-pound Winnie the Pooh with an anger problem.

So with that in mind, I want to thank Ms. Jacobius, my third-grade homeroom teacher, and I'll tell you why.

At the end of third grade, Ms. Jacobius filled out forms for all the kids who were recommended for the gifted and talented program. During one of my conferences with her (when I got in trouble and had to stand next to her desk while she called my mother), I managed to sneak a peek at my nomination form. Do you know what it said?

Gifted Underachiever.

Let's talk about that for a second because to me the words "gifted underachiever" are only a couple inches less loony than "gifted overachiever." I mean, does an overachiever wake up in the morning thinking, I'll overachieve today?

No. Of course not.

Overachievers wake up thinking-well, I don't know what they think because clearly I'm not an overachiever, but maybe they're yearning for those Krispy Kremes that lame-brained teenager left on the side of the trail while Winnie the Grizzly dragged him into the underbrush. Either way, I'd bet that overachievers never wake up planning to overachieve.

And the legions of underachievers out there don't wake up looking forward to another shiny day of failing to reach their potential.

But there it was on Ms. Jacobius's desk: Gifted Underachiever.

That's me, at least as far as Ms. Jacobius is concerned. I'm a kid with great potential who never reaches it because . . . well, I'm not sure why. Maybe after you read some of my stories, you'll have an idea. Let me know what you think. I'll be off on an adventure somewhere, maybe playing high stakes Go Fish on a Mississippi riverboat, digging for buried treasure in your grandmother's yard, or finding a better way to use a flame thrower to cure the common cold. You know, underachiever stuff.

So thanks to Ms. Jacobius for inspiring me to write down my stories. It was her lack of confidence that motivated me to get busy scribbling these confessions of a fourth-grade underachiever.

By the way, have you ever seen a grizzly? I have. Well, maybe it wasn't exactly a grizzly. It was more of a guy-in-a-bear-costume-character thingy over at Six Flags, but it was scary! Or I should say it might have been scarier, you know, if it hadn't been wearing a tuxedo and handing out balloons. Anyway, enjoy the stories.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot: thanks to Caleb for all the cool drawings. Man, that boy can draw . . . boy, that man can . . . man oh man . . . er . . . boy oh boy . . . um, you know what, never mind. Thanks Caleb!