“So, you should have an idea of your story by the end of the period. You may start outlining...now.” Mr. Yellow stroked his pointy beard and sat back down onto his stool, leaving the rest of the class and I with our notebooks and story ideas. His class was always dead silent, and he never smiled. I scratched my tangled hair and laid my head on my desk , half asleep, staring at the inspirational posters the district had forced him to put up. Why do all the teachers have colors as last names? I thought to myself, I’m hungry. What’s for lunch today in the cafeteria? Probably pizza. What if I wrote a story about pizza? My leg is itch-
“Oh, and also, don’t give your character a name like Bob,” Mr. Yellow said from his laptop. I kept talking in my head, saying to myself, Hmm, Bob. Bob backwards is...boB...right? I continued sleeping on my desk until our five minutes were up.
“Okay Billy,” Mr. Yellow stood up from his desk and said very loudly, “What’s your story idea?” I wasn’t expecting that.
“Do I, like, stand up while talking?” I asked, surprised
“You can…” he said. I could tell he was annoyed, so I quickly stood up.
“Well, um, I…” I looked at the page in my notebook.
“What is your story idea?” he said one more time.
“I...don’t really have one,” I finally answered. Mr. Yellow angrily threw his water bottle across the room.

“Hey Billy, how’s your ‘story’ going?” Winter, the Indian boy with short brown hair said to me, laughing. Everyone still remembered the water bottle incident from a week ago, and I now had a B in Language Arts, which my Asian parents were pretty angry about.
“I have an idea now, okay?” I said back excitedly, “It took me, like, two hours to get it, but it's amazing.” Mr. Yellow just got up from his laptop and overheard us.
“Well, since you seem to have much more confidence in your ability to write, why don't you share first?” he said loudly. He was definitely still angry, which I had to change if I wanted to keep from getting put up for adoption.
“Okay,” I slowly stood up for the second time , “So my story is about a boy named Bob -” too late, I remembered what Mr. Yellow had said. He rested his face in his palm while the class laughed.
“We can talk about the name later,” he said in a tired voice, “but I hope the rest of your story is much more enjoyable.” I once again began to regret my entire life.
“Who, um, struggles with his parents who are really Asian and, um, give him too much homework...and stuff.”
“And stuff?”  Mr. Yellow slowly said.
“Um, yeah.”
      “Billy, remember when I told the class that a good story makes the reader want to know how it ends?” He lectured.
      “Uh, yeah?” I remembered that class. It was a really long speech, and all he wanted to say was ‘don’t make your story boring’.
      “And do you remember when I told you that your story was going to be based on your real life?” I nodded my head quickly. “So is this story based on your life?”
   “Um, yes...sir.”
      “Well it’s going to be very hard to find an interesting story idea for you.”

      After school, I went to my room and collapsed on my bed. All the drawings of me from when I was a kid were still on the wall. I stared at the biggest one.
      “Hey, um, me,” I said, “What's up?” As I expected, the drawing did not answer me, so I kept talking. “How’s school? You like your teacher? Do you get a lot of homework?” Still no answer. “You know I think I'm - um, we’re, going insane.” The drawing ignored me again. I wondered if the drawing even cared about me. “Mr. Yellow says that I’m a horrible writer,” I said, “And he thinks I have no life. We know he’s wrong, right? I mean, I eat, sleep, play games on my phone - ” I realized that the drawing was beginning to ignore me. “I went to a birthday party last week,” I argued to other me, “Even though it was my own birthday party - and only my parents came -” The drawing then decided that he would no longer listen. “Wait,” I suddenly realized, talking to myself since the drawing left the conversation, “If Mr. Yellow says that my story is boring because it’s based on my life, I'll just make up everything in the story!” I started getting excited. “Then my story will be better! Right?”
      “Billy!” my mom yelled from outside, “What are you doing?! Go do your homework, lazy boy!”
      “Okay, um, just wait a second,” I yelled back quickly.
      “Get out here now, lazy boy!” my mom yelled louder.
       “Okay, just wait,” I began thinking of excuses quickly, “Give me, like, five seconds!”
      “Five seconds is up,” she screamed five seconds later, “Stupid boy!” I heard her stomp away, and I exhaled with relief. I turned back to the drawing.
      “She's always like that,” I said, “Sometimes I wonder about her sanity.”

Scene 4
      “Okay, so you’re going to share your stories with your group now,” Mr. Yellow said to the class, “And hopefully you will be more successful than some of our previous sharers.” He looked in my direction. But I was sure that after this share, he would see me differently. My new story was a really bloody horror story about a little boy who is tortured by his insane, drug addict mom. It would definitely earn back some respect for me.
      “All right Billy,” Winter held up his laptop, “Let’s read your story - if you even have one!”
      “This time I actually do,” I held up my laptop to trade with him, “And it’s WAY better than the last one.” I took his laptop and opened up his story. Winter’s story was a school story, about a boy whose friend leaves him and becomes his bully. It was good, but I was sure that my story would amaze him. I handed him back his laptop. “Are you done reading it yet?” I said while passing the laptop.
      “Um, yeah,” he said, “ Just add more description and, um, you know, show more about the characters, and yeah.” I took back my laptop, still sure that my story was perfect.
      “Okay, so now that you have shared your story,” Mr. Yellow said to the class, “And have received hopefully positive feedback, you are going to share the moment that inspired your story with the same group.” He passed out some worksheets and wrote on the whiteboard in big black letters THE TIME WHEN… “You may begin.”
      “Okay Billy, go first,” said Anshu, the girl next to Winter. Usually I would have said no, but I was sure they would like my story, so I agreed.
      “So,” I looked down at my worksheet,” My story is about the time when a boy escaped from his evil mom.” I looked to see their reactions, but all I saw was Anshu laughing.
           “Your story sucks,” she said, “Did you actually escape your evil mom in real life?”
           “No,” I started getting confused, “It’s SUPPOSED to be fake.”
           “Well,” Winter relaxed, “That explains several things.”
           “Like what?” I said, even more confused, “How did you not get my story?”
           “Well I was wondering when you stabbed your mother, cause that's usually something you hear about.” Then I realized why they were so confused.
           “Wait, your story needs to be based on your REAL LIFE?” I said, now seeing that something terribly wrong had happened with my story. Anshu laughed again.
           “Do you have, like, no memory?” She asked, “Mr. Yellow JUST told you yesterday!” At that moment, I finally realized how completely screwed I was. Slowly, I slumped over and banged my head on my desk. “And look at the whiteboard,” Anshu said, still laughing. I rolled my head towards the whiteboard. “The story is due tomorrow,” she said, “And you don't have a story idea - again.”
           “Well, ” Winter said, “At least we know now that you’ve never stabbed a person in your entire life. That’s kinda good.”

           I threw my backpack onto the rock floor of the Pavilion, next to my friend Sushi. The Pavilion was always loud and crowded. “What are we doing in Mr. Yellow’s class today?” he said with a mouth full of tofu.
           “Let me think,” I said depressingly , “I screwed up my story, I found out it's due tomorrow, I have no story idea, and Mr. Yellow thinks I’m an idiot.”
           “Hey that's cool and all, but I meant what's the lesson today,” said Sushi.
           “Oh, thanks bro, for caring so much about my problems,” I said.
           “Hey I do care, but if Mr. Yellow hates you, that probably means you suck at writing,” he replied while choking on a random Asian vegetable I don't even know the name of, “What is your story again?” I told him both of my failed stories. “Wait, so the second story, the mom is drunk, and then -”
           “He ends up in an alley, then takes down an armed mugger who is like 20 years older than him,” I said, lying onto my backpack, “I didn’t really think about the logic when I was writing it.”
           “Hmm, now I see why Mr. Yellow thinks you’re an idiot,” he said, going back to his lunch, “Just think of some random event in your life and write about it. It's not that hard.”
           “Yes, that is what I have been trying to do for the past, like, one and a half weeks,” I said while taking out a pizza from the cafeteria, “And I've found nothing in my life that I can write a story about.”
           “Well,” Sushi said, “Sorry, but your life is kinda sad.”
           “I know, I know, Mr. Yellow has already made that pretty clear. And that’s why I wrote ‘Garbage Truck Billy’ in the first place.” Sushi choked on his food while we both laughed. “Well, I need a story idea by the end of today...then I need to actually write it. It’s gonna be a long night.”

I rubbed my eyes and yawned as I put my finished math homework back into my binder. Mrs. Huang usually only gave us about three problems a day, but today she must have felt pretty mean cause she gave us FIVE problems. It took me forever to finish, combined with the three hours I spent slacking off when my mom wasn’t looking. I yawned again and checked the giant clock that hangs on the wall. It was already 11:00. I feel like I am forgetting something, I thought to myself. I slided over to the computer and shook the mouse, and the first thing I saw when I turned on the computer was a blank Google doc. I rubbed my eyes, thinking I was just too tired. It was my story, the one that was due tomorrow.