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    33 Minutes
    33 Minutes
    33 Minutes
    Ebook155 pages1 hour

    33 Minutes

    By Todd Hasak-Lowy and Bethany Barton

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Will Sam’s best friend turn out to be a bully? He’s about to find out in this “strong and refreshingly straightforward” (School Library Journal) MAX novel.

    Sam Lewis is going to get his butt kicked in exactly thirty-three minutes. He knows this because yesterday his former best friend Morgan Sturtz told him, to his face and with three witnesses nearby, “I am totally going to kick your butt tomorrow at recess.”

    All that’s standing between Sam and this unfortunate butt-kicking is the last few minutes of social studies and his lunch period. But how did Sam and Morgan end up here? How did this happen just a few months after TAMADE (The Absolutely Most Amazing Day Ever), when they became the greatest Alien Wars video game team in the history of great Alien Wars teams? And once the clock ticks down, will Morgan actually act on his threat?

    Told with equal parts laugh-out-loud humor and achingly real emotional truth, 33 Minutes shows how even the best of friendships can change forever.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAladdin
    Release dateJan 1, 2013
    ISBN9781442445024
    33 Minutes
    Author

    Todd Hasak-Lowy

    Todd Hasak-Lowy has published several books for adults. 33 Minutes was his first book for young readers and he made his YA debut with Me Being Me Is Exactly as Insane as You Being You. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Evanston, Illinois.

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    Reviews for 33 Minutes

    4/5

    4 ratings3 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Loved that the ending wasn't all "happily ever after".
    • 4/5
      This book won't disappoint the legions of young readers who'll likely be checking it out because it has the word "butt" in the title. The narrative arc is highly original. The book really does span the length of 33 minutes, and the main character really does get his butt kicked, but the riveting flashbacks will keep readers turning the pages.

      A poignant, funny, and heartfelt story about what happens when friendships fall apart.
    • 4/5
      Sam, a middle school student is not very good at sports like his best friend Morgan. However. Sam is a genius when it comes to math. I LIKE this guy! He is not phony, hateful or vindictive, but he IS VERY funny. Morgan decides to become a bully and this is when the trouble escalates into a mega food fight in the cafeteria. Sam suddenly finds himself whisked away to the Principal's office with a head wound from a flying salad bowl and applesauce in his shoes. Praise for the author who finds an excellent way to convey a timeless message: 'relationships may change as we mature.' Tweens will certainly enjoy the humor.

    Book preview

    33 Minutes - Todd Hasak-Lowy

    title.png

    Contents

    11:41 a.m.

    11:45

    11:49

    11:53

    11:56

    11:59

    12:03 p.m.

    12:05

    12:08

    12:16:37 to 12:16:46

    12:18

    12:21

    12:25

    12:28

    12:33

    12:39

    12:46

    12:54

    1:00

    1:11

    1:19

    1:23

    1:15:52 to 1:15:59

    1:16

    To Noam

    Much Thanks To:

    • Dan Shere, Joey Garfield, and Josh Lewis, for ideas and encouragement.

    • The Dawes Boys-to-Men Book Club, for savvy feedback and an excuse to eat a Morgan Sturtz Special.

    • My impossibly wonderful daughters, Ariel and Noam, for expert commentary and the desire to write for the not-yet-adults of this world.

    • Simon Lipskar, who, even though this isn’t your book, helped me see it needed some last-minute surgery.

    • The always reliable and absurdly ­knowledgeable Daniel Lazar, for ushering me into the world of children’s literature and for making this book ­better in endless ways big and small.

    • The deserving-of-a-cape-and-chest-logo-all-her-own Liesa Abrams, for giving this book a home, understanding exactly what it still needed, and making me want this to be just the first of many, many books we work on together.

    • Taal, for making it so I can write in the first place.

    11:41 a.m.

    "Think about this: Had the British not won the French and Indian War, Mr. Griegs says, we’d all be speaking French right now."

    Fact: I am in social studies.

    My hand goes up. I’m not sure I want my hand to be up, but too late, it’s up.

    Fact: I am the smartest person in social studies (although some people would say that’s only my opinion).

    Sometimes Mr. Griegs ignores me, because I have this nasty habit of getting us off topic. But he’s feeling generous today. He tosses a piece of chalk from one hand to the other, catches it, and points at me. Hmm. Sam Lewis wants to make a contribution. Well, out with it.

    I try to act like I don’t know the answer to my question. Well, um, do you really think, Mr. Griegs, that we’d be here at all right now if they hadn’t won?

    Fact: Laughter.

    Mr. Griegs, all eleven feet of him, considers this for a moment as he chews on his mustache. Then he crosses his arms. Explain, Lewis.

    Interested heads are turning toward me, because this is what happens when you’re me and you sit in the back of class and talk a lot and sometimes annoy the teacher. Well, there is a story called ‘A Sound of Thunder’ that I read because my dad thought I’d like science fiction, which I sort of do. Mr. Griegs and his mustache make his please get to the point face, which involves him pausing his mustache snack while rolling his eyes and shaking his head, so I try to hurry up. A group of hunters go back in time, and one of them accidentally steps on a butterfly—that’s the only thing he does—and when he gets back, all sorts of things have changed, like who the president is, just because of that one butterfly. This would be much more than a butterfly, don’t you think?

    Mr. Griegs starts munching on his mustache again, uncrosses his arms, and puts the chalk in his pocket, where he’ll probably forget it. Some days by the end of class he’s got four or five pieces in there. Yes. Probably. So?

    Opinion: Mr. Griegs thinks the most important thing he can teach us is to tell the difference between facts and opinions. He often says things like, That’s just your opinion and "It is an indisputable fact that. . . . He gets very excited whenever he catches one of us mistaking an opinion for a fact. He points his finger at the offender (his long arm reaching halfway across the classroom), beams like a mad scientist, and says, Aha!" Mr. Griegs is hardly my favorite teacher—in fact, he pretty much stinks—but sorting things between fact and opinion can make boring classes less boring (and there are plenty of those here), so I guess he’s not all bad.

    So then, I don’t know, maybe we wouldn’t be sitting here right now. Maybe there wouldn’t even be social studies then.

    Fact: Most of the class is now giggling and/or exchanging high fives.

    Keep it down. Mr. Griegs takes a couple long, long steps toward us as he raises his voice. That’s enough. He looks right at me, not very pleased. Okay, Lewis. I get it. Very clever. How’s this? It was a pretty—he pauses, nibbles on his facial hair, and scrunches up his face—"decisive war."

    Okay, I say, shrugging my shoulders and regretting that I put my hand up in the first place.

    Mr. Griegs’s eyes light up all of a sudden. And I’m sure, Lewis, that you know that this decisive war started over the meeting of the—he snaps his fingers and brings his lips together, pretending not to remember something—what were the names of those two rivers again?

    I straighten up a bit in my chair. The Allegheny and the Monongahela?

    Mr. Griegs turns his back to the class, takes a couple slow steps toward the board, but then twists around quickly, with a scary smile on his face. And those two rivers, Lewis, in what city do they meet?

    I grip my pencil tightly and focus on his mustache. Uh . . . Mr. Griegs’s smile continues to grow, because he definitely never told us this. Lucky for me, maybe, my parents have a road atlas in the back of their car, which I like to study sometimes. Pittsburgh?

    Mr. Griegs’s face is way more red than it was a minute ago, but he won’t give up. And what river do those two rivers form? He’s smiling again, because he’s foolish enough to think he’s about to humiliate me, even though it’s April 12th, meaning he’s been my teacher for eight months already, meaning he should know better by now. Well, you do know which river they form, don’t you, Lewis?

    I really don’t want to do this to Mr. Griegs, since it will only make him want to humiliate me more later on, but what choice do I have? The Ohio River, I say sort of quietly, Mr. Griegs.

    I’d never tell this to anyone or anything, but it might be a fact that I am actually the smartest person in my school, though, obviously, some people would say that this, too, is only my opinion.

    Fact: Scattered giggling.

    Not that being smart is always such a good thing.

    Mr. Griegs’s whole face (his eyes, nose, mustache, and mouth) shrink down into an angry dot. Sometimes I wonder if his face isn’t made out of rubber, because a normal person’s face can’t do half the things his does.

    33MIN1.jpg

    I look over at Amy Takahara, who smiles at me a little.

    I don’t know if I would call us friends exactly, but I will say that whenever she smiles at me, or even near me, especially lately, my stomach acts like I’m at the top of a giant roller coaster. She’s the new girl, or at least was at the beginning of the school year. I would guess that she has never spelled a word wrong in her entire life—plus, she has perfect ­penmanship. Or pengirlship.

    One day back in October, Mr. Griegs wrote bucaneer on the board, and then I heard Amy start squirming, even though she normally sits completely still. I looked over and saw her flipping quickly to the back of her notebook, where she wrote, October 17th: bucaneer, buccaneer. This page is now about ninety words long, because Mr. Griegs isn’t a particularly talented speller. Around Thanksgiving, I passed her a note that said, Why don’t you correct him? Her eyes got quite large when she read it. I got a note back that said, NO WAY!!!! She underlined no about nine times.

    Not that I’m a big fan of passing notes these days.

    There is still some giggling coming from the front of the class, where Morgan Sturtz sits. I think I can make out his laugh, which comes from the bottom of his chest and sounds like "huh-huh, huh-huh, huh-huh." But I can’t be sure, because he sits exactly three seats in front of me, because we used to talk too much during class at the beginning of the year, so Mr. Griegs moved Morgan. He’s not a very good speller, especially when it comes to vowels.

    Opinion: The problem with the whole fact/opinion model is that it isn’t always so simple.

    Because when Morgan Sturtz said I was a big jerk yesterday, well, that was clearly just an opinion. But when the three other people there definitely agreed, then at what point does that become a fact?

    Mr. Griegs recovers from his decisive defeat at the meeting of history and geography (ha-ha, aren’t I funny?) by reminding us who’s in charge and making everyone hate me at the same time: Fine. Next Monday’s test will now be this Friday.

    Fact: Most of the class says, Ugh.

    Opinion (maybe): I am going to get my butt kicked in exactly 33 minutes.

    It is hard to say whether a statement about the future is a fact or an opinion. It’s obviously not a fact, because it hasn’t happened yet. But then think about this: Yesterday Morgan Sturtz told me, to my face and with three witnesses nearby, I am totally going to kick your butt tomorrow at recess. His face was so red when he told me this that I was almost worried about him (and

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