Dave at Night: Part 1

By GAIL CARSON LEVINE, Illustrator MARK ELLIOT

From the start, I've always made trouble. My mama died of complications from having me. I once joked about it to my older brother, Gideon. I said I could make trouble even before I was born. Gideon thought I was serious because he said, "You didn't do it on purpose, Dave. You were too young. You weren't even yourself yet."

No, I didn't do it on purpose, but probably I was fooling around in her belly, having a fine time, and I kicked or punched too hard, and one thing led to another, and she died.

I had nothing to do with Papa dying, though. He died on Tuesday, October 26, 1926, when he fell off the roof of a house he was helping to build.

About four years before he died, when I was seven, I got in trouble for smearing glue on the chair of Izzy, the class bully. My stepmother, Ida, had to go to P. S. 42 and promise the principal that I'd never smear glue on anybody's chair ever again. I never did, but Ida had to visit P. S. 42 often anyway. I batted a ball into our fourth-grade teacher's rear end (by accident - my aim wasn't that good). I fought with Izzy on the stairs. I let a mouse loose in our classroom. And more. Some things I didn't do but got blamed for because I'd done everything else.

Publisher: HarperCollins, $14.95
Age group: 8-12 years