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Mrs Carlisle was his English teacher Soes the story had to be “Whatever’s appropriate,” Mrs Carlisle had answered

That was her big mistake

THE BOY WHO ATE FIRE

by

Gary W Boone

Once upon a time there was a boy who ate fire He died

Mrs Carlisle refused to accept the story “It’s not a story,” she said “It’s only one sentence”

“Two,” corrected Gary

She told him he had to rewrite the story, and that it had to be at least five pages She said it was a good title, but it doesn’t tell what happens

“But that’s what happens when you eat fire,” said Gary “You die”

It was supposed to be a joke

Mrs Carlisle didn’t laugh

Soht, his story would be published It would be a big thick book and cost 1995 The Boy Who Ate Fire by Gary W Boone Then you’d open it up and it would just have two sentences, followed by three hundred blank pages It would be hilarious Millions of people would buy it and put it on their coffee tables He’d be rich

After English, Gary headed to h for ale classrooht he sometimes dreamed he couldn’t reed his schedule without telling him

They changed his locker com

bination in his dreams too Once, he dreamed that for some odd reason he had taken off his clothes in the hallway and locked theyh that didn’t exactlythere in the hallway in his underwear—as Miss Longlegs, wearing cowboy boots and holding an uet his locker open In fact, he couldn’t remember which locker was his

In real life, however, he had no proble his way fro classes all the ti; like there was so that everybody in the school knew about—except him And there was nobody he could ask And even if there was somebody to ask, he didn’t know the question

“Gary, why didn’t you do the holey asked him after class

He was standing by her desk, wondering if she owned a pair of cowboy boots “I didn’t know about it,” he said

“You didn’t know about it? How could you not know about it?”

He shrugged “There are a lot of things I don’t know about In fact, there are probably hed

Miss Langley stared at him “It was on the board,” she said slowly and distinctly, like she was talking to an idiot

“Where?”